Silas Strong, Emperor of the Woods

I

THE song of the saws began long ago at the mouths of the rivers. Slowly the axes gnawed their way southward, and the ominous, prophetic chant followed them. Men seemed to goad the rivers to increase their speed. They caught and held and harnessed them as if they had been horses and drove them into flumes and leaped them over dams and pulled and hauled and baffled them until they broke away with the power of madness in their rush. But, even then, the current of the rivers would not do; the current of thunderbolts could not have whirled the wheels with speed enough.

Now steam bursts upon the piston-head with the power of a hundred horses. The hungry steel races through columns of pine as if they were soft as butter and its' bass note booms night and day to the heavens. Hear it now. The burden of that old song is m-o-r-e, m-o-r-e, m-o-r-e!

It is doleful music, God knows, but, mind you, it voices the need of the growing land. It sings of the doom of the woods. It may be heard all along the crumbling edge of the wilderness from Maine to Minnesota. Day by day hammers beat time while the saws continue their epic chorus.

There are towers and spires and domes and high walls where, in our boyhood, there were only trees far older than the century, and these rivers that flow north go naked in open fields for half their journey. Every spring miles of timber come plunging over cataracts and rushing through rapids and crowding into slow water on its way to the saws. There a shaft of pine which has been a hundred years getting its girth is ripped into slices and scattered upon the stack in a minute. A new river, the rushing, steam-driven river of steel, bears it away to the growing cities. Silas Strong once wrote in his old memorandum-book these words: "Strong says to himself seems so the world was goin' to be peeled an' hollered out an' weighed an' measured an' sold till it's all et up like an apple."

On the smooth shore of the river below Raquette Falls, and within twenty rods of his great mill, lived a man of the name of Gordon with two motherless children. Pity about him! Married a daughter of "Bill" Strong up in the woods--an excellent woman--made money and wasted it and went far to the bad. Good fellow, drink, poker, and so on down the hill! His wife died leaving two children--blue-eyed little people with curly, flaxen hair--a boy of four a girl of nearly three years. The boy's full name was John Socksmith Gordon--reduced in familiar parlance to Socky. The girl was baptized Susan Bradbury Gordon, but was called Sue.

Their Uncle Silas Strong came to the funeral of their mother. He had travelled more than eighty miles in twenty-four-hours, his boat now above and now beneath him. He brought his dog and rifle, and wore a great steel watch-chain and a pair of moccasins w with fringe on the sides, and a wolf-skin jacket. He carried the children on his shoulders and tossed them in the air, while his great size and odd attire seemed to lay hold of their spirits.

As time passed, a halo of romantic splendor gathered about this uncle's memory. One day Socky heard him referred to as the "Emperor of the Woods." He was not long finding out that an emperor was a very grand person who wore gold on his head and shoulders and rode a fine horse and was always ready for a fight. So their ideal gathered power and richness, one might say, the longer he lived in their fancy. They loved their father, but as a hero he had not been a great success. There was a time when both had entertained some hope for him, but as they saw how frequently he grew "tired" they gave their devotion more and more to this beloved memory. Their uncle's home was remote from theirs, and so his power over them had never been broken by familiarity.

Socky and Sue told their young friends all they had been able to learn of their Uncle Silas, and, being pressed for more knowledge, had recourse to invention. Stories which their father had told grew into wonder-tales of the riches, the strength, the splendor, and the general destructive power of this great man. Sue, the first day she went to Sunday-school, when the minister inquired who slew a lion by the strength of his hands, confidently answered, "Uncle Silas."

There was one girl in the village who had an Uncle Phil with a fine air of authority and a wonderful watch and chain; there was yet another with an Uncle Henry, who enjoyed the distinction of having had the small-pox; there was a boy, also, who had an Uncle Reuben with a wooden leg and a remarkable history, and a wen beside his nose with a wart on the same. But these were familiar figures, and while each had merits of no low degree, their advocates were soon put to shame by the charms of that mysterious and remote Uncle Silas.

There was a little nook in the lumber-yard where children used to meet every Saturday for play and free discussion. There, now and then, some new-comer entered an uncle in the competition. There, always, a primitive pride of blood asserted itself in the remote descendants, shall we say, of many an ancient lord and chieftain. One day--Sue was then five and Socky six years of age--Lizzie Cornell put a cousin on exhibit in this little theatre of childhood. He was a boy with red hair and superior invention from out of town. He stood near Lizzie--a deep and designing miss--and said not a word, until Sue began about her Uncle Silas.

It was a new tale of that remarkable hunter which her father had related the night before while she lay waiting for the sandman. She told how her uncle had seen a panther one day when he was travelling without a gun. His dog chased the panther and soon drove him up a tree. Now, it seemed, the only thing in the nature of a weapon the hunter had with him was a piece of new rope for his canoe. After a moment's reflection the great man climbed the tree and threw a noose over the panther's neck while his faithful dog was barking below. Then the cute Uncle Silas made his rope fast to a limb and shook the tree so that when the panther jumped for the ground he hung himself.

To most of those who heard the narrative it seemed to be a rather creditable exploit, showing, as it did, a shrewdness and ready courage of no mean order on the part of Uncle Silas. Murmurs of glad approval were hushed, however, by the voice of the red-headed boy.

"Pooh! that's nothing," said he, with contempt. "My Uncle Mose chased a panther once an' overtook him and ketched him by the tail an' fetched his head agin a tree, quick as a flash, an' knocked his brains out."

His words ran glibly and showed an off-hand mastery of panthers quite unequalled. Here was an uncle of marked superiority and promise.

There was a moment of silence in the crowd.

"If ye don't believe it," said the red-headed boy, "I can show ye a vest my mother made out o' the skin."

That was conclusive. Sue blushed for shame and looked into the face of Socky. Her mouth drooped a little and her under lip trembled with anxiety. Doubt, thoughtfulness, and confusion were on the face of her brother. He scraped the sand with his foot. He felt that he had sometimes stretched the truth a little, but this--this went beyond his capacity for invention.

"Don't believe it," he whispered, with half a sneer as he glanced down at Sue.

Lizzie Cornell began to titter. All eyes were fixed upon the unhappy pair as if to say, "How about your Uncle Silas now?" The populace, deserting the standard of the old king, gathered in front of the red-headed boy and began to inquire into the merits of Uncle Mose.

Socky and Sue hesitated. Curiosity struggled with resentment. Slowly and thoughtfully they walked away. For a moment neither spoke. Soon a cheering thought came into the mind of Sue.

"Maybe Uncle Silas has ketched a panther by the tail, too," said she, hopefully. Socky, his hands in his pockets, looked down with a dazed expression.

"I'm going to ask father," said he, thoughtfully.

It was now late in the afternoon. They went home and sat in silence on the veranda, watching for their father. The old Frenchwoman who kept house for him tried to coax them in, but they would make no words with her. Long they sat there looking wistfully down the river-bank.

Presently Sue hauled out of her pocket a tiny rag doll which she carried for casual use. It came handy in moments of loneliness and despair outside the house. She toyed with its garments, humming in a motherly fashion. It was nearly dark when they saw their father staggering homeward according to his habit. They knew not yet the meaning of that wavering walk.

"There he comes!" said Socky, as they both ran to meet him. "He can't carry us to-night. He's awful tired."

They thought him "tired." They kissed him and took his hands in theirs, and led him into the house. Stern and silent he sat down beside them at the supper-table. The children were also silent and sober-faced from intuitive sympathy. They could not yet introduce the topic which weighed upon them.

Socky looked at his father. For the first time he noted that his clothes were shabby; he knew that a few days before his father had lost his watch. The boy stole away from the table, and went to his little trunk and brought the sacred thing which his teacher had given him Christmas Day--a cheap watch that told time with a noisy and inspiring tick. He laid it down by his father's plate.