rolled and ambl

[Tucciarone Averbeck]

K for the white monkey. And for five days we ate it as we toiled twelve
hours to the day, chopping, hauling and sawing birch! We had a slight
change of diet on the fourth day, when Aunt Olive cooked two old
roosters and a chicken, which I had coaxed away from the reluctant
French settlers down the stream. But it was chiefly white monkey every
day; and the amount of work which we did on it was a tribute to Aunt
Olive's resourcefulness. The older men of the party declared that they
had never slept so well as after those evening meals of white monkey on
johnny-cake toast. Beyond doubt, it was much better for us than heavier
meals of meat and beans after days of hard labor. From half an hour
before sunrise till an hour after sunset, during those entire five days,
the tall white birches fell fast, the saw hummed, and the bolts went
rolling out on the ice-clad lake. I never saw a crew work with such
good-will or felt such enthusiasm myself as during those five days. We
had the exhilarating sensation that we were beating a malicious enemy.
Every little while a long, cheery whoop of exultation would be raised
and go echoing across the lake; and that last day of February we worked
by the light of little bonfires of birch bark till near midnight. Then
we stopped--to clear the law. And I may state here, although it must
sound like a large story, that during those five working days the ten of
us felled, sawed and rolled out on the ice two hundred and eighty-six
cords of white-birch bolts. Of course it was the saw and the two
relieving spans of horses which did the greater part of the work, the
four axmen doing little more than fell the tall birch-trees. The next
day, after a final breakfast of white monkey, we went home triumphant,
leaving the bolts on the ice for the time being. All were tired, but in
high spirits, for victory was ours. Two days later the old Squire came
home from Three Rivers, entirely unaware of what had occurred, having it
now in mind to organize and begin what he supposed would be a month's
work up at the birch lot for the choppers and teams from the two
logging-camps farther north. Neither grandmother Ruth nor the rest of us
could resist havi
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