“I never knew that,” said Billy.
The boys laughed. It was Billy’s turn to learn something new. Then he grew suspicious again.
“But the bread and cookies were sealed up tight in wrappers,” he said.
“Paper won’t stop a nutcracker,” said Bob, laughing. “He gives it a few pecks and tears it to pieces.”
“Won’t you sample the remains?” said Joel, offering cookies.
“These are swell,” said Bob. “No wonder old Camp Robber enjoyed them.”
Before he left, the Forest Service man warned the boys about their campfire.
“You don’t need to tell us all that Smokey Bear stuff!” growled Billy. “We know all that. Our dads are loggers.”
“Well,” said Bob, “even loggers have to watch out. There’s one good rule. Be careful with matches, and make double sure you’ve put your campfire out. Douse it good!”
“As if we don’t know that!” muttered Billy.
After the man left, the boys sat a while by their campfire, talking. Once they saw a flash of white overhead as a flying squirrel sailed by. Night came, they doused their fire and crawled into their sleeping bags. They talked a while, watching the moonlight through the branches of the great fir trees, and then began to get sleepy.
Joel was happy. This was the life! Better than staying at home and sleeping indoors. All those jobs to do at home—slop the pigs, pick off potatoe bugs in the garden, chop firewood and bring it in. Up here on the mountain, nothing to do but enjoy life, watch the animals, eat when you feel like it and sleep when you get tired.
He loved all the woods animals—the chipmunks and squirrels, the porcupines, the rabbits, the skunks and the weasels, the deer, the beavers, the gophers and the raccoons … He even loved the bobcats, the bears, and the cougars, though he did not see them often. He began to doze … At home, just barking dogs and meowing cats, crowing banties and stupid cows and pokey old horses. No fun with them. He dozed again. There were crows and hawks and bluejays and owls …
Suddenly he raised up, wide awake. He heard a noise. Something was moving. Some kind of animal was walking around.
“Billy!” he whispered softly, poking him in the ribs.
Billy woke at once and said, “What is it?”
“I hear an animal walking in the grass.”
“Aw, gwan,” said Billy. “Go back to sleep.”
Joel lay down again. Again he heard the noise. Now it was close to his head. He reached for his flashlight and flashed it on the clump of grass beside him. Two big frogs jumped out.
Joel chuckled. Nothing but frogs! Good thing Billy was asleep again.
He tried to go to sleep, but couldn’t. The woods were full of night noises—chirps and rattlings and rustlings and bustlings. Were all the birds and animals up and wide awake? Did they never sleep? He heard some squeaks and squeals. What was that? Mice, gophers, chipmunks? Then suddenly a loud screech. He jumped nervously. A long too-whoo-oooo came at intervals. Oh, yes, that was an owl.
The owls were spooky things, they could see at night. They lived in holes in hollow trees. They slept in the daytime and flew around at night. There were all kinds—the great-horned owl, the little bitty pigmy owl, the barn owl, the cat-faced owl. Dad had shown him one once, that looked just like a cat. To Joel they were all screech owls, because they screeched so loudly. Too-whoo-oooo! Too-whoo-oooo! he heard it again. They preyed on little animals at night—mice and small rabbits, all kinds of birds, grouse and quail and even turkey. A loud shriek, then a whish and a bump!
That’s an owl and he’s caught his prey. Joel told himself. It was their way of life. They had to eat. They liked the night the way people liked daylight. Old Mother Nature had things worked out pretty well. She made the big woods to shelter and provide food for all the animals. Even the big animals, too—the bear, the deer, the cougar. The forest was their home. Here they found food and shelter and here they raised their young.
Joel had never thought much about these things before. He seemed to understand them better now. As he lay awake in the moonlight, he felt happier than he had been in a long time.
Another loud screech and a big bump. This time Joel wasn’t scared at all. He heard more chirpings and chatterings. What was going on? What did all the birds and squirrels and other animals do when no people were around? Play? Have fun? Throw pine cones at each other? Or just gather their food and eat?
Joel felt almost like a pine squirrel himself. The seeds in the cones of the sugar pine are good, he said to himself. They taste like nuts. It must be fun to be a squirrel … until a man comes with a gun.
He dozed and fell asleep.
For breakfast next morning, Joel fried the rest of the eggs and the last of the bacon. The boys finished the bread and cookies.
“I’m still hungry,” said Joel, after they ate.
“I’ll go out and shoot some game,” said Billy, “a squirrel or a rabbit, maybe. Or a bird of some kind.”
“How do I cook it?” asked Joel.
“Wait till I get it,” said Billy. “If it’s grouse, we’ll cut it up and put the pieces on a stick and brown ’em in the fire. Get a bed of coals ready.”
Joel stayed at camp and waited. After he washed out the frying pan, there was nothing to do. He heard a shot and soon Billy came back, emptyhanded.
“Get a squirrel?” he asked.
“No,” said Billy. “They’re not fit to eat anyhow.”
“I heard a shot,” said Joel. “Did you miss?”
“No, got a chipmunk,” said Billy.
“Oh, no!” cried Joel in dismay.
“Looky here!” Billy had three baby chipmunks inside his shirt. “They were in the hollow of a snag over there.”
“You shot the mother?” cried Joel.
“Sure,” said Billy. “She was scoldin’ me and runnin’ at me, as if she wanted to scratch my eyes out!”
“She wouldn’t hurt you, you know that,” said Joel. “She was just protecting her babies. Now they’ll die.”
“No they won’t,” said Billy. “Take ’em home with you.”
It was better than leaving them to die in the woods. Joel made a nest of leaves in the lunch box and put the chipmunks in. Since Billy brought no game, there was no cooking to be done. Joel brought out his emergency can of beans, pried the top off with his knife and the boys ate cold beans. Then they broke camp and started for home.
Along the way, they came to a huge Douglas fir tree. All the trees in the area were large, but this was the largest. The boys stood at the base and looked up. The trunk went up and up and at the top it was crowned with a circle of branches against the blue sky.
“Bet this is larger than that giant sugar pine on Jackson Creek,” said Billy, “and bigger even than that tallest cedar at Tiller.” He stretched his arms out wide. “It’s more’n six feet in diameter and over two hundred feet high. Bet there’s enough wood in this one tree to build three big houses!”
Joel agreed.
“How would you like to be a high-climber and top it?” Billy asked.
“Not me,” said Joel, “but I bet my dad could. Dad says it’s a challenge to put on his spurs and go climbin’ up, choppin’ off the side branches and flipping his rope. And after he has sawed off the top and watched it fall, he gets a free ride. The tree swings back and forth as much as fifteen feet!”
“But he don’t do that every day,” said Billy, “and not on big trees like this.”
“No,” said Joel. “The Forest Service is savin’ these giants. They never mark them for cutting. Dad goes to a new location where they need a spar-pole, and a spar-pole’s got to be plenty big to hold all those cables. My dad’s not afraid of anything. Most men don’t like to top a tree, but my dad does.”
“It tears a man up,” said Billy. “That’s why they don’t like to do it. They can get killed easy.”
“Most of the time Dad falls smaller trees,” said Joel. “Dad’s a faller and a bucker, a choker-setter, a powd
er-monkey, a hooker, a shovel-operator—and he’s good at all of them.”
Billy hiked on ahead, feeling jealous. His own dad was lazy and tried to get out of work when he could.
“Your dad’ll get his one of these days,” predicted Billy. “Every logger that ever lived has got most of his bones broken. He’ll get his!”
“What d’you mean?” asked Joel. “A logger don’t go till his time comes. Dad’s had plenty accidents. He’s had four concussions, three broken ribs, and five broken noses!”
Billy said nothing more and the boys walked on in silence.
How proud Joel was of Dad, and how lucky Dad was to spend his life out in the woods. Out in the open air, in the warm sun, using his muscles, his strong arms and legs, but his head, too! If you didn’t use your head in the woods, you’d get into trouble. What fun to climb a tree a hundred and fifty feet high and sway up there in the wind! Free and independent—nobody to boss him around. Afraid? Of course not. He was not afraid of the big trees, or the big logs or the big machines. Dad could do anything. He was calm as a toad, quick as a cat, fierce as a cougar, and strong as a horse.
Joel made up his mind. Some day he’d be a logger like Dad, in stagged pants, calk boots, and tin hat. He could hardly wait to grow up.
Chapter Five
THE PRIZE
“Jinx! Jinx!” called Joel. “What are you doing?”
Jinx was standing by her rooster pen. She had a black cloth over the top. The rooster was inside. Beside her on the ground were two old wastepaper baskets and a flowered lamp shade.
Joel came over to see. “What on earth …?”
Jinx threw a handful of grain into the pen, then grabbed the black cloth off the top.
“Now crow, Rusty! Crow!” she cried.
The rooster obliged. He crowed lustily, then ate the grain.
“I’m teaching him to crow,” said Jinx. “I’m going to enter him at the Rooster Crow Contest at Rogue River next week. Aunt Alice wrote about it and asked us to come and bring our roosters. If I can win First Prize, I’ll get one hundred and fifty dollars!”
“Wow!” said Joel.
“But he has to crow steadily for half an hour,” said Jinx.
She covered the pen again with the black cloth.
“Look what I brought,” said Joel. “Billy found ’em up on the mountain when we were camping.”
Jinx looked in the lunch box and saw the three baby chipmunks.
“Give ’em to me,” she said. “I’ll tame ’em.”
“Wait a minute,” said Joel. “Go get a small carton. Let’s make a nest for them.”
“I’ll name ’em,” said Jinx. “How about Chip, Chap, and Chum?”
“That’s fine,” said Joel.
They took stuffing out of an old mattress and lined the carton. Then Joel got his old coonskin cap and put it in one corner.
“I’ll put the tail up,” he said, “so they’ll think it’s their mother.”
Jinx fed the chipmunks soft oatmeal and milk-soaked bread. She put the box behind the stove, where it would be undisturbed. Mom said it was O.K.
The chipmunks grew fast. Soon they could eat other things—lettuce and carrots, peanuts and sunflower seed. They liked bread and would even nibble fruitcake. In a few days they climbed out of the box and had the run of the house.
Gypsy, the house-cat, was banished. She had to stay outside. The three dogs, as much at home inside as outside, paid no attention to the new pets.
One day, when Jinx was training her rooster, she saw Gypsy go by with something in her mouth.
“You villain, you!” she cried. “What have you got?”
It was not a mouse. It was Chip, one of the pet chipmunks. Jinx chased the house-cat away and took poor Chip inside. She put Vicks salve on the spot where the cat had bit it. She put Chip down.
“You can pick him up, Joel,” said Jinx. “He’s real tame. He won’t hurt you, honest.”
Joel picked the chipmunk up and it bit him. He dropped it quickly.
“Get me some iodine!” he yelled.
Mom swabbed the bite and put a Band-Aid on.
“He’s not tame,” said Joel to Jinx. “Chipmunks are wild. Let’s let ’em go back to the woods. You can’t tame them.”
“I bet I can,” said Jinx.
Mom didn’t like it much, the way the chipmunks had the run of the house. She never knew when or where one would pop out. Chip lived in the dish cupboard and whenever she reached for a dish, there he was. Chap liked the cushions on the davenport, so people often sat on him. But the littlest one, Chum, lived in the pocket of Big Joe’s old overalls, hanging on a nail. Chum chewed a hole in the pocket, from which he could look out and see what was going on.
One day at noon, Mom got all dressed up in her best clothes. Dot Kramer came in her car and they drove off. They did not say where they were going.
Joel stretched out on the new davenport. The three dogs jumped up to keep him company. A tussle began. The dogs barked, Joel poked and pounded them, pushing them off, but they just jumped back up again.
“Oh, Joel!” cried Sandy. “On our new davenport! Those dogs are full of loose hairs and they’ve been in the creek, their paws are muddy!”
Sandy had washed her hair and was putting it up in rollers.
All of a sudden, Dad walked in. It was early afternoon and nobody was expecting him. His face was unshaven and dirty, his overalls were sticky with pitch. He stomped his calk boots as he went to the washbasin in the corner of the kitchen. He set his lunch box down and threw his tin hat on the floor.
“What’s cookin’?” he asked.
“Nothin’,” said Joel. “Mom’s gone away.”
Big Joe sloshed water over his face and arms. He took off his shirt and washed his chest and back. He got out his razor and shaved. All this time he said nothing.
What was it? Something wrong? Why was Dad home so early?
Joel sat up on the davenport and tried to make the dogs behave. They thought it was just a game, so they kept on yapping and growling. They jumped up and licked Joel’s face.
Jinx ran tearing through the house, chasing one of the chipmunks. Sandy ran after her, screaming, “Mom said for me to wash your hair! You’d better come before I clobber you!”
Dad looked around. He was big all right, that’s why he was called Big Joe. Joel wondered if he’d ever grow as big as Dad, or as strong. Just look at those muscles and all that hair on his chest. No sissy could be a logger, he knew that.
“Where’s Mom?” asked Dad.
“I don’t know,” said Joel. “She went off somewhere with Dot Kramer in Dot’s car. She didn’t say where she was goin’.”
“Get off that davenport, you and those dirty dogs!” shouted Dad.
Joel jumped as if he’d been shot. He grabbed the dogs by their collars and tried to pull them off. They liked the davenport as much as he did. They refused to budge. He had to pummel them to get off, and drag them out the door by sheer force.
“Jinx! Sandy!” called Dad.
The girls came running.
“Get to work here! Clean up this pigpen! Look at all the rubbish!”
He pointed to the corners of the room, where all sorts of things were lying—old cans and bottles, dirty clothing and shoes, tools and wastepaper, magazines, candy wrappers, and empty cartons.
“Get a broom! Get a scrubbing mop! Clean this place up.”
He pointed to the davenport and the two big arm chairs.
“A month ago they were NEW!” shouted Dad. “Two payments made on them and they’re shot already.”
Jinx and Sandy, shamefaced, set to work.
Dad cleared old shoes, newspapers, and apple parings off one of the big armchairs and sat down in it with a thump. He turned the TV on and a terrifying noise filled the room. Joel came back inside. He helped to clean up the rubbish.
“Where does this go?” he asked, holding up one object after the other.
Sandy told him where to put things
.
Jinx came over and whispered to Joel: “I bet Dad’s been fired. That’s why he’s so mad.”
“No,” whispered Joel. “He’s too good a worker. The boss wouldn’t fire him. He’s mad because he’s hungry and Mom’s not here and dinner’s not ready.”
Big Joe heard the children whispering.
“Get to work there! I’m fed up with the lot of you!”
He shouted above the TV din, loud enough so the children could not fail to hear.
In no time at all, the house looked better. Joel and Jinx slipped outside, and Sandy soon followed.
“He fell asleep in his chair,” said Sandy. “He’s just tired, that’s all.”
They stayed outside until after Mom came back. She was dressed in her newest nylon jersey dress and had her shiniest earrings on. Her spike heels clicked up the back steps as she went in at the door. She did not say where she had been or what she had been doing.
The children let Mom go in alone. They gave her no warning. Then they waited. They expected to hear some kind of explosion, but none came. They heard voices and a little later, they smelled food cooking. Some time later, Mom called them in to supper. She had fried chicken to eat and it was good.
“You got home early, Joe?” asked Mom, sweetly.
“Yes,” said Dad. “Ordered off work. Humidity down to twenty today. There’s sure to be a forest fire if this keeps up.”
No wonder Dad was worried.
The Rooster Crow Contest was held the week before the Fourth of July. It was an all-day affair. It began at ten in the morning with a parade, and the contest was held at three in the afternoon.
On the way over Sandy rode in the front seat of the old Ford with Mom, while Jinx and Joel rode in the back, with Rusty in his cage between them. Joel did not want to go at all—he just went along to help Jinx. It took about an hour to get to Rogue River, and they were late in getting started. Rusty crowed lustily all the way, so Jinx was happy. All her training had not been for nothing.
When they got there, the town was crowded with people. The parade had started, so Mom found a parking place and they hurried over. All but Jinx who refused to leave Rusty.