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Reb' Isaiah made us very serviceable pens by tying the pen points securely to little twigs; though some of the pupils used quills. The teacher also ruled our paper for us, into little squares, like a surveyor's notebook. Then he set us a copy, and we copied, one letter in each square, all the way down the page.
He tried, however, to look about him with a practical eye. He studied the valley for building sites. He examined the soil. He made carefully measured maps and drawings, after using his surveyor's rod and chain.
Besides his success with the red men, George Washington, with his surveyor's knowledge, made a careful study of the country through which he passed, the result of which study was of the greatest value in later years when he commanded an army in that region.
In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair.
"A most excellent accomplishment!" laughingly exclaimed the baroness. "I am devoted to gossip; and I shall manage to have some ailment every few days in order to have the doctor come to see me!" Then came the surveyor's turn. "This, your ladyship, is Herr Martin Doboka, county surveyor and expert mathematician.
He told me of his work for Mr. Barstow, the big lumber man, and said that Ned Barstow, his son, had been out in the swamp with him as surveyor's assistant for 'most a month, Chris told me that when he left, Ned was arranging to go on a hunting trip with Billy Tommy, a Seminole Indian.
Some of these terminal cities were not in existence except upon neatly designed surveyor's maps.
That was exactly what Phil Forrest had in mind to do. He followed a show wagon to the circus lot, where he found the men already at work measuring off the ground with their surveyor's chains, in the faint morning light. "Morning," smiled Phil, sauntering over to where he observed the foreman watching the work of his men. "Morning," growled the showman.
Then the surveyor's assistant turned up again, after a trip to the interior. He told us the usual string of back-block lies, and wound up by saying that out on the very fringe of settlement he had met an old acquaintance. "Who was that?" "Why, that little bay horse that I rode after the brumbies that time. The one you called White-when-he's-wanted." "The deuce you did! Are you sure? Who had him?"
To each of these officers a clerk had been lately attached, whose duty it was to travel about the country under the surveyor's orders. There had been much doubt among the young men in the office whether they should or should not apply for these places. The emoluments were good and the work alluring; but there was at first supposed to be something derogatory in the position.
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