Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-02

In The lumber regions Of Michigan, says
the Chicago EVtHinq yourhdk, they have been
having busy times. The tick Of axes has
been heard IN the solemn woods like watches
in goldsmith's window, and saw. mills have
laughed hoarsely et each other from valley
10 valley. And this suggests q BIZ Of a cate
ehism three questions longs Did you ever
stand up 10 your knees in. snow and cut
down a tree And did you think you were
uiarTinQ 4 char which the wit Of Wren OF
a Walter could never rebtdld7 That you
were cutting down greater than Gibbon,
that had been making history these hundred
We'll, stroke followed stroke. The echoes
startle dry twig or withered leaf here
and there, and down they rattle and sink
into the white grave they were not born to.
Pretty soon the giant frame sways q little,
anda red squirrel takes flylng.leap into a
neighboring tree, deserving house and home,
and what great store of Winter treasure.
Then there is cracking as of kindling
FIRE. The rugged grains give way. The
branches that have defeda hundred tempests,
yibrate like pendulum, a beat or two, and
then slowly, solemnly, sweep down through
the frosty air, and crash along through the
untrodden snow. There is a break in the
mighty ranks--a magnificent ruin under
foot The air closes silently into the mold
the tree has made, as if God had never reared
there pillar of his "frst temples"
There were nests in that tree, and WHEN
Spring leaves her breath on the gale, the
birds shall come again, vainly seeking their
old homesteads. You triumphantly leap
upon the fallen monarch; you cut "lengtb,n
and tits dinner time. You make cushion
of the dry leaves. From the root of hol-
low tree you draw forth an old tin pail with
a young tin pail inverted on the top of it.
For service large, clean chip is ready
to your hand. You draw forth from the
white napkin the white bread and the smooth
white pork. Your pocket-knife answers for
a carver, and fingers were made before forks,
and isn't it prineely banquet You mas
ticate and muse. That tree is to be turned
into home; that home is to be yours, but
as you think it, "ours," and there is some-
thing about that "ours" that gives you an
indescribable sensation Of warmth-as much
as when, at night, with wife on one side and
BARN on the other, you bask in the little
summer of your own hearth-light.
HbBut the voices of the coming teamsters
disturb your reverie and whoahawl" an
swers back the distant hill, and "gee y
goes laundering through the ravine. The
crack Of the long whip becomes a perfect
explosion of joy. Every little hill has a
whip of its ownl The grave, respectable
old woods are in frolic. On through the
Archimedes is called into requisition, and
log-that' 8 the name for the dead tree-is
heaVed on the sled, and drags its slow length
along toward the saw-milL, whose short,
asthmatic bark comes to your ears from a
distant "run."
The old saw. MILL Do you remember,
when you rode backward and forward on
the carriage" with the hapless logP How
you grew braveT, and rode out-out, till you
sat over the deep abyss of waters, beyond
the gable end of the mill Have you ever
seen any thing except the grave, so deep and
dark, since then 2 And what treasures you
made of the saw dust-what mysteries there
were in the gate-what terror in the flume-
what wonderful fish above the dam-what
an immense forest came up boldly around
the mill You have since learned that there
were two acres in it "more or less" The
sawyer is dead-the mill is dismantled-the
stream has run dry-the wood is q fallow,
and the fallow grave.
But there another "length to cut" and
girded anew, you mount the choppers ros-
tIum, softly singing to yourself in pauses,
bar Of "Woodman, spare that tree" that
put no bar, however, to the destruction
going on around, and by-and-by you have
cearing-corn goes through the sword ex-
ercise and salutes the morning with its
green blades, and pumpkin-vines like child
rem ''just let loose from school," run all over
the field.
Other harvests and new harvesters come,
and you, and your trees, and your reveries,
are alike forgotten.