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THE LUMBER JACKS
Me'n Ol' Tubby Joe Stottlemeyer didn't have nuthin'
to do one
summer so we decided we'd go out west and make
us some money. You
see, it wuzn't much money to be made there in
Watson where we come
from.
We caught us a ride
into Dumas and got ourselves on the bus at
just about sundown. Folks, that sun must'a
set on us a half a dozen
times 'fore we got off the thing there in Eugene,
which is up in
Oregon.
When we got on that
bus in Dumas we thought we knowed everthin'.
When we got off that thing, we had done found
out we didn't know
nuthin'.
We must'a walked around
that bus station for an hour or more
'fore we got up enough nerve to ask somebody
if they knowed where a
couple'a ol' boys could get a job. Well,
as luck would have it, the
first feller we asked knowed a man up at a little
town called
Southerly and he wuz hirin' people to cut logs.
"Did you ever cut logs
before?" He asked Ol' Tubb.
"We shore have.
We been cuttin' logs 'bout all our lives," Tubb
answered.
Lordy mercy, we ain't
never cut nuthin' but pulp wood before and
not too much'a that.
Anyhow, we got on another
bus and went to Southerly. The phone
number that ol' boy at the bus station give us
wuz a good'un 'cause we
had us a job 'fore the day wuz over.
On the next day at about
sunup we went out to the woods and we
wuz ready.
"Do you boys know how
to scale logs," the straw boss asked us.
"Shore we do," Tubb
said.
Ohhhhhh meeeeee, I ain't
never heard tell of scalin' no logs.
The only thing I knowed about scales wuz them
we used to weigh cotton
on, and I don't think that's what the boss had
on his mind.
Well, we cut a few ol'
trees down and trimmed'em up purty good.
We even had the boss thinkin' that just maybe
we would learn enough to
get through the day without killin' somebody.
He even left us there
by ourselves and went off summer's else.
He should'a never done that.
We come up on a purty
good lookin' tree that Ol' Tubb decided we
ought'a cut down. The only thing wrong with it
wuz that it wuz
standin' there next to a bob wire fence.
That rascal wuz even leanin'
toward that fence more than just a little bit.
Now, that fence didn't
bother me all that much. It wuz that
zillion volt high power 'lectric line runnin'
along there that purty
much had my attention. I knowed that thing
wuz alive 'cause I could
hear it'a singin'.
"Tubb," I told him after
we'd been sawin' on the thing a while.
"That tree is goin' to fall on that 'lectric
line".
"Naw, it ain't," he
insisted. "Just keep on pullin' that saw."
"The least we can do
is put a wedge in there and help it fall the
other direction."
He didn't want to put
no wedge in there, and it didn't fall the
other direction. It fell on the 'lectric
line is where it fell.
Folks, it wuz sparks
jumpin' everwhere. That 'lectric line fell
itself across that bob wire fence and it wuz
sparks runnin'
theirselves up the side'a that mountain for a
quarter mile or more.
The only thing that kept us from settin' the
woods on fire wuz the
rain they had the night before.
"What we goin' to do
now, Tubb?," I wuz yellin.
Shoot, it wuzn't no
need for me to worry 'bout nuthin' like that.
The boss come runnin' hisself up 'bout that time
and he wuz madder'n a
wet settin' hen. He wuz tellin' us what
to do and it wuzn't no doubt
in anybody's mind about that. He'd yell
a while and then he'd stomp
around a while. I think he might'a even
cussed just a little bit. Ol
' Tubb had done run hisself off down the trail
a piece so the man
wuzn't lookin' at nobody but me.
"You're fired!"
I'll swear, that man
must'a been a football coach summers 'fore
he started messin' with them trees. I ain't
never heard nobody yell
that loud before.
Sumpin' must'a happened
to that 'lectric line 'cause it wuzn't
puttin' out no more sparks. The ol' boss
had done run out'a breath,
and I could see Ol' Tubb sneakin' hisself back
over toward where we
wuz.
"You got three minutes
to get out'a my sight," the boss said with
what must'a been 'bout his last breath.
Tubb just couldn't let
it alone. "Does that mean we ain't
gettin' paid?"
Bill
Covey
Bill
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