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Updated: May 29, 2025
There was a fishing-rod in one corner, a rifle in another, a cupboard in a third; poles and spears, several unfinished axe-handles, and a small fishing-net lay upon the rafters overhead; while various miscellaneous articles of clothing, and implements for mining hung on pegs from the walls, or lay scattered about everywhere; but in the midst of apparent confusion comfort reigned supreme, for nothing was placed so as to come in one's way; everything was cleverly arranged, so as to lie close and fit in; no article or implement was superfluous; no necessary of a miner's life was wanting; an air of thorough completeness invested the hut and everything about it; and in the midst of all sat the presiding genius of the place, with his long legs comfortably crossed, the tobacco wreaths circling round his lantern jaws, the broad-brimmed straw hat cocked jauntily on one side, his arms akimbo, and his rather languid black eyes gazing at Ned Sinton with an expression of comfortable self-satisfaction and assurance that was quite comforting to behold.
When the agreement of sale was laid before him he signed with a blunted lead-pencil, still in his trance. "Northin' but a cross-cut saw with two axe-handles for legs," he said to himself, his eyes on the Colonel's back as that individual stamped wrathfully away. "Teeth and edge are hard as iron! It's no good to talk mattermony to him.
Every settler should know how to do these things, and to make his own axe-handles, and many other articles which are constantly required in the bush. My first attempt at driving oxen was accompanied by an unfortunate accident, which gave me some trouble and mortification. My father-in- law had lent a neighbour a plough, of which we were much in want.
Our dear sufferer contrived, with assistance, to bandage his leg; and after the first week of rest had expired, he amused himself with making a pair of crutches, and in manufacturing Indian paddles for the canoe, axe-handles, and yokes for the oxen. It was wonderful with what serenity he bore this unexpected affliction.
Hiram, born in 1827, was an unpractical man and a dreamer; he was a bee-keeper. He showed great aptitude in the use of tools, could make axe-handles, neck-yokes, and the various things used about the farm, and was especially skilled in building stone walls. But he could not elbow his way in a crowd, could not make farming pay, and was always pushed to the wall.
Our dear sufferer contrived, with assistance, to bandage his leg; and after the first week of rest had expired, he amused himself with making a pair of crutches, and in manufacturing Indian paddles for the canoe, axe-handles, and yokes for the oxen. It was wonderful with what serenity he bore this unexpected affliction.
He knew almost to a pound how much sugar, flour, rice, coffee, beans, and other provisions he had, but nothing, that he could discover, had been disturbed. The nail kegs and reserve tools in the corner, wedges, axe-handles and blades, files and extra shovels all were there. It was a riddle Toy could not solve yet he knew that Smaltz had not told the truth.
"About the time one o' the big companies announced they was sold out o' everything but sugar and axe-handles, a couple o' steamers pushed their way in through the ice. After all, just as old J. J. Healy said, it was only a question of rations and proper distribution. Why, flour's fell from one hundred and twenty dollars a sack to fifty!
For the next few days the work done by the men was confined to odd jobs in preparation for the coming winter, and the laying out of their future trapping trails. They built some stages upon which to store the canoes, and others nearer the lodges, upon which to place their guns, sleds, and snowshoes. They cut and shaved axe-handles and helved them.
His father taught him to shape axe-handles, to curve lacrosse sticks, to weave their deer-sinew netting, to tan skins, to plant corn, to model arrows and most difficult of all to "feather" them, to "season" bows, to chop trees, to burn, hollow, fashion and "man" a dugout canoe, to use the paddle, to gauge the wind and current of that treacherous Grand River, to learn wild cries to decoy bird and beast for food.
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