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The brook itself, too, was almost buried and concealed in the snow. In
the still places, it had frozen over; and so the snow had been supported
by the ice, and thus it concealed both ice and water. At the little
cascades and waterfalls, however, which occurred here and there, the
water had not frozen. Water does not freeze easily where it runs with
great velocity. At these places, therefore, the boys could see the
water, and hear it bubbling and gurgling as it fell, and disappeared
under the ice which had formed below.
At last, they came to the wood lot. The wood which they were going to
haul had been cut before, and it had been piled up in long piles,
extending here and there under the trees which had been left. These
piles were now, however, partly covered with the snow, which lay light
and unsullied all over the surface of the ground.
The sticks of wood in these piles were of different sizes, though they
were all of the same length. Some had been cut from the tops of the
trees, or from the branches, and were, consequently, small in diameter;
others were from the trunks, which would, of course, make large logs.
These logs had, however, been split into quarters by a beetle and
wedges, when the wood had been prepared, so that there were very few
sticks or logs so large, but that Jonas could pretty easily get them on
to the sled.
Jonas drove his team up near to one end of the pile, while Josey and
Oliver went to the other, where the wood was generally small. While
Jonas was loading, he heard a conversation something like this between
the other boys:—
"Let's put some good large logs on our sled," said Josey.
"Well," said Oliver, "as large as we can; only we'd better put this
small wood on first."
"I wish you'd go around to the other side, Oliver," said Josey again;
"you're in my way."
"No," said Oliver, "I can't work on that side very well."
"Then I mean to move the old General round a little."
"No," said Oliver, "the sled stands just right now; only you get up on
the top of the pile, and I'll stay here." "No," said Josey, "I'd rather
stand here myself."
So the boys continued at work a few minutes longer, each being in the
other's way.
At length, Josey said again,—
"O, here is a large log, and I mean to get it out, and put it upon our
sled."
The log was covered with smaller wood, so that Josey could only get hold
of the end of it. He clasped his hands together under this end, and
began to lift it up, endeavoring to get it free from the other wood. He
succeeded in raising it a little, but it soon got wedged in again, worse
than before.
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