United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
New Brunswick is rich in minerals, and veins of coal and iron abound at this place; but many years must elapse ere mines are worked to any extent. A few are in operation at present; but while the pine waves the wealth of her green plumage to the lumber-man, or the new-cleared ground will yield its virgin crop to the farmer, the earth must keep her deeper treasures.
The fact had been fairly demonstrated that a yoke of trained oxen and cart paid better than a five-hundred-dollar team of horses with a carriage; but as winter was coming on, I saw the necessity of getting rid of them as soon as possible, and found a lumber-man who made me an offer which I accepted. Then I began traveling by rail, and hiring a livery team in each town.
Afterward, I slipped from the smooth butt of a tree, and thoroughly soused myself and clothing; a lumber-man from Maine, beheld my ill luck, and kindly took my burden to the other side. An estuary of the Chickahominy again intervened, but a rough scow floated upon it, which the Captain of Engineers sent for me, with a soldier to man the oars.
However, on the particular day in the summer of 1890 on which we first encounter him Mr. Dreux was well contented, for a lumber-man from Minneapolis, who had come South with no appreciation whatever of Colonial antiques, had just departed with enough worm-eaten furniture to stock a museum, and Bernie had collected his regular commission from the dealer.
The owner of the saw-mill signed twenty pounds as his subscription towards it, and paid it in boards the carpenters who did the work received from the subscribers pork and flour for their pay and our neighbour, the embarrassed lumber-man, who was still wooden-headed enough to like anything of a timber spec, got out the frame by contract, himself giving most generously five pounds worth of work towards it.
Above all, California told tales of Nevada and Arizona, of lonely nights spent out prospecting, the slaughter of deer and the chase of men, of woman lovely woman who is a firebrand in a Western city and leads to the popping of pistols, and of the sudden changes and chances of Fortune, who delights in making the miner or the lumber-man a quadruplicate millionaire and in "busting" the railroad king.
He remained faithful to the memory of a woman who had married somebody else. For her sake he sold his horse and saddle, and became a lumber-man. The losing of his Mamie was, of course, the heaviest of his many bludgeonings.
Word Of The Day