The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1904-10-07
3 THE OLD SAWmILL |
> ON the BAYOU. !
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BY S. RHETT ROMAN.
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IHTHY was it abandoned? There is
Wy a story attached to the old pile,
built over the brawling waters of the
bayou, which has been silently crum-
bling to decay in the heart of the forest
for the past 80 years.
The water, trickling through the
dam, above the wheel, over the rocks
on which moses and lichen now cling,
swirls away, singing and murmuring
over shadows and through deep gullies,
until the stream, broadening, empties
into the river. and, together, they wind
their placid way into the gulf
And all along the curving banks
stretch great, silent woods, ancient and
unmolested, where only an occasional
charcoal burners smoldering earth
mound, from whose summit a thin,
curling smoke floats INCREASINGLY up
ward breaks the solitude of the scene
Sometimes worn path struggles
down to the waters edge or runs back
ward, to disappear among the sassafras
bushes and tall trees which hem it in.
A still quiet broods around, dis
turbed now and then by the creaking
wheels of an OK wagon, the crack of the
drivers whip and his droning gee
haw," as his patient team plod their
way along the road to the nearest viii
lage
Then everything settles back into
the palpitating stiffness of the woods,
and the chant of the wind is the only
sound perceptible.
1t was the wealth of century-grown
trees covering hundreds of square miles
which fascinated John Henderson, a
lumberman, and induced him to locate
his mill on the hanks of the bayou, in
the very center of the forest.
His wife was young, mere child.
when they moved there.
Brown eyed, with a CLINT of amber
sunshine glowing beneath her long,
curling lashes; having merry laugh
and the sweet thrilling voice of a song
bird. Gretchen came from her distant
home to the cottage by the sawmill
joyous and handsome, lighthearted and
Indifferent to the isolation of her lot,
all unheeding of the days to come.
Soon the ringing of John Hender-
sons AK resounded sharp through the
forest as he felled the timber for his
mill, and ere long the workmen were
busy putting up the stout flooring now
decaying so slowly in its abandonment.
Gretchen planted rose vines in the
garden, and beaNified the interior of
her cottage home, making it bright and
restful with pretty feminine adorn-
ments.
1t was early fall, one bright and
glorious October afternoon, when
Gretchen stood against the garden
gate. looking upward toward the mill
where Henderson stood.
All summer long the great wheel
had revolved. ceaselessly churning the
water of the bayou, while it poured
down from the weir and swirled off
in white foam and dark eddies, and
the whir of the machinery as the great
saws worked to do John Henderson,
bidding, made a pleasing, monotonous
hum on the air.
Gretchen had grown SO accustomed
to the sounds, which seemed to keep
her company, and filled the forest with
the restless activity of human toll,
that when the mill stopped it's restless
labor or Sundays, she missed the rush.
ing, wkirring sound, and Nsughingly
complained of the stiffness of the
woods
1t was Saturday and the mill hand.
had gone home
John Henderson was leisurely OK.