Caleb in the Country Part 9

"What are you going to do in the woods?" said Caleb.

"I am going to make a piece of fence."

"May I go with you?"

"I don't think you can help me much about the fence," said Raymond.

"I can pull bushes along," said Caleb.

Raymond made no reply, but began to drive the oxen towards a cart that was standing in a corner of the yard, and, after a few minutes, Caleb renewed his request.

"Raymond, I wish you would let me go with you."

"Well--it is just as your grandmother says," replied Raymond.

So Caleb ran to ask his grandmother; and she came to the window, and enquired of Raymond how long he expected to be gone. He said it would take him more than half a day to make the piece of fence, and he was going to take his dinner with him. This was an objection to Caleb's going; but yet his grandmother concluded on the whole to consent. So they put up some bread and b.u.t.ter, and some apples, with Raymond's dinner, for Caleb. These things were all put in paper parcels, and the parcels put into a bag, which was thrown into the bottom of the cart.

Then Caleb wanted to take his hatchet.

His grandmother thought it would not be safe.

"I'll be _very_ careful," said he: "and if I don't have my hatchet, how can I help to make the fence?"

Raymond smiled, and Madam Rachel seemed at a loss to know what to say.

"It won't do,--will it Raymond?" said she.

"He might cut himself," said Raymond.

"But there is a small key-hole saw in the barn, that I filed up the other day. Perhaps he might have that, to saw the bushes down with."

"Can you saw, Caleb?" said his grandmother.

"Not very well," said Caleb, looking somewhat disappointed; "the saw sticks so."

"I can set it pretty rank," said Raymond, speaking to Madam Rachel at the window, "and then, I think, he can make it run smooth."

Madam Rachel did not understand what Raymond meant by _setting it rank_, and so she said,

"How will that help it, Raymond?"

"Why, then it will cut a wide kerf," said Raymond, "and so the back will follow in easily."

She did not understand from this much better than she did before; but, as _she_ had great confidence in Raymond, she concluded to let him manage in his own way. She accordingly told him that he might fix the saw, and take Caleb with him.

So Raymond went out into the barn, and took down the saw from a nail.

The teeth looked bright and sharp.

"Why, Raymond, how sharp it looks. And the teeth are of different shape from what they were before."

"Yes," said Raymond, "I have made a cutting saw of it."

"A cutting saw?" said Caleb. "Can you _cut_ with a saw? I thought they always _sawed_ with a saw."

"I mean, cut across the grain," said Raymond, smiling. "When a saw is filed so as to saw _along_ the board, then it is called a _splitting_ saw; but when it is to saw _across_ the board, then I call it a _cutting_ saw."

Caleb looked carefully at the teeth, so as to see how the teeth of a cutting saw were shaped. And while he looked on, he observed that Raymond had a little instrument in his hand, and he took hold of the first tooth of the saw with it, and bent it over a little to one side, and then he took hold of the next one, and bent it over to the other side; and so he went on, bending them alternately to the right and left, until he pa.s.sed along from one end of the saw to the other.

"There," said he, "that is set pretty rank."

"What do you mean by that?" said Caleb, as he followed Raymond out of the barn.

"Why, the teeth are set off, a good way, each side, and it will cut a good wide kerf; and so your saw will run easy."

By this time they had reached the cart. Raymond took hold of Caleb under the arms, and jumped him up into the cart behind, and then handed him his saw. Then he put in an axe and an iron bar for himself, and one or two spare chains; and then he went to open the great gate. Just at this moment, Mary Anna appeared at the window, and said,

"Caleb, are you going into the woods?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Then, if you see any good, smooth birch bark, won't you bring me home some!"

"I will," said Caleb; and then Raymond opened the gate, and started the oxen on. Caleb stood up in front, holding on by a stake, and wondering all the while what Raymond could mean by a _kerf_.

One would think that he might have known by the connection in which Raymond used it,--for he said that he had bent the teeth out so as to make the saw cut a good wide _kerf_, and so he might have supposed that the kerf was the cut in the wood which a saw makes in going in. The reason why boys find it so difficult to saw, is because the teeth do not generally spread very much, and so the kerf is narrow. Still, the back of the saw would run in it well enough, without sticking, if they were to saw perfectly straight. But they generally make the saw twist or wind a little, and then the back of the saw rubs upon one side or the other; and sticks. Now, Raymond's plan was to make the teeth set off, each side, so far as to make the kerf very wide, and then he thought that Caleb would be able to make it go, especially as the saw was very narrow.

Raymond got into the cart, and took his seat upon a board which pa.s.sed across from side to side, and they rode along.

They reached, at length, a place where there was a small cart path leading off from the main road into the woods. Raymond turned off into this path; but it was so narrow that both he and Caleb had sometimes to lean away to one side or the other to avoid the bushes. At length he stopped and unfastened the oxen from the tongue. When all was right he started the oxen on before him, Caleb trotting on behind with his saw in his hand.

Presently they struck off from the cart path directly into the woods, and in a few minutes came to the place where the fence was to be made.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRE.

Raymond let the cattle browse about, while he went to work, cutting down some small, but yet pretty tall and bushy trees. He then brought up the team, and hooked a long chain into the ring which hung down from the middle of the yoke, upon the under side. The end of the chain trailed upon the ground, as the oxen came along, and Caleb was very much interested to see how they would trample along, any where, among the rocks, roots, mire, logs, bushes, stumps, and, in fact, over and through almost any thing, chewing their cud all the time, patient and unconcerned. When they were brought up near to one of the trees that had been cut down, Raymond would hook the chain around the b.u.t.t end of it, and then, at his command, they would drag it out of its place in the line of the fence. After looking on for some time, Caleb began to think that he would go to work; and he went to a little tree, with a stem about as big round as his arm, and began to saw away upon it. He found that the saw would run very well indeed; and in a short time, he got the tree off, and then undertook to drag it to the fence.

Raymond was always a very silent man; he seldom spoke, unless to answer a question; and while Caleb had been watching him, when he first began to work, instead of talking with Caleb, as Caleb would have desired, he was all the time singing,

"Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do."

The truth was, that Raymond had just begun to go to a singing school, and he was taking this opportunity to rise and fall the notes, as he called it. When Caleb asked him any question about his work, he would just answer it in a few words, and then, a minute after, begin again with his '_Do_, _Re_, _Mi_,' and all the rest.

Caleb became tired of this singing; and when, at length, his tree got wedged fast, so that he could not move it any farther, he sat down discouraged upon a log, and looked anxiously towards Raymond, as if he wished that he would come and help him.