White Pine Read Online Free PDF Page B

jack.”
    I thought he must be impressed. So, there
really wasn’t any need to say much more. “Yup.”
    “That’s a relief,” Bart shook his head. “I
was worried you was gettin’ hired to help the teamsters out as a
stable boy. That’s the job I got my eye on. I really like workin’
with them horses. They’re smart, ya know. Come on, I’ll show you
where to stow your gear.”
    He led the way across the clearing to another
long, low log building. “This here’s the bunkhouse.” He pushed the
door wide for me. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Sure,
I’d been around hard working men my whole life, but the stench in
that dark shack about knocked me over after the fresh out of
doors.
    “I already stoked up the fire in the stove so
it’s good and warm in here when the fellas get back. They lay their
wet gear there on those rails by the stove to dry them off.”
    Once my eyes had adjusted, I saw that bunk
beds lined both walls and a massive stove dominated the center of
the room. Wooden benches were set around the stove and along the
interior of the bunk beds.
    “Pick any empty bed and stow your gear away.
Lots of fellas been comin’ in these past few days, so there aren’t
a lot left. Pick one. I gotta get back to the cookhouse. When you
hear the dinner call, come on over.”
    “Yup and thanks,” I said. Then, Bart was out
the door and gone.
    Alone now, I eyeballed the bunks. There were
a few empty places at the back of the bunkhouse. But Pa had warned
me about those. When it got real cold in January, the men who slept
there would likely feel the wind coming in through chinks in the
wall. You could pack them with mud or snow, once it came down, but
those were cold spots. And when it came time to sit on the
preacher’s benches by the stove, those men could get stuck at the
back. I didn’t want to be up front, but I also didn’t want to be
cold for most of the winter.
    That was when I saw it. There was a top bunk
right by the stove and, for some reason, no one had taken it. It
didn’t make sense. It should have been one of the first to go. But
why question good luck? So, I headed over there and threw my gear
right up on top.
    The straw tick mattress smelled pretty fresh.
I laid my bedding out on it and and was stowing away my gear when I
heard the Gabriel horn for the first time. It was calling us all to
supper. Quickly, I rolled up the rest of my kit, hopped off the
bunk, and headed out the door.
    By now, it was already beginning to get dark.
The air had that fresh cold taste to it that warns that there may
be snow coming. I drew my coat closer around me. I made a quick
stop at the outhouse and then headed over to the cook shack.
    I was one of the first fellas in the door. It
was downright hot in there from the stove which was nearly glowing
red. Red faced and working hard, Bart was throwing some more logs
into it. The place smelled wonderful, like a holiday feast. I saw
piles of biscuits, beans, salt pork, potatoes, and some molasses.
It was more food than I had ever seen lain out in one place. I was
eyeballin’ it, figuring out where I was going to sit, when the door
burst open. An army of men marched in. They weren’t talking.
Instead, they just came right on in and took their seats.
    I stood there and watched them. Then,
realizing that I was starving and going to get left out if I didn’t
get a move on, I wiggled my way through the crowd and found a place
at the far end of a table. Neither of the men on either side of me
looked at me. They were just reaching for the food. I was just
about to ask for the butter, when I remembered what my father had
said to me: “There’s no talking in the cookhouse.”
    “Why?” I’d asked him.
    “At a lumbercamp cook shack, there are men
from all over the world: Irishmen, Norwegians like us, Frenchmen,
and usually some Indians, Chippewas or Lakota. How would it be if
all of those men from different places started talking? There’d be
arguments and