Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/648

 Soul", "Golf Reaches the Big Sticks", "Holiday on the Skidroad", "Logging Camp Humor", "Queer Working Stiffs", "A Note on Galluses", "The Whistle Punk", "Fire in the Bush", and many others. Low-brow? Does it depend upon the subject or the reader—pulp-paper dukes and duchesses or loggers in the Century?

Mr. Holbrook was born in 1893 at Newport, Vermont. For two years he attended Colebrook Academy, working in logging camps between terms. He served in the American Expeditionary Forces as a top sergeant, and returned to work in the woods in Northern New England. In 1920 he went to British Columbia, where he was employed in logging camps until 1923, when he came to Portland to be associate editor of the Four L Lumber News. He was editor from 1926 to 1934, resigning to do freelance writing. He was married in 1926 to Katherine Stanton Gill. Their home is in Portland. He belongs very definitely among the historians—he has their love of truth and their spirit of investigation. He is the historian of the folk life of an earlier day and of a great industry. What he says is accurate and vivid enough to stand the test of logger reading throughout the Northwest and has a literary quality genuine enough to meet the requirements of the discriminating magazine editors of America.

Night came and found an almost silent forest. The bushes around camp sounded that uneven and ominous rustle that bushes give out before a thunder-storm. Now and again an unseen, unfelt wind gave our stovepipes an eery rattle as it sighed northward.... It was fire-time in the ... timber. Loggers and wild animals sniffed the air. But supper passed and nothing had happened.

The camp itself was strangely quiet. Talk in the bunkhouses was hushed, as if by some sort of unspoken but mutual agreement. Even the poker game was mechanical. Puppet players saw and raised in low tones. The beloved accordions of the Finns were silent. Two hundred raw loggers huddled together in twenty little shacks, and hardly a sound! When one of the younger boys let a calked boot drop from an upper bunk and strike the floor, he was softly yet fervently cursed.

So subdued was everything that I recall how strident