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Andersen.”
    “I’m the cookee here,” the potato peeler
announced, glaring at me. “We don’t need no other boys. So you can
go right back to where you come from.”
    “I’m not here to be a cookee,” I responded.
“I’m a lumberjack.”
    Harold and the potato peeler burst out
laughing.
    “No. Really. I’m here to be a lumberjack.” I
stared at him real hard and set my jaw. There was no way anyone was
gonna talk me out of a lumberjack’s pay. My family needed that
money. “Just ask Mr. Lynch. He’s the Push, right?”
    “Rest assured, I’ll be talking to Joe,”
Harold responded. “But how did you end up here?”
    “My pa’s Gus Andersen. He worked this outfit
last winter.”
    “Gus is a good man. A hard worker and a heck
of a sawyer. I heard that he got hurt bad. How’s he doing?”
    “Better.”
    “How’s he getting around?”
    “Crutches.”
    Harold eyed me, clearly expecting me to say
more. “You’re a man of few words, like your Pa. Well, if you’re
gonna be lumberjacking this winter, we’re gonna have to feed you
up. Don’t ya think, Bart?” Harold chuckled at his own joke because
the potato peeler, Bart, was all skin and bones. Harold caught my
glance and chuckled. “I’m the best cook in this county. You shoulda
seen Bart a month back.”
    “I’d rather be a cookee than a jack any day,”
Bart snapped. “I eat good and I’m warmer than those men out in the
woods. The cook’s probably the most important man in this camp,
except’in the Push. And I’m learning to cook. By the time that I
leave this camp in the spring, I’ll be ready to be a camp cook in
my own right.”
    “Now don’t go getting too big for your
britches, Bart. You’ve got a lot to learn yet.”
    “That’s just fine,” I agreed, but there
wasn’t no way I would want to be a cookee. I was here in the
Northwoods to draw a man’s pay, a full dollar a day, as a
lumberjack.
    “Well, boy.” Harold turned to me. “I can’t
just stand around here chewing the fat. I gotta get supper ready.
This here’s the cookhouse, as you can see. You’ll eat here twice a
day. Bart brings the grub out to where you’re working at midday.
You passed by the wanigan on your way in. That’s where you can get
some necessaries you might of forgotten or used up. Now, you’ll be
needing to meet the Push and Dob O’Dwyer, he’s the clerk. Bart, why
don’t you do the honors.”
    Bart nodded, set down the potato he was
peeling, and wiped his hands on his apron.
    “Don’t be dawdling, Bart. Those taters will
be waiting for you.”
    Bart tugged off his apron and headed towards
me. “Come on.”
    I followed him back out of the cookshack and
into the clearing around which all of the logging camp buildings
were arranged. Out in the cold air, I could smell the promise of
snow in the air.
    “Lemme grab my gear.” I scurried over to
where I’d tossed it and Bart slouched after me.
    “That there’s the filer’s shack.” Bart
pointed a thumb over to one of the smaller log buildings. “He’s a
grouchy codger, but he does a good job keeping the saw blades
sharp. But you probably already know all about how a logging camp
works, don’t ya? Your Pa being a jack and all. Usually, I take
church ladies who come to the camp around, give them the tour, and
they don’t know nothin’ about logging camps.”
    I nodded, though, to be honest, I hadn’t
known exactly what a filer did. My pa was indeed a man of few
words, and when he was with Ma and us kids, more often than not, he
let us do the talking.
    “That there’s the blacksmith shop.” Bart
gestured with his thumb at another log building right by the
filer’s shack.
    “That big one there is the horse barn.
There’re two teamsters at this camp and a couple of fine teams of
Belgians. I get to drive one of them hay-burners to the woods when
the jacks are dinnering out. Cy’s his name, the horse I mean, and
he’s blind in one eye. But the jacks say he has a second sense