The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1903-09-10
CONCERNING THE BUCKSAW.
Not So Much in Use as 1t Once Was,
But StiII Frequently
Met With.

'At first thought" said the town
traveller, according to the New York
Sun, 1T seemed odd enough to see
man walking along a busy city street
it was in Park row-carrying bucksaw.
If there was anything that would seem
to be of no particular use in big city it
is the bucksaw
The sight of it brought to mind the
place where the bucksaw did belong;
country woodshed to which the farmer
hauls a load of cordwood, to be sawed
into suitable lengths and then split and
piled, the sticks being laid for saving in
a stout sawbuck, the reach of which,
between the two KS, is SCARED with saw
cuts, made when the saw dropped down
on it in saving short lengths. But who
could want bucksaw in the city, where
many people never use a silver of wood
for any purpose whatever unless it be
for toothpicks, burning gas for fuel as
well as for light, or If they did use wood,
buying it in the form in which it is now
so commonly sold in cities, all sawed and
split?
Fancy anybody saving and splitting
wood in the city in these days! But it
seems, nevertheless, that people still do
that here; that is, to some extent; and
there is here still some demand for buck
saws and sawbucks, which can be found
in any city hardware store.
There was time, indeed, when peo-
pie in cities, as well as those living in
the country, used cordwood commonly;
the city people, if they had no woodshed,
having their wood stored and sawed and
split in the cellar. The city householder
who buys cordwood nowadays-and
there are still some who do-commonly
has it sawed at the woodward where he
buys it; into suitable lengths if for open
fireplaces, into blocks if it is to be split;
having it split, only, at his house.
''And so the bucksaws sold here now
for city use are most likely to be used
for saving up refuse stuff, ends of planks
or old boxes and so on; but there may be,
after all, some people here yet who still
buy cordwood just as they used to do,
and have it sawed and split on their own
premises, quite in the old-time way;
and, anyhow, in one way and another,
there's still quite a bunch of bucksaws
used in this city.
"And then people buy here bucksaws
to use in the country; just as for
instance, many people buy here, for use
in salt and in fresh waters, boats. You
would scarcely think of boats as being
a thing kept in stock in city store.
But there are stores here, stores on busy,
crowded city streets, in which you can
find big stocks of boats.
"And speaking of boats reminds me
of perhaps the oldest place in which
you would find bucksaws and sawbucks,
that being on the decks of ships If the
bucksaw looks really at home only under
the farmers woodshed, certainly it
looks furthest from home on the deck
of a deepwater ship, loading at city
wharf for Hong Kong or Melbourne, or
where not, over the sea.
"You look aloft at the tall masts, and
see the yards crossed against the sky,
and think of sailormen hanging on there
by their eyelids and reefing sail in a
gale at sea, with the old ship plung-
ing and diving at every jump enough
to shake the sticks out of her, but who
would think of anybody here peacefully
at work with a bucksaw, saving off
blocks from sticks of cordwood, laid
across, quite in the old-time way, in
the jaws of an old-fashioned sawbuck
standing on the ships deck?
"But that Is just what you might see
here as the ship lay at her city wharf
or as she drifted lazily in tropic seas
the cook saving wood on deck for the
galley fire. For they don't burn on
shipboard kindling wood tied up in little
bundles such as you buy at the city
grocery store, but solid cordwood that
they buy in such quantities as they need
for the voyage, just as they might any
necessary stores.
"And the sawbuck and bucksaw that
the cook gets out on deck here or on
the wide ocean may have been brought
aboard the vessel down in Maine, where
the ship first took the water, or, the
need for them arising here they may
have been bought right here in New
York.
"And so, while it may not be quite
what it once was, and while its true
home may still be under the country
woodshed, yet the bucksaw is of more
or less common use everywhere, on
land and sea, and it ought not to be
considered a very strange sight to see
a man carrying one through the city's
streets"
The Cut Direct.
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