We
had Time dealt out to us - mere, clear, fresh Time - grace-days to enjoy.
The white wooden farm-houses were banked round two feet deep with dried
leaves or earth, and the choppers went out to get ready next year's
stores of wood. Now, chopping is an art, and the chopper in all respects
an artist. He makes his own axe-helve, and for each man there is but one
perfect piece of wood in all the world. This he never finds, but the
likest substitute is trimmed and balanced and poised to that ideal. One
man I know has evolved very nearly the weapon of Umslopogaas. It is
almost straight, lapped at the butt with leather, amazingly springy, and
carries a two-edged blade for splitting and chopping. If his Demon be
with him - and what artist can answer for all his moods? - he will cause a
tree to fall upon any stick or stone that you choose, uphill or down, to
the right or to the left. Artist-like, however, he explains that that is
nothing. Any fool can play with a tree in the open, but it needs the
craftsman to bring a tree down in thick timber and do no harm. To see an
eighty-foot maple, four feet in the butt, dropped, deftly as a fly is
cast, in the only place where it will not outrage the feelings and swipe
off the tops of fifty juniors, is a revelation.
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