Imagine yourself, gentle reader, who have perhaps passed most of your days between the wearisome confinement of an office or counting-house, and a rare holiday visit of a few days or weeks at your cousin's or grandfather's pleasant farm in the country--imagine yourself, I say, transplanted to a "home" like ours. No road approaches within ten miles; no footpath nearer than half that distance; the surveyor's blaze is the sole distinctive mark between the adjoining lots and your own; there are trees innumerable--splendid trees--beech, maple, elm, ash, cherry--above and around you, which, while you are wondering what on earth to do with them, as you see no chance of conveying them to market for sale, you are horrified to hear, must be consumed by fire--yea, burnt ruthlessly to ashes, and scattered over the surface of the earth as "good manure"; unless indeed--a desperately forlorn hope--you may "some day" have an opportunity of selling them in the shape of potash, "when there is a road out" to some navigable lake or river.

Well, say you, let us set to work and chop down some of these trees. Softly, good sir. In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands, you cut away for some distance round--a quarter or half an acre perhaps--all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm, white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber--the "underbrush" is very trifling indeed; and in an hour or two may be cleared off sufficiently to give the forest an agreeable park-like appearance--so much so that, as has been said of English Acts of Parliament, any skilful hand might drive a coach and six through.

When you have finished "under-brushing," you stand with whetted axe, ready and willing to attack the fathers of the forest--but stay--you don't know how to chop? It is rather doubtful, as you have travelled hither in a great hurry, whether you have ever seen an axeman at work. Your man, Carroll, who has been in the country five or six years, and is quite au fait, will readily instruct you. Observe--you strike your axe, by a dexterous swing backwards and round over your shoulder,--take care there are no twigs near you, or you may perhaps hurt yourself seriously--you strike your axe into the tree with a downward slant, at about thirty inches from the ground; then, by an upward stroke you meet the former incision and release a chip, which flies out briskly. Thus you proceed, by alternate downward and upward or horizontal strokes on that side of the tree which leans over, or towards which you wish to compel it to fall, until you have made a clear gap rather more than half way through, when you attack it in rear.

Now for the reward of your perspiring exertions--a few well-aimed blows on the reverse side of the tree, rather higher than in front, and the vast mass "totters to its fall,"--another for the coup-de-grace--crack! crack! cra-a-ack!--aha!--away with you behind yon beech--the noble tree bows gently its leafy honours with graceful sweep towards the earth--for a moment slowly and leisurely, presently with giddy velocity, until it strikes the ground, amidst a whirlwind of leaves, with a loud thud, and a concussion both of air and earth, that may be felt at a considerable distance. You feel yourself a second David, who has overthrown a mightier Goliath.

Now do you step exultingly upon the prostrate trunk, which you forthwith proceed to cut up into about fourteen-foot lengths, chopping all the branches close off, and throwing the smaller on to your brush piles. It is a common mistake of new immigrants, who are naturally enough pleased with the novel spectacle of falling trees, to cut down so many before they begin to chop them into lengths, that the ground is wholly encumbered, and becomes a perfect chaos of confused and heaped-up trunks and branches, which nothing but the joint operation of decay and fire will clear off, unless at an immense waste of time and trouble. To an experienced axeman, these first attempts at chopping afford a ready text for all kinds of ironical comments upon the unworkmanlike appearance of the stumps and "cuts," which are generally--like those gnawn off by beavers in making their dams--haggled all round the tree, instead of presenting two clear smooth surfaces, in front and rear, as if sliced off with a knife. Your genuine axeman is not a little jealous of his reputation as a "clean cutter"--his axe is always bright as burnished silver, guiltless of rust or flaw, and fitted with a handle which, with its graceful curve and slender proportions, is a tolerable approach to Hogarth's "line of beauty;" he would as soon think of deserting his beloved "bush" and settling in a town! as trust his keen weapon in the hands of inexperience or even mediocrity. With him every blow tells--he never leaves the slightest chip in the "cut," nor makes a false stroke, so that in passing your hand over the surface thus left, you are almost unable to detect roughness or inequality.

But we must return to our work, and take care in so doing to avoid the mishap which befel a settler in our neighbourhood. He was busy chopping away manfully at one of those numerous trees which, yielding to the force of some sudden gust of wind, have fallen so gently among their compeers, that the greater portion of their roots still retains a powerful hold upon the soil, and the branches put forth their annual verdure as regularly as when erect. Standing on the recumbent trunk, at a height of five or six feet from the ground, the man toiled away, in happy ignorance of his danger, until having chopped nearly to the centre on both sides of the tree, instead of leaping off and completing the cut in safety on terra firma, he dealt a mighty stroke which severed at once the slight portion that remained uncut--in an instant, as if from a mortar, the poor fellow was launched sixteen feet into the air, by the powerful elasticity of the roots, which, relieved from the immense weight of the trunk and branches, reverted violently to their natural position, and flung their innocent releaser to the winds. The astonished chopper, falling on his back, lay stunned for many minutes, and when he was at length able to rise, crawled to his shanty sorely bruised and bewildered. He was able, however, to return to his work in a few days, but not without vowing earnestly never again to trust himself next the root.

There are other precautions to be observed, such as whether the branches interlock with other trees, in which case they will probably break off, and must be carefully watched, lest they fall or are flung back upon oneself--what space you have to escape at the last moment--whether the tree is likely to be caught and twisted aside in its fall, or held upright, a very dangerous position, as then you must cut down others to release it, and can hardly calculate which way it will tend: these and many other circumstances are to be noted and watched with a cool judgment and steady eye, to avoid the numerous accidents to which the inexperienced and rash are constantly exposed. One of these mischances befel an Amazonian chopper of our neighbourhood, whose history, as we can both chop and talk, I shall relate.

Mary ---- was the second of several daughters of an emigrant from the county of Galway, whose family, having suffered from continual hardship and privation in their native land, had found no difficulty in adapting themselves to the habits and exigencies of the wilderness.

Hardworking they were all and thrifty. Mary and her elder sister, neither of them older than eighteen, would start before day-break to the nearest store, seventeen miles off, and return the same evening laden each with a full sack flung across the shoulder, containing about a bushel and a half, or 90lbs. weight of potatoes, destined to supply food for the family, as well as seed for their first crop. Being much out of doors, and accustomed to work about the clearing, Mary became in time a "first-rate" chopper, and would yield to none of the new settlers in the dexterity with which she would fell, brush and cut up maple or beech; and preferring such active exercise to the dull routine of household work, took her place at chopping, logging or burning, as regularly and with at least as much spirit as her brothers. Indeed, chopping is quite an accomplishment among young women in the more remote parts of the woods, where schools are unknown, and fashions from New York or Philadelphia have not yet penetrated. A belle of this class will employ her leisure hours in learning to play--not the piano-forte--but the dinner-horn, a bright tin tube sometimes nearly four feet in length, requiring the lungs of that almost forgotten individual, an English mail-coach-guard; and an intriguing mamma of those parts will bid her daughter exhibit the strength of her throat and the delicacy of her musical ear, by a series of flourishes and "mots" upon her graceful "tooting-weapon." I do not mean, however, that Mary possessed this fashionable acquirement, as the neighbourhood had not then arrived at such an advanced era of musical taste, but she made up in hard work for all other deficiencies; and being a good-looking, sunny-faced, dark-eyed, joyous-hearted girl, was not a little admired among the young axe-men of the township. But she preferred remaining under her parents' roof-tree, where her stout-arm and resolute disposition rendered her absolute mistress of the household, to the indignity of promising to "obey" any man, who could wield no better axe than her own. At length it was whispered that Mary's heart, long hard as rock-elm, had become soft as basswood, under the combined influence of the stalwart figure, handsome face and good axe of Johnny, a lad of eighteen recently arrived in the neighbourhood, who was born in one of the early Scotch settlements in the Newcastle District--settlements which have turned out a race of choppers, accustomed from their infancy to handle the axe, and unsurpassed in the cleanness of their cut, the keenness of their weapon, or the amount of cordwood they can chop, split and pile in a day.

Many a fair denizen of the abodes of fashion might have envied Mary the bright smiles and gay greetings which passed between her and young Johnny, when they met in her father's clearing at sunrise to commence the day's work. It is common for axemen to exchange labour, as they prefer working in couples, and Johnny was under a treaty of this kind with Patsy, Mary's brother. But Patsy vacated his place for Mary, who was emulous of beating the young Scotch lad at his own weapon; and she had tucked up her sleeves and taken in the slack, as a sailor would say, of her dress--Johnny meanwhile laying aside his coat, waistcoat and neckcloth, baring his brawny arms, and drawing tight the bright scarlet sash round his waist--thus equipped for their favourite occupation, they chopped away in merry rivalry, at maple, elm, ash, birch and basswood--Johnny sometimes gallantly fetching water from the deliciously-cold natural spring that oozed out of the mossy hill-side, to quench Mary's thirst, and stealing now and then a kiss by way of guerdon--for which he never failed to get a vehement box on the ear, a penalty which, although it would certainly have annihilated any lover of less robust frame, he seemed nowise unwilling to incur again and again. Thus matters proceeded, the maiden by no means acknowledging herself beaten, and the young man too gallant to outstrip overmuch his fair opponent--until the harsh sound of the breakfast or dinner horn would summon both to the house, to partake of the rude but plentiful mess of "colcannon" and milk, which was to supply strength for a long and severe day's labour.

Alas! that I should have to relate the melancholy termination of poor Mary's unsophisticated career. Whether Johnny's image occupied her thoughts, to the exclusion of the huge yellow birch she was one day chopping, or that the wicked genius who takes delight in thwarting the course of true love had caught her guardian angel asleep on his post, I know not; but certain it is, that in an evil hour she miscalculated the cut, and was thoughtlessly continuing her work, when the birch, overbalancing, split upwards, and the side nearest to Mary, springing suddenly out, struck her a blow so severe as to destroy life instantaneously. Her yet warm remains were carried hastily to the house, and every expedient for her recovery that the slender knowledge of the family could suggest, was resorted to, but in vain. I pass over the silent agony of poor Johnny, and the heart-rending lamentations of the mother and sisters. In a decent coffin, contrived after many unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy, the unfortunate girl was carried to her grave, in the same field which she had assisted to clear, amid a concourse of simple-minded, coarsely-clad, but kindly sympathising neighbours, from all parts of the surrounding district. Many years have rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made grave, and it may be that Johnny has forgotten his first love; but I was told, that no other had yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped to make his "bonny bride."

By this time you have cut down trees enough to enable you fairly to see the sky! Yes, dear sir, it was entirely hidden before, and the sight is not a little exhilarating to a new "bush-whacker." We must think of preparing fire-wood for the night. It is highly amusing to see a party of axemen, just returning from their work, set about this necessary task. Four "hands" commence at once upon some luckless maple, whose excellent burning qualities ensure it the preference. Two on each side, they strike alternate blows--one with the right hand, his "mate" with the left--in a rapid succession of strokes that seem perfectly miraculous to the inexperienced beholder--the tree is felled in a trice--a dozen men jump upon it, each intent on exhibiting his skill by making his "cut" in the shortest possible time. The more modest select the upper end of the tree--the bolder attack the butt--their bright axes, flashing vividly in the sunbeams, are whirled around their heads with such velocity as to elude the eye--huge chips a foot broad are thrown off incessantly--they wheel round for the "back cut" at the same instant, like a file of soldiers facing about upon some enemy in rear--and in the space of two or three minutes, the once tall and graceful trunk lies dissevered in as many fragments as there are choppers.

It invariably astonishes new comers to observe with what dexterity and ease an axeman will fell a tree in the precise spot which he wishes it to occupy so as to suit his convenience in cutting it up, or in removing it by oxen to the log-pile where it is destined to be consumed. If it should happen to overhang a creek or "swale" (wet places where oxen cannot readily operate), every contrivance is resorted to, to overcome its apparently inevitable tendency. Choosing a time when not a breath of air is stirring to defeat his operations, or better still, when the wind is favourable, he cuts deeply into the huge victim on the side to which he wishes to throw it, until it actually trembles on the slight remaining support, cautiously regulating the direction of the "cut" so that the tree may not overbalance itself--then he gently fells among its branches on the reverse side all the smaller trees with which it may be reached--and last and boldest expedient of all, he cuts several "spring poles"--trimmed saplings from twenty to forty feet in length and four to eight inches thick--which with great care and labour are set up against the stem, and by the united strength and weight of several men used as spring levers, after the manner in which ladders are employed by fire-men to overthrow tottering stacks of chimneys; the squared end of these poles holding firmly in the rough bark, they slowly but surely compel the unwilling monster to obey the might of its hereditary ruler, man. With such certainty is this feat accomplished, that I have seen a solitary pine, nearly five feet thick and somewhere about a hundred and seventy feet in height, forced by this latter means, aided by the strength of two men only, against its decided natural bearing, to fall down the side of a mound, at the bottom of which a saw-pit was already prepared to convert it into lumber. The moment when the enormous mass is about yielding to its fate, is one of breathless interest--it sways alarmingly, as if it must inevitably fall backward, crushing poles and perhaps axemen to atoms in its overwhelming descent--ha! there is a slight cat's paw of air in our favour--cling to your pole--now! an inch or two gained!--the stout stick trembles and bends at the revulsive sway of the monstrous tree but still holds its own--drive your axe into the back cut--that helps her--again, another axe! soh, the first is loose--again!--she must go--both axes are fixed in the cut as immovably as her roots in the ground--another puff of wind--she sways the wrong way--no, no! hold on--she cracks--strike in again the slackened axes--bravo! one blow more--quick, catch your axe and clear out!--see! what a sweep--what a rush of wind--what an enormous top--down! down! how beautifully she falls--hurrah! just in the right place!