Chapter 62. I’m a Lumberjack
In his wildest dreams Will never thought he would actually cutting down trees. A long time ago he and his family went to a Christmas tree farm and cut down a tree, and he’d split his share of firewood in their camping years. But that was the sum of his knowledge about the subject. Lucky for them Naomi had an uncle. “No kidding, how many uncles do you have? No wait, we only have an hour til breakfast, tell me later.”, Minnie laughed. Naomi very sensibly stuck her tongue out at Minnie and went on, “Regina told me the older kids, Wilbur and Grace are from the eastern families and have been around loggers their whole lives.”. Well that was good news. “Hopefully they’ll show us what to do, I’m just worried about someone getting hurt doing this part. Worse you can do gathering coal is drop a lump on your foot.”, Will replied.
They were still making good time, probably reaching the gathering area by noon, providing no more excitement in the way of weather. They had decided to beach the empty barge, the one for logs, then pull it off shore when they were ready to load it. “All depends on if there good trees here, what kind, how big and so on.”, Will thought aloud. The area on the coast was kind of familiar, they had been this way a few times now. He had vague plans of constructing a forward base here too, a camp that would be used on gathering voyages. To not stress the Rose as much and to not stress the kiddies by staying off of the water. Just an idea for now. The same plan as the camp where they gather for Newton. Several outbuildings, bunk houses, kitchen, storage. Not difficult to build and would be much easier to house the teens. Living and working off of the Rose still worked though, so it was just a thought, noodling around in his brain. For now.
As it happened Will was at the helm, steaming along the coast when he caught sight of the black line that was the shoal. He blew the whistle and the crew streamed on deck to see where they would be working for the next couple of weeks. Minnie at the front of the crowd, keeping the youngsters in line, the two boys at the back of the line. They made a beeline for the wheelhouse, Percy knocked politely and waited until Will beckoned them to come in. “You guys don’t have to ask permission to go anywhere you know, no where’s off limits to crew.”, he reminded them as they sat on the captain’s chairs. “Well maybe Naomi’s room, she might be a bit upset if you go rummaging around, and my crafting room, but yeah, anywhere else is fine.”, Will spun around hearing Minnie’s voice and was startled to see her leaning in one of the open windows. “We just don’t want to get in the way, you all work so well together.”, Percy said as he tidied up the map table. Rolling charts, putting pencils in their jars, closing Wills inkwell, he just naturally fiddled with stuff. “You’re not in the way boys, you’re family. This is your home and you’ll find your place.”, Will said, surveying his now clean area with satisfaction. “Our laundry needs doing, and the heads a bit hairy, dunno why, big hair clots in the bath tub but that’s Naomi’s fault.”, Minnie added to the conversation. Will raised an eyebrow “Oh is it, who took a two hour bath the other night and used most of my lavender soap?”. “Yeah that was me”, she admitted, “But I needed a bath, I smelled like dirt and weeds, and your stuff was pretty nice.”. Ah my girl, he thought. “Never change Minnie, never change.”, he laughed, “No, you don’t have to do laundry and clean up. We’re going to be anchored soon and then the fun begins.”.
Will brought them around and went dead slow. Naomi and Minnie ran, jumped and landed on the barges. One being anchored fairly close to shore for coal loading, the other was going to be beached until needed. The children were still amazed at the abilities of the crew, but being from Laketown they were more used to seeing them working. It was still fantastic for Will, growing up reading science fiction and fantasy books about people with fantastic skills. They weren’t super by any means but they were different, superior in some ways. But that way of thinking was dangerous. The whole ‘I’m smarter or older or richer, so I know better, am better than everyone else’, that way of thinking could easily go down a dark path. However if you really are superior, stronger and faster, tougher and longer lived, aren’t you actually better? Scary indeed. Shaking his head, the better to get these cobweb’s out, he turned back to the business at hand.
Sounding the water as they cruised slowly to shore they were finding it very deep, there must be a sharp drop off close to the rocky beach, which was good for them. Anchored close made loading easy, however the plan of beaching the unused barge was scuttled. Pushing the empty scow onto these sharp rocks would damage the hull. So it was anchored off shore as well, the Rose a short distance from the two. No gathering would be done today, however certain things were going to be ferried ashore and set up. As the engine was stopped, boiler blown down the boat was resting easily for the next couple of weeks. Their next plan was to set up several of their large canvas tents. Cooking, dining if necessary, storage, all that was going to be done ashore. Maybe not the weekend meals, and certainly not tonight’s. Sticking to their traditional meal tonight, cheeseburgers and chips. That was a few hours away but the galley crew was already hard at work. A light lunch was being served in the mess now, then bread was to be baked, biscuits and cakes were in the making too. Will and Minnie, with a willing hand from Percy and Ron, had loaded the dory with all the gear for shore and were preparing to head off. Having two more crew was making things easier already. Getting twice the work done was nice, but Will had a quick word with Minnie not to overdo it. “You and I can go for days, lift and tote like champs, but not the boys, not yet. Keep a good eye out okay sweetie?”.
With an “I’ll be back.”, to Naomi, Will and the other three took off in the loaded dory. Rowing hard to shore too just a few minutes, arriving on the beach with a spray of salt water, helped by the waves. “What a boring place this is.”, Minnie pointed out. And it was, the beach was rocky, leading into an prairie scrub land. Not much in the way of trees, just a few isolated copses spread out. In the far distance, signs of a river could be seen, more vegetation in a line “Fresh water that way.”, Will said happily, “Won’t have to move the Rose to fill up.”. They began to set up the tents on the highest ground they could see and still be fairly close to the coal. Minnie was still a bit short tempered when it came to setting up and nearly hurled the tent poles into orbit when they snarled up and bopped her on the ears. “Dad, dad, can’t we just build log cabins here and not have these stupid tents that make me lose my marbles.”. Will looked around at the severe lack of log cabin materials, “Yeah sure.”. And went back to showing Percy how to hammer in the foot long spikes to secure the tent. “Grrr, I’m going for a walk, come on Ron.”, Ron looked at his brother “We’ll be back.”, in a whisper and he joined Minnie looking for crabs.
It hadn’t really taken long to set things up and Minnie had come back to help, after a few minutes of stomping along the beach throwing rocks at the water, then searching for crabs. “Still nothing, just two tiny guys that pinched Ron’s finger and made him squeak.”. Carrying the stoves, tables and chairs to the tents took just a little while longer and soon they were all back in the boat and rowing hard to get over the waves and out to open water. Coming alongside the Rose Minnie jumped on deck and threw the davits to Will. The other two climbed out and onto the deck then the boat was lifted into place. “Mission accomplished, get an early start tomorrow.”, Will told Naomi, who had joined them on deck. “Things are a lot smoother than my first voyage.”, Naomi said, looking over at the shore. Will shrugged, “Took us a while to work the bugs out, I like to work smart, not hard.”.
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After the away crew had a bite to eat, Will gathered all hands on deck “Safety meeting.”, he started. “Does that mean if no one works, no one gets hurt, cause that sounds good!”, Minnie interrupted. Laughing he continued “Sorry but no. However because we are gathering coal and logging we need to get a few things straight. When we get to the logging part none of you will be touching or using an axe, saw, hatchet, nothing. Too dangerous, maybe in the future we will have a trained group of lumberjacks to come with, but you all know why that might not work.”. Pausing for a tea break, he went on. “Grace and Wilbur…”, he heard Minnie whisper to Percy “call him Willy, he loves it”. Grace and Will..bur”, now she had him doing it. “Your chaperones are from the eastern part of your country and they and their families are experienced loggers. They’re going to be showing the crew”, he indicated the five of them, “showing us the right way to do things.”. After fielding a few questions from the teens, what are we doing while you cut down trees, there’s no trees to cut here is there, how far are we going to be travelling, things like that. It took a while but they had all afternoon and evening to waste now, a good dinner, early bed then to work.
“Dad I have a question.”, Minnie was sitting beside Will at their spot at the bow of the Rose, just doodling in her sketchbook. “What’s that sweetie?”. She looked at him “How come we could bring the burrowers guys on board, the fighter guys, then the rest of the families and then even the older ones and they didn’t go nuts.”. Will looked around to see if anyone had heard that. Seeing just themselves and two sleeping furry lumps he answered her. “I think it’s because there’s three of us. In the past only the captain was immune to the waters effects. He or she couldn’t protect older people like we can, or pass that immunity on like we did to Naomi.”. He could see her thinking that over, “Did we make her okay, or was she already kinda okay, just waiting for us to finish her?”. He shrugged “We’ll never know that but can you imagine how much our life would change if we could start ferrying people around? Bringing logging crews here and there, coal and ore gathering all the time. Picking up and dropping off, every day.”. She shivered a bit “Sounds a bit horrible, that’s not fair or much fun.”. “It wouldn’t be.”, Will agreed, “Another problem is, what if the lake immunity didn’t last. People would start running amok on board.”. “It was tried in the past,”, they both jumped as Naomi spoke from behind. “It didn’t end well then and probably wouldn’t end well now either.”. “So it has to be the children?” Minnie asked. The other girl nodded “Sadly yes, it’s just the way things are here, we’re used to it.”.
The afternoon went on, beautiful weather and perfect water conditions too. Will had been talking with Wilbur, about logging In general. A dangerous task indeed. Family members had been killed, injured severely, disabled permanently over the years and generations. The elders, mothers and grandmothers, did all they could to discourage their children from following the family business. It had sounded strange at first, to hear Wilbur say that. Grace had explained further, there was a high birth rate in the extended families and there was always enough of the next generation to keep the business going. For three out of four children to leave and seek their fortunes or future in other parts of the land was encouraged, sometimes all the children of a family would go. “There’s always some who want to stay, live by the axe and saw. I will be, with Grace.”, Wilbur said, holding her hand. “We just wanted to see more of the world while we could and when we heard about the logging trip, that suited both of us.”, Grace added. Naomi sighed sadly, she had just joined them, taking a break from the heat below. Baking bread was a hot job.
“How long have you been together?”, she asked Grace. “It seems like forever, our families are close, not related but have always worked and visited with everyone.”, she smiled at her intended who was showing Will the right way to hold the long crosscut saws. “We were always thrown together as kids, after a while I just knew he was the one, when we get back we’ll be hand fasted. Then married in planting season.”. Minnie was listening in, not really on purpose but it was the way her ears worked. She heard everything but only certain things made her pay attention, this kind of conversation was one of those. She and Naomi had many late night talks about relationships, marriage, children and while Minnie had no interest at all and was satisfied with her life, sometimes Naomi wanted more. So hearing the two talking about that touchy subject was cause enough for her to focus in. Now Grace was asking Naomi if she had a someone waiting for her, if she wanted children. Honest questions from a genuinely nice young person but questions that were stirring a pot thought to be long settled. A good thing that Rosie came on deck to ask if Naomi wanted her to start another set of buns baking. “Saved by the bread.”, Minnie muttered, garnering a look from Will. “Tell you later.”, she told him and started paying more attention to Willy and his lumberjack lessons.
As the afternoon turned into evening it was time to start dinner, the traditional meal for the first day together. Will lighted the grill, placed the racks over the charcoal and started cooking. Toasting buns, grilling the burgers to perfection, adding sliced cheese when they were nearly ready. The galley gang started bring up the first lot of golden crispy chips and the teens loaded their plates, then off to the bow for a couple of the cheesy goodness waiting there. Tables had been set up and it was a good time indeed. For afters it was several kinds of pie and clotted cream, the pies supplied by Stephens bakery to Ron and Percy’s delight. They had heisted several over the weeks spent hiding out and it was a familiar treat for them. Ron whispered to Percy that he preferred pumpkin over apple, Minnie overheard “Eww, really? It’s up to you but that’s like dad drinking his tea, oh wait you like that too don’t you, I knew I like Perce better!”. She picked him up and gave him a thorough hugging, just to let him know she was kidding around.
The daylight was all gone by the time everyone had eaten their fill, deck lanterns casting warm light on the boat. Several of the crew had brought musical instruments and were playing away, nothing too loud though. After clean up was over Will made a point of thanking the four hard working galley crew. Besides Naomi and her volunteers Ron had decided that helping with cooking and preparing was what he wanted to be part of.
Eventually all the teens had succumbed to the events of the day and had gone to bed, it was just the five of them on deck now. The boys were completely done in as well and stumbled below, Naomi too. Early days ahead for all of them, but Will and Minnie were still talking over a couple of things. She had let him know about Naomi’s talk with Grace, he had sighed “I don’t know there’s much to even think about, it’s her life right.”. Minnie was sitting beside him, leaning up against, much as she had done in their previous life, “I don’t like change, well some is good like the guys, they’re fun, but people leaving just when you get to know them and love them, nope I don’t like that.”. “Me either sweetie, me either.”. A few minutes later, after Will did a final check on deck they went to their cabin. Minnie had readied quickly for bed and was tucked in her side, looking very comfy. Will cleaned up and changed, then after lay down clicked the switch in his mind…
Menu
William Harris
Age 35 (stabilized)
Intelligence 41/50
Strength 50/50 Maximum level.
Vitality 48/50
Stamina 48/50
Affinities for gardening, cultivating, fishing, knitting, swimming, mariner ,
Captain of the heartboat Rose
Minnie Harris
Best dog of all
Age 17
Intelligence 22/25
Strength 24/25
Vitality 24/25
Stamina 24/25
Affinities for fishing, swimming, husbandry, mariner
First Mate of the heartboat Rose
*The tinker skill has been upgraded*
Naomi 0’Malley
Age 18
Intelligence 39/50
Strength 44/50
Vitality 41/50
Stamina 45/50
Affinities for cooking, fishing, gardening, swimming, mariner
Second Mate of the heartboat Rose
Ron Harris
Intelligence 10/25
Strength 5/25
Vitality 5/25
Stamina 5/25
Was once a cat, changing from day to day.
Affinities for needlework, tailoring and homemaker
Third Mate of the heartboat Rose
No skills, yet.
Percy Harris
Intelligence 10/25
Strength 5/25
Vitality 5/25
Stamina 5/25
Was once a cat, changing from day to day.
Affinities for gardening, husbandry and organization
Third mate of the heartboat Rose
No skills, yet.
“Hey, the guys are on the menu now, third mates and pretty low level so far, but there they are.”, he told Minnie happily. “Well that’s pretty neat, going to tell them tomorrow? And all the other stuff that goes with it?”, she said sleepily. Oh right, “Um, might wait on that a bit.”, the other stuff was a lot to bring up. Climbing in the cold sheets, blowing out the safety candle, pulling the heavy quilt up to his chin, moving until comfortable, this ritual always took a few minutes. He felt for Minnie, held her hand until he dropped into a deep sleep.
