| 4x A Pacific Tribune writing contest selection ¥ _

Song of a tree

By MARGE DALSKOG

ee DAY long the music
haunted me. Restless, dis-
turbing, queer melody. Not a
half-remembered snatch of song,
not something I could under-
stand. But it was there. It
called, it urged, it tortured me
with its questioning. It sug-
gested, then evaded.

Suddenly, in the mysterious
darkness of the night, it re-
turned.

“Come,” it seemed to tell me,
“and you shall find the answer
to the question in your mind.”

Eager excitement lending
wings to my feet, I followed the
now lilting strains of the mys-
terious refrain. It was a rapsody
—I was in a deep wood, and
dawn was in the sky. Damp,
pungent smell of moss and leaf-
mould stung my nostrils. Drip-
ping underbrush, nodding ferns
—and the music! It had become
an overture—full of promise.

My footsteps lingered, while
my mind drank in the wonder of
an awakening forest. Tall
spruce and sturdy hemlock
spread their branches to the
morning, and the shafts of sun-
light sifted through the lace
work found the dew-drenched
leaves of maple saplings, turn-
ing them, in patches here and
there, to sparkling, liquid gold.

“Here, all things are per-
fect,” sang the music. “Created
by nature in beautiful satisfying
harmony.”

Now I knew why I had fol-
lowed, and a question trembled
in my throat. Before me stood
a splendid fir tree—straight,
proud and tall. Full of wisdom
from its patient years of stand-
ing; its nurturing roots deep in
mother earth; and its tallest
branches fraternizing with the
winds.

Before I could ask I knew the
answer, for the overture was
ending. Plainly it conyeyed its
meaning in an ecstasy of vib-
rant sound.

“You are not wealth,” I told
the fir tree, “but you are value.
Value of your beauty, of your
shade, and of your sanctuary to
the creatures of the forest.
Value of your cradling arms to
winged friends of the air. You
purify the air, for you breathe
in poisons and turn them into
life — and you stand against the
threat of drouth for man.”

Dare I ask, then, what is
wealth ?

No man stood beside me in
that forest glade. But, quiet and
clear, I heard a voice, as the
magic of the harmonious in-
struments was stilled.

“Ask, then,
know.”

and you _ shall

“Who are you? What are
you ?” I cried in alarm.

“TI am the voice of day and
night, of yesterday, today and
temorrow.” Clearly I heard it.
Clearly it said, “I am the voice
of reality.” Nothing could sur-
prise me now in the strange and
unreal place, and so I asked,
“What is wealth ?”

Immediately I heard drum-
beats heralding approaching

footsteps; the heavy stomp of
caulk-boots bespoke the woods-
man, and soon the polished steel
of fallers’ saws glinted in the
sun.

Bite of axe in sturdy wood,
ring of saw, the wedges driven
in the stomach of the venerable
fir tree.

“You see before you,” said the
voice, “‘the value of the tree, be-
coming wealth for the use of

”»

man.

And the mysterious orchestra
kept time to the rhythmic swing
of the crosscut saw, and through
their undershirts the muscles of
the fallers rippled, and the grey
stains of sweat deepened.

~Some distance away stood a
sriag, ‘grotesque and lifeless,
standing with only its feet in
its grave, its tall gaunt body
indecently exposed, one boney
witch’s arm crookedly pointed
to heaven.

Now the cut was nearly
through, and the cry of the
woodsman rang out, “Timber-r”
and the music rasped on the
echo. Down came the monarch
amid thunderous roar; crash of
cymbals, blast of trumpets—and

‘the tree lay full length upon the

forest floor.

Like lightning now, the bucker
set to work to saw it into lengths,
end the rhythm of the music was
the rhythm of its swaying body,
while the joking and the lusty
laughter of the fallers died away
among the trees.

But now I saw a spar-tree
with its cables shining silver in
the sun, steel rails leading to
its base. On’ the rails stood
skeleton cars, waiting for the
logs, and where the fallers and
the buckers had been, was a
hook-tender and his crew. The
rousic echoed his orders in the
tree tops as the logs began to
move.

And the snag stood like a

its spectral outline

sentinel,
stark against the sky,

“What,” said I, half to myself,
“what is the value of the tree
now ?”

“The value of the tree,” said
the voice, “is now the value of
the man-hours of these work-
ers.” :

“Yes, oh yes,” sang the strains
of the melody, “the value of
the tree is the value of the
muscles, and the value of the
sweat.”

Understanding flooded my
mind, for I saw that wealth is
the product of strong backs and
willing hearts, and never again
would I think of it as merely
the sign of the dollar.

‘The chokerman hooked onto
a log, and the whistlepunk sig-
nalled for the engineer to “go
ahead,” and the unseen musici-
ans heightened their tempo, till
the music echoed again and
again from the sidehill.

“But what will be the por-
tion of these gallant, eager men ?
What part of the wealth will
be theirs ?”

No sooner had I uttered it
than I heard the first sad dis-
cord. Had the conductor missed
a beat? Something was hap-

pening to the music! It was
wistful, it was harsh — it was

-angry, cruel!

And the voice of the chaser,
as he unhooked a log boomed
out in a ribald song:

“Oh V’ll buy me:a night with
a handsome wench

On the skid road at the Bay,

And a bottle of whiskey my

thirst to quench, |.

With my little ol’ wad of

pay 12?

The fireman wiped his
sweaty face and joined in with
a rueful grin:

“For my old woman a yard of

cloth,

New boots so I’ll be shod,

A tumbler of beer with an

inch of froth,

And that’s all I'll get,
God !”

And the hooktender tossed his
blond head, and squared his
streng shoulders; the violins
sang softly for him, for he was
thinking of a girl with a sweet
red mouth, and of the little hoard
he had saved for a house in the

by

“married quarters” of the camp. °

But don’t take a moment to
dream, logger, for death rides
the mainline and the haulback
—and the sudden scream of the
wierd uncanny music sounds
like a warning for YOU!

It is! It is ! The cable is
fouled! God, man! The snag!
It’s shaking, it’s tottering —
it’s FALLING! Down, down!
Crashing to earth ! And the wild,
roaring discord split the air
like a nightmare explosion ! The
brittle, clutching arm reached
tor the hooktender, piercing him
through the middle like a rabbit
on a spit. One devil’s elbow
raked off his lower jaw and
there the “teeth” biting grotes-
quely into the wood. Blood,
blood in the woods...

For one stark instant nothing
moved, nor made a sound. Only
the music. wept’. . . sobbing on
a whimpering half-note, like a
lost and frightened child.

“To the value of the tree,”
said the relentless voice, “you

“may now add the sum total

value of a human life.”
.“Yes,” wailed the Violins, “and
the value of sons never to be
born, and the emptiness in a
woman’s eyes.”

But the logging crew had
vanished. The spar-tree was
fading, and in the distance I
could hear the staccato tap of
castinets, the deep-toned boom
ci an organ,-and the rythmic
beat of . . or was it the clack-
ing of logging train wheels, the
roar of the log-dump, and the
chugging of a tugboat with a
Davis raft in tow? |

Shaken and bewildered, I
thought longingly of home and

be published next week.

- Prizewinning entries
Te Pacific Tribune has received a large num-

ber of entries to its writing contest, which
closed on May 31. All entries — short stories,
poems, reportage, anecdotes — are now being
considered by the editorial board and the winning
submissions will be published over the next three
months. The first of the editorial board's selec-
tions, a short story by Marge Dalskog of Whaleton,
appears on this page. The second, a piece of re-
portage on Scandinavian customs in Canada, will

bed, but I became aware of an
ever increasing clamor, rising ©
in a crescendo of noise and con-

fusion. The unseen orchestra
had taken up the “Song of the
Sawmill” and before my eyes
I saw the tree-log length, com-
ing up the slip to the head saw.

Sawdust sat on the shoulders
of the workers and filled the
creases of their caps. Dust and
sweat begrimed their faces, and)
on their hands I noted fingers
missing.

As the tree pased through the
edger, and divided to the gang
and re-saws, the ever present
music told the story in a ragged,
screaming yoice. Devil’s wings
of sound—that smashed against
the ceiling and bellowed to the

floor like an echo out of hell.

“Why, oh why, can’t it stay
on key? What is that jarring,
hopeless note?”

Then I knew, for the answer
was written in the faces of the
mill hands. Like the verses of
the loggers, they told the story
of the pay cheque, of the wealth,
by their labor on the fir tree,
pouring in a steady river to

_the coffers of the “owners” —

while their share would buy
them food, and a little more for
clothing, :

The lumber passed through
the trimmer to the markers on
the greenchain; from the dry-
kiln to the sticker and the
planer. I thought I couldn't
stand it, for the music beat upon
my tortured senses in an agony
of pleading.

But in a trice the sawmill was
gone, and I stood in a garden,
while the music spoke of beauty,
even through the discord. All
around were landscaped acres,
sloping lawns and_lily-pools.
Weeping willows dipped their
fingers in the cool, smiling
water, and on a hillside before
me stood a great mansion.

“Why,” thought I, “Oh, why
am I here in this place of
splendor ?

“The tree,” said the voice, and
it startled me, for I had for-
gotten its existence — “The tree
is in the walls, and in the
floor, and in the spacious ban-
quet hall.”

"Whose house is this?” I
cried, but before the answer
came, I knew.

“It is the dwelling of the
“owner.” ” 4

: “He can buy it, he can buy
it,” sang the sad, discordant
music, “for the wealth is in his
pockets, while the mill hand
doles out pennies for his wife
to fill the stew-pot.”

And it mocked me, with its
jarring notes, off-key.

“In the name of all that’s
holy !” I burst out, “who com-
posed this wretched music?
wrote this fearful drama?”

“No one man ever wrote the
music,” sighed the voice, close
to my ear. “It was born long
ago, beside a crude machine,
and it grew in the pages of
history.” The voice was fading,
fading. “ | .. By the need of
man, and the greed of man.. -
and the pen was made of gold.”

Suddenly I sat bolt upright,
shouting with relief and joy!
“It was a dream! A DREAM!
Thank God!” j

"Then I heard it. Just a whis-
per, but I recognised the voice !

“If you think it is only a
dream, my friend, you are 2
FOO was :

June 8, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 10