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my undercut; nope, it wasn’t going to work. I eased the saw free and wondered what I should do. Suppose I left her this way, and a strong wind came along and toppled her over tomorrow morning when some poor fellow was out honing his ax and never suspecting somebody had left a tree hanging? I decided to try poling her over, and if that didn’t work, I’d head back for the bunkhouse and get some help.
    I hadn’t even told my mother yet, that was going to be still another fracas. I could see us all sitting around the table Sunday after church, and Papa saying the blessing, while Harriet and Fanny and little brother John fidgeted and squirmed, and then Mama would come in from the kitchen carrying our usual Sunday meal — corned beef, boiled for almost two and a half hours, after which carrots, onions, turnips, cabbage, and potatoes were added to the pot to simmer in the meat juices for another half hour or so. Harriet would rise immediately to go into the kitchen for the freshly baked loaf of bread and Fanny would only reluctantly follow, coming back with the ironstone pitcher full of milk in one hand, and the butter urn in the other. We would eat silently and gratefully, the huge table (which Papa had made himself from an oak on our own land) clinking and clattering with the sound of silver and china, and me with a secret to tell. I’d probably wait until the girls and Mama had cleared the table and were bringing in the Queen’s pudding, which she would dish out to us from her place opposite Papa, ladling the pale tart lemon sauce onto each moist coconut-shredded mound. I would tell her then. There was nothing she could do about it: I was eighteen, and Papa had given me written consent.
    The pole was twelve feet long, with a metal spike on one end. I planned my getaway and then braced the pole against my hip and began shoving. The tree wouldn’t budge. I didn’t know whether or not I had time to rig a killing, but it looked as if I’d need one, and I figured I ought to try before going back to the bunkhouse. I cut myself a long hardwood pole, the light fading fast now, a wolf howling somewhere off against the approaching night, notched one end of it and made a wedge point on the other end. I reached up as high as I could then, and cut a notch into the tree trunk with my ax. I’d left my peavy over by the bow saw, and I went to get it now, and then fitted the pointed end of the pole into the notch I’d just cut in the tree, and then braced the wedged end of the pole against the thick wooden handle of the peavy, just above the hinge. I shoved the pick end of the tool deep into firm ground, through the crusting layer of snow. My killig was ready. I shoved forward on the handle, just testing, seeing if I’d get enough leverage to fell her this way. She began to groan a little, and I nodded silently, the sun was all but gone now, the air seemed suddenly very cold. I shouted “Timberrrrrrr,” knowing I was the only soul in the woods, but remembering what Tiny, the camp’s wood butcher had told me about it being better to feel a little foolish yelling to nobody than to look around later and find a man squashed flat under the tree you’d just knocked down. I shoved forward on the peavy handle.
    There was, as always, that moment when she seemed to resist, seemed to cling to whatever slender fiber still connected her to life. And then she trembled, and I could hear her groan again, almost as if she were in pain, and suddenly she began to topple, the weight of her upper branches pulling her down toward the earth. I dropped the peavy and ran back toward the cord of pulpwood, and behind it, and I heard the huge spruce whispering through the icy air, and then she hit the ground and snowdust billowed up from her branches and there was a long heavy shudder and then a hundred echoing crackings, and then there was silence.
     
    There was never much doing in Eau Fraiche on a Friday night, except for the first Friday of every