The Wit and Humor of America
Chapter 169 : "What's the price of wood?""I think you ought to know the price by

"What's the price of wood?"

"I think you ought to know the price by this time," answered the old lady in the petticoat; "it's three and a qua-a-rter! and now you know it."

"Three and the d--l!" broke in the Captain. "What, have you raised on _your_ wood, too? I'll give you _three_, and not a cent more."

"Well," replied the petticoat, "here comes the old man--_he'll_ talk to you."

And, sure enough, out crept from the cottage the veritable faded hat, copperas-colored pants, yellow countenance and two weeks' beard we had seen the night before, and the same voice we had heard regulating the price of cottonwood squeaked out the following sentence, accompanied by the same leer of the same yellow countenance:

"Why, darn it all, Capting, there is but three or four cords left, and _since it's you_, I don't care if I _do_ let you have it for _three_--_as you're a good customer_!"

After a quick glance at the landmarks around, the Captain bolted, and turned in to take some rest.

The fact became apparent--the reader will probably have discovered it some time since--that _we had been wooding all night at the same woodyard_!

WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH

BY HOLMAN F. DAY

We're spurred with the spikes in our soles; There is water a-swash in our boots; Our hands are hard-calloused by peavies and poles, And we're drenched with the spume of the chutes; We gather our herds at the head, Where the axes have toppled them loose, And down from the hills where the rivers are fed We harry the hemlock and spruce.

We hurroop them with the peavies from their sullen beds of snow; With the pickpole for a goadstick, down the br.i.m.m.i.n.g streams we go; They are hitching, they are halting, and they lurk and hide and dodge, They sneak for skulking-eddies, they bunt the bank and lodge; And we almost can imagine that they hear the yell of saws And the grunting of the grinders of the paper-mills, because They loiter in the shallows and they cob-pile at the falls, And they buck like ugly cattle where the broad dead-water crawls; But we wallow in and welt 'em, with the water to our waist, For the driving pitch is dropping and the drouth is gasping "Haste"!

Here a dam and there a jam, that is grabbed by grinning rocks, Gnawed by the teeth of the ravening ledge that slavers at our flocks; Twenty a month for daring Death--for fighting from dawn to dark-- Twenty and grub and a place to sleep in G.o.d's great public park; We roofless go, with the cook's bateau to follow our hungry crew-- A billion of spruce and h.e.l.l turned loose when the Allegash drive goes through.

My lad with the spurs at his heel Has a cattle-ranch bronco to bust; A thousand of Texans to wheedle and wheel To market through smother and dust; But I with the peavy and pole Am driving the herds of the pine, Grant to my brother what suits his soul, But no bellowing brutes in mine.

He would wince to wade and wallow--and I hate a horse or steer!

But we stand the kings of herders--he for There and I for Here; Though he rides with Death behind him when he rounds the wild stampede, I will chop the jamming king-log and I'll match him deed for deed; And for me the greenwood savor, and the lash across my face Of the spitting spume that belches from the back-wash of the race; The glory of the tumult where the tumbling torrent rolls, With half a hundred drivers riding through with lunging poles; Here's huzza, for reckless chances! Here's hurrah for those who ride Through the jaws of boiling sluices, yeasty white from side to side!

Our brawny fists are calloused, and we're mostly holes and hair, But if grit were golden bullion we'd have coin to spend and spare!

Here some rips and there the lips of a whirlpool's bellowing mouth, Death we clinch and Time we fight, for behind us gasps the Drouth; Twenty a month, bateau for a home, and only a peep at town, For our money is gone in a brace of nights after the drive is down; But with peavies and poles and care-free souls our ragged and roofless crew Swarms gayly along with whoop and song when the Allegash drive goes through.