“Good reason to get movin’ ’round,” he called after her.
Her cuts and blisters looked and felt worse and when she came back out she
showed him her hands.
“They bad all right. ’Fore you light the fire, get some a that soot from the chimney ’n rub it in the ones what bleedin’. Ain’t nothing else for ’em.” He held
his own hands out for inspection. “See mine? Like leather. But you gonna suffer
for a few days. Best get some rags to wrap ’round ’em.”
That was apparently all the sympathy she was going to get and she went in to
prepare herself for the day. When she returned, Mourning showed her a large
harp-shaped tool with a jagged blade.
“This here be your buck saw.” He walked away, motioning with his head for
her to follow him to a dead tree lying at the edge of the woods. He braced one
foot on it and held the saw, blade down. “You get over there and latch on to the
other handle. We gonna take off a nice log. That get the chill off you.”
She took hold of her end of the saw and tried her best to help him, wincing in
pain.
“No, not like that. You ain’t spose to push it,” he said. “All you can do to a
buck saw is pull. First I pull, then you pull. That why it got two handles. While I be pullin’, you don’t do nothing but hold it steady.”
After a few more false starts they got a rhythm going. Despite her pain, which
the wet rags she had wrapped around her hands only seemed to exacerbate, she
helped him saw off three logs.
“That’s enough for now,” she said and stood up straight. “My skin isn’t
leather yet.”
“Okay.” He picked up one of the logs and carried it to her chopping block.
“Now we go on to splittin’. You can use one of these, if it suit you.” He picked
up a sharp-edged triangular wedge of iron and held it out for her inspection.
“You gotta find the right place in the grain.” He pressed the sharp edge into the
wood and used the butt end of his axe to pound it in. “And then …” he picked up a five-pound hammer, “you give it a good old bang.”
Olivia admired his grace as he raised the hammer over his shoulder and
brought it down with a loud ring of metal on metal. The two halves of the log fell to the ground. He put one of the halves on the block and offered the wedge
and axe to Olivia. “Now you.”
She managed to pound the wedge into the log and then raised the sledge
hammer over her head and brought it down with all her might. She grazed the wedge and sent the log flying.
“You tryin’ to break my foot or cut it off?” Mourning yelped.
On her sixth try the wood split into two uneven pieces.
“Okay, that one way. Now have a go with a splitting maul.” He offered her a
tool that looked like a wedge-shaped hammer.
“No, thanks. We’ll leave that for the next lesson.” She shook her hands and winced.
“Well, okay. You done good for a first try,” Mourning said. “Real good.”
“I’m going to mix up griddle cakes and make coffee.”
“You know, ’fore too long one of us gonna have to shoot something or catch
