"I say, Will, did you
ever attend a logging-bee?"
"No; I never saw
anything of the kind."
"Well, I never saw
one, either. But I have heard mother say that grandfather used to
come home from logging-bees with an awful black shirt, when she was
a girl. The coal-dust was something terrible, and to wash the
clothes that had been worn at one of those places was something that
tried the strength and patience of the women beyond anything."
This talk was between
James Ballpitcher and William Batter, as they were coming home from
a game of lacrosse, between a company of Indians and a club of
high-school boys, the Indians having come out a little ahead.
"Well," said James,
"my uncle, Peter Pinetop, is at our house on a visit. He lives in a
part of the country where logging-bees are a common thing. You come
across the fields to-night, and we will ask him to give us full
information about them."
"That would be a good
idea," said William. "We young Canadians are almost in danger of
losing sight of the customs and manners of our forefathers. Things
have so changed that we know but little, practically, of what the
pioneers of this country had to do, and how they did their work.
There are a number of things that we need to be posted upon, and I
am going to get all the information I can. And I know of no better
or safer way than to ask the old people to tell us."
"Yes," replied James;
"we must get the old folks to talk more on these subjects. They will
soon be gone, and when it is too late we will wish that we had
oftener got them to tell of the earlier times. I have heard some of
the old people speak of husking-bees, and spinning-bees, that used
to be common when they were young. These things are not heard of
now, you know. In fact, Will, I believe that many of us young people
in this country have a better knowledge of what the Spartans and old
Romans did in their day, than we have of what our ancestors did in
this land seventy-five or a hundred years ago. Will you come this
evening, and we will begin our efforts to get information on these
"Yes, James, I will
come, for I agree with you that we are not so well informed on
matters of everyday life among our ancestors in this country as we
ought to be. I could tell more about Rome, in the time of the
Caesars, than I can tell about my native country at the time that my
grandfather was a boy," answered William.
That evening, as the
family were comfortably sitting in the "living room" of James'
pleasant home, he said to his uncle Peter, "Will you tell us, uncle,
what a logging-bee is like? We have never seen such things, and we
would like to hear a little about them."
"Well," said the
uncle, "if you would come out where I live, in the latter end of
June or in the month of September, I could show you a logging-bee in
all its peculiar aspects. In fact, I could introduce you to one in a
way that you could not easily forget it. But I will try and describe
to you a large and lively logging-bee."
"First of all, I want
you to imagine a twelve-acre fallow, that was chopped in June of one
year, and burnt over in June or July of the next summer. All the
leaves were on the brush, and everything was as dry as tinder, so
that the ground and the logs and everything was burnt over as black
as a pot.
"The owner of that
fallow concluded to make a rousing bee to get the logs rolled into
heaps, so that he can burn them. The first thing to do is to select
a day. Then he goes around among his neighbors, asking everybody
that can handle a handspike to come and help him. Those who have
oxen are invited to bring them. When he has the promise of eight or
ten yokes of oxen, and sixty or seventy men, he begins to make his
preparations for the bee. His wife instructs him who to ask among
the women, to come and help her with the cooking. And sometimes a
`quilting-bee' will be attached to a logging-bee. In that case a
large number of women will be invited to come.
"Then handspikes must
be made. Or sometimes two or three men will club together and make a
lot of them and keep them over from one year to another. This saves
the trouble of making new ones every time they are needed. Next,
provision has to be made to furnish dinner and tea for all of these
men. This involves a good deal of cooking and baking beforehand, as
well as on the day of the bee.
"On the day
appointed, the men and teams begin to gather about eight o'clock in
the morning, and as they come they are shown the way to the fallow.
As soon as there are enough men to `man' a team, they start in at
one corner of the field, and, taking a strip about four rods in
width, they go to the other end. This is called a 'through.'
Sometimes these `throughs' are staked off so that every gang will do
an equal amount of work, then there is no chance for dodging, or `yankying,'
as it is sometimes called.
"Generally by ten
o'clock the men and teams are all at work. Four, and sometimes five
men, besides the driver, are following a team. And a busy scene
presents itself to the beholder, when the whole of the teams and men
are doing their best, as they always do, to get through before the
rest. And in this friendly contest a great deal depends on the skill
of the driver in planning the log-heaps and handling his team. A
wide-awake man, with a smart, wiry pair of cattle, and a good lot of
men, will get over a large piece of ground in a day."
"I should think the
coal-dust and ashes would make the men very thirsty," said Will
"To provide for this,
a man and a boy are appointed to carry water, and sometimes a
stronger liquid with it, so that the men do not suffer as much from
thirst as one would think.
"While the men are at
their work in the field, the women are equally busy at the house.
Two or three are peeling potatoes. A couple more are making a large
kettle full of pot-pie. Some others are preparing long tables and
putting the dishes on them. These dishes have been brought from
half-a-dozen or more of the neighboring houses. But luckily their
owners are there to take care of them, so that the mixing up of the
delf of half the families in the neighborhood causes no confusion or
entails no loss.
"When the hour for
dinner comes around, the busy log-rollers throw down their
handspikes and start for the house. The owners of the teams look
after them by feeding and watering them, so that they may be fit for
the afternoon's work.
"The men have been
long enough among the coal dust and ashes to get their clothes and
hands and faces pretty well besmutted by their work. They are rather
a dark-looking lot for white men. And if the women say anything to
them about their black faces, they are pretty certain to have their
own faces blackened by some of the men rubbing their hands over
them. Then for a few minutes it seems as though a general row
between the men and the women was imminent. But everything passes
off in good nature, and nothing takes place that is of a more
serious character than the washing of a few faces that had not been
in the fallow among the logs.
"To clean up sixty or
seventy smutty faces and twice as many smutty hands, is no trifling
matter. A good deal of water and no small amount of soap is required
to do it. And it is necessary to have a number of wash-dishes to
supply so many. Washtubs, pails, sugar kettles and sap-troughs are
called into requisition for this service sometimes.
"The tables are
usually spread in the yard. To seat so many men at once would be
entirely beyond the capacity of the houses found in the new country.
When the men get down to the table, the clatter of dishes, the
talking and laughing, and the women asking one and another to have
more bread, or meat, tea, or some other thing, keep things rather
lively for a while.
"There is always an
hour for `noon,' when the men are supposed to rest themselves. The
older ones do so; but for the younger ones, the noon-hour is
frequently the most tiresome hour of the day. Between running, and
jumping, and playing ball, the boys manage to keep on the move,
while they fancy themselves to be resting. But that is nothing
strange. People often work harder at play than they do at anything
"The afternoon is
spent as the forenoon was, and when supper time comes, the same
hands and faces have to be cleaned up again, and the clothes that
were black at noon are blacker from a longer contact with coal dust
"Thank you, uncle,
for your description of a logging bee. I think that I should like to
go to one if it were not for the dirt," said James.
"I could tell of a
great many logging-bees that I have attended; but the one I have
described is a fair sample of them all,' replied Mr. Pinetop.
you ever at a husking-bee when you were young," said Will Batter to
his maternal grandparent one evening, as the family were sitting
around the fire, and when James Ballpitcher had called to spend an
hour or two.
"Well, I should think
so," replied the old gentleman.
"I tell you, boys,
when I was of your age husking-bees were as common as ball-playing
is now, and if you will promise not to get mad about it, I will tell
you something more in regard to husking-bees and ball-playing."
"What is that?"
"Do you all promise?
I mean you youngsters," said the grandfather.
"Yes, yes, yes," rang
out until all the young folks had responded to the old man's
"Well," said he, "the
husking-bee was a useful institution. People helped their neighbor,
and by their co-operation did in two or three hours what would have
taken him days, and perhaps weeks, to do alone.
"And the husking-bee
was a pleasant institution. People, while they did the work, could
also be sociable. And the young people of the settlement came
together, and got better acquainted with each other, and, no doubt,
many a wedding was the result of going to the husking-bee.
"The husking-bee had
no demoralizing tendency. All present were invited, and those who
went felt that the persons that they would meet with were people of
respectability at least. You can't say so much in favor of the match
games, now becoming so common."
"Do you think that it
is wrong to play a game of ball? " inquired James Ballpitcher.
replied the old man; "but when men turn from the useful walks of
life, and become ball-players by profession, they lay themselves
liable to the charge of being useless members of society. Their
avocation adds nothing to the wealth of the community, and they
place themselves on the list with loafers and gamblers. But
ball-playing is not the only innocent amusement that has been
switched off on the down-grade track that leads to ruin. Sculling
boats, and driving horses, and other harmless and useful things have
been turned by bad men into the means of getting money without
giving any equivalent for it, which is simply gambling. But I am not
lecturing on gambling now, so we will drop that subject."
"How were those
husking-bees managed?" inquired a young lady present.
"The thing was simple
enough," replied the old gentleman. "We will suppose that a farmer
has four or five acres of corn to husk. He cuts it, and hauls it to
some convenient spot, and puts it into stooks. Then he goes, or
sends someone, through the neighborhood and invites all of the young
folks, and a good many of the older ones, to come on a certain
moonlight night, and help him husk his corn. When the time comes the
company seat themselves on the grass and in groups among the corn.
Then commences one of the most lively times to be seen in any
community. The rattling of the corn, the talking and laughing, and
sometimes the sinning, of the busy workers, altogether make up such
a jumble of the useful and joyful, and the playful and cheerful, and
the gleeful, as can be found only among a lot of industrious and
good-natured people, where everybody is trying to amuse and please
everybody. Jokes, and puns, and snatches of song, and gibes, and
repartees, and ears of corn, all seem to be flying about in such
sweet confusion that it is not much to be wondered at if now and
then a young man got so bewildered that he would kiss the wrong girl
when he found an ear of red corn."
"Excuse me, grandpa,"
said Will, "but I don't understand what kissing had to do with red
ears of corn, or what they had to do with kissing."
"There was a rule
among the young folks," said the old man, "that when an unmarried
man found an ear of red corn, he must kiss any unmarried woman that
happened to be sitting nearest to him, and if a young woman found
one, she must be kissed by her nearest unmarried neighbor."
"Well, I should not
think that was a very arbitrary rule," said James.
"The young people did
not seem to think that it was, or they would not have obeyed it so
strictly as they generally did. But sometimes there would be a
little backwardness, when the wrong young man, or some other
fellow's girl, happened to be the nearest neighbor. In such cases
the girl would object a little, but not enough to give much trouble
in carrying out the rule.
"After the work was
done outside, everybody went to the house, where there was a good
supper for all. After this had been disposed of the company enjoyed
themselves as only honest working-people can do, until they got
ready to go home. This was frequently at an early hour a.m."
"Thank you for what
you have said to us about the husking," said William; "I will know
after this what is meant when mention is made of this old-tine
"Grandma," said Miss
Rosebush, "were you ever at a spinning-bee?"
This question was put
to an old lady who had faced the storms of eighty winters, and
sweated under the suns of as many summers. The old woman was sitting
in a corner busily engaged knitting a pair of socks for one of her
"O, yes, I used to go
to spinning-bees when I was young like you, but that was more than
sixty years ago, you know;" and her eyes seemed to brighten as
memory called up from the graves of more than three score of years
some of the pictures of the past; and the face of the old pilgrim
for a moment appeared to look younger, as if touched by the same
sunbeams that of yore danced upon her girlish head.
"Yes, my dear, I
remember the spinning-bee. I went to one with your grandpa before we
were married, and I remember how carefully he helped me over the
mud-holes, for you know the best of our roads had mud-holes in those
days, and when we came to a creek that was not bridged over, he put
the bottom of his pantaloons into the tops of his long boots, and
picked me up and carried me right over as if I had been a child, and
me not less than a hundred and forty-five or fifty pounds. The fact
is, our courtin' began in earnest at that spinning-bee."
"Well, grandma, how
did they get up a spinning-bee? Did every one take a wheel, or how?"
inquired Miss Rosebush.
"Well," said the old
woman, "I will tell you how it was done in the part of the country
that we lived in. When a woman had flax to spin, and could not do it
all her-self, she would make a bee. The way to do this was on this
wise: She would put the flax up in half-pound parcels. These she
handed round among her gentlemen friends. Whoever took one of these
parcels of flax was to get it spun, and at an appointed time he was
expected to bring the yarn home. He was to being the spinner with
him to an entertainment.
"When a married man
took flax he got his wife to spin it. Young men got their sisters to
do it sometimes. But they got some other girl to do it oftener, just
to show, you know, that they thought something of other folks'
sister, as well as of their own. Sometimes a young man had to hunt
all over the settlement to find a girl to spin his yarn. Then
everybody would laugh at him. Others could get half-a-dozen bundles
of flax spun, if they wanted to. The spinning-bee was a good way for
young men to find out how much they were thought of by the girls.
"There used to be
bashful young men when I was young. I don't know how true it is, but
I am told that there are no bashful young people now like there used
to be. The bashful young men would sometimes swap sisters in this
way: John would get his sister to spin for William, and William
would get his sister to spin for John. This plan worked very well."
"What would we think
now if a young man was to be seen going around with a bundle of flax
under his arm, hunting for someone to spin it?" inquired Miss
"As to that," replied
the old lady, "I suppose he would be called a clown, or something
worse. But if one of your modern dudes had tiptoed his way into a
company of people when I was young, the girls would have fed him on
sweetened bread and water, with a little paregoric in it; then they
would have parted his hair in the middle, and tied a ruffle around
his neck, and put him to bed, while they sent for his mother to come
and take him home." Here the old woman had come to a point where her
knitting must be narrowed two stitches at a time. They all knew that
then grandma did not want to be bothered, so the conversation