• OUR GREATEST AXEMAN
• IMPORTANCE OF THE AXE
• WHAT KIND OF AXE TO USE
• HOW TO SWING AN AXE
• HOW TO REMOVE A BROKEN AXE HANDLE
• HOW TO TIGHTEN THE HANDLE IN THE HEAD
• ACCIDENTS
• THE BRAINS OF AN AXE
• ETIQUETTE OF THE AXE
• HOW TO SHARPEN AN AXE
• HOW TO "FALL" A TREE
• HOW TO SWAMP
• HOW TO MAKE A BEETLE OR MALL
• HOW TO HARDEN GREEN WOOD
• HOW TO MAKE A FIREWOOD HOD
• HOW TO MAKE A CHOPPING BLOCK
• THE PROPER WAY TO CHOP
• HOW TO MAKE SAWBUCKS FOR LOGS
• HOW TO USE A PARBUCKLE
• HOW TO SPLIT A LOG
• HOW TO USE A SAWPIT

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To all good, loyal Americans, the axe is almost a sacred tool, for our greatest American, Abraham Lincoln, was one of our greatest axemen. When he was President of the United States he used to exercise by chopping wood, then laughingly extended his arm holding the axe in a horizontal position by the extreme end of the handle. This he would do without a tremor of the muscle or movement of the axe—some stunt! Try it and see if you can do it!

The American Indians, and practically all savages, used stone and bone implements, and with such implements the Redmen were wont to build the most beautiful of all crafts, the birch bark canoe. If an American Indian produced such wonders with implements made of stones, flint and bones, a good red-blooded American boy should be able to do the same with a sharp axe; therefore it should not only be his pleasure but his duty to learn to be a skillful axeman.

Brother Jonathan, the imaginary character who represented the American people, was almost invariably pictured with a jack-knife whittling a stick, because all early Americans were skillful in the use of the jack-knife, but they were also skilled in the use of the axe, and every boy of twelve years of age knew how to handle an axe.

While lecturing at the Teachers' College, Columbia University, I was asked to give a demonstration of the use of the axe. It then and there suddenly occurred to me that if these grown men needed and asked for instructions in the use of this typical American tool, a talk on the same subject would be welcomed by the American boys.

The axe is the one necessary tool of the woodsmen; the axe occupies the same position to the wilderness man that the chest of tools does to the carpenter; with the axe the woodsman cuts his firewood; with the axe he makes his traps; with the axe he splits the shakes, clapboards, slabs and shingles from the balsam tree, or other wood which splits readily, and with the shakes, clapboards, or slabs he shingles the roof of his hogan, his barabara, or makes the framework to his sod shack or his dugout, or with them builds the foundation of a bogken. With his axe he cuts the birch for his birch bark pontiac, for his lean-to or his log cabin. Without an axe it is most difficult for one to even build a raft or to fell a tree to get the birch bark for one's canoe, or to "fall" the tree to make a dugout canoe. A tree may be felled by fire, as the Indians of old used to "fall" them, but this takes a wearisome time.

When bound for a real camp, take along with you a real axe. Never take an axe which is too large and heavy for you to swing with comfort. It is also best to avoid an axe which is too light, as with such a tool you must use too much labor to cut the wood. You should select your own axe according to your strength. Pick up the axe, go through the motions of chopping and see if it feels right, if its balance suits you; hold up the axe and sight along the top of the handle as you would along the barrel of a gun to see that your handle is not warped.

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Axes may be had of weight and size to suit one's taste. In New England they use short-handled axes which are not popular in the woods. The axe handles should be well seasoned, second growth hickory; a ¼ axe has a 19-inch handle and weighs two pounds. A ½ axe has a 24-inch handle and weighs two and a half pounds. A ¾ axe has a 28-inch handle and weighs three pounds. A full axe has a 36-inch handle and weighs five pounds.

Probably the best axe for camp work, when you must carry the axe on your back, is one with a 30-inch second growth hickory handle, weight about two and three-quarter pounds, or somewhere between two and three pounds. A light axe of this kind will cut readily and effectively provided it has a slender bit; that is, that it does not sheer off too bluntly towards the cutting edge. When you look at the top of such an axe and it appears slender and not bulky, it will cut well and can be wielded by a boy and is not too light for a man (Fig. 322).

Fig. 321 shows the long-handled Hudson Bay axe used much in the North country. It is made after the tomahawk form to save weight, but the blade is broad, you notice, to give a wide cutting edge. The trouble with this axe is that it is too light for satisfactory work. Fig. 323 shows a belt axe of a modified tomahawk shape, only three of which are in existence; one was in the possession of the late Colonel Roosevelt, one in the possession of a famous English author, and one in the possession of the writer. These axes were made for the gentlemen to whom they were presented by the President of a great tool works; they are made of the best gray steel and are beautiful tools. Fig. 324 is an ordinary belt axe practically the same as those used by the Boy Scouts. When it was proposed to arm the Boy Scouts with guns, the writer put in strenuous objections and suggested belt axes in place of guns; the matter of costume and arms was finally referred to him as a committee of one. The uniform was planned after that of the Scouts of the Boy Pioneers of America, and the belt axe adopted is the same as that carried by the Scouts of the Sons of Daniel Boone, which axes are modelled after Daniel Boone's own tomahawk. Fig. 325 is a very heavy axe.

Grasp the axe with the left hand, close to the end of the handle, even closer than is shown in the diagram (Fig. 326); with the right hand grasp the handle close to the head of the axe, then bring the axe up over your shoulder and as you strike the blow, allow the right hand to slide down naturally (Fig. 327), close to the left hand; learn to reverse, that is, learn to grasp the lower end of the handle with the right hand and the left hand near the top, so as to swing the axe from the left shoulder down, as easily as from the right shoulder.

To be a real axeman, a genuine dyed-in-the-wool, blown-in-the-glass type, each time you make a stroke with the axe you must emit the breath from your lungs with a noise like Huh! That, you know, sounds very professional and will duly impress the other boys when they watch you chop, besides which it always seems to really help the force of the blow.

It was from a colored rail splitter from Virginia, who worked for the writer, that the latter learned how to burn out the broken end of the handle from the axe head. Bury the blade of your axe in the moist earth and build a fire over the protruding butt (Fig. 328); the moist earth will prevent the heat from spoiling the temper of your axe blade while the heat from the fire will char and burn the wood so that it can easily be removed.

If you are using a double-bitted axe, that is, one of those very useful but villainous tools with two cutting edges, and the handle breaks off, make a shallow trench in the dirt, put the moist soil over each blade, leaving a hollow in the middle where the axe handle comes and build your fire over this hollow (Fig. 329).

If your axe handle is dry and the head loosens, soak it over night and the wood will swell and tighten the head. Scoutmaster Fitzgerald of New York says, "Quite a number of scouts have trouble with the axe slipping off the helve and the first thing they do is to drive a nail which only tends to split the helve and make matters worse. I have discovered a practical way of fixing this. You will note that a wire passes over the head of the axe in the helve in the side view. Then in the cross-section in the copper wire is twisted and a little staple driven in to hold it in place." This may answer for a belt axe but the hole in the handle will weaken it and would not be advisable for a large axe (Fig. 330).

We have said that the axe is a chest of tools, but it is a dangerous chest of tools. While aboard a train coming from one of the big lumber camps, the writer was astonished to find that although there were but few sick men aboard, there were many, many wounded men in the car and none, that he could find, wounded by falling trees; all were wounded by the axe itself or by fragments of knots and sticks flying from blows of the axe and striking the axeman in the eyes or other tender places.

I have often warned my young friends to use great care with firearms, because firearms are made for the express purpose of killing. A gun, having no brains of its own, will kill its owner, his friends, his brother or sister, mother or father, just as quickly and as surely as it will kill a moose, a bear or a panther. Therefore it is necessary for the gunner to supply the brains for his gun.

The same is true with the axeman. Edged tools are made for the express purpose of cutting, and they will cut flesh and bone as quickly and neatly as they will cut wood, unless the user is skillful in the use of his tool; that is, unless he supplies the brains which the tools themselves lack.

So you see that it is "up to you" boys to supply the brains for your axes, and when you do that, that is, when you acquire the skill in the use, and judgment in the handling, you will avoid painful and may be dangerous or fatal accidents, and at the same time you will experience great joy in the handling of your axe. Not only this but you will acquire muscle and health in this most vigorous and manly exercise.

We are not telling all this to frighten the reader but to instil into his mind a proper respect for edged tools, especially the axe.

1. An axe to be respected must be sharp and no one who has any ambition to be a pioneer, a sportsman or a scout, should carry a dull axe, or an axe with the edge nicked like a saw blade. It may interest the reader to know that the pencil I am using with which to make these notes was sharpened with my camp axe.

2. No one but a duffer and a chump will use another man's axe without that other man's willing permission.

3. It is as bad form to ask for the loan of a favorite axe as it is to ask for the loan of a sportsman's best gun or pet fishing rod or toothbrush.

4. To turn the edge or to nick another man's axe is a very grave offense.

5. Keep your own axe sharp and clean, do not use it to cut any object lying on the ground where there is danger of the blade of the axe going through the object and striking a stone; do not use it to cut roots of trees or bushes for the same reason. Beware of knots in hemlock wood and in cold weather beware of knots of any kind.

When not in use an axe should have its blade sheathed in leather (Figs. 331, 332, 333 and 334), or it should be struck into a log or stump (Fig. 335). It should never be left upon the ground or set up against a tree to endanger the legs and feet of the camper. Fig. 341 shows how a firewood hod is made and used.

On the trail we have no grindstones, and often have recourse to a file with which to sharpen our axe; sometimes we use a whetstone for the purpose. New axes are not always as sharp as one would wish; in that case if we use a grindstone to put on an edge we must be sure to keep the grindstone wet in the first place, and in the second place we must be careful not to throw the edge of the blade out of line. When this occurs it will cause a "binding strain" on the blade which tends to stop the force of the blow. If the edges are at all out of line, the probabilities are one will knock a half moon out of the blade in the first attempt to cut frozen timber. The best axe in the world, with an edge badly out of line, cannot stand the strain of a blow on hard frozen wood. While grinding the axe take a sight along the edge every once in a while to see if it is true.

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With pine trees, however, this is not always the case, because the pitchy nature of the sap of the pine prevents it from fermenting like beech sap; in fact, the pitch acts as a preservative and mummifies, so to speak, the wood. Pine knots will last for a hundred years lying in the soft, moist ground and for aught I know, longer, because they are fat with pitch and the pitch prevents decay.

Beech when cut in June is unfit for firewood the following winter, but authorities say that the same trees cut in August and left with the branches still on them for twenty or thirty days, will make firmer and "livelier" timber than that cut under any other conditions.

An expert lumberman in ten minutes' time will cut down a hardwood tree one foot in diameter, and it will not take him over four minutes to cut down a softwood tree of the same size.

Before attempting to chop down a tree; in fact, before attempting to chop anything, be careful to see that there are no clothes lines overhead, if you are chopping in your backyard, or if you are chopping in the forests see that there are no vines, twigs, or branches within swing of your axe. By carefully removing all such things you will remove one of the greatest causes of accidents in the wilderness, for as slight a thing as a little twig can deflect, that is, turn, the blade of your axe from its course and cause the loss of a toe, a foot, or even a leg. This is the reason that swamping is the most dangerous part of the lumberman's work.

If the tree, in falling, must pass between two other trees where there is danger of its "hanging," so cut your kerf that the tree in falling will strike the ground nearest the smallest of the trees, or nearest the one furthest away. Then, as the tree falls, and brushes the side of the smallest tree or the one furthest away, it will bounce away, thus giving the fallen tree an opportunity to bump its way down to the place on the ground selected for it, in place of hanging by its bough in the boughs of other trees.

Do not try to "fall" a tree between two others that are standing close together; it cannot be successfully done, for the tops of the three trees will become interlaced, and you will find it very difficult and hazardous work to attempt to free your fallen tree from its entanglement; probably it cannot be done without cutting one or both of the other trees down. The truth is, one must mix brains with every stroke of the axe or one will get into trouble.

Where possible select a tree that may be made to fall in an open space where the prostrate trunk can be easily handled. Cut your kerf on the side toward the landing place, let the notch go half-way or a trifle more through the trunk. Make the notch or kerf as wide as the radius, that is, half the diameter of the tree trunk (Fig. 344), otherwise you will have your axe pinched or wedged before you have the kerf done and will find it necessary to enlarge your notch or kerf. Score first at the top part of the proposed notch, then at the bottom, making as big chips as possible, and hew out the space between, cutting the top parts of the notch at an angle but the bottom part nearly horizontal. When this notch or kerf is cut to half or a little more than half of the diameter of the tree, cut another notch upon the opposite side of the tree at a point a few inches higher than the notch already cut; when this notch is cut far enough the tree will begin to tremble and crack to warn you to step to one side. Don't get behind the tree; it may kick and kill you; step to one side and watch the tree as it falls; there are many things that may deflect it in falling, and one's safety lies in being alert and watching it fall. Also keep your eye aloft to watch for limbs which may break off and come down with sufficient force to disable you; accidents of this kind frequently happen, but seldom or never happen where the axeman uses common sense or due caution.

After a tree is felled, the swampers take charge of it and cut away all the branches, leaving the clean log for the teamsters to "snake." They do the swamping by striking the lower side of the branch with the blade of the axe, the side towards the root of the tree, what might be called the underside, and chopping upwards towards the top of the tree. Small branches will come off with a single blow of the axe.

When the tree has been swamped and the long trunk lies naked on the turf, it will, in all probability, be necessary to cut it into logs of required lengths. If the trunk is a thick one it is best to cut it by standing on the tree trunk with legs apart (Fig. 336), and chopping between one's feet, making the kerf equal to the diameter of the log. Do this for two reasons: it is much easier to stand on a log and cut it in two that way than to cut it part the way through the top side, and then laboriously roll it over and cut from the underside; also when you make the notch wide enough you can cut all the way through the log without wedging your axe. To split up the log you should have

Farmers claim that the best wedges are made of applewood, or locust wood; never use green wedges if seasoned ones may be obtained, for one seasoned wedge is worth many green ones. In the north woods, or, in fact, in any woods, applewood cannot be obtained, but dogwood and ironwood make good substitutes even when used green (Figs. 338 and 357).

Many of the Southern Indians in the early history of America tipped their arrows with bits of cane; these green arrow points they hardened by slightly charring them with the hot ashes of the fire. Gluts may be hardened in the same manner; do not burn them; try to heat them just sufficiently[235]
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A year or two ago, while trailing a moose, we ran across the ruins of a lumber camp that had been wiped out by fire, and here we picked up half a dozen axe heads among the moose tracks. These axe heads we used as gluts to split our wood as long as we remained in that camp, and by their aid we built a shack of board rived from balsam logs.

Fig. 341 shows how to make and how to use firewood hods on farms or at permanent camps.

After you have cut the crotch and trimmed it down into the form of Fig. 339, you may find it convenient to flatten the thing on one side. This you do by hewing and scoring; that is, by cutting a series of notches all of the same depth, and then splitting off the wood between the notches, as one would in making a puncheon (Fig. 342). (A puncheon is a log flattened on one or both sides.) With this flattened crotch one may, by sinking another flattened log in the earth and placing the chopping block on top, have a chopping block like that shown in Fig. 343. Or one may take the crotch, spike a piece of board across as in Fig. 339 and use that, and the best chopping block or crotch block is the one shown in Fig. 339, with the puncheon or slab spiked onto the ends of the crotch. In this case the two ends of the crotch should be cut off with a saw, if you have one, so as to give the proper flat surface to which to nail the slab. Then the kindling wood may be split without danger to yourself or the edge of the hatchet.

If you are using an ordinary stick of wood for a chopping block, and the stick you are about to chop rests solidly on top of the block where the axe strikes it will cut all right, but if you strike where the stick does not touch the chopping block the blow will stun the hand holding the stick in a very disagreeable manner. If you hold your stick against the chopping block with your foot, there is always danger of cutting off your toe; if you hold the stick with your hand and strike it with the axe, there is danger of cutting off your fingers. When I say there is danger I mean it. One of our scouts cut his thumb off, another cut off one finger, and one of my friends in the North woods of Canada cut off his great toe. In hunting for Indian relics in an old camping cave in Pennsylvania, my companion, Mr. Elmer Gregor, made the gruesome find of a dried human finger near the embers of an ancient campfire, telling the story of a camping accident ages ago, but evidently after white man's edged tools were introduced.

If you have no chopping block and wish to cut your firewood into smaller pieces, you can hold the stick safely with the hand if you use the axe as shown in Fig. 345. This will give you as a result two sticks, and the upper one will have some great splinters.

When splitting wood for the fire or kindling, make the first blow as in Fig. 346, and the second blow in the same place, but a trifle slanting as in Fig. 347; the slanting blow wedges the wood apart and splits it. If the wood is small and splits readily, the slanting blow may be made first. These things can only be indicated to the readers because there are so many circumstances which govern the case. If there is a knot in the wood, strike the axe right over the knot as in Figs. 348 and 349.

If you are chopping across the grain do not strike perpendicularly as in Fig. 350, because if the wood is hard the axe will simply bounce back, but strike a slanting blow as in Fig. 351, and the axe blade will bite deeply into the wood; again let us caution you that if you put too much of a slant on your axe in striking the wood, it will cut out a shallow chip without materially impeding the force of the blow, and your axe will swing around to the peril of yourself or anyone else within reach; again this is a thing which you must learn to practice.

In using the chopping block be very careful not to put a log in front of the crotch as in Fig. 340, and then strike a heavy blow with the axe, for the reason that if you split the wood with the first blow your axe handle will come down heavily and suddenly upon the front log, and no matter how good a handle it may be, it will break into fragments, as the writer has discovered by sad experience. A lost axe handle in the woods is a severe loss, and one to be avoided, for although a makeshift handle may be fashioned at camp, it never answers the purpose as well as the skillfully and artistically made handle which comes with the axe.

Select two saplings about five inches in diameter at the butts, bore holes near the butts about six inches from the end for legs, make a couple of stout legs about the size of an old-fashioned drey pin, and about twenty inches long, split the ends carefully, sufficiently to insert wedges therein, then drive the wedge and ends into the hole bored for the purpose. When the sticks are driven home the wedge will hold them in place. You now have a couple of "straddle bugs," that is, poles, the small ends of which rest upon the ground and the butt ends supported by two legs. In the top of the poles bore a number of holes for pins, make your pins a little longer than the diameter of the log you intend to saw; the pins are used exactly like the old-fashioned drey pins, that is, you roll the log up the incline to the two straddle bugs and hold the logs in place by putting pins in the nearest holes. Of course, the pins should work easily in and out of the holes (Fig. 357).

With such an arrangement one man can unaided easily roll a log two feet in diameter up upon the buck; the log is then in a position to be cut up with a cross-cut saw (Fig. 357). Another form of sawbuck may be made of a puncheon stool (Fig. 358), with holes bored diagonally in the top for the insertion of pins with which to hold the log in place while it is being sawed. But with this sawbuck one cannot use as heavy logs as with the first one because of the difficulty in handling them.

I have just returned from a trip up into the woods where they still use the primitive pioneer methods of handling and cutting timber, and I note up there in Pike County, Pennsylvania, they make the sawbuck for logs by using a log of wood about a foot in diameter and boring holes diagonally through the log near each end (Fig. 359); through these holes they drive the legs so that the ends of them protrude at the top and form a crotch to hold the wood to be sawed. The sawbuck is about ten or twelve feet long; consequently, in order to provide for shorter logs there are two sets of pegs driven in holes bored for the purpose between the ends of the buck.

When one person is handling a heavy log it is sometimes difficult, even with the lumberman's canthook, to roll it, but if a loop is made in a rope and placed over a stump or a heavy stone (Fig. 360), and the ends run under the log, even a boy can roll quite a heavy piece of timber by pulling on the ends of the rope (Fig. 360).

The method used by all woodsmen in splitting a log is the same as used by quarrymen in splitting bluestone, with this difference: the quarryman hunts for a natural seam in the stone and drives the wedge in the seam, while the lumberman makes a seam in the form of a crack in the log by a blow from his axe. In the crack he drives the wedge (Figs. 352 and 353). But if the log is a long one he must lengthen the crack or seam by driving other wedges or gluts (Fig. 353), or he may do it by using two or more axes (Fig. 352).

If he wishes to split the logs up into shakes, clapboards or splits, he first halves the log, that is, splitting it across from A to B (Fig. 356), and then quarters it by splitting from C to D, and so on until he has the splits of the required size.

In the olden times, the good old times, when people did things with their own hands, and thus acquired great skill with the use of their hands, boards were sawed out from the logs by placing the log on a scaffolding over a sawpit (Fig. 361).

In the good old times, the slow old times, the safe old times, a house was not built in a week or a month; the timber was well seasoned, well selected, and in many cases such houses are standing to-day! On the next block where I live and from where I am writing, and across the street, there stands a house still occupied which was built in 1661. It is the house that Fox, the Quaker, was quartered in when he was preaching under the spreading oaks on Long Island. The timbers of this house are still sound and strong, although the woodwork in nearby modern houses is decaying.

In the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee they still use the sawpit, and the logs are held in place by jacks (Fig. 355), which are branches of trees hooked over the log and the longest fork of the branch is then sprung under the supporting cross-piece (Fig. 361).

Of course, the boy readers of this book are not going to be top sawyers or make use of a sawpit; that is a real man's work, a big He man's work, but the boys of to-day should know all these things; it is part of history and they can better understand the history of our own country when they know how laboriously, cheerily and cheerfully their ancestors worked to build their own homesteads, and in the building of their own homesteads they unconsciously built that character of which their descendants are so proud; also they built up a physique that was healthy, and a sturdy body for which their descendants are particularly thankful, because good health and good physique are hereditary, that is, boys, if your parents, your grandparents and your great grandparents were all healthy, wholesome people, you started your life as a healthy, wholesome child.

In this chapter the writer has emphasized the danger of edged tools for beginners, but he did that to make them careful in the use of the axe, not to discourage them in acquiring skill with it. We must remember that there is nothing in life that is not dangerous, and the greatest danger of all is not firearms, is not edged tools, is not wild beasts, is not tornadoes or earthquakes, avalanches or floods, but it is Luxury; expressed in boy language, it is ice cream, soda water, candy, servants and automobiles; it is everything which tends to make a boy dependent upon others and soft in mind and muscle and to make him a sissy. But hardship, in the sense of undergoing privation and doing hard work like chopping trees and sawing logs, makes a rugged body, a clean, healthy mind, and gives long life. So, boys, don't be afraid to build your own little shack, shanty or shelter, to chop the kindling wood for your mother, to split up logs for the fun of doing it, or just to show that you know how. Don't be afraid to be a real pioneer so that you may grow up to be a real Abe Lincoln!

If I am talking to men, they need no detailed definition of luxury; they know all about it, its cause and its effect; they also know that luxury kills a race and hardship preserves a race. The American boy should be taught to love hardship for hardship's sake, and then the Americans as a race will be a success, and a lasting one.

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