A GLIMPSE AT LIFE IN A LUMBER CAMP.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14010, 15 September 1909, Page 4

A GLIMPSE AT LIFE IN A LUMBER CAMP.

Me. Norman Duncan writes in Harper's Magazine of a hero who is leading a life .of devotion and sacrifice in y the lumber damps of the West. His '? article on Higgins is an unsought tnV bute' to » mmtant, Christian, who is '" striving against tremendous odds to carry on his master work among those neglected ones who most need help. "Twenty thousand of the thirty thousand lumber jacks and river pigs of the Minnesota woods are hilariously in pursuit of their own ruin for lack of some11 thing better to do in town. They are r " not nice enlightened men, of course ; "" the debauch is the traditional diver- *\ sion— the theme of all the brave tales " to which the youngsters of the bunk 18 houses listen in the lantern light and dwell upon after dark. T "The lumber jacks proceed thus — be- '• ing fellows of big strength in every "} physical way — to the uttermost of filth " and savagery and fellowship with every 5'5 ' abomination. It is done with shouting L< and laughter, and that largo good humour which is bedfellow with the bloodi- ',' est brawling, and it has for a bit, no doubt, its amiable aspect ; but the . merry shouters are presently become like Murray the Beast, that low. notorious brute, who emerging drunk and hungry from a Deer River saloon, rob1 bed a bull-dog of his bone and gnawed •j it himself — or like Damned Soul Jen\t kins, who goes moaning into the forest, € , after the spree in town, conceiving himself condemned to roast forever in hell, - without hope, nor even the ease which J his mother's prayers might win from a (| compassionate God. t "They can't help themselves, it (1 seems. Not all of them, of course, but c most. j. "A big, clean, rosy-cheeked man in a Mackinshaw coat and rubber boots — ii hardly distinguishable from the lumberjack crew except for his quick step and •- high glance and fine resolute way — y went swiftly through a Deer Rivei i. saloon towards the snake-room in, search o of a lad from Toronto, who had in the t camps besought to be preserved from v the vicissitudes of the town. J " 'There goes the Pilot,' said a lumi- ber jack at the bar. Hello, Pilot!' o " : 'Lo, Tom!' ii " ' Ain't ye goin' t' preach no more o at Camp Six?' |- " 'Sure, Tom I' i- " 'Well— when the h IP' 0 " 'Week from Thursday, Tom,' the 1 vanishing man called back ; 'tell the 0 boys I'm coming.' " 'Know the Pilot?' the lumber jack. 1 asked. "I nodded. fc "Higgins's job,'" said he, earnestly. fc 'is keepin' us boys out o f hell, an' he's T the only man on the job.' 1 "Of this I had been informed. " 'I want t' tell ye, friend,' the lum1 ber-jack added, with honest reverence, * 'that he's a d d good Christian, if s ever there was one. Ain't that right, i Billy?' , . . " 'Higgins 'is a square man,' the bar 1 tender agreed. I " 'Hey, Billy!' the lumber-jack cried, severely, reverting to the previous in- : terest. 'where d'ye put that bottle? p "Higgins is used to picking over the bodies of drunken men in the snake room heaps — of entering sadly, but never reluctantly (he said), in search of men who have been sorely wounded- in brawls, or are taken with pneumonia, or in whom there remains hopes of regeneration. He carries them off on his I- back to lodgings— or he wheels them j- away in a barrow— and he washes them a and puts them to bed, and (sometimes i- angrily) restrains them until their norh mal minds return. It has never oc- *- curred to him, probably, that this is i, an amazing exhibition of primitive d Christian feeling and practice. "It is- a simple situation. There are '- 30,000 men— more or less of them, ae- *• cording to the season— making the wages of men in the woods. Most_ or i- them accumulate a hot desire to wring c some enjoyment from life in return n for the labour they do. They have no t- care about money when they have it. « They fling in gold over the bars (and : any sober man may rob their very d nockete); they waste in a night what ir they earn in a winter — and then crowl a' back to the woods. - Naturally the * lumber towns are crowded with para- >- sites upon their lusts and prodigality >- with gamblers and saloon keepers and I purveyors of low passion. Some — k larger capitalists, more acute and more * acquisitive, of a greed less nice — prod fess the throe occupations at once. "They are the men of real power in c the remoter communities, makers of mayors and chiefs of police and magise tratos — or were until Higgins came i" along to dispute them. Singlehanded, not long ago, We cleansed the town of Bemidji of its established and flaunting wickedness. 'Boys,' said he to the keepers of places, 'I'm going to clean you out. I want to be fair to you— and so I tell you. Don't you V ever come sneaking up to me and say c I didn't give you warning.' They II laughed at him when he stripped off * his coat and got to work. But when ' the fight was over, when the shutters were up for good— so had he compelled " the respect Of these men — they came : to the preacher, saying. ' Higgins. you 1 gave us a show: you fought us fair — 1 and we want to- snake hands.' r '" That's all right, boys,' said Hig- ' gins. "To confuse Higgins with the cranks " and freaks of the country would be " most injuriously to wrong him. He ' is not an eccentric ; his hair is cropped, 1 his finger nails are clean, there is a 1 commanding achievement behind him, ' he has manners, a mind variously in- ' tereated, as the polite world demands. " He is a reasonable and highly effi- : oient worker— a man dealing with active ■ problems in an intelligent and thoroughly practical way ; and he is as ' self-respecting and respected in his pe- | culiar field as any pulpit parson of the cities — and as Sane as an engineer. [ "He is a big, jovial, rotund, rosy- ; cheeked Irish-Canadian (pugnacious ' upon occasion), with a boy's smile and i eyes and laugh, with a hearty voice i and way, with a head held high, with a man's clean, confident soul gaaing . frankly from unwavering eyes ; sft. 9in. ' and 200 lb to him (which allows for. '-. a little rippling of fat). He is big of , body and heart and faith and outlook ', and charity and ' inspiration and be- ; lief in the work 'of his hands ; and bis ', life is lived joyously — notwithstanding | the dirty work of it — though deprived , of the common delights of life. He has no church ; he straps a pack on his back and tramps the logging roads from camp to camp, whatever the weather — twelve miles in a blizzard at 40 below — and preaches every day — and twice and three times a day — in the bunk houses ; and he buries the boys — -and marries them to the kind of women they know — and scolds and beseeches and thrashes them, and banks for them. "It used sometimes to be difficult for Higgins to get a hearing in the camps ; this was before he had fought and preached his way into the trust of the lumber-jacks."