THE RAFT

Our farm sloped to a small cove on the lake. The beach was rocky and out where the water was waist deep a patch of water lilies floated amongst the lily pads. Their long stems reached down to a web of spongy roots hidden in ankle-deep mud on the bottom. One time at dawn a moose was standing amongst the lilies up to its belly in water. It had not heard me coming because its head was under the water. Suddenly, antlers burst the surface and its huge head thrust upward, a piece of lily root the size of a boy’s arm dangled like giant spaghetti from its mouth.  

Good moose food, but not great for swimming. Summer cottagers who came on holiday used better beaches further up the lake. But it was the busiest season on the farm.  So, at dawn while we waited for the dew to dry in the berry fields or at dusk when the milking was done, and sometimes at lunch, we would run down to our cove and swim. We would wade out through the lilies into deeper water where the bottom was smooth and firm.

It may have been The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or perhaps my father’s tales of river-drives that gave me the idea of building a raft.  It would be a floating platform out beyond the lilies. “That’s a good idea”, my father said, “You can knock together a log raft easily. You just lay the logs side by side and spike them together with a few of those old boards in the barn. I’ll fell the trees for you. Cedar would be best. It floats well. But you will have to do the rest of the work. Good rainy-day project.”

Strawberry season began and the pickers came. Cousins Reg and Ron arrived and we slept in the haymow. We climbed up from the barn floor on the vertical ladder with our blankets and made a bed well back from the edge of the mow. Reg piled some hay between us and the cliff edge of the mow, “just in case.”  

The first day that it rained we had the raft finished before noon. We tugged and shoved and got it into the water, tied it to a tree with a length of rope and then pushed it out through the lily pads. Father came by to see how we were doing.  “Good work boys”, he said. He pointed out that our rope would keep the raft from drifting away, but that the wind would push it ashore. “You’ll be pushing it back out through those lily pads all the time. You should anchor it out there. If you look in the woodshed, you’ll find that old, galvanized steel tub.  Take it out to the raft and then fill it with some of these boulders. Tie the tub to the raft and sink it to the bottom. That will anchor the raft out there all summer.”

We found the old tub and set it on the raft and then waded back and forth lugging the boulders.  I was up to my armpits clutching a boulder and I raised it to my shoulder.  Father called out, “You’re working against yourself. Lower that rock under the water. The water will do some of the lifting”.

“Water can’t lift”, said Ron

“Well, what’s holding your raft up?” father replied.

We stood in the water holding our boulders and looked back at him.

“Lower those boulders you’re carrying to your knees and then lift them up slowly until they break the surface. What happens?”

We tried this in turn and were surprised. It seemed the rocks got heavier when we lifted them clear of the water.

“Why is that?”, I asked.             

Father said, “Well … everything wants to float. It’s just that some things need a bit of help.”

“It can’t float on its own because its too heavy, right?” asked Reg.

“Reg”, father said. “You like puzzles. Here’s one you can think about. You’re saying heavy things sink and light things float, right?”

“Yeah, of course. That’s what they do,” Reg replied.

“Do you all agree with Reg?”

No one objected.

Father held up a left-over spike that we had carelessly dropped on the beach. “Which is heavier. This steel spike or your raft?”

“The raft of course,” one of us answered.

“Well … this spike would sink if I dropped it in the water … the raft’s heavier, why doesn’t it sink too?”

“Because it’s made of wood”, said Reg

“Ahh. I see. So, if we had made a raft out of steel it would sink. Right?”

“Of course it would,” said Reg.

“It would be awful hard to drive the spikes” said Ron, and we all chuckled at the idea of making a raft out of steel.

“Are you all sure about that?”, asked Father.

“Yeah, steel would sink …  just like these boulders” I said.

“Well then, look out there.” He pointed down the lake. “See the tugboat. That’s a steel barge it’s towing. Why doesn’t that steel barge sink?”

We thought about that for a moment.

“Because it’s moving?”, Ron ventured.

“Yeah, of course dummy”, said Reg. “Every time the tug ties up at the wharf the barge sinks. Good thinking!”

“Now Reg”, said father. Don’t be like that. Anyone got a better idea?”

“Barges have a big flat bottom and that makes them hard to sink,” I ventured.

“It’s got sides on it so the water can’t get in,” added Reg.

“So, Reg”, father asked, “If you took those sides away … so that all was left was the bottom of the barge, would it float?

We imagined that flat sheet of steel.  “Ahh … no …”, Reg replied hesitantly, “… no … I think it would go under.”

“But it’s lighter than the whole barge. The whole barge with those heavy sides on it floats but the lighter bottom piece on its own would sink. Why?”

 Ron said, “I know. The edges of the flat bottom would be sharp and they would cut into the water and it would slide under.”

“That’s clever, Ronnie. You’re thinking it’s the shape of the steel bottom … those sharp edges … that’s what would sink it. Well, if we made the exact same shaped bottom out of wood instead of steel, would it float?”

 We stood there quietly for a while still clutching our boulders. “Yeah”, I said, “it would float … like Reg said, because its wood. It would be like a huge raft”

“So why that steel barge is floating is still a puzzle. Think of the strength you are using right now to keep those boulders from sinking. Imagine the strength it takes to keep that barge afloat!  Where does all that strength come from?”

“It’s got something to do with those sides”, said Reg.

“Well, it certainly seems that way doesn’t it”, replied father. “But you would think those heavy steel sides would sink it even faster; not help it float. Can you make sense of that? … Now I got to get back to work. You keep thinking about this and when you figure it out let me know. I’ll give you a clue before I go.”

“What’s the clue?”, asked Reg.

“Ronnie” asked Father “what do you do when your big brother pushes you?”

“He whines and runs to Mom”, Reg said.

“That’s not what I saw when I pulled you two apart the other day,” said father.

“I push him back”, said Ron, “just like Mom said to do.”

“Did she say to pull his hair too? … Hmmm... No, I didn’t think so. He pushes you; you push him back. Now that’s your clue”, said father. He turned and went through the trees that lined the beach and climbed the stairs up to the field.

I do not recall any further mention of the puzzle that summer. We did have a great deal of fun on the raft. We would swim under the raft and hold our breath and make people worry and then come up where we weren’t expected. On rainy days, we dove, rolled on our back and looked up as the rain dimpled the surface. Reg and I learned that if we lay perfectly still, we could float on our back with our noses just breaking the surface. Ron mastered this as well even though “his body was too heavy for its size” at the start. We counted seconds to see who could float the longest without moving a limb. One still sunny day we watched a gull circling high above. “Look”, said Ron. “It’s not flying … its wings aren’t moving. It’s floating just like us.”

It was that summer, after my cousins had gone home, that I first had a dream that has recurred ever since. I was asleep and I fell from my bed. I braced myself knowing I was about to hit the floor, but I just kept falling and falling and falling. Then I was high in the sky looking down at our house from above. I was wide awake, but I could see myself lying asleep in bed. I moved rapidly and without effort over the farm fields and woods. I could see everything on the landscape below and I could change my speed and altitude with the slightest gesture. I looked down on the village school and the covered bridge. I swung away out over the lake and then turned back toward the farm. Mother was standing in the front yard and I called out, “Look up! Watch this!”. She started waving her arms as I glided down. “SLOW DOWN!” she screamed, “You’re going too fast to land, you’ll hurt yourself”. But I landed softly as a feather in front of her and stopped in an instant.

Then I was lying in my bed rubbing my eyes and mother was saying, “I heard you shout. You were dreaming.  When I got here you were laughing in your sleep. Was it a pleasant dream?”

 “I was floating”, I said

“Floating?”

 “Yes”, I replied, “everything wants to float.”

THE YARD HORSE

Father took me, the chainsaw and an axe to a stand of cedars in the woods. He pointed out two trees. “These will do. They’re tall and straight and easy to fell. You know a chainsaw is dangerous, but when you’re felling a tree, it’s dangerous too. Trees look like they’re just standing there, but they have a lot of tension in them. They push back on the weather … the wind, the rain the snow … they’re strong. They can surprise you.”  I knew this. Mother fretted if father was not in from the woods by dusk.

Father glanced around the forest floor near the trees.  “When you’re working in the woods you’ve got to look ahead. If you don’t, you work against yourself. The first thing to think about is, how are you going to get them out of here and down to the lake?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, if they’re cut into short logs, when Reg and Ron come, we could drag them out to the field. We could use the wagon to take them to the lake.”

“I don’t think your cousins would do much heavy liftin’. They’re town boys, soft, it’s hard enough to get them to pick berries. They could help you build it if you had the logs at the shore. There’s an easier way to move them. You can use Tony. He can twitch the logs the whole way to the lake. We can’t get in here with a wagon without cutting a wood -road, but if you lead him by his bridle, he can get in here just like we did. That’s why they call a trail like this one a bridle path.”

“Why do they say ‘twitch’, why not drag?”

“You’ll know why when you watch Tony. It’s the log that twitches. Tony was trained as a yard horse. When you put the chain around the log and hitch it to his harness, he’ll know what to do.”

“What’s a yard horse?”

“Back before we used heavy equipment like tractors in the lumber woods, horses did the work. They would twitch the logs to an open space called a yard. Take a good yard horse by the bridle and lead him to the yard a couple of times, he’ll do it the next trip without you. He’ll twitch the next log, right up beside the others and stop so that they are even ended. That way they’re easy to roll onto a pile or up onto a bobsled if its in winter.  When he’s unhooked, he’ll go back for more.”

 “But enough about that”, father continued. “Now, I’ll show you how to bring these down. First, decide where they should fall.”

I looked around and gestured to the largest opening near the trees.

“Well. that makes sense and it’s what most would do; but think ahead. Tony will be twitching this one the same way we came in. If we fell it into that opening it’s sideways to the trail. It should be felled so that its trunk is pointing at the trail. Makes it easier.”

“But if we fell it that way it will fall into that tree behind it.”

“Good eye. We don’t want to get it lodged in another tree. That makes a lot of work. Dangerous work. So, we’ll fell it just a bit off center so that it falls between that one and the tree beside it. It’ll swipe their branches on the way down, but it won’t lodge. To do that we’ll cut a notch here.” He gestured at a point about knee high on the side of the trunk facing the way he wanted it to fall.  “Most people these days cut the notch with a chainsaw. In the past, lumberjacks were good axemen. They would notch the tree like this.” He picked up the axe, tapped the axe on the spot he had pointed out, then swung it making a cut in the trunk parallel to the ground. Without pausing he made a second swing downward at an angle just above the first cut and a wedge of wood flew out of the trunk and landed a short distance away. “They used to say, ‘It’ll fall where the chip lies.’ Stand back here and see how the trunk lines up with that chip that flew out. This tree will fall right along that line.”

         Tree trunk                                                                Tree about to fall >

Direction of fall >                                                                        

                                Axe notch                 Back-cut saw kerf                 

                                                                                                                     Hinge                                                    

                                      …………. Chip …..>

 “Now we’ll back-cut from the other side of the trunk toward the notch.”  Father started the chainsaw and began the cut. After a few seconds he stopped the saw and set it down. “See this cut I’ve started? That’s called the kerf. That’s what you call the cut a saw makes. A saw’s teeth make a kerf just a tiny bit wider than its blade … that’s what the sawdust is from.  Now notice this kerf is a bit higher on the trunk than the bottom of the notch on the opposite side. As I cut through, the tree will lean forward toward the notch and the kerf will open a bit. If I had cut the kerf lower than the bottom of the notch the tree would have leaned back and squeezed the kerf. That would jam the saw blade and you would be in a real mess. It could ruin the saw. Men have been killed trying to save a saw … careless.”

Father started the saw again and continued to cut. I thought the tree was starting to lean a bit because the kerf slightly widened as the chainsaw cut deeper. Before the kerf reached all the way to the notch father stopped the saw again, slid it from the kerf and sat it down. He put his hand on the trunk at shoulder height and pushed against the tree. It leaned slowly at first and then suddenly swooshed down to the ground with a loud cracking noise. It fell exactly as he had planned.

Father pointed to the butt end of the felled tree and ran his finger across a thin slightly raised strip of splintered wood that separated the kerf and the notch. “It seems sensible to back-cut the whole way to the notch, but you don’t do that. That little strip I left between the kerf of the saw and the notch of the axe acts like a hinge as the tree falls. Imagine you opened a door without hinges. It would fall on top of you. The hinge keeps a door from just flying off when its opened. This hinge kept the tree on the stump. Kept it from doing something unexpected. The cracking noise was that hinge folding and splintering as the tree fell.”

He felled the other tree and then cut them into eight-foot logs.  “That way they’ll be ready when you come out with Tony.”

“I’ll come back out this afternoon.”

“Well, the beans and peas are well up, I’ve got to hoe and weed them before the weather turns. Do you think you can harness him?”

“Yeah.”

“He’ll be all right with you, but are you ok with him?”

“For sure”, I said with false confidence. “I feed him and clean his stable all the time. He whinnies every time I give him oats.”

“He knows you but move slowly around him. Once his bridle and collar are on, he’ll know the harness is coming. He likes that. He knows he’s getting out of the stable with some company. Hitch the whiffletree to his harness with the long traces. He’ll drag the chain on the way out here, but you’ll need to pick it up to lift the whiffletree clear of snags.”

So that afternoon I harnessed Tony on my own for the first time. We twitched the logs one by one to the lake. I took his nose bag and a small packet of oats in my backpack and treated him after each round trip to the lake. After the first trip he knew where to go and so I just walked along holding the slack reins. That day I was more aware of the trees that lined the field. Many old stalwarts just stood there, but as we passed the grove of white pines they whispered with each breeze and further along a poplar’s leaves trembled, it seemed, for no reason at all.

The Sink Rag

A Farmhouse Christmas Tale

By

 Russ Mclean

Cup Towel, Dish Cloth and Sink Rag lived together in a farmhouse kitchen many years ago. When they were not at work, they hung beside the white enameled sink. Each had its own special hook on the wainscoted wall. They worked with their friend Scald, the kettle, to wash and dry the dishes.  After each meal Scald filled the wash basin, Dish Cloth scrubbed the dishes in the hot soapy water, and they were then placed in a rack on the counter. Scald came back with boiling water for a final rinse and then Cup Towel wiped the dishes dry so they could be put in the cupboard. Sink Rag was held in high esteem by the others because she was the eldest in the Cloth family and she had done all the other jobs in her time. She had begun life as a bright and colorful cup towel sprinkled with red roses but when she wore thin and her color faded, she had been cut in half and hemmed along the cut to make two dish cloths. Scrubbing dishes was a tough job and so all dish cloths eventually frayed and tattered.  They then, each in turn, became a sink rag and took their place on the third hook.

The girls living in the farmhouse washed the family dishes after each meal. They would take turns washing or drying the dishes while their mother had a cup of tea and tended the wood stove to keep Scald on the boil. The farm boys did not do the dishes. They worked in the farm fields with their father or helped him in the barn to feed the animals and to milk the cows. One day the youngest boy learned the difference between a cup towel and a sink rag. He had come into the kitchen with an armload of firewood to fill the wood box, one of his daily chores. He did not notice that he was followed by a little puppy. It scampered around sniffing the linoleum floor until it stopped and had a pee.

“Boy! Look what your pup has done!”, scolded mother. “We agreed you could have a pup if it stayed in the woodshed until it was trained. Look at that mess on my floor! It was scrubbed just this morning. You clean up that mess right now!”

The boy grabbed the first cloth he saw and moved toward the puddle.

“No! Wait!”, shouted his mother. “For heaven’s sake child, that’s a cup towel. Use the sink rag. Here! This is what you use to clean messes.  Cup towels dry our dishes. You don’t want dirt off the floor in your food, do you?”

“It’s not such a big deal Mom.  When the crew ate lunch while the firewood was being cut, one of them said that our house was so clean you could eat off the floor.”

“Well, that’s just the silly sort of thing men say when they want to butter you up. He probably wanted another slice of pie. No one eats off floors. Now take that rag and rinse it under the tap and wring it out. Keep wringing until it doesn’t drip and then put it in the trash. I’ll put out another.”

Grandma also lived in the farmhouse. She had her own rocker in the living room, but often she went upstairs to her room away from all the noise. The boy could visit her so long as he knocked first. Christmas was coming, and so if he knocked, he heard her moving things before she said, “come in”.  He knew she was knitting Christmas gifts that she had just then tucked under her bedding.

But on this evening, he did not go to Grandma’s room. He heard her come down the stairs and go to the kitchen.  He peeped in quietly as she went to the trash bin, dug out the sink rag he had thrown away, and took it to the sink and washed it in soapy water. She washed and wrung it dry several times, folded it over her wrist and went back upstairs.

The next day the boy told his mother about the strange thing he had seen Grandma do.

“Your Grandma doesn’t like to throw things out”, his mother said. “When people get older, they get set in their ways. They do things the way they were always done, and they don’t like to change. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“But if we want a dish cloth”, said the boy, “we could get one at the store. It makes no sense.”

“Well, when Grandma was young times were hard and they never wasted anything, especially cloth. You have heard her say ‘waste not, want not’. Your Grandma sewed dresses from flour sacks, and she made rugs and quilts from cloth rags. That was what people had to do in those days.”

The boy thought about this and then his mother went on. “It’s best not to mention this to her. It would only upset her. Best just to forget about it.”

“She got upset the other day.”

“Oh? How was that?”

“She was going around looking for her glasses. I told her they were on top of her head and the girls laughed.”

“I will speak to your sisters. They are old enough to know better. They shouldn’t laugh at Grandma. Old folks get a bit forgetful.”

“But sometimes it is funny.”

“Well then you just smile to yourself. You don’t laugh out loud. Now, you go on out and play with Rex and then bring in some more firewood. I’m baking all day today.”

And so, he never mentioned what he had seen Grandma do, not even to his sisters. and it was forgotten in the excitement of the season. Christmas morning finally came, and they had gathered round the tree to open their presents. He was admiring his skates when his oldest sister said, “Where did that new decoration come from? I don’t remember hanging that one.” She pointed midway up the tree to where a tinselled ornament glittered. It was a star framed with pieces of garden cane tightly bound at its tips with yarn. Each edge of the star had been carefully wound with tinsel and a piece of cloth stretched from tip to tips like a spider’s web.

“Grandma! You made this star didn’t you!” she said, “It’s so beautiful!”

The boy stood up to look more closely and saw that in the center of the star there was a small, faded rose that had been outlined by a tiny golden thread. “Grandma! “, he shouted. That’s that old sink rag! You made it into a star!”.

“You probably thought I was a bit daft the night you watched me take it out of the bin”, said Grandma. “Oh yes, I saw you, but I never let on because I wanted it to be a Christmas surprise.”

“Grandma”, said the boy, “you rescued the sink rag.”

 “It’s not a sink rag anymore”, said grandma. “It’s just the memory of a sink rag. A memory of a something that is gone, a day that is past.”

“I’m sad that it’s gone,” said the boy.

” But memories do not have to be sad “, Grandma replied. “Think about your pup, Rex. He will grow up with you, but dogs don’t live as long as we do. So someday he will be gone, and you will miss him and feel sad. But at Christmas time, when you put a star on the tree, you will remember Rex and the day you tried to clean up his mess with a cup towel. That will make you smile.”

When it came time for Christmas hugs all ‘round, he did not hug Grandma with a quick loose hug like children give to be polite. He hugged her very tightly.