The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1908-10-02
Durham Brothers

floating rear and they make a brush
Of the river, picking up the few logs left
on the banks and the bars and making q
clean sweep of everything that will float
The Jam is the point In history on the
, log drive. A big log gets wedged in across
the channel when the water is falling and
overnight millions of feet of lumber bear
down on it but only drive it in tighter.
BY and by the pressure behind gets ire
mendous. Logs stick up on end like
toothpicks and the whole mass becomes
one unparalleled example OF potential en-
ergy. Then comes the breaking of the
jam. Every man within reach is hurried
to the scene. There are many ways of
breaking jams. Sometimes dynamiting
will do it. but when the jam is V shaped
to dynamite the apex does little good as
the crushing pressure behind will fill the
gap in iiffy. Sometimes the jam is
dry picked" when the logs along the
wings of the Jam are laboriously 'snak-
ed out and the logs run out in sections.
Anyway to do the trick is fair and the in
genuity of the river man knows no
| bounds. The lumber company has done
away with jams to great extent in the
last few years by driving piles above the
places that usually make trouble and
running logs along to shunt off the tim
beers into deep water.
The river man gets up with the lark
and goes to bed with the stars. His day
is often ID hours long and the only thing
he can see ahead are the stone piers of
the railroad bridge at Northampton and
the only day on his calendar is pay day.
In the race against time he is factor
and he never loses heart The only way
he knows when Sunday arrives is by the
larger crowds that gather on the banks to
watch him work. The long Journey has
been made in 100 days and it is the river
mans ambition to get done in that time
More often it is nearer $50 days, as this |
year. The whole drive eats five times a |
day, and they eat very little at any one
time. The meals are known as breakfast,
second breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
supper. The first is taken when the fog
covers camp and river with thick blan-
ket, and the last in the deep twilight
when the mems faces in the half shadows
of the big drive make You think of one
of Stewart Edward Whites romances of
the Michigan forests.
They are hardy lot, those river men,
but with hearts tender as those of little
children. Many of them have battle
Scared faces or ears shredded by the
dreaded kick of a spiked shoe, favorite
method of fighting in parroom brawls
The men are paid off at the end of the
Northampton bridge. They get big roll ! !
of money apiece, sometimes as much as /
5000 or 500. The river man has been say /;
ng all the year that when he got his roll i
his time, he was going TO salt it, buy 8
| farm back in Nova Scotia or some +
where else, and forsake the river forever. t
See what he does with his wealth. With i
lis clothes dripping and held together i
With a string he marches into a clothing b
tore and buys two whole new "outfits."
Why he gets two no one knows, for he is
ever takes off anything but his shoes a
rom the time the drive starts until it is d
yer. One he puts on, the other he packs f
n suit case and leaves with the bar 81
ender. He then has about $500 left in W
pite of the company store and the al a,
,ged bargain prices on his "outfit." VIII al
e go back to his farm and family in the II
rovinees or will he join that crowd dis n
ppearing through the door of yonder sa- fe
on? He hesitates and is lost The odd &c
fixture of good fellow and little child in
i'm fights it out and week later he &C