Below is unprocessed text taken from a scan of our PDF document. It's messy;
we know. If you would like to help us clean up these transcripts, please email Devin Becker at dbecker@uidaho.eduCharles Jelleberg was a teamster and Carl Lancaster an all-around
logger for Potlatch Forests. Both were raised in the county and they are long-time friends. When they get together they swap stories about what they did and saw and found memorable, working in the woods. Much of what they say here has to do with horses and their treatment, and with various jobs, accidents, and relations between loggers. The conversation begins with Charles recalling the family homesteading at Park.SAM SCHRAGER: I'd like to have you to tell me what you can remember to preserve
about the early days.CHARLES JELLEBERG: (Pulls out Bible;) This here has been a great help to me.
Itfs a good thing it was wrote there. See, I have no birth certificate. See, when I was born, they wasn't so particular about that thing. And I was talking with them down there in Lewiston, and they said, "Have you got a Bible?" And I said, "Yes." And they said, "Is there anything wrote in that?" And I said, "It's all wrote." That was how I got the dates on it...SAM: Well, beyond the the dates and all that, you know, about what you can
remember about, oh, your parents, and what it was like for them starting in here, and why they decided to come out from Moscow...CHARLES: well...I can kind of give you a hint. Ply dad and somebody else come
out from Moscow in the fall, and built the cabin, and moved the family in the next year. And that was when we were born, you see. I tell yuh, these old pioneers, you know, the same as any other country that was pioneered, they had a tough day of it. It wasn't smooth, you know. Of course they get a cabin built, and you had to clear so much land within certain length of time, I can't just explain. I think it was two acres here they had. I know there was a certain amount of ground you had to have. My gosh, I can't remember.SAM: Do you know what made your father decide to leave Moscow and come out here
and homestead?CHARLES: He was raised in the timber back in Norway, and when he seen a tree,
why, here's where I stay. And that country around Moscow at that time was taken. But, the Nez Perce Prairie over there at Craigmont was throwed open, and dad was there in time that he coulda homesteaded on that Nez Perce Prairie, which he was sorry ever after he hadn't done, see.SAM: Why? What was better about that than here?
CHARLES: You see that was...you could start right in plowing there, because
no timber. And out here by Troy, I've heard dad tell that. They hired some saddle horses in Moscow, him and two or three more, and they was rid ing through looking at the country, you know, and they camped at Spring Valley. On the seventh day of July there was half an inch of ice on the water, and they said, "No, no, no, we don't want this place."SAM: So they kept looking, and they found this place?
CHARLES: Yah. Yup. And one reason that made him take part of this place, is
'cause there rs two good springs here in the canyon. He seen that water, why, the rest is all rock down there.SAM: Were there people out here when he came out, already?
CHARLES: Oh, a couple of bachelors.
SAM: They were the -only people around Park at that time?
CHARLES: Yahl. So he was really one of the first settlers. He was among the
first. There was two bachelors in there ahead of him and Herly-old Nils Matson and a fellow by the name of Jurgenson. I can just barely remember them fellows. And most of these homesteaders in here-well, I said most, but a good 50 of them-were bachelors. I better be careful about that. I got in battle with that one.SAM: What were these two guys like? Do you remember anything about them?
CHARLES: No, I don't really. Because when I got big enough to pay any attention
or to listen, why, I was old enough to skidoo when they come. But I'll tell you. I know this much, and you do too: that it was altogether different from now. Now it's the almighty cash and expenses wherever you go. I can remember, as a kid, if you were sitting up there and had to have a little lift, you know, maybe for a day or two, doing something, you know, that had to be done-the whole neighborhood would be there.CARL LANCASTER: You bet.
CHARLES: And then nobody paid any attention. Maybe next time they'd come
and help me. And it was through that help one another that they got by at all. Now you go to one of these neighbors and want him to help you, he wants four or five dollars an hour. And I don't blame them personally because this is the system we got into.SAM: So it was really just' by helping each other that people would get by.
CHARLES: Yah, that was the only way they got by, you know, cause they never
had no money. And if they didn't, you go out around Moscow in the harvest there, and there were jobs in the mines up north here. And if they didn't make through to the north, then they had to go for a few rags to wear, and grub.SAM: Did your father used to have to work out in the early days, when you
were first out here?CHARLES: You bet.
SAM: Where did he go?
CHARLES: He worked in the mines, mostly. Up north.
SAM: So he wasn't home a lot of the time, I guess.
CHARLES: No, he couldn't be, you know. When he was home he had to clear land
or do something...And you know, them people enjoyed themselves. I can remember, you know, maybe on some Saturday night, the women would make a whole box of sandwiches and cake and coffee, and we'd go over to your house, unbeknown to you.CARL: You bet. Sure.
CHARLES: And play cards and dance, or whatever you wanted to,have a visit and
a social, you know. You can't do that now. You don't see it anymore. You know, we went down here after I got big enough to go.CARL: Oh I'd come up here to lots of dances myself, right up here in this,
right up here you know...CHARLES: In the school house.
CARL: Sure, you bet, after May and I was married, I been over here to several
dances.CHARLES: Yah. I used to go when I was just a kid, I was twelve or thirteen
years old, and I used to be the quadrille caller, call square dances. You probably remember that.CARL: No, I don't, I wasn't up here, around here then, Charlie.
CHARLES: Huh.
SAM: You was still around Harvard.
CARL: Yeh, I was around Harvard then.
SAM: Huh. What did you have to do to call quadrilles? Was that hard?
CHARLES: No it wasn't hard, you had to have a pretty good voice.
CARL: Yeh.
CHARLES: It wasn't anything hard. You know, there'd probably be a fiddle and at
least an organ and maybe two or three guitars agoin'. You had to have a pretty strong voice, you know, for it to carry, you know, in one of them big halls. Now over there at Cedar Creek, I said big hall, it was big for them days, you could dance three sets at a time.CARL: Oh you could, huh?
CHARLES: And believe me you know, you had to have a pretty good voice then.
CARL: Yeah, you bet.
CHARLES: And you had to be capable of talking fast.
CARL: Yup.
SAM: You know, I don't even know what a quadrille is. I mean, it
was before my time.CARL: Yeh, you bet.
CHARLES: Yahl.
SAM: What kind of a dance is it?
CARL: Haven't you watched them on television?
SAM: Oh, I don't know that I have.
CHARLES: No, they're lined up in a square.
CARL: Yup.
SAM: Oh I think, yeh...
CHARLES: And when they play, then you throw out the commands, to "Join your
hands and circle to the left!" and, "Break and swing your opposite partner!" and all that kind of stuff. You're kind of the chief commander.SAM: Uh-huh.
CARL: You bet.
SAM: Was that what kids would do for datin'? Go to dances?
CHARLES: You bet.
SAM: I mean is that...I'm trying to wonder what it was like for young couples,
or how the social life was.CARL: Well, they had waltzes and two-steps along with their square dances too,
you know, at that same time. See it wasn't all square dance, either. They had two-steps and waltzes.CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: Yah.
SAM: Everybody in the community would get together at a dance, like?
CHARLES: You know, I don't know, I believe people were happier then than they
are now.CARL: Yah.
CHARLES: There's too much of that almighty dollar now.
CARL: Um-hm.
CHARLES: Of course, I know it's a handy medium of exchange.
SAM: Yeh, but I've heard other people say the same thing.
CHARLES: Uhm-hm.
SAM: That some ways there was a lot more fun, and people did more together,
than they do now.CHARLES: And you know, I can remember, and you knew 'em, you know the old
folks, Rist.CARL: Oh yah.
CHARLES: Well, they didn't homestead in here, they bought in here.
CARL: Oh they bought, huh?
CHARLES: But they old, and had a little sickness, and one thing and another.
Oust to give you an example of what might happen to you. Charlie Enger come down here. He said, "You still got that big team?" We said, "Yeh, we got 'em." He said, "you know, them old folks, Rist, haven't got any wood." No, it was wintertime too. "Well," he said, "there's dry trees right below them." He says, "What do you say tommorrow we go get them wood." Well tomorrow when we got there, I'll betcha there was six or eight men there. And we all cut wood that day. They had more wood than any body else in the country. And you never thought nothin' about it. (No.) You know, if that had been nowadays, they'd have anyway charged them 25 dollars for going down with that team.CARL: Well, it hasn't been too many years ago that...you remember when Peter
Baumgarner, of course he got killed...you remember when he got hurt?CHARLES: Yeh.
CARL: And by golly, they said they was out of wood. So I had my four wheel
drive outfit, and Eddie McKinney had his four wheel drive outfit. And, oh, I don't know, there was Clay, and Charlie Stratton, and Eddie and Teddy and myself.CHARLES: It'd be a bunch of the older men.
CARL: Oh yah, you bet. Wow I'll tell you when we got them, got the first two
Scout loads of wood in there, by golly, Micky just, she just had two sticks These parentheses are used when the other man makes a short comment without interrupting the flow of speech. of wood, that's all she had in the yard. And that was for, I don't know whether she had an electric range or not. I know they had a wood heating stove. (Um-hm.) And, by golly, she just had two sticks of wood, it was just running that close.SAM: Can you tell me any more about how your parents made do when they were
first out here, so far as like getting through the winter and just...CHARLES: Well, they all worked together, I guess. They finally got hold of
a cow, and finally got hold of a pig, finally a few chickens, and a little piece of ground cleaned up they could raise a little feed on, you know. And of course most of that fell on the older kids and the mother. Dad'd be out working. Well not only dad, but the men of the house would generally be working. And of course that's the same story in any new country that was opened.SAM: When did it get so he could just stay here and work, and didn't have to
go up to the mines?CHARLES: Oh, it took quite awhile. In fact, too long. Cause, you know, in
Moscow was the closest trading place. Go to Moscow.SAM: You didn't consider Troy or Deary?
CHARLES: There wasn't any. There was no Helmer, no Troy.
CARL: Or Deary.
CHARLES: Or Deary, or Bovill either.
CARL: See, Deary originated I think along about 1906. (Yeh.) And I don't
know when Troy originated, I don't know. And Helmer, and Bovill, I think, was a little older town, wasn't it Charlie? Was Bovill a little...no, it couldn't have been much older. (No.) 'Cause the railroad never came in there until '06, see. That's what made these towns, is when WIM come through, see, that's what made them towns.CHARLES: There was no Troy and no Kendrick. You went to Moscow.
CARL: Yah. See, there was Moscow, and what we call Palouse City.
CHARLES: Yeh. You know, and the only transportation they had them days was
horses, you know. Usually take a little horse feed along and camp on the road. When,in the fall, they always made it a point in the fall to lay in a food supply of steak or groceries. They never bought flour in one of them little sacks.CARL: No, they bought it in hundred pounds...
CHARLES: No, they bought about twenty of them fifty...
CARL: Hundred pound sacks, or fifty pound sacks, anyway.
CHARLES: And rice and things like that, you know.
CARL: (Pause.) Well, where did you work for, who'd you work for first in the
woods? Who'd you work for?CHARLES: Henry Flasher.
CARL: Oh.
CHARLES: Did you know Henry?
CARL: Well, I worked for him, 1922. What camp was he running, when you was
14 years old? What camp was he running?CHARLES: Yah, I worked right in Camp 6 there at Helmer.
CARL: Oh, that's where you was at. (Yeh.) He was runnin1 that camp, huh?
CHARLES: Uhm. 16 years old. I tellya how I got in there. I went in there and
asked him, you know, for a job. He looked at me a little bit, and he said, "Yes." He says, "You can go on the bull gang." The bull gang is the ones that build the roads and do all that kind of work. And I was in the bull gang three, four days, and he come one day and he said, "Can you drive team?" I said, "I don't know." I said, "I've been around horses some, but I couldn't skid logs," I said, "because I've never done that." I said, "I've skidded a few wood logs." "Oh," he said, "we got a pretty gentle team here, and I'd like to have you bunch for the drays," he called it. That was to get the logs all up in one bunch where they could load them on a different rig, you kmow. Like he said, "I believe you could make out all right." "Well," I said, "okay." Great big fhuh, I had a heck of a time gettin1 harnesses on 'em. Big, you know, big horses. And I went out and, boy I was lucky, I got into a good crew, you know, the rest of them. They helped me a little, oh quite a bit, you know. If I done something wrong, they didn't howl about it, they just... (No, they helped you.) They'd explain about it, you see. (Yah, you bet.) But I was used to these old devils that if you didn't do anything just like...they howl, you see, I was scared of them. Got long fine.But only one time we come pretty near to getting into a row. I re
call that team, Bird and Mable. Fat, you know. And one of them, you know, she was kind of pokey, see, she wasn't holdin' up her end. And there was one thing that I was handy with, was the end of a line. I took the end of that line and I-I brought it up, and I took her in. Didn't intend to do it that way, but I done it so quick, see, not thinking. Here come Flasher. But she had a warp on her about that long, swelled up about that much, where that strap come down. He said, "What happened there?" "Well," I said, "she monkeyed around," I said, "she wouldn't listen, she wouldn't mind, and poke easy, and" I said, "I just woke her up a little bit." I figured now is when I get it in the neck. He said, "You know, it's all right, to wake 'em up',' he said,"but don't abuse them that way." (Carl chuckles.) (Softly.) "Don't abuse 'em that way..."CARL: Oh, he must be dead now.
CHARLES: Oh, he must be.
CARL: Yah. Because, you know, in 1922, when I went to work down there at
Camp 1 at Hatter Creek, he wasn't too young a man then.CHARLES: No, and in 1922, you know, he was foreman on this sleigh-haul up
here.CARL: Yah, and then that's what I say. Yah, that was the spring of '22,
and then he went right from there to Princeton, Camp 1. Yah.SAM: What kind of guy was he? I never heard about him before.
CARL: He wasn't too bad a man to work for.
CHARLES: He was good to work for.
CARL: You bet, he was good to work for.
CHARLES: You betcha.
CARL: Yah, you bet.
SAM: Any things about him that you can remember, what he was like? Stories
about i{aim?CHARLES: No, I can't really. If you done your work,(You bet) he might come
along and say good morning, and keep on agoin'. (You bet, um-hm.) I only seen that man once, and I worked for him quite a bit, when he really blowed up. And he had reasons to blow up. A saw gang. I guess I can say it here, there's no women around. But them sawyers told him to stick the crosscut saw up his ass. Boy, he whirled right now. He said, "Maybe you'd like to try shovin' it up there." He never even canned him.CARL: He didn't, huh.
CHARLES: They say Axel went through the country here awhile back.
CARL: I heard that.
CHARLES: Like to have seen the 51'...
CARL: Yeh, so would I.
CHARLES: There's one man I never will forget. I and him got into an argument
ouer that strip, you know, that logging. He said to me "You can make a man the maddest," he said, "of any man I ever seen." I said, "The only reason I'm not as mad as you are is that you're so darn much bigger. There's more of you to be mad." (Carl chuckles.) And you know, he jumped up and walked off.SAM: What was that arguement over?
CHARLES: A strip. Used to log, you know, we used to blaze out a certain amount
of timber or a certain locality, and we skidded it. (You skidded it.) Skidded the logs. We logged it, see. Call that strips.SAM: So what was the fight about?
CHARLES: His price on skiddin'. You see, you may have a good place to skid,
and I may have a bad one, and he was paying the same for all of them. See, there can be quite a variation there in the chance you've got. Like any thing else. Well, I took a little advantage of Axel. I guess I shouldn't have done it, but he'd make me mad. Axel'd have to have a damn good reason to've canned me. That was one thing, that old Nogle thought I was okay with them horses.CARL: You bet. You're dang right.
SAM: So you worked a team for quite awhile, huh?
CARL: Oh, purte...
CHARLES: Oh, yeh.
CARL: How many years did you drive team?
CHARLES: Oh I must have drove team there...Well, I worked for Axel Anderson
pretty near 20 years.CARL: Yeh, that's what I say, and you started in when you was 16.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: And then when you was up at Lewis' mill was you still driving' team up
there, Charlie?CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Still drivin' team there.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Well, when did you quit the woods? I mean, when did you come home to
stay?CHARLES: Oh, quit the woods there in the '30's.
CARL: In the '30's huh.
SAM: Well did you...Tell me about driving the teams, what that was like. Did
you have some teams that was a lot better than others?CARL: Oh yah, you bet.
CHARLES: Yah. Yah.
SAM: I would imagine that you would.
CHARLES: Yah. And it'd depend a lot on the knowhow of the teamster. You
know, some people...Well, they had no mercy. They'll go out and murder a team in a month. (You bet.) I drove the same team all summer. They'd lose a little weight, I'll say that, but I lost a little weight too. But that didn't hurt a man to lose a little weight, because they had all winter to get it back.CARL: Yup.
SAM: What would make a team a good team? Like, I've heard that a good teamster
can take a team and that doesn't seem to be very good, and the horses don't seem very well-matched, and can really make 'em perform.CHARLES: Un-hm.
CARL: You bet. It takes time and patience is all.
CHARLES: In the first place you got to like horses. (You bet.) And in the
second place, you want to steady the disposition of your horse. It's just like running a crew of men. (You bet.) They're good men, but you've got some in that crew that you got to handle just a little bit easier than this fellow over here. You can talk a little rough to him, and he'll just laugh at you. But don't do it to him, you know. There's a difference in dis14 position in horses, like there is in people. There's some people you gotta lead, and some you gotta drive, you know. And the same holds good with them horses. I seen good horses that absolutely refuse to pull. (Yah.) That I knew was pretty good a couple weeks ahead of that. (Yeh.)SAM: Huh!
CARL: Well, you must have drove team pretty dang close to forty years, didn't
you Charlie?CHARLES: Must've.
CARL: Yeh, pretty close to forty years.
CHARLES: Yah. Now I ain't got an animal of no kind.
CARL: No, that's right.
CHARLES: I got an old tomcat, but he's runnin' around the country all the time.
SAM: Well, what happened? Why wouldn't the team pull when it was pulling two
weeks before?CHARLES: Well, they just buggled them up and fooled 'em, that's all. And maybe
you have a little nervous disposition, and probably, you know, they'd give 'em lickin' or somethin',and jerk 'em and yank 'em around. You can make a horse mean, you know.SAM: Can you tell me about how you handled your teams?
CHARLES: Well, that's very hard to explain. (Yah, it is.) Yah. I never
overloaded them, and I never pulled them without wind. And lots of times I had hard pulls, for only move maybe that much at a time, for just a little ways, you see. But I took my time a-doin' it, I didn't get excited and hurry. And you can get them horses so they've got just as much confidence in you as you would have in a man. It's really a gift. (Break)CARL: I say, what did you do on the Park sleigh-haul?
CHARLES: I sawed.
CARL: Oh, you sawed.
CHARLES: And just about the the time it broke up there, I was going to
start driving tow team. Old Henry said to me, he says, "Come up day after tomorrow," he said, "and start driving tow team, on this hill right here." There was a hill by the camp. And by gosh the next day they shut down. Well, the road was bone, you know..CARL: See, I worked on the section there. See, I never went to the woods 'til
May o' 1922. That's when I come to the woods, was in May of '22. And that's just when Nogle took over. See, T. P. Oones had just left, and Nogle took over, you see. And see, I was on the section, I was on the section for two years, see. (Oh, you were?) Yah, on the Yale Hill, see. I worked on the Yale Hill for two years. Yah. I got four bits an hour working down there on the section. (Charlie chuckles.) Yah. And these fellahs here, they tellin' me the two-horse skinners got 32 cents an hour, and the four-horses got 37, huh? (This was it.) Yeh, and I was working on the section down there, I was getting four bits an hour like a dang nut.CHARLES: 37-J for four-horse teamsters.
CARL: Yeh, and I went to the woods department in '22. That was the biggest
mistake I ever made in my life. (Chuckles.) Yup.CHARLES: During the second World's War, do you remember when Lewis had that
sawmill up north of Bovill?CARL: Yah. You bet.
CHARLES: What was that meadow?
CARL: Feather Creek. Oh, you mean up there, you mean, ah...Well he was on
Feather Creek, and then he moved up there. (Yeh.) He was on Feather Creek, yah, and then he moved up on the East Fork,CHARLES: Mike Anderson, you know, his stroppers (?). (Yeh.) He come here with
that old Dodge, you know, and that Dodge was just a-jumping. "Say" he said, "throw a few rags in one packsack," he said. "We1 gotta have you on a turn down in the sawmill." And I said, "Yah." Oh we went up there, and we sawed till they changed saws, you know. "Changing saws,! I said, "what do you pay on that turn down?" "37-5- cents an hour." "Oh," I said, "go to hell." Turning down for 37 cents an hour. You know, I finally talked him up to 45.CARL: Oh, did 'ja?
CHARLES: Yeh. You see, when he had the sawmill in here, I turned for him three
different summers. You know, there's an knack to that.CARL: I'll bet they is.
CHARLES: You bet.
CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: I wished I'd never learnt the knack. That's what's the matter with
my back now.CARL: Yah, I'll bet it is. You bet.
SAM: How did it get hurt? What does it to it?
CHARLES: Turning them logs. You see, when the log goes on a carriage it goes
through the saw. They take off a slab. The next time they'll probably take off a board. Then they'll flip it (flips hand ) so that face is down, and they'll start outside again. It was my job to turn them. Instead of having mechanical turners, like everything is now, why, it was roundhead turners. And most generally, you know, they didn't want you to monkey either, doing it.CARL: Oh, you bet not.
CHARLES: Oh gosh, we averaged pretty near 39 thousand a day there in that match
stock. (Carl whistles.) 'Course it was big timber.CARL: Oh, yeh, you bet, big white pine.
CHARLES: Beautiful timber.
CARL: Yeh.
SAM: Before I forget about being a teamster, I wondered about if you had any
thing to do with choosing the horses that would be your horses?CARL: Um-hum. You going to Pullman?
SAM: No, I work for the County Museum, in Moscow...How would you decide what
was a good horse? Or what qualities would you look for in a horse, to be in your team?CHARLES: Huh. Well now, that's pretty hard to explain that. You pretty near
have to stand and look at a horse to try to figure out whether he's highlifed, or whether he's tricky or what, you know, and stubborn. There's certain marks on horses that, like people, you know, that give 'em away eventually.SAM: Like what?
CHARLES: Oh, you take one that's got little pin ears you know, and they stand
straight up. You want to look out for him, because he's stubborn. And just little things like that, you know. And you can tell, you know, if they're touchy. You get away from them where they couldn't hurt you, you know, and make an unusual noise or something and watch 'em. You can kinda figure out their disposition. (Pause.) You never drove team, did you?CARL: Oh yah, some.
CHARLES: I thought you did.
CARL: Yah, I drove team. Yah.
CHARLES: Say. Now, I wonder. (Walks to the door.)
CARL: Yeh, I fixed that little Fred Fuger one time. I don't suppose, you
didn't know him, did ya? (Laughs.) Charlie?CHARLES: What?
CARL: You knew that little Fred Fuger, didn't you?
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Did'ja ever work with him?
CHARLES: Oh, I worked with him. It was in the harvest field. He sewed sacks
then.SAM: What happened?
CARL: Well, I'll tell 'ya. We was up here at Camp 5, the camp was on the high
way going to Bovill. And the rig that I was on was laid off. And so Pierce, he was the walking boss, he says, "You go up there to Camp 5, and Radcliffe will give you a job." And he says, "You'll be right handy if I want ya, see." So I went up there, and so I pulled road for awhile. And so there was a teamster quit, and I know the reason why he quit. So by golly, Clyde... Did you ever know that team? They called 'em Dim and Star? (Um-hm.) Well, that's the team that I took, was Dim an'Star. And so anyway there was a fellow by the name of Pete Olson. He was the swamper. Like Charlie said, I was bunching. You see, Fuger was draying, and I was bunching for him. And then if Fuger'd see that the skidway was getting pretty well filled up, he'd call the swamper, and want him to go down and pull road. Well, that'd leave me up there alone. And so I...CARL: (Carl is describing the wheels on the log cart they were using) They're
wide wheels. They're made out of wood, and then they've got three iron bands around 'em, see. And so the skid was up about this high, see. So you're on bummers. But then, we was using drays, and the drays, they're only about that high off 'n the ground. Well, you know, I'd always pick my logs, and help Fred the best I could, you know. And so by golly, you know...And the skid, it was pretty steep too. And I always, I picked him pretty good bunkloads, you know, so he could get a good top load. And, by golly, you know, here I come down, and he never even left me as much as a bumper log. (No?) No, he never, left me as much...you know, a log out here, you see, the bumper log, you see, so I'd have something to roll against.Well, I'll tell you what he did. He took and rolled the whole darn
works on, pret' near all of them on, and then he put his wrapper, what we call a chain that went around 'er, and then he got up on top. And then he spread the wrapper, and then he put three logs in on top of the wrapper, see, and there he was. And ol' Frank and Kinch, they couldn't even get off the landing with it. So, by golly, he hollered, and I come down. And so I just took my line, and it had a swamp-hook in the end, see. So I just took and went back down the back end of the dray, you see, and hooked my swamp-hook into that, went up alongside of the dray, you see, with my team and got him out of there, and away he went.And so then I went up in the woods, and I took and lined me a great
big white pine butt out, the biggest one I could find. So I sat out there, you know. And so I took blocks and I eased the darn thing. I got right out on the pinnacle into that skid way, and I blocked her. I went back up in the woods and set down. And so, then I put two or three logs more behind it, and then I went up in the woods and sit down. And, you know, (chuckling) Fred, he tripped that big log, you know, and it went down there, here there went the bunk on his dray! So he had to go clear back to camp and get him a new dray. And the time he got back, I had lots of logs on the skidway (laughing). But say, he always left me a bumper log after that, I learned him something. You bet, I learned him something.CHARLES: Do you remember, I don't remember the year, up at Elk River, a big
Camp A? (Yeh.) Dust above camp, I had a big skidding strip there. Only lacked 12 thousand of a million. And I remember you were hooking on the marion.CARL: Yah. That was in '26.
CHARLES: In '26.
CARL: Yeh, and something went wrong with the marion, and you come over to me.
CHARLES: Um-hm. And I had a picture of you and me and the team, where you had
that skip up like that, to skip logs.CARL: Well that was either in '26, or it could have been in '28 too, Charlie.
It could've been in '28. Either '26 or '28, 'cause I was up there two different years. I was up there in '26 and I was up there in '28. Yup. I was up there either of two years. I could have been up there two. Either in '26 or '28.CHARLES: Um-hm. I come down off my hill sometimes with 28 logs.
CARL: You bet, you bet.
CHARLES: Cut me a record of them.
CARL: Yah, you bet.
CHARLES: Dust like that.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: Only 12 thousand, million and a half, during the summer. And somebody
said...I only lacked 12 thousand, you see, of having that much. Somebody said there in the crowd, "If I was that close I'd have sure hussled around and found them 12 thousand." I said, "It wouldn't have made any difference." I said, "A scaler would have stole it anyway," (Yah.) And by God, if old Nogle wasn't standing right there, and I didn't see him. He said, "I ought to know you'd have had an answer."CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: But you know, thats moving a lot of timber.
CARL: You bet. You're dang right.
CHARLES: Of course Willy was working part time on the back end there.
CARL: Yeah, um-hm. Well, you and Willy worked together pret' near all the
time didn't you?CHARLES: Pretty much.
CARL: Yeh.
CHARLES: Once in awhile we'd get busted up.
SAM: Willy who?
CARL: That's his brother.
CHARLES: Delleberg.
CARL: That's his brother.
SAM: Well, did you get paid by how much took out?
CHARLES: Yeh.
CARL: Yeh, by the thousand.
SAM: Was that the all you had to do, was drive a team? Did you have to get the
logs out...CHARLES: No, we had to swamp them, and build the roads...
SAM: You had to do all that stuff too.
CHARLES: Oh yah.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: You bet.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: All they done, and they didn't always do that, you'd have to put on
your own or they'd put them on for you—sawyers.CARL: Yah, you'd have the sawyers but then you'd have to...
CHARLES: They sawed the logs, and you done the rest of it. You delivered 'em
wherever they wanted them delivered.CARL: Yeh, you had to make your own landings, too.
CHARLES: Yeh, you built your own landings and your own...
CARL: Built your own landings.
CHARLES: ...Everything.
CARL: Yah, you bet...yup.
SAM: You just usually worked with just you and your brother? Dust two guys
doing the whole deal?CHARLES: Oh no, not always. Most of it was two men, yes.
CARL: You'd have a swamper, you see, with the teamster.
CHARLES: Once in awhile, if it was real tough goin', they'd have an extra man
in.SAM: Um-hm.
CHARLES: But it had to be tough goin' to get that extra man.
CARL: But now, down there in that yellow pine country, down there when I was
down there at Camp 1 in 1922, when I was driving team for Frank Dohnson, down there. They took the swampers away from them down there. They didn't even have swamper.(Uhm.) In that big yellow pine down there. (Um-hm.) Of course I was driving four up on a dray, and Frank, he was bunching., (Um-hm.) Frank, he was doin' the bunching. Say, there was a man that was wicked with a team. (Um-hm) You knew him too, didn't you? (Um-hm.) Big Frank Dohnson, you bet. (Um-hm.) You bet. Yah, he just kept a team on the go.CHARLES: I'll tell you, as well as I like horses, I was kind of glad he in one
way when they went out of style.CARL: You bet, because...
CHARLES: 'Cause some of them teamsters, well, they'd just crucify them.
CARL: Yeh. And I don't know why...Now you take Steve Plisko, I don't know
why Axel'd ever have him driving team. Do you?CHARLES: No, he couldn't.
CARL: Well, he drove though.
CHARLES: Yah, he drove.
CARL: Yah, but he couldn't. See, the last day they worked up there at Camp 6,
that time, when we had that cold winter. Of course I was down there for Charlie Clark. He got his leg broke up there at Camp 6 the last day they worked. (Um-hm.) Singletree broke and come back and got him. (Yah, yah.) I don't know whether you were was working them, or whether you were home.CHARLES: No, I wasn't working.
CARL: Yah, you see I was down there at Camp 30 for Charlie Clark, and Axel had
a job up here (Yah) at Camp 6. (Yap.) Yup. We went out to work one morning when it was 49 below zero, but we didn't stay out very long. Yup. I'll never forget that. I was down there, I had two cats down there for Charlie Clark, a Deering 40 and a 40 Caterpiller dozer. And so Dwayne Wilson was one cat driver, and Charlie Clark's son was the other one. And so here comes Charlie to the bunk house, says "You're gonna have to take that 40 out this morning. And I says, "What's the matter with Melvin?" "He's sick." "Oh," I says, "this is an awful good morning to be sick," I went out and looked at the thermometer hanging alongside up there on the cookhouse, and it was just clicking 49 below zero. And so I said to Charlie, I said, "Ain't use me taking that dozer out," I says, "I can't start it." He says, "You don't need1 to worry," he says, "it's been running all night." (Hm.) (Laughs) It was, too. But we went out and got one drag in. We come in and,shoot, horses was coming in too. That's when we shut down for awhile, 'til it warmed up.SAM: Did cold weather effect the horses very much?
CARL: Oh yah, their breathing, you know.
SAM: The colder it was the harder it was on them?
CARL: Yeh.
SAM: I heard that white horses weren't as good in the woods in the snow. Is
that true?CHARLES: Hn?
SAM: I heard that white horses weren't as good in the woods in the snow. Is
that true?CHARLES: Oh, I think somebody just made a history out of that.
CARL: You bet, because, that team that Charlie Hickman drove. I guess, I don't
know where they come from, but they hadn't even got fattened up yet from that Park sleigh-haul, and then Charlie had them down there at Camp 1. And I took 'em. Whitey and Sandy they called them. (Um-hm.) A sorrel and a white. I drove them on the lead down there, on that four up on the dray. (Um-hm.) By golly, that white one could hold his end up all right enough. You bet.SAM: Did you find that there was much difference in different kinds of horses
that you used? Different breeds?CHARLES: Well, I did, yes. Now, the different breeds of horses would have
different ailments. (Yup, uhm.) Now you take like the Percherons. The Percherons were good, nice, as a general rule, gentle horses, but their front feet would never last under them. Their front feet would go haywire on them. Wouldn't stand up. You take for a horse that was real tough, it shouldn't be a full blood of no kind. (No.) If you could crossbreed a Cayuse to get a big horse, you'd have the best horse. (Yeh, you bet.)SAM: Did you know what was the matter with their build that made the front
feet go bad?CHARLES: No, I never could figure it but. It was just the nature of that
breed of horses, but it was some way that they were set up.CARL: Yeh.
CHARLES: But them wasn't a more available horse than a Percheron.
CARL: Yeh, you bet.
CHARLES: You take the Belgians and the Shires—they were good horses.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: But the damn Shires, they were bull headed.
CARL: I know it. You bet.
CHARLES: Dust like a bull headed person.
CARL: Yeh, but when you got them dapjdy, you had a good team, then.
CHARLES: Yeh.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: (Chuckles) I got tickled by Mrs. Derry Smith. She said, "You know,
some of them Potlatch horses' legs were that big around." She measured off about 18 inches. (Carl chuckles.) "Oh," I said, "No no no no no no no." I tell you, if they had lots of long hair on them that stuck straight out, you know...CARL: Yeh, that was that Shire and the Clydesdale, you know.
CHARLES: She'd see 'em around the line up there. Say, her and her daughter
are in Dapan.CARL: Yeh, that's what they tell me, yeh.
SAM: Would you find any trouble with the different...
CHARLES: She'll be back in about two weeks, I guess. Oh, it's something
pertaining to the 4-H and the schools. Daps—they're sending some Daps over here, and we sent some people down there.SAM: Would you have much trouble with the different kinds of horses working
together, or did they work...Could you run four different kinds of horses on your four-horse team?CHARLES: Oh yah, you could get different horses, and put different breeds with
different breeds.CARL: Oh yeh.
CHARLES: They're just like two men. They're just like two men, you know.
They don't have to be full brothers or full cousins or anything, you know, to work together. And furthermore, you could split them up and work for somebody else.CHARLES: But he'd pull three to one of us. And you'd have to get around to
damn near many in a crowd, and they might just go plumb haywire. So if you're goin' in a pulling contest, you want to put that team in with all the horses you see in the country, to get 'em used to other horses.SAM: Does the team last alut longer for farm work than it would for logging?
CHARLES: Oh yah.
SAM: Dust isn't...
CHARLES: I seen a horse perform up at Elk River, tho. It wasn't funny while
it was going on, but it was funny after it was over. Did you know Charlie Wiledy?CARL: Nope, nope. Charlie Wiledy? Nope.
CHARLES: Well, they sent me and Charlie Wiledy out with the horses and three
or four men to swamp for us, to build some landings. And we took a water bucket along—you know, we had to have one of them big water buckets, Charlie Wiledy set the bucket upside down with the bottom in the air, you see, right in front of this team. And we went to work there, packing out brush and cleaning up rubbish and fixing up, you know. And all at once that horse went straight in the air, and we heard tin rattle. You know, he'd pawed (slaps table ) like that onto the bottom of that bucket, and his foot went through the bottom, and he had the bucket up there on his leg. But now you talk about a performance, you know that horse went plum crazy. It was funny after it was over with, but it wasn't funny while it was goin'SAM: Did your horse team ever get away from you? Did he ever run away?
CHARLES: No, no. He cut his hide a little bit on that sharp tin but, well,
we couldn't do nothin' about it.CARL: Not till you got him quieted down, and got that bucket off of him.
CHARLES: Yuh.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: Nobody seen him do it, but that's the only thing he could've done,
you know, (hits table) was pawed like that onto the bottom of that bucket. And stuck his foot right straight through. (Referring to picture he has taken down from the wall:) I'll get you to hang it up again too.CARL: All right. You bet.
SAM: It could ruin the horses.
CHARLES: I used to have it hanging here. You see how faded it is.
CARL: Yah, I see that.
CHARLES: The sun shinin' in through that window would hit it right square.
SAM: How would you take care of the horses when you were logging with them?
When would you feed and water 'em?CHARLES: Oh, they were fed and watered three times a day. They were in barn
at night you know, and there was a man picked out to stay in the barn with them. He fed them and looked after them on night shift. And on the day shift we packed a flake of hay and a little grain with us out in the woods, and fed them for dinner. Of course us men, the biggest percentage of us, ate out of lunch buckets. We all packed lunches. (Yah.) And that's the same way with the horses, they got fed their oats and hay. I'll tell you that's one thing about the Potlatch, I'll give them credit for that-that they took care of their horses. You didn't see no hayracks around there.CARL: No.
CHARLES: They fed and fed good.
CARL: Nogle was pretty darn particular about his horses.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: You bet.
SAM: I heard from one of Nogle's boys that he was a jockey before he came out
here. He'd actually been a jockey himself.CARL: (Unbelieving:,) Nogle?
SAM: Yeh.
CARL: He was too big a man for a jockey. Gosh. Why he was a man that weighed
a hundred and eighty pounds, wasn't he?CHARLES: Yes, that was what I was gonna say.
CARL: He'd weigh 180 pounds.
CHARLES: I was gonna say they'd have to have big horses.
CARL: Well, of course, like I say, I didn't know him til 22, but shoot. I
knew him for just exactly 20 years-from 1922 to 42. Yeh, he was 20 years. He was probably longer than T. P. Dones. I guess he's probably longer, the oldest superintendent. I mean he stayed on as superintendent longer then any other man they ever had.CHARLES: I got tickled one time in at Camp D at Elk River. They couldn't get
teemsters. So finally they wanted Willy to take a team, and they didn't give up 'til he did, you know. Oh, he was swampin1 for me, but I got another swamper, and Willie took the team. He was bunching to a chute, and that one son-of-a-gun was so balky, he wouldnt do nothin, you know. And, you know, Willy was a little hot tempered. And Willy, he got hold of a club there, a really good one. And boy, he took that horse right behind the ear with that club-he throwed his head over on the other horse, you know-and knocked him flat. And when the horse got up, why, there stood Nogle. And Nogle, he said,"I wouldn't do that." Well, Willy said, "What would you do with a son-of-a-bitch like that?" He said, "Kill him." (Carl chuckles.) So he wasn't unreasonable.CARL: No...Yup.
CHARLES: But that horse didn't last long in camp long. They took him out and
sold him for mink bait or somethin', I don't know whet they done with him.SAM: When you say that they took good care of the horses, Potlatch, do you mean
that they didn't work horses longer than they should have been worked, or...CHARLES: No, they didn't work 'em any harder, and they got everything that they
needed to eat.CARL: And then there was a veterinary come in, oh, when, they come in about
once a week, didn't they, Charlie?CHARLES: Once a week, once every two weeks, at least.
CARL: Then if they had a sick horse, he'd be right in there right now.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: If they had a sick horse, he'd be in there right now, you see. The
company hired their own veterinary. Hired their own vet.SAM: How long would a horse team be able to...How long would a horse be able
to work? How many seasons could a horse take?CHARLES: That depended on...That would be anywhere from one to five, six.
CARL: You bet. Um-hm.
SAM: Would they get better and better the longer they worked, as far as...
CHARLES: Well nooo, I wouldn't exactly say they'd get any better, unless
they were terrible young when they started them. (Yah, uhm.) Now if they'd start a three year old, he'd be a bigger and better horse at a four year old. (Yep.) But now if you started a four year old, he wouldn't be no better at six.CARL: No. Well what age did Nogle generally buy his horses? What age did he
generally buy 'em?CHARLES: He figured on around four.
CARL: He figured on around four.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Un-hm.
CHARLES: And if a horse looked darn good, he'i buy an eight, nine year old too.
CARL: He would, huh?
CHARLES: Yah. But they had to look pretty good then. He just pretty near had
to know em.CARL: Yup...Well, there was a blacksmith damn near ruined a team that Nogle
bought. By golly, but the blacksmith got canned. And I worked the horse, but he got a rope burn. (Um-hm.) God, that one leg, I'll bet you, was that big around. I was working in the wheel on that dray. You bet. Nogle hed just bought that team. (Um-hm.)SAM: What did the blacksmith do?
CARL: He shod the horses. Oh, he made tongs, he done all the work. He shod-he
made skidding tongs and dogs, and then, like I tell you, making up the skiddin' riggin', and all that stuff.SAM: But I mean, in this case, what did he do that was wrong?
CARL: Well, he roped his horse, see, and he let him rope burn, see.
SAM: Oh.
CARL: You bet. He roped him and let him rope...I imagine he tied his legs
back, see, and let him...CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: You bet. He was a big Russian.
CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: And...
CHARLES: I bet I knew him. When he walked, he was a little bit this way
(holds his shoulders at an angle).CARL: I never...yeh, he was...
CHARLES: One shoulder was dropped on him.
CARL: He was a big Russian. Surly sort of a guy.
CHARLES: Big husky man.
CARL: Yeah, you bet.
CHARLES: I tell you another fellow that...I had a horse they had to put in
the stocks to shoe, you know. (Um-hm.) Well, I seen Archie Little put him in the stocks, and then lick him after he put him in there. I told him, I said, "I'd lay off'n that." And you know how Archie was. (Yah.) He shot off his face. I said, "Shoot off your face all you want to. There'll be no more of that." Why, that was the most foolish thing in the world to do.CARL: You bet. I thought Archie knew better then that.
CHARLES: Yah. Put a horse into what they call the stocks.
CARL: Yeh. He got all four feet up...
CHARLES: He can't move.
CARL: Got all four feet off'n the floor.
CHARLES: You got all four feet off'n the floor, but he's hanging up. You got
riggin' there, you know. Hang him up. And he licked him after he had him hung up. That just scares him from getting hung up again.CARL: You betcha. You're darn right. I thought Archie was smarter than that.
Of course, I never did I never did see Archie shoe a team.CHARLES: No'.
CARL: I never did.
CHARLES: By golly, I don't know what nationality he was, but he was from the
European countries there someplace. My God, you know, he was that thick, right through here (circles his calf with his hands).CARL: Yeah, you bet.
CHARLES: And he was short, plump built man.
CARL: Y'bet, y'bet.
CHARLES: I seen him hold a leg up on that horse, and that horse walkin' on
the three legs.CARL: I'll be darned.
CHARLES: And he held that one up. And after the horse had stepped around a
few times, I guess he was surprised, he quit.CARL: Yah, you bet.
CHARLES: You see, you know he'd be just as good as a horse to skid with, that
fellow.CARL: Yup. You bet. Yeeh, you see, the first I knew Archie was in 1925, when
I come up there to Camp 6 to start hooking tongs. And then I knew him up 'til the time he died.CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: You bet...Yuh...
CHARLES: We were working at (chuckles) Camp C at Elk River. I pretty near
talked too much that time. The Olson girls were flunkyin'. Saturday night and everybody was goin' out. Some was goin' to dances and some was goin' to this and goin' to that. I had to stay and help take care of horses in the barn. So I went over to the cookhouse to get a cup of coffee. Billy Musch was cooking. And got a-talkin', you know. The girls, they said, "We'd a liked to went to that dance tonight, but we had no way to go." I says, "You didn't have any way to go?" "No." "Well," I said, "by golly if you want to go to that dance," I said, "I'll take you." "Have you got a car?" "No," I says, "but I've got the manure sled." (Both laugh.)CARL: Yeh, that fixed them, didn't it?
CHARLES: Christ, I had about 40 or 50 head of horses and a manure sled. Ought
to be able to go to a dance.CARL: Yeh.
CHARLES: By God them Olson girls were good flunkies, though.
CARL: Yah, you bet. (Pause.) Now in 1934, did you stay at Camp C, or did you
stay at Camp A?CHARLES: A.
CARL: You stayed at Camp A. You was up there for Clyde. (Um-hm.) You bet.
Well, it 's a good thing you wasn't down at Camp C, 'cause I'll tell you, Musch...That's the only time that I know that Billy Musch, that he didn't cook. He was gyppoin' the kitchen, you know, and by golly, I'll tell you... But every time we was loading at Camp A, you know, we wouldn't put up our lunches, you know, we'd come down to the cookhouse, and get our dinner up there at Shorty Dustice's, you know. (Oh. Yah.) You're dang right. You bet.CHARLES: Hm. Yeah. (Pause. Chuckles:) Oh we used to have some awful times
them days, too.CARL: You bet. (Pause.) You know, (chuckles) when I went there at camp there,
when I went up there in 1930, you know, I couldn't stay out of the hospital that year. (Oh.) Well, the first darn thing, you know...We went up there, andAwas pickin' up steel. And I and Benny Campbell were on the tie car. And he was kind of a harum-scarum sort of a guy. And they was one tie up on top that was crooked, and so I stuck my foot up here on this tie right here, so I reach up there with my pickeroon and be darned if he didn't come down through with a pickeroon—and right through there, and he nailed me cork shoe and all, right to that tie. Y' bet. Y' bet.SAM: Oh, man.
CARL: Yup, you betcha. So that put me on crutches. And then the next time
it was my own dang foolishness, when I got through and hit that deck of logs up there, at Wolheter's deck of logs. That was all foolishness. That was all my fault. (Um-hm.) You remember that, don't ya? (Yah.) You bet. You bet. Well you see, we was...The darned,we was using the marion, we wasn't using the track layer, and the darn steel would come back underneath the machine, see. Well, they was a chunk laying alongside of the track. And so I just jumped off 'n that, and I hooked that, and we rolled it back under the runners of the marion so the steel would bump again' that and then you could boom it, see. Then he'd kick her ahead. Well, everything went fine until we got ready to go home that night, and the darn thing stuck over about that far in the end of one deck, over the side of the and like a dang nut I didn't pick up the end of it, and throw it off'n the car. I and Gwyn Manard, we was settin' on the darn thing and that thing hit that deck of logs, see. (Um-hm.) Started the deck of logs to rollin', and Gwyn Manard, he went off on one side of the car and hit his head on a rock, threw me into that deck of logs and that deck of logs was rollin...And they was a white pine about so big around. That's the only thing that saved me from goin' back under the car. That thing rolled down on top of me and held me there. I wasn't no bones broke, but there wasn't a place on my body that wasn't black-and-blue. I was just, oh —the back of my head, it was all cut to pieces. Had it sewed up in seven different places, seven different places. And there wasn't a place that...Oh, I was just, just bruised up all over. (Um-hm.) You bet.SAM: Sounds like he was pretty lucky.
CARL: You bet. Well that's what I say, it's just...If I'd've threw that chunk
off like I shoulda done, you know, but I didn't. I never thought about the damn thing. Thats when you scared Wolhater damn near to death. (Um-hm.) Yeh, you told him, by God, that they we was goin' sue him, by gosh, for having them logs too close to the track. (Hmm.) (Laughs.) It was Wolheter's deck.CHARLES: I want to tell you, I had quite a few bumps in the woods myself.
CARL: Yeah. But I don't know, we just had an awful time.
CHARLES: Yeah.
CARL: Yah.
SAM: Is there any time you're thinking of in particular?
CHARLES: Hmm?
SAM: Any time you're thinking of in particular, that you got hurt?
CHARLES: Oh no, not exactly, you know. I got so many bumps. I think about th
scaredest I was, though, was when I was fastened up in the skidway. Two 12 foot logs were out, you know, about that far apart, just about an inch apart. And the next logs, two of 'etm was 16 feet, and it made them a gap about like that, see.SAM: A little more.
CHARLES: Yah, because they had to spread on these others. And of course I was
gyppoin', I was hurryin', I had no time to fool. I come around the log and I stepped right in between that, and head first I went right in the hole. And by God I couldn't get up. I laid there. And finally I got a-thinkin', that Lord God, ain't they gonna quitt working in the woods, so somebody'll come along. You know, that's the longest time I ever put in, was laying in that skidway. And finally an old nightwatch come a-pokin' along there. I hollered at him. He come over there and he said, "How in the Desus Christ did you get in there?" I said, "I flew." But he got a hook, you know, and got the logs pushed -apart, and got me out of there. And you know, I hurt all over. (Sure.) And I was skinned up and bloody, and black-andblue. (Yeh, you bet.) If them logs had ever started movin'...CARL: Oh gee, that've been too bad.
CHARLES: Oh, I would have been sausage. (You bet.) Of course in any line of
work, there's times when you have close calls.CARL: Yeh, you bet. Yap. Like that one up there when I was on the Elk River
road, up there on that cat landing, you know, when that whole damn deck of logs rolled down over the top of me, that time.CHARLES: Yuh.
CARL: You bet. Yeh. I told you about that when you was up there before.
SAM: Yeh.
CARL: Yeh.
SAM: But it's still quite a story.
CARL: Yah, you see...But the only thing, I think, that saved me...Here was a
big log, laying like that, see, dang big log. And so by golly when that darn thing broke I just dove right in there just as far as I could go,.and I was lucky. The logs had rolled, and not a one of them...Everything had stayed on top of that log, see. (Um-hm.) Everyone of them stayed on top of that log. And my brother, he was toploading. And I guess that he didn»t take a notion to jump 'til the darn logs...We had one chain on, and it broke the chain. (Um-hm.) And he didn't take a notion to jump 'til them darn logs started rolling out from underneath his feet, you know. And shoot. And they was just poked in around that marion. You couldn't even swing the marion. See, the hoister and my brother, they both jumped, see. (Um-hm.) And of course Ball shut it off, Wallace, he was hoisting. Of course he shut it off, you know, and then they both jumped. I don't know what become of Benny Campbell, I don't know where he went (laughing). And soooo, you know how it is, dusty around a darn, when you get an outfit like that. So I guess they was kind of standing around there, what the devil happened to me, and they was wondering what they was gonna do, I guess, to start with. And they didn't know where I was at. So finally, you know how them logs will gylpoke, you know. Finally I worked my way up through, and come out up on top of the deck, by gosh (chuckling).CHARLES: You know, another time. That tickled me though, because it didn't
hurt me too bad, but I bled pretty good. I was working for Baumgartners and Kirk. (Um-hm.) And they had them pigs' feet you know, and crotch lines. (Um-hm.) And you know, the end of the rope, oh, they generally have that much chain, see. (Yeah.) Or maybe that much. (Yup.) And Don and me, we was loadin'. And I went to get that hook out. I was hooking up in front where the bangboard was, you know, it was a little more unhandy to get the hook out. I made a couple of slaps at it, you know, to get it. And I finally gave it one hell of a jerk. And you know that chain broke. And it musta come back right straight like that, because it took me right straight up-and-down alongside the nose, (Carl whistles) and right acrost here. (Well, I'll be darned.) Cut me open up here and up here, broke my glasses and everything, you know. But what tickled me...It hurt so goddamn bad that I was half sick. But Donny Smith, you know, he was pretty young. I could see him. (Walks slowly around the room, thai peering steadily:) "He ain't dead, boys. You can tell that by the way he's bleeding." (Carl laughing.) Well you know, if I'd ve been dead, I believe I'd've got up and walked. (Carl laughing.) "He ain»t dead," he said, "you can tell by the way he»s bleeding." You know, up here, you know, where them veins all lay on the surface, you know, it don't take much of a cut for blood to come. And it did knock me enough to kind of half bewilder, too. (Yah.) But, when he said that, you know...CARL: (Chuckling:) He ain't dead, eh?
CARL: ...Had them four cats. That's when them old gas 60's was right brand
new, them Ford caterpillars. We was skidding in there. See, everything was 24 foot, everything was long logs, see. That's another thing that helped me too, was them long logs. (Um-hm. Um-hm.) You bet. If that'd been short logs, it'd have been a different story. Yuh. But you get them long logs gylpoked, then you had somethin'. It took us quite awhile to get that outfit squared around, by gosh, so we could work again.CHARLES: I never will forget Donny and that, though. He come so darn slow,
you know, careful. (Carl chuckles.) He looked at me. "He isn't dead, boys," he said, "you can tell by the way he's bleedin'."CARL: Yeh, there's one thing that I didn't like was them ropes. Them darn ropes
never did fit my hands.CHARLES: No, and them chains, you know, they'd wear to beat the devil. Get
caked up, (Yeh, you bet) and bent.CARL: Yeh, you see, in '39, you see, we took the afternoon crew. You see, in
'38 I was on the skidding rigger that year, on the gravity swing hauler that year, you know. There was only one camp working, you know, that Mason Meadows. But in '39 then, I was with Carlton Stockwell, and we went out at noon, and Morris went out in the morning. And that's the only time we ever worked on the crotch line. But I put in a summer at it. But them ropes never did fit my hands very good.CHARLES: No. (Pause.) Donny, they claim that Donny turned out to be one of
the best truck drivers in this country.CARL: You bet. Yah, you bet.
SAM: What do you think about the change from horse team logging to truck logging...?
CARL: And cats.
SAM: And cats. Do you think that it works better? Do you think that it works
better? Is it more economical to do it that way?CHARLES: I think so...You know even when Donny was a kid, we'd„baek him up to
that loading jammer once, and the next time he backed in there alone, he wouldn't be over an inch away from where he wants to...CARL: He wouldn't, uh?
CHARLES: Well he drove for Minkler there a long time, but him and Minkler
finally got into it.CARL: But I think you missed his question though there, Charlie. He asked you
and which was the most economical, either the horses the shays, or the cats and the trucks? 39CHARLES: Oh, I misunderstood you. (Yup.) It all depends on your chance. Now,
right now, you'd have to have the machinery. (Yup.) 'Course you can't get the other. But there was places, when they had 'em both, that they both had their advantages and disadvantages.CARL: But I will say one thing. You know, we loaded what we logged, all the
flat country with horses. (Yah.) All the flat country we logged with horses. Then, you see, when they changed, then they had to use dozers to cut roads, logged all the steep ground with the cats.CHARLES: That was just the opposite of what it should be, you know.
CARL: Yah, you bet.
CHARLES: 'Cause, you see, the machinery could pull on the flats, and the horses
on them steep hills could take quite a load, you know.CARL: Yah, y' bet.
CHARLES: But on some level ground, they couldn't.
CARL: bet. Now you take all that country out there north of Helmer. They
ain't a place there that you couldn't back a cat up to every damn log.CHARLES: Then you could pret' near back the truck up.
CARL: Well sure, that's what I say. You could back a truck up, see. And they
done all that with horses and shays, you see. (Yah, hah.) You bet. And it's the same way down there in that Hatter Creek country. You know, when I was driving four up on the dray, I was drayin' three miles. (Yah.) Y'bet. I was drayin' three miles. I don't know why they didn't run a railroad grade up there, but they didn't.CHARLES: And they'll do some of the darnedest things, (Yah.) just to experiment,
I guess. (Yah.) In here on Three Bea?, they had one of them little cats. Oh, it was about that long.CARL: Two tons.
CHARLES: Yeh, two tons, you know. And it was pretty level ground. You knew
Ernie Paul didn't you? (Yeh, you bet.) They said to Ernie Paul, "You got that heavy team, you'll have to bunch out drays for that little cat ." And the horse—he did, you know. He'd bunch out a bunch of logs figuring^ it was a load. Cat skinner, he'd hook that little cat on, and stand there, and botch and howl awhile, and then start cussin' that he was overloaded, that he was overloading him. Put on too much, he ought to know better, and shootin'off his face, y' know. Ernie Paul said, "Take that cat out of my way."CARL: Yah, he hooked on...
CHARLES: And he went and hooked his team on to that drag, and his team started
it. (Sure, you betcha. Sure.) Of course they were too light a cat for logging, you know. (Yah, you bet.) They're all right for cultivating the garden.CARL: Yah, you bet. But you see, that team weighed, that team weighed 4300.
CHARLES: Yah. 4310.
CARL: 4310. And the Claude Nyer browns, they weighed 4400. (Yah.) And they
said...Which one of them was the one that was mean, was it the grey or the black that was mean?CHARLES: Yah. They had a pair of light colored bays there in at Elk River, at
Charlie's Butte. And I come into camp and Axel Anderson said, "Yah, yus like, yus like," He said, "take out a team in the morning." So I figured, as late as I am gettin' here, all the teams are dished out. 1'11 get some crap, you know, because the best teams'll be gone. Boy, I got them gig ones, Desus, they looked big, y'know. I got out there on that steep ground like that (puts his hand almost straight up and down). Thinks I, "What in the name of God am I gonna do with them? I can't get them propelled up there." Say, you know, they were just like a pair of cayuses. Give 'em a little time, and they'd crawl up where any team could crawl. As a general rule a light horse'll climb a little better, see, a little easier.CARL: Yah, and you sure can hang lots of dogs on them heavy fellers too. (Yah.)
You bet. And then when you got up there you could start a pretty dang good drag.CHARLES: I've got bawled out by a lot of these cat divers, you know. They'd
kinda be a little chesty, you know, about their cats. I said, "You know, the biggest timber in the United States." I said, "was logged with horses and oxens." _0h, they'd give me the ha-ha, you know, and razz me. Every once in awhile I'd bring that out, they said, "Explain yourself!" I said, "The biggest timber in the United States," I says, "and almost the biggest timber in all the world, was right out there on the coast," And I said, "That redwood was logged with oxens and horses before you had cats." (You bet.)"Oh, well," they said, "they built roads for it." I said, "You built
a road here for the cat." (You bet.) Of course, you know, them logs on the coast, they never touched the ground. (No.) I had two uncles that worked out there, you know, and they had them chutes, you know, or skid roads, they called 'em. They were on wood all the time. And the logs will eventually wear a trench, you know, regardless of wood or anything. And every once in awhile slap a little oil or something in that, and ross the bark off'n the log you're pulling on. It makes an awful difference, 1'11 tell you. That bark, you know, that can bite and stick to beat the band. (Pause.) 'Course I'd exaggerate all I could too, you know, being I was makin' fun of 'em.CARL: I know down there at Camp 1. Billy Boll went out there and scaled it.
The sawyers shoulda cut it into 12 foot logs, they didn't. They cut it at 16. And that darn thing scaled 2400 feet. (Um-hm.) And so I just left it there. And so, by gosh, you know, one mornin' oh 1'11 tell ya it was just really a-pourin' down rain. So I went and got some other skinners, you know, they was wonderin' what the hell I was going to do. And so I got my big log that mornin'. I went up and put a crosshalter on the dray, and brought her to the landing. Then took my decking line and set a block out on the end of my skidway, and rolled the damn thing off'n the dray.CHARLES: By golly, you're talking about this skiddin'. I was just thinking
the other day. I got to thinking about Troy. And you know, there was quite a few of them Troy boys that was teamsters.CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: And by golly, there's very few of 'em left.
CARL: Well, Benson, he's in Lewiston ochards.
CHARLES: Yah, one of 'em. And you see, there's Elmer Dohnson, he's dead.
CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: There's SoderstroPi, He didn't drive very much, but he drove some.
He's dead.CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: And they put, lots of them fellers are gone.
CARL: Philip Asplund, he's still around yet.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Was he a very good team hand?
CHARLES: No.
CARL: I didn't think so.
CHARLES: Oh.
CARL: But he always drove team, though.
CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: Yah.
CHARLES: Oscar Asplund, he's dead.
CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: (Chuckles:) They nicknamed him U D L.
CARL: Yep.
CHARLES: He used to pack U D L whiskey to the boss, and try to get a better job.
CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: So the boys nicknamed him U D L.
SAM: Are there any horses that you had that really stand out in you mind, that
you remember? Any horses that you remember in particular, that you had on your teams? That really stood out, real special characters?CHARLES: Well, yes. I do remember a few. I remember that little bay team
down at Camp 6. And I was warned, too. But I was warned in a roundabout way. Axel Anderson was runnin' the camp. And he was always razzin' me about somethin' anyway, you know. He said, "Little bay team come down this morning. Oh-h-h, pretty little bays," he said. "Oh, they ain't so little either." No. And he said, "You'd better stay in this afternoon, and fit the harness on 'em." I said, "Fit the harness on 'em?" "Yaahl." I said, "Didn't they have harnesses on 'em when they come down?" "Nooo." "Oh," I said, "How come?" I said, "As much as I worked for the Potlatch, I never seen a team that went to camp without the harnesses on them." "Oh, I don't know, jus' happened that way, I guess." I said, "Thank you, for all the information." And he took off, and I took off for the barn. And I knew there was somethin' desperately wrong there. (Yup.)So I finally edged up to that one though. I kept a-pettin' him and
edged up to him. I got clear up to the manger. And boy, here he come with his mouth like that, and he was gonna bite me. And I ducked him. And up come a front foot and he was gonna strick me. And I said, Yah. I found out what's the matter with you^anyway." So I got some ropes, and I snugged him down, and I harnessed him. By God, I went over to that other one, and he just stood there all right 'til I put the collar on him. When I come to the harness he kicked, and he kicked me and the harness back on the water trough. He didn't hit me but he hit the harness, and I hung onto the harness, see. And so I got ahold of some more rope, and I got him tied up. Finally got him bridled and throwed the barn door open, and I went up and got 'em. And we come outa that barn (slaps table) door just like that. And I swung 'em right against the water trough, and that water trough was about that high. They jumped that water trough (chuckling), and drug me up over it, and I finally wound up in the blacksmith shop. The blacksmith, he was mad, and pret' near run over him, and all. And I said, "Shut up about the black smith shop," I said, "I couldn't help it. I had to put 'em someplace." So he kinda quieted down. He helped me then. We got 'em back into the barn, and tied 'em up. And he said, "I knew there musta been somethin' wrong with them, the way they come." He said, "They're like a pair of tigers." That night, you know, Axel never said a word, and I never did either. The next morning I said, "What do you want me to do?" I said, "Do you want me to work on them horses a little more?" "No, by yesus! You want to send them right back to Nogle." I don't know why Nogle sent 'em down! Dust for fun, I think, just for the hell of it. I think. (Carl chuckles.) By God but they were regular outlaws.CARL: How did you get in the next morning to untie the goddamn things to get
'em out of the barn?CHARLES: Oh. And they sold them to a mink farm down by Pullman. Well, you
know they'd killed somebody, them bastards. Of course Axel shouldn't^told me what he did, but he knew that I knew there was somethin' wrong.CARL: Sure. You bet.
SAM: Did you hear? He asked you how you got in the next morning to take care
of them. How you could even get close to 'em to get the harness off 'em?CHARLES: Yah. He wondered but he didn't ask too many questions, because he
figured he'd get sassy answers...CARL: What I was wondering was how you got the harness off from 'em. That's
what I was wondering.CHARLES: Oh, get it off from 'em?
CARL: Yah.
CHARLES: Oh, that worked pretty good. I put a rope on 'em.
CARL: Rope on 'em, uh?
CHARLES: And that one that rared up and struck at me, you know, I just tied
him right down to the manger. (Um-hm.) And that other one, the one that kicked, he was the worst one. I think he'd have done that for the heck of it.SAM: Are there any other horses that you remember as being real characters?
CHARLES: Well, as a general rule, there wasn't any bad horses. You'd find
one once in awhile, but as a general rule there wasn't.SAM: Was there any that were especially good?
CHARLES: Oh yes. (You bet.) You bet. There were a lot of them that were
really good ones. You see, old Nogle was superintendent, and he was nobody's fool around a horse. Now, he would just about figure a horse out. And then they had the veterinary, you see. They didn't have very many culls. 'Course, they'd have a couple hundred head sometimes, you know.CARL: Well, I'll tell ya, that was quite a sight up there at Bovill, by golly—
to see that whole bunch of horses turned out there on that big meadow, I'll tell ya,CHARLES: It was beautiful.
CARL: You bet. You dang right. You bet. Well, at one time they was five
camps runnin' north of Helmer. And they was 20 teams to the camp. (Um-hm.) Yeh, they always figured 20 teams to the camp, so there was 200 horses right there. (Um-hm.) You bet.CHARLES: Some of them old cranks that drove some of them horses, you know, they
acted like they owned them. Like they...(You bet.) Why, I got bawled out in Bovill there one morning. There was three or four of them old codgers sittin' in front of the hotel on the bench. And I come along. And they was just turning the horses out of the barn over there, you know. And geez it was pretty, you know, them big horses comin' out. Snow on the ground,and nice sunshiney day. And I said, "That's a bunch of pretty nice cayuses." "You call that cayuses? That's some of the best damned horses in this country!" And th«y started in, you know. (Carl chuckles.) And I said, "How do you know they're any good? You never tried them out." "Well," he said, "I guess I've tried them out as much as you have." I says, "Maybe a little more, but," I said, "you don't know no more about 'em." And finally old Oliver Christie, you remember him?CARL: No, I don't remember him.
CHARLES: He spoke up and he said, "You better be a little careful there. He
said, "You're talkin' to a Potlatch teamster." (Carl chuckles.) "Oh, do you drive team." I said, "Nooo." I said, "I just shake the lines and let 'em go."CARL: You bet.
SAM: I heard that horses a lot of times would just drive themselves if you
were a good enough teamster. You didn't even have to use the lines on them, a lot of the time. Is that true?CHARLES: Well, no, you can get horses so they'll walk alone. You don't have to
use lines on them all the time. You know, I swamped myself, you know. May be the swamper'd be sick, or be without a swamper, and do my own. I'd hang the lines up on the horses, and hook them on, and if I wanted them to pull ahead, I'd holler a little bit. And they'd take her ahead. When I hollered "Whoa!" stop. But, you know, you can teachfa horse to start or stop or anything else by anything. (You bet.) Why, my brother bought a team from an old Swede, a fellow my the name of Matson. Big mares. Well, the next morning we hooked them onto a bobsled, we had to try 'em out, you know. And I was gonna drive it. And I clucked and I done everything except to kiss their ass. And I couldn't get 'em started. My brother (chuckles), he stood there laughin'. He said, "Cluck at 'em, Cluck at 'em," he said, "like a chicken," I clucked at 'em, and they took right off, (Carl laughs.) Well, you know, he knew. He said, "That's the Swedes' trick," he said. (He clicks his tongue a number of times.) And wait for 'em to start, see. And he said, "There's probably nobody else ever drove that team but him. And when you make that kind of a noise," he said, "they start, "and when you don't make it, they won't start. Of course," he said,'that's what they're broke into."CARL: And that old Dohn Buckby, he drove a pair of sorrels. And the harder
he pulled back on the lines, the harder that team'd pull, wouldn't they, Charlie?CHARLES: Yup.
CARL: You bet. Yes sirs, he just braced his feet and pulled back. The harder
he pulled back on the lines, the harder that team would pull.CHARLES: Well, I'll tell ya. A team that'll pull on a stiff line is always the
best team.CARL: Um-hm.
CHARLES: Because that'll help 'em.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: If you got a good snag line on 'em, and they're laying right into it,
you're bracin' 'em, you're helpin' 'em, really.CARL: Yeh, he was quite an old teamster, wasn't he?
CHARLES: Yah. And then Hilton, Hilton and him.
CARL: Yeh, he's a swamper.
CHARLES: Yah. I seen Hilton take out a rifle. I want to tell this now, be
cause can't nobody do nothin' about it, anyway.CARL: No, they're both dead now.
CHARLES: And somebody said, "What're you gonna shoot?" "I'm gonna shoot that
damn bear," he said, "that's hangin' around there." "Yaahl." He went along a oh a couple, three weeks, maybe a month. I seen Hilton was cleaning the gun. I said, "It's about time for you to go out and shoot another deer, isn't it?" "Oh yes, yah," he said, "yah...Oh-oh-oh-oh, no-no," he said, it's bear that I shoot." (Carl laughs.) Hell, he was shootin' deer and taking 'em home...I seen the prettiest little fawn. He was in that wheat. And he just stuck about that much over the wheat. And the wheat was kind of a background for him. Goddam if he wasn't cute in it.CARL: Yah...Well Charlie, here, he helped take out the last horses that was on
this side.CHARLES: Yap.
CARL: What was they, seven teams?
CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: Yup. He helped take out the last horses that was on this side.
SAM: When was that?
CARL: Fall of '39.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Fall of '39.
SAM: Did you figure then that there wasn't going to be any more?
CHARLES: Oh yah.
CARL: Who was the other six that went out with ya?
CHARLES: Huh?
CARL: Who was the other six that went out with ya? The other six teamsters
that went out with ya? Helped ya take 'em out, went out with ya?CHARLES: By golly, I don't remember.
CARL: 'Course that's been quite awhile ago.
CHARLES: Yahl. The first horse I ever had was the buckskin cayuse. My
brother-in-law gave it to me. And boy, you talk about huntin' wild, now there was one. But you know, there was no cow around could outrun her. 'Course, I was only about 12, 13, 14 years old, I don't remember, I helped that Hickman and Kimberly. Hickman and Kimberly, they were cattlemen down at Juliaetta, further down there—Lapwai, (Yah.) And they come up in here, and they bought up cattle, you know. Maybe they'd buy three or four head off'n this fellow, and three or four from that one, and so on. And they bunched them in our field overnight. They were walkin' down. This's been years ago, you know. And they asked me if I'd follow them partway on the road, 'til they got them cattle roadwise. And I followed them to clear over on Cedar Creek. And there was a farmer's lane there. And he went in and asked the farmer if we could put the cattle in the lane. And the farmer said, "Yes." We put the cattle in the lane. And they had a store over there at that time. So he said, "Lets go in and get somethin' to eat." I said, "All you can get to eat in there," I said, "will be crackers and sardines and soda pop." "Well, that'll beat nothin'."So we went in there, you know, and finally somebody said, "There's a
couple of your cows going back." Out he went, and the saddle horse was standin' there, you know, and jumped on that saddle horse and he took after that cow. By God, the cow was gainin' on him. Well, I run to the buckskin. And old Kimberly was there, and he said, "There's no use for me to go," he said, nbecause this horse will outrun mine." "Well," I said, "it might outrun this one," I said, "but it'll run when it does it." And it took me about a mile to do it, but I overtook that cow and headed her, I was bringing her back, and her tonge was sticking out about that far.Old Hickman, he said to me he said, "Kid, I'll give you a hundred
dollars spot cash for that cayuse." 'Course I wouldn't took a thousand. I come home, I told dad about it and he said, "Sell her. Sell her," he said, 'and we'll pick up another one someplace." Uh-uh. We coulda sold her, you know, and probably got one for 50, 60 dollars. Dust as good. (Pause.) By golly, Derry, he's got a couple of pretty good saddle horses.CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: Them blacks.
CARL: Well, did Dwayne Thompson ever tell ya about the time that all them farmers
went in together, and drove them hogs, I don't know where they took...I think they took 'em to Grangeville, somewhere off'n the Salmon river.CHARLES: Urn.
CARL: Charlie Hickman, we was in that bunch.
CHARLES: Hah, he was,
CARL: Yah.
CHARLES: And that hum—Dorendorf, he was mixed in with them one time,
CARL: Yup, Um-hm.
SAM: What was that story? When was it?
CARL: Well, let's see. God, I gotta think back, Wayne was seven years old,
and he was 33 at the time. But I don't know when it was, I was with him. He went down and bought that seat guard that D-4 cat. And Hickman was down there, he was selling machinery for Denver's there in Duliaetta, (Um-hm.) And I listened to that, so...Well, I'll tell you what I think it was, I think it was the spring of '65.SAM: Oh, that was really recent.
CARL: Yah, But I mean, Dwayne was 33 years old, that time, and he was 7 years
old when they made the hog drive. So now you figure that out,SAM: So it would be, Well, it be about 40 more or less. It would be around
40.CARL: Yah. Well lets see. He was in '65, 'cause I know Dwayne. Dwayne said
that he was 33 years old. I got layed off in Oanuary, and that was in March of '65. And Dwayne was seven years old when they made the hog drive.CHARLES: My brother Willy, he had a Hamiitonian, a full-blood Hamirtonian saddle
horse. 'Course he was a mare. So dad, we decided to to take her and go get the cows one night. A cow took off out of the van, he wasn't gonna go. And he took out after her, you know. And the cow was runnin', you know, and the horse right after it? All at once the cow switched and went that way. Well, the horse switched and went that way too, but dad, he went that way. (His hands go in opposite directions. Carl laughs.) It didn't hurt him though. But of course, that tickled us kids, y' know.SAM: What did you use to get the team going right on the steep slopes? Did
you have those holdback deals to stop 'em from going too fast...CARL: Oh no.
SAM: ...or would they just go real slow on a real steep?
CHARLES: No. No. On them chutes, when it got slick in the fall...A chute was
made in the shape of a trough, like that, see. You used to drive a railroad spike about two-thirds in and bend them, so the heads would stick up like that. And them logs ridin' over that, them heads stickin' up would catch and tear in the wood, you know, that would slow 'em up and hold 'em. And then they had another rig—I don't know whether I can explain it or not. But anyway, it was fastened in three dogs that you fastened around to the log. And up here in the middle it had a hook come up like that, see. And then you had a piece of chain—I preferred one about so long—with a big ring, and then you hooked that big ring over this peg that stuck upon this rigging, see. And as long as you pulled straight ahead, you'd hook, see. But as soon as you pulled sideways, you'd unhook. And somethimes, you know, we'd have places fixed, You'dCome, you know, and maybe you'd be in a good stiff trot when you hit that place. Dust swing the team in, and that would swing around there and cut you loose from the logs, you see. They'd go on, and you and the team stay back. You call them D-grabs,CARL: Yup, You bet. Yep. Do you know where that schoolmarm's shack used to
be over there this side of Shove's mill, there?CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Well, you know that pinnacle up there? (Um-hm.) Well, Curly and I,
Curly Dailey and I, we logged that pinnacle,CHARLES: You did?
CARL: Y' bet. Yah. We used 27 dogs and a jay, (Huh.) Yah. We got two drags
a day. We'd go up in the morning, and then, by golly, we'd come down at noon and straighten out the skidway...CHARLES: Well, you know, where you use that many dogs, by golly, there's a
load going back up the hill.CARL: Well, we had 'em hung all over, we had 'em hung on the hanes and every
thing else...CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Well, I don't know what.,,
CHARLES: You know when it gets a-climbing like that,,.
CARL: You bet. And so by golly, Welch sent us up there. Phil Asplund went
up and looked at it. Pluckett went up and looked at it. And so, by golly, I'd been working on the marion there at Camp 10, you know. Well, Pierce brought me down there at Camp 1, he says. And he says, "When I need ya, I'll know where I can get ya." So, I was standing out on the sidewalk the next morning. And so here come Welch, he was the foreman. "Well," he says, "you can go with Curly this mornin'," he says. "He's already done been up and looked at it." I says, "All right." So we went up there. And so we worked for about two weeks. Well, here come Pierce one night with a speeder. And I went back to Camp 10. Somebody layed off up there, and I hooked tongs for a week or two, and then he brought me back down to Camp 1 again. And so I went in, I kept my same bunk. And so the next morning, I was standing out there on the sidewalk, and so I says, "Well, where am I goin' this mornin'?""Right back where you was." He said, "I sent two different swampers up
there with Curly, but," he said, "by golly," he said, "Curly wasn't gonna do nothin' 'til I went back," (Hm,) And I didn't. So I finished the job, and I'll have to tell ya. He had a black team. And so there's a fellow by the name of,,,Aw, he just died here not too long ago, living there with the schoolmarm. And by gollyCARL: Well, he cut a couple of wood logs. And Curly and I, we skidded 'em
over there at the shack for him. And so when we come to lay off for Christmas, by golly, he was over there with a quart. And so I started hanging the dogs on the hanes and getting ready to go to work. And well, or course, he had a fire goin'. And, by golly, we set there and nipped on that quart, and kept nippin' on that quart. And so, "Well," I says, "Curly, I think we'd better get up on the hill, if we're goin' do anything." And so you know, it was really laughable. That old black team knew him. (Slapping hand to his side and pursing lips:) "Git-up. Gid-up, gid-upi" You know, that team wouldn't tighten a tug. (No. No, of course not.) No sir, the team wouldn't even tighten a tug. He said, "Get up! Get up." So just what I did, I just took and unhooked the outfit, put him on one of them, and sent him to camp,. And I had my car up there, up there above Camp 10, and I come home. And that black team wouldn't even tighten the tug. That was really laughable, by gosh. Yep. So after Christmas we finished up the job. (Chuckles.)CHARLES: They had one up at Elk River, balky. And when he'd balk, he'd throw
himself. And we licked him and poured water in his ears and everything else. I said to the fella driving him, I said, "If I was driving that horse," I said, "I'd get a rope, and when he throwed himself, I'd hogtie him so he couldn't get up, and just let him lay there," "By God," he said, "It would work for you, but it wouldn't work for me," he said. "I ain't acquainted enough here. So we better not do that." And so he was driving the horse. I didn't want to have too much say-so about it, you know. And finally one day Axel said to me, he said, "What would you do with that horse? Some days he works, and some days he don't," he said, I said, "When he throws himself that way," I said, "I'd just hogtie him so he couldn't get up, and just walk off and leave him." I said, "I'd leave him all night if I had too." "By yesus," he said, "you know, we never thought of that." But they never done it. They finally took him out to Bovill, and got rid of him. Yah, he'd just flop over like that. (Pause.) I guess Otto Wogstrom, you knew him, didn't you?CARL: Oh, yah, you bet.
CHARLES: I suppose he's gone too.
CARL: Oh yah, um-hm. Yah, the last I saw of him, he was up at Camp 35.
CHARLES: He was.
CARL: Yen.
CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: Yep.
SAM: Were you working in the woods when the IWW's were going?
CHARLES: No, I wasn't in then. Industrial Workers.
CARL: Yah. You got tangled up with them the second time.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: In '26. But they didn't get nowhere.
CHARLES: No.
SAM: I never heard about '26.
CARL: I mean, that was in '36.
SAM: Oh, '36. I never even heard about that one. Except I heard there was
something out in the Elk River.CARL: Y' bet.
CHARLES: Y' know the CIO struck in here at the meadows. I was appointed delegate
that time.CARL: Oh yah, that was in '47.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Oh yah, sure.
CHARLES: I was appointed delegate. I went to Portland.
CARL: Yeh.
CHARLES: You know, we done pretty well down there. All in damned hell we
talked about was the women we'd screwed and the whiskey we drank. (Carl 1aughs.)SAM: That's what it was all about, huh?
CHARLES: That's what it was all about when we were delegates. I never seen
such a goddamn fake in my life,CARL: But that was a bonafide strike though. They had a...the CIO had a real
working agreement with the company. That was a bonafide strike. (Yah.) But, you see, in '36, you see the IWW's, they didn't have no working agreement or nothin'. (Oh.) See, the men, they just left on their own, see.SAM: What went on in that one in '36?
CHARLES: Huh?
SAM: What went on in that one in '36?
CARL: Well, the men just...The ones that packed the cards just quit, or else
tore 'em up, one or the other. (Yah.) I know a bunch of 'em tore up their cards. (Yah.) Stayed right there.CHARLES: Yah. Stayed right there.
CARL: You bet. Ernie Paul was one of 'em. He was barn boss there at Camp 32.
He tore up his card.CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: Oh Claude Nyer left. Silent Doe left. Oscar, that fella from Palouse,
Oscar—what was his name? You know who I mean. Cecil Miller left.CHARLES: They lost a lot of their good men.
CARL: Huh?
CHARLES: A lot of their good men left.
CARL: Oh yeah, you bet. All their good teamsters, a lot of them good teamsters
left.CHARLES: Um-hm.
SAM: Why did they leave?
CARL: Well, they was packin' cards, see, and they voted to strike, and the
rest of us didn't, see. So consequently we didn't strike. But they went anyway. See?CHARLES: Huh. Well, you know, there's a lot of times when I think labor's got
the dirty end of it. 'Course I thought so myself.CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: But, there's a lot of times, by God, I don't blame the company, either.
CARL: No. But that time, Charlie, we'd just got back to work.
CHARLES: Yeah.
CARL: Huh?
CHARLES: That's what I said. Now the fella was swamping for me, he was a
strong union man, you know. (Um-hm.) And I told him, I said, "What in the goddamned hell." I said, "Have you got any money in the treasury?" "No." (Yeh.) I said, "What are you going live on while we are striking?" (Yeh. You bet.) He said, "They'll have to feed us." I said, "They don't have to."CARL: They didn't, either.
CHARLES: He said, "I mean the government."
I said, "I don't give a damn who you mean." I said, "They don't have to feed us."CARL: They didn't feed me, anyway.
CHARLES: No. Unless..."Well," he said, "They could go on a soup line."
I said, "A man should be goddamn proud of himself," 'I said, "to drag a woman and a bunch of kids down on a soup line." (You bet, but...) And I told hire, I said, "This is the first time since the war that you could earn -a nickel." (You bet.) "And now," I said, "you want to spoil that." (You bet.) I said, "I believe in unionism, and I believe in a raan sticking up for his rights. But," I said, "'we should have a few dollars in our pockets when we do." (You bet.) Well, you know, inside of ten days, they'd have, the whole crew would've been broke.SAM: When was this strike? Which one was this, the '36 one?
CHARLES: '39.
SAM: '39. Huh.
CHARLES: Well, I made $90 there oretty easy. But, I'm not proud of it. I
just as soon it wouldn't a been that way, but I couldn't help it, so... (Yah.) You see. They tUDn around, you see. (Sure. You bet.) Yah. But, by God we finally got called back. And they called from Boll, some body. And they said, "Bring a swamper with ya." So I brought Willy with me, see. Well, you know, the other swamper that I had, had walked out, had 90 coming. I'll be goddamned if they didn't give that to me.CARL: They did, huh?
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Sure, that was a bonus, see?
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: But there in '36, though, back there. They'd just come in, and...Well,
the guy that was up there, that was there at 32, he couldn't even talk English. And he politely told us, if we didn't leave, they was gonna run us out, see. Well, that just wasn't done. (Um-hm.) But they was, they was a bunch of kids and brush oilers and stuff in there, that scared them out. And they did vote to strike, see. But then they went down to 31, and they never got nowhere at all with that. (Break.)CARL: Malker Anderson, he was running camp, and I had them two cats up there.
And so he says, "What will I do with that outfit?" And he says, "Well, we was going to shut down for the 4th of Duly anyway." So he says, "Well, just go up and pick up your riggin' and come down." And he says, "I'll let you know when we come back." And we was only off four or five days and they called us, and we went right back to 32 and went to work and as if nothin' had happened. (Um-hm.) But you see down in 31, they never even voted to strike down there. (Um-hm.) Yep.SAM: Was it still the same, some of the same guys that had been IWW's in
the 20's strike, that were still same guys in the 30's?CARL: No, I don't think so. No, these...no, no. Oh, they could have been
a few, I don't know.CHARLES: Oh, there was a few.
CARL: They probably could have been a few.
CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: They could have been a few.
SAM: Well, what was the feeling about that? I mean, did you have a lot of
respect for the IWW's in the 30's, or was there just the guys that were membersCARL: Well, you see, what had happened if they had of went out, it'd have
been a wildcat strike. Because you see, the IWW's didn't have no, they didn't have no working agreement, none whatever with the...CHARLES: No charter at all.
CARL: No charter or nothin', see. So what they wanted to do, they was just
goin' to come in and shut the company down, see. Well, they did, a lot of the camps shut down on the Headquarters' side. (Um-hm.) But you see, we was runnin' tiwo camps on this side, Camp 32 and Camp 31. (Um-hm.) You was down to Camp 31, (Um-hm.) I was at Camp 32, And shoot, we'd just got back to work...CHARLES: Over here on the Clearwater, you know, that got desperate.
CARL: Yah, it did. You bet.
CHARLES: A fella swamped for me a few days in here at 31. And he went to take
a crap out there in the brush. And I noticed, you know, when he took his pants off, that he had a wide bandage across the small of his back. But he swamped and worked all right. Never complained or nothin', you know. I thought there's something wrong with him, but you know, you kinda hate to ask a fella too, you know. But anyway we was eating our lunches, and laughin' and talking. He said—I said, i!What happened to your back?" Forgot myself and asked it, you know. "What happened to your back?" He said, "A bunch of the boys over on the Clearwater used a butt chain on me." A butt chain is a piece of chain about that long that's in the end of the tug. He said, "They used a butt chain on me." Goddamn it he was scarred up like he was run through a chop mill,CARL: Um-hm, Sure, you bet.
CHARLES: And what they beat him for, I didn't want to ask any more questions,
you know. I was kinda ashamed I'd asked that one. So I didn't ask him anything more about it. But he was a good swamper, good worker, nice fella. He did tell me little bit, though. He said, he had a woman and three kids to support.CARL: Well, I had a woman and one, I'll tell you that. But although they did...
They brought a deputy sheriff in, and this Hap Moody, he's retired now. He got to be sheriff, but he was deputy sheriff. And "they brought him in up above Camp 32, and 0 K Nelson was another. There was three of 'em that come up there and stayed all summer. You bet. So, we never was bothered. We drove back and forth in there. We never was bothered. We could see a few IWW's once in awhile, there was a few of them sticking around. We never was bothered. You bet,SAM: You know, Dick Benge and Hershiel Tribble both told me that, in the strike
after World War 1, the IWW's didn't mind if a guy wanted to work. If a guy said that he had his family to support, they respected him. That's what they said.CARL: Yah, but this is a different bunch this time that come in over there.
They was just really...SAM: It was pretty different, huh?
CARL: Yah, you bet. It was altogether different. They was just going to,
just shut the company down, that's it. That's what they wanted to do, you see.CHARLES: What used to stump me was some of them fellas that was striking.
Everything that the company done was dirty and wrong, but anything they done was all right. (You bet.) There was one there at Lewis' Mill, you know. And you know, we packed lunches. And they had coffee and sandwiches set out there, and you packed it in a bucket, you know. And boiling coffee in a bucket, 'Course, filling one of them thermos bottles, it's pretty easy to get 'em a little too full. Pour out a little bit on the floor. And I said to the cook, that Lillian Dohnson was cooking. Boy, there wasn't better grub in the state of Idaho then we had there. I said, "Why don't you set a pan out there," I said, "and have 'em pour that coffee in the pan instead of on the floor?""By golly," she said, "we never thought about that." So they set
out a pan there, you know. If you had too much coffee in your bottle, just dump out and leave it in the pan. They'd stand there and dump it alongside the pan on the floor. My God. Finally they had one of them meetings and they brought that up, and by God I come back about what they were doing in the cookhouse, too. I said, "Instead of appreciating that cookhouse, and appreciating the cook that's in there cooking..." I said, "I try to work with them," I said, "do anything to make it a little pleasenter for them." And I said, "You fellas," I said, "you must have been raised in a hogpen or somethin'." I said, "What in the hell's the matter with ya." Some of them said they was gonna lick me. "Well," I said, "that's all right too, but," I said, "you're still dumping your stuff on the floor when it's uncalled for." Well, you know that's uncalled for.Another thing that helped the flunkies out when they had a lot to do.
Your fork and your knife and your spoon, (raps table) leave 'em right here, all three' in the pile. I've seen 'em when they'd leave one there, and the other one over here, and the other one over here. Well, it takes twice the time for the flunky to gather it up. (You bet.) And the fella that ate there, it would only take him a few seconds to lay it in the pile. (You bet.) And you know, things like that count. But grown men could be so dumb. Well, they wasn't dumbness, it was meanness. Pour coffee along side that pan—they knew what that pan was for. And them same fellas was yowling about the Potlatch. (Pause.) You know, it don't take much. Now you take, like flunkying, where they could grab all them at once, and everything was set out handy. You know, it makes quite a difference, when you're busy.CARL: Yeh, and I suppose they only had one cook and one flunky, too, I suppose.
CHARLES: Two flunkies.
CARL: She had two, they had two flunkies up at Lewis' mill.
CHARLES: And they had to wash dishes too.
CARL: Yeh, they had to wash dishes. We didn't have a dish washer up there.
CHARLES: And Lillian cooked.
CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: You knew her, didn't you?
CARL: Oh, yes, you bet.
CHARLES: The Nordic Queen.
CARL: Yup.
CHARLES: But boy, she could cook.
CARL: Y' bet. Yah, she was flunkying up there at Camp 4 in 1923, up there for
Frank Dean.CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Um-hm. And then the next one that come in, was Sturman's wife, Goldie.
CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: You bet. Yah.
CHARLES: I used to laugh at her, by golly. She lives in Moscow, I guess.
CARL: Yeh.
SAM: What was the feeling about the strike, the 1920's strike, or whenever that
was, right around then?CARL: Well, you see, neither one of us was in the woods at that time. 'Course,
like.sav, Hershiel and Dick Benge- they were there. But in 1936 we iust about wasn't ready to quit. We just kept right on a-workin'. (Yup.) 'Course then in '47, we had to go out, see. That was a bonafide strike. (Yah.) That was a bonafide strike, see...SAM: What were the issues in that one? That was the one when you went to
Portland, right?CARL: Yup. Um-hm.
SAM: Were there issues in that strike that got settled?
CHARLES: I didn't quite understand...
SAM: Oh, were there issues in that strike that you guys settled? You were a
CIO man, right?CHARLES: Um-hm, um-hm. (Pause.) You know, if I stay in one position about so
long I get a-hurtin' right through here.CARL: Oh, you do, huh?
CHARLES: Yup. By God that knee, I don't think well ever be all right.
CARL: No, no it won't be all right at all.
CHARLES: It bothers me all the time.
CARL: Yep.
SAM: Huh.
CHARLES: Broke it. Broke my knee right through there. Had two kneecaps.
Split the kneecap,CARL: Well, I'll tell you. About the only thing that they accomplished in
that 1947 strike, they got the top bunks cut off. That's about the only thing that,., (Hee-yah.) That's about the only thing they accomplished. They did get the top bunks cut off.CHARLES: Yah. Instead of double deckers, they were single.
CARL: Yah, instead of that, you bet. That's about the only thing they did get
accomplished.CHARLES: I'll tell you, though, they made pretty nice bunks.
CARL: Oh, they made pretty good bunkhouses then, yah.
CHARLES: Dandy.
CARL: 'Course they had pretty good bunkhouses before that. Yah.
CARL: But they still had the double bunks.
CHARLES: Yes, and too many men.
CARL: Too many men, yah. But that's about the only thing they...They did get
that settled in '47.CHARLES: Weiywas down there in '46. Welch, what was his first name?
CARL: Milfred.
CHARLES: Milfred Welch was running camp.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: When he wasn't logging, he was building roads.
CARL: Yah.
CHARLES: And we sawed pushover there...Boy, they had one bunk in this corner,
and one in that one, and one in this one. Four men in a shack. That shack would be as big as this room, would it?CARL: Yah, you bet.
CHARLES: It wouldn't be quite as wide, but I believe it was a little longer.
CARL: It 'tis longer. They did accomplish that. That one thing, that's about
the only thing they did accomplish.CHARLES: Yah. And believe me, it was pretty nice.
CARL: Yah, they did accomplish that.
CHARLES: You didn't have to be a flying trapeze in order to get uo there.
CARL: But as far as wages is concerned, I don't know. (No.) Might a got a
week's vacation or something, I don't know. There wasn't too much. But 1 would say that was the major issue in that, was gettin' them top bunks cut off. They did do that.CHARLES: I wonder if Milfred Welch is still for the Potlatch.
CARL: Yah, you bet.
CHARLES: He is?
CARL: Yah. Yup.
CHARLES: You know, he was highball.
CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: But you know, I kinda liked him.
CARL: Well, I'll tell you. I can tell you one thing about Milfred Welch. He
never asked a man to do anything that he wouldn't do himself,CHARLES: No, no he wouldn't. He never asked a fella to do anything he wouldn't
do himself. (You bet.) And down there, you know, they were logging the timber out of the right of ways for them logs, y' know. This Dim Lewis from Bovill was driving cat. And Dim was just a kid, you know. I seen Welch was over there talking to him, and they had quite a talk. And finally Welch walked away, and the kid started skidding. So he come over where we were sawing. We was sawing the roots off, you know, that pushover. And we talked a little bit. And he said, "Boy," he said, "I'd like to see Dim Lewis learn a little more about the cats." "You know," but he said, "he ain't too bad, but he's a just little too nervous," he said. "I went over and had a father to son talk with him," he said, "and told him to quiet down a little bit, and look at it the second time;" (Um-hm.) See, he took a liking to the kid, and he was trying to help the kid all that he possibly could. But most of them would've said, "These goddamn kids." (You bet.) There's what most of 'em would say.I heard one cat driver get told at Elk River. The driver walked up
to him, and he said,"I heard you say that I'm nothin' but a goddamn kid." And he said, "I ain't nothing' but a goddamn kid. But when it comes to driving cat," he said, "I suppose you knew just as much about it the day you was born," he said, "as you do now, because I don't think you know a hell of a lot." The kid had guts, you know."Boy, oh-oh," thinks I. They talked loud enough so you could hear 'em,
you know. "That kid's going to get canned." But no sir, he stayed there... And after he drove cat a few days, maybe, he got a little better. Now, he probably drove on the road work, you know, or a farm, or something. He's handling the cat all right, but you know, there's little hitches. Lots of times, you know, if you hook onto a log here it'll come out lots better than if you hook onto it over here. There'swhere the kid was stuck, see.CARL: You bet.
CHARLES: Excuse me for getting up, I got to get up on account of my...
SAM: Oh, sure.
CHARLES: My aches and pains.
CARL: But I'll tell you another thing that Welch done. We had an awful big
rain down there, while I was there in the shop. So he lost a culvert down there. So he radioed in, and wanted 40 feet of two foot culvert. So Dohnny come and got me, and I loaded them up. I took 'em down there and I found where the washed-out culvert was, and turned my truck around. And there was about that much frozen dirt above it. And then pretty quick, here come Welch and Bud Nogle. And that's the only man that he kept. He turned all the rest of the crew loose. He kept his dozer operator and himself. And so, by golly, Bud broke that down. And you know, that darn Welch took his choker, and he jumped in the water just like that, and hooked them chunks out of there. And I unhooked them up on the bank. And he was the foreman. You bet. Well, just as quick as I seen what was going to happen, I went and started the truck. I started the motor in my truck, so it would be warm, you see, for us to eat lunch, you know. (Um-hm.) 'Course, the only time I got wet too...How I come to get wet, I had to stand on that one end of the culvert and hold it down while Bud pushed some stuff in on top of it, see. I got wet, but of course, I was standing up higher. Oh, I got wet up around there, of course, all right enough. Welch, he was wet right to there. He jumped right into that darn cold water. You bet. So I said to him, I says, "Well, my gosh, Milfred," I says, "why didn't you hold a man here?""Well," he said, "you know," he said, "I got a small crew." And he
said, "They's all riding together." So he said, "I just turned 'em all loose." You bet. He jumped right... (Break)CARL: (The talk has turned to Oscar Sturgill, ani old camp foreman.) And so
Pierce sent me out there, Walt Pierce. Henry Dones and Perry Tout, three of us went out together. And so I took a gray team, and Perry was swampin', and Henry was bunchin' for me. And so, by golly, one Saturday noon here comes...I had three sets of roadways, see, and I was filled up. So Sturgill come out there just before dinner. And he says, "Well," he says, "you just might as well go home this afternoon." He says, "I'll have a loading rig come in there and load ye out."And I says, "All right." So we come back Monday morning and they
wasn't no logs there, and so,..0hhh, there's a place, oh I don't know, as far as from here out to that tree the other side of that car, about that wide, and about that far to the steel. So gosh, you know, the mud was just like that. I knew better, but I took and jumped my team right out to that mud, and I went right out there. Went right to the steel, and unloaded that drayload of logs. And Sturgill come along and caught me. And he says, "You know, you can't do it." I says, "I done it once.""Yeh, but," he says, "you're not going to do it anymore." (Chuckies.)
And so I says, "Well, what am I going to do?" Well so, he say$ "Well, there's a landing up here." And so I went up and looked at it. And it was room enough for four roadways, we'd have to put in roadways, you see, and corduroy the back end of it, see. And so, so I says, "Can we do it by the day, or does it go by the job;" And he says,"It goes with the job." About that time here come Henry and the swamper down. They was wondering what happened to me. And so, so I said to Henry, I said, "There's just one thing about it," I says, "We're either going to have to do somethin' different, or go up there and put up four sets of roadways and corduroy the back end of it," So Henry spoke up. And so he says, "Does it go with the job, or do we get it by the day?" And Sturgill says, "It goes with the job."And so Dones says, "Well, where do you want this riggin' laid?" And
so Henry dropped his butt chains, and so did I. So, by golly, we went over the hill, and went over there to Camp 14 and went to work for Doc Grannis. We only had to walk a mile, that's all we did, went over one hill, dropped into Camp 14. But in the meantime, though, we had to wait 'til noon for to get our checks, see, and get scaled up what we had. So Sturgill, he took and laid my check face down. And he says, "Hey, Lancaster," he says, "will you ever work for me again?" And I says, "I'll never work for you again as long as a man in the state of Idaho to work for," So everything went along fine 'til 1931, when they laid us off. Two loading rigs come into Camp 6, and we had to go pilin' brush. So we went in there that morning up here to Camp 6. We all signed up. We went down to the tool shed and got our axes. He let me get down the track a good at least 50 yards and then he hollered at me. He says, "Hey Lancaster," he says, "come back here." I went back. And he says, "You know what you told me in 1924?"And I says, "Yes," Sturgill. And I says, "You're the last man there
is left to work for." (Laughing.) (Yah. Yah. Yah.) You bet. Yep. (Yap.) He never forgot it, by gosh. So then he took and picked out about 20 men, and he says, "You see that draw there?" "Yah." He says, "Well, you just go up there and start piling brush." And he says, "There's five cents an hour more in it for you." (Laughs.) Yah, he did.CHARLES: You know, we were sawing pushover down there. I got in a yellowjacket
nest, and I got stung. My eyes swelled shut, you know. I couldn't see, I couldn't work. So I was layin' around camp. And you know, the swelling went down so I could see, you know, I could work. And Welch you know, he'd come in the middle of every forenoon and...CARL: Um-hm, check on you.
CHARLES: ...And check on me. That's what I thought, but I found out different.
He was checking on that woman of the cook's.CARL: Oh, that's it, huh. Oh-h (chuckles).
CHARLES: They live up at Fernwood. Mrs...there are two brothers of 'em that
are cooks.CARL: Isaacsons.
CHARLES: Isaacson.
CARL: Steve and Dennis.
CHARLES: Yah.
CARL: Um-hm.
CHARLES: By God he was pretty good book,,though.
CARL: Oh that Steve was an awful good cook...Yup.
CHARLES: I must have laid around camp there six, seven days, and by gosh he
paid me day's wages for it. (Sure. You bet.) He wasn't tight about it. He didn't have to do that. But what they should have done on me-raccording to rules and regulations—there should have been one of them hospital slips made out. (You bet.) But I was ahead, though, the way it was.SAM: Who is this guy that you are speaking of?
CARL: Milfred Welch.
SAM: Oh, Welch.
CARL: Yeh, Milfred Welch, you bet. Yuh. Yuh, he started in for Dohn Anchor.
CHARLES: He had a little bad fault, though. If he started ridin' somebody, if
they sassed him back it was all right, but if they didn't, he'd keep a-riding them.CARL: But you know, there in the fall of '42, you know, when Malker got on that
drunk, when he come in fcem Camp 40, you know. And then they took Art Henderson right off'n that train, you know, and put him foreman there at Camp 39?CHARLES: Um-hm.
CARL: You know, that should have been Milfred's job.
CHARLES: Yeh.
CARL: You know, Parker I don't think was a bit fair about that.
CHARLES: Oh, no.
CARL: Because, you see...
CHARLES: That wasn't right there.
CARL: No, absolutely that wasn't right.
CHARLES: Uh-uh. No.
CARL: No, that should have been Milfred's job, right then and there.
CHARLES: Yeh.
CARL: Y' bet. Y' bet. Yeh, yup.
SAM: Why is that? Why was it his job?
CARL: Well, he was the cat foreman for this other fella, see. He'd been cat
foreman for years and years and years. I don't know how many years. And so then this Malker Anderson, he come in there, when they got Camp 40 done, then...What they tell me now, they say he went and hid his pickup, and went into Clarkia there, and got on a drunk, and Parker couldn't find him. (Um-hm.) I guess that probably is the truth anyway. (Um-hm.) And so this fella here was a...He had a been a tonghooker and a toploader, but they made a trainman out of him. And he was braking on a shay engine down there. By golly, they just come along and took him right out, right off'n the train, went and took him down there to Camp 39, and made a camp foreman out of him. See, he'd never even been...See, that's it, you see. (Um-hm.) So I still say it was Milfred»s job. (Um-hm.) You bet. Milfred Welch's job, you bet. It should've been his job. But it didn't take him long to get a camp after Ritzheimer come though.CHARLES: No.
CARL: He got a camp pretty quick.
CHARLES: Yep.
CARL: You bet...
