The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1920-12-30

studied human nature and the cook.
had good many pleasant days there,
too. read such literary works as I
could find around the camp and smoked
the royal Havana smoking tobacco of the
cookee. Those who have not numbered
much do not know much of true joy and
sylvan smoking tobacco.
They are not using very good grade
of the weed in the lumber regions this
winter. When I say lumber regions do
not refer entirely to the circumstances of
a weak back. (Monkeywrench, oil can
and screwdriver sent with this joke; also
rules for working it in all kinds of goods).
The tobacco used by the pine choppers of
the northern forest is called the Scandi-
hoovian. l do not know why they call it
that, unless it is because you can smoke it
in Wisconsin and smell it in Scandinavia.
When night came we would gather
around the blazing fire and talk over old
times and smoke this tobacco. I smoked
it till recently then bought a new mouth
and resolved different life.
shall never forget the evenings we
spent together in that log shack in the
heart of the forest. They are craven on
my memory where times effacing fingers
cannot monkey with them. We would
most always converse. The crew talked
the Norwegian language and l am using
the English language mostly this winter.
So each enjoyed himself in his own quiet
way. This seemed to throw the Nor
wegians good deal together. It also
threw me a good deal together. The
Scandinavians soon learn our ways and
our language, but prior to that they are
quite clannish.
The cook, however, was an Ohio man.
He spoke the Sandusky dialect with rich
nut brown flavor that did me much good,
SO that after I talked with the crew a few
hours in English, and received their
harsh, corduroy replies in Norske, / glad
ly fled to the cook shanty. There l could
rapidly change to the smoothly flowing
sentences peculiar to the Ohio tongue, and
while ate the common twisted dough-
nut of commerce, we would talk on and
on of the pleasant days we had spent in
our native land. don't know how many
hours I have thus spent, bringing the
glad light into the eye of the cook as
spoke of Mrs. Hayes, an estimable lady,
partially married, and now living at FIRE.
mont, Ohio.
talked to him of his old home till the
tears would unbidden start, as he rolled
out the dough with common Budweiser
bottle, and shed them scalding into the
-four barrel. Tears are always unavail-
ing, but sometimes I think they are more
so when they are shed into a barrel of
flour. He was an easy weeper. He
would shed tears on the slightest provoca-
ton, or anything else. Once told him
something so touchful that his eyes were
blinded with tears for the nonce. Then
l took a pie, and stole away so that he
could be alone with his sorrow.
He used to grind the coffee at a. m.
This coffee mill was nailed up against
partition on the opposite side from my
bed. That is one reason I did not stay
longer at the camp. 1t takes about an
hour to grind coffee enough for thirty
men, and as my ear was generally against
the pine boards when the cook began, it
ruf1ed my slumbers and made me a
morose man.
We had three men at the camp who
ysnore1. If they had snored in my Ian
guage could have endured it, but it was
entirely unintelligible to me as it was.
Still, it wasn't bad either. They snored
on different keys, and still there was har-
mony in it-a kind of chime of imported
snore as it were. used to lie and listen
to it for hours. Then the cook would be-
gin his coffee mill overture and I would