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The boy accepted every changing condition without thought, and busied himself with the preparations of his new friends. It had no significance for him that all day long the forest rang with the clip of the felling axe. Neither did the unceasing work of the buck-saw, as it ploughed its way through an endless stream of sapling trunks, afford him anything beyond the joy of lending his assistance.
"Yes," she said. "They saw 'em through and then split 'em with the axe." Cameron picked up the buck-saw which lay against a rickety saw horse. Never in his life had he used such an instrument. He gazed helplessly at his companion. "How do you use this thing?" he enquired. "Say! are you funny," replied the girl, flashing a keen glance upon him, "or don't ye know?"
Presently our hero saw a strange head rise from the cavern; and then the entire figure appeared. The disguise was most complete, and the robber, whichever one he was, held a buck-saw in his hand. 'Off buckeen, whispered The Lifter. The fellow wore a very ragged coat, and corresponding breeches; but our hero could not remember having seen him before.
There was a packet of cigarettes and a box of chocolates on a chair beside him, and he had the blind drawn and his eyes half-closed to impress himself. Yet this was the same boy that less than a year ago on Tomlinson's Creek had worn a rough store suit and set his sturdy shoulders to the buck-saw.
A few pine-wood and painted book-stands, several tip-staffs, old broken-backed chairs, and last, but not least, a wood-sawyer's buck-saw, stood here and there in beautiful disorder around the room; while, as if to display the immense importance of the office, a "cocked" hat with the judicial sword hung conspicuously above the old sofa.
One day in the Christmas holidays, a boy came to the door of Riley Brooke, with a buck-saw on his arm. "I'm looking for work," said the boy, "and I'd be glad of the chance to saw your wood." "How much a cord?" was the loud inquiry. "Forty cents." "Too much," said Brooke. "How much a day?" "Six shillings." "Too much," said the old man, snappishly.
PEKING, June 25. Simple facts for home consumption. All boards in China are sawed by hand two men and a saw, like a cross-cut buck-saw. At the new Hotel de Peking, a big building, instead of carrying window casings ready to put in, they are carrying big logs cut the proper length for a casing. Spitting is a common accomplishment.
And I remember all through those days and hard days they were to a green young fool fresh from the Old Country trying to keep pace with your farm-bred demon-worker Perkins I remember all through those days a girl that never was too tired with her own unending toil to think of others, and especially to help out with many a kindness a home-sick, hand-sore, foot-sore stranger who hardly knew a buck-saw from a turnip hoe, and was equally strange to the uses of both, a girl that feared no shame nor harm in showing her kindness.
This already has become a melancholy task; but we must choose it, or its sadder alternative, the old buck-saw. True there are students among us who will have exercise if cramming professors are ever so vexed. They will not study on Sunday; they escape to the woods, admire nature desecrate the Sabbath.
The time of wood-buying was determined partly by Pete's engagements he went first to the Perkinses and next to the Williamses and so on in rotation as he had done for years, his entire winter being "engaged" far ahead. It did not seem possible, to boyish mind, that one man could ever get all that wood sawed and split, even if he was a great giant Norseman with the finest buck-saw in the country.
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