Out o[ the \(/oods

Bv Jim Stevens

Poet's Gold.

The other day a letter from Jean Thibault of Adelanto, California, came to me marked "Refertince your letter Oct. L,1925, to J. Isadore Thibault." The latter rvas a horse logger I'd worked with in 1914 and 1916 on big wheels of the McCloud River Lumber Company, southward of Mt. Shasta. "Frenchy" Thibault was a poet who composed lyrics on subjects of nature in the French style of Chateaubriand-he said. I, myself, rvas rvriting like Kipling and KeatsI thought.

Anyhow, life u'as very rvonderful for us both because o{ poetry. Each of us had lived from first memory in the worst of poverty. Up in the pine u'oods we lvere chasing the big wheels ten hours a day for 271 cents per hour, six days a week. But rve had poet's gold. It enriched our lives as physical gold can never do.

The letter fror.n lirenchy's son, Jean, a school principal, told of the peaceful passing of mv poetical friend of long ago. And then, by the kind of coincidence that gives one to rvonder, the mail brought a copy of a modest nerv book of poems by Van Boling, poems that might rvell be described by an old term, "adventures in cotrtentment." But the title is simply "Fireside," for a poem that sings like this: fancies and meditations, on the final verse-

"Deep in my old armchair Here by the fire alone, Watching the cheery flare, Cozy u'orld of my own."

"Here let me grandlv dream, Here let my ego shine; Here life and love supreme, One little realtn, all mine."

Much thesemore of the kind, and manv strong, hard lines, "He lived by no accepted rtlle, All charity u,as laid aside. Gave honesty to ridicule, And vet on'ned half the countryside.

The casket with its silent dust

Cast shadow whollY unbenign; It seemed that'clay brought vague distrust

To those rvho'd best known Ansel Trine'"

Van Boling has worked for Simpson Logging Company for many years, and his nerv rvork is dedicated "to Simpson's, to whom so many owe so much." It is a prime book of verse in its humor and the rugged stuff of the timber, beside its more serious poetry. Van lives at Elma, Washington. Write him there if you would know more about his book, and about a man who has found riches of life in the ancient poetic art.

Solong...

But again Frenchy haunts my mind and mood.

Jean Thibault writes, "I hope that his eternity may be spent looking out across the grand vistas afforded by 'the timber cotlntry at McCloud' that you and he knew together in youth, and of which you spoke in your letter. He alrvays loved that country. In his last years, when one or another of us would come across a piece of yours, we would take it to him and the eyes of the old man sitting there rvould become the clear shining blue of a youth reliving the 'many brave times' of the lumberjack. I trust you still inhabit the timber countrY."

Yes, Jean, I do. With memories, dreams and poetry, by the fire in the boom-pond shack as rain drums the old shakes above and the wind whines around.

So I remember Frenchy, friend in labor and in poetry, in the da1's of our youth. The days that with us all must come to this pass. So long, Frenchv, so long.

Ccrpenters End Strike in Northern Ccrlilornicr Counties

The strike of 80,000 carpenters in 42 Northern California counties ended offrcially June 5, u'hen a 100-man cotnmittee meetinq in Oakland accelrted an empl)ver offer of a 21 cent hourly pay increase, 15 cents of rvhich :" retroactive to May 12 and 6 cents to be effective next Felrruary. In addition the employers agreed to pav 7.5 cen+s an hour into a wellike fare fur,d.

The labor situation in Northern california's construction inclustry rvas further eased rvith the acceptance by nonstriking AFL, laborers, operating engili'eers, and constructitrn tea-msters of a 15 cents hourly pay increase and a 7f cent hourl1' 'n'elfare fund contribution by employers.