The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-08-30
WITHIN SOUND OF The SAWS.

Lumber had gone up. and the big
mill on the Aspohegan was working
overtime.
Through the range of square openings
under the caves the sunlight streamed
In steadily upon the strident tumult,
the confusion Of sun and shadow, with
In the mill. The air was sweet with the
smell of fresh sawdust and clanlmy
with the ooze from great logs just
''yanked" up the dripping sides from
the river. One had to pitch his voice
with peculiar care to make it audible
amid the chaotic din of the saws.
In the middle of the mill worked the
gang" a series Of upright saws that
rose and fell swiftly, cleaving their way
with pulsating, vicious clamor
through an endless and sullen procession
of logs. Here and there, each with a
massive table to himself. hummed the
circulars, large and small: and when
soever a deal, or a pile OF slabs, was
brought in contact with one of the
spinning disks. upon the first arching
squirt of sawdust spray began a Shrek
ing note which would run the whole
vibrant and intolerable gamut as the
saw bit through the fibers from end to
end. In the occasional brief moments
of comparative silence, when several of
the saws would CHANGED to be olsen
gagged at the same instant. might be
heard. far down in the lower story of
the mill the grumbIing roar of the two
great turbine wheels, which, sucking in
the tortured water from the sluices.
gave life to all the wilderness of cranks
and shafts above.
That end of the mill which looked
down river stood open, to a height of
about seven feet, across the whole of
the upper story. From this opening
ran a couple of long slanting ways,
each two feet wide and about a hun
bred feet in length, raised on trestles.
The track of these slides" as they
are technically termed, consisted of
series Of wooden rollers, along which
the deals raced in endless sequence
from the saws, to drop with a plunge
into a spacious basin, at the lower end
OF which they were gathered into RATS.
Whenever there was a break in the
procession of deals, the rollers would
be left spinning briskly with a cheer
full murmur. There was also a shorter
and sleeper slide" diverging to the
lumber yard where clapboards and
such light stuff were piled till they could
be carted to the distant station.
In former days it had been the easy
custom TO dump the sawdust into the
stream, but the fish wardens had lately
interfered and put a stop to the prac-
tice. Now, a tall young fellow. in top
boots, gray homespun trousers and blue
shirt, was busy carting the sawdust to
a swampy hollow near the lower end
Of the main slides.
Sandy MACPHERSON was new hand.
Only that morning had he joined the
force at the Aspohegan mill, and every
now and then he would pause, remove
his battered soft hat from his whitish
yellow curls, mop his red forehead, and
gaze with a hearty appreciation at the
fair landscape spread out beyond the
mill. With himself and with the world
in general he felt on fairly good terms
an easy frame of mind which would
have been much Jared had he been
conscious of the fact that from a cor
ner in the upper story of the mill his
every movement was watched with
vindictive and ominous interest.
In that corner also by the head of
one of the main slides, stood a table
whose presiding genius was a little
swinging circular. The circular was
tended by a powerful, somber-visaged
old mill hand called Lie Vandine,
whose office it was to trim square the
ragged ends of the "stuff' before it
went down the slide. At the very back
of the table hummed the saw, like
great hornet; and whenever Vandine
got two or three deals in place before
him, he would grasp a lever above his
head. and forward through its narrow
slit in the table would dart the little
saw, and scream its way in a second
through the tough white spruce. Every
time he let the saw swing back VAN