"Our frail skiff was about eighteen feet long, and four feet across the top of the gunwale amidships, tapering to a point at either end, constructed of thin slips of pine boards, nailed to some half-dozen pair of slender knees, about two inches in diameter. On board were fifteen hundred pounds of provisions, with seven men, which pressed her into the water nearly to the gunwale; three inches from the position of a level, and she would fill with water."
In such an overburthened cockle-shell as this did Mr Springer once find himself in company with a drunken man, who was only withheld from capsizing the boat by the threat of having his skull split with a paddle; for an inordinate addiction to rum is the loggers' chief vice, a vice palliated by the hardship and exposure they endure. Drinking, however, is on the decline amongst them of late years, since "it has been fully demonstrated that men can endure the chilling hardships of river-driving quite as well, and indeed far better, without the stimulus of ardent spirits, and perform more and better-directed labour." Black pepper tea is drunk on cold nights when camping in the open air, and is found a warming and comfortable beverage. Both in drink and diet the loggers look more to strength than to delicacy. Salt pork, ship bread, and molasses, compose the staple of their consumption. The drippings from a slice of pork, roasted before the fire, are allowed to fall on the bread, which is then dignified by the name of buttered toast. Sometimes the salt pork is eaten raw, dipped in molasses,--a mixture unequalled for nastiness, we should imagine, excepting by that of oysters and brown sugar. "The recital may cause," says honest Springer in his comical English, "in delicate and pampered stomachs some qualms, yet we can assure the uninitiated that, from these gross samples, the hungry woodsman makes many a delicious meal." An assurance which gives us a most exalted idea of the appetite and digestion of the loggers of Maine.
Once in the forest with their stores, the woodmen carefully select a suitable spot, clear the ground, build their "camp" and "hovel," and commence their winter's work. The "camp" and "hovel" are two log-houses, the former being for the men, the latter for the oxen. In some respects the beasts are better treated than their masters, for their hovel is floored with small poles, a luxury unknown in the camp, where the men sleep on branches strewn upon the bare earth. "Having completed our winter residences, next in order comes the business of looking out and cutting the 'main' and some of the principal 'branch roads.' These roads, like the veins in the human body, ramify the wilderness to all the principal 'clumps' and 'groves' of pine embraced in the permit." Mr Springer expatiates on the graceful curves of the roads, whose inequalities soon become filled with snow, and their surface hard-beaten and glassy, polished by the sled and logs which are continually passing over it, whilst overhead the trees interlace their spreading branches. "Along this roadside, on the way to the landing, runs a serpentine path for the 'knight of the goad,' whose deviations are marked now outside this tree, then behind that 'windfall,' now again intercepting the main road, skipping along like a dog at one's side." The teamster, if he does his duty, works harder than any man in camp. Under a good teamster, the oxen receive care almost as tender as though they were race-horses with thousands depending on their health and condition. With proper attention and management, they should be in as good flesh in the spring as when they began hauling early in winter.