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Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



December 10, 1920 



J. J. NARTZIK 



INCORPORATED 

 viii I « GBNEEIAL OFFICES 



GRAND .^pms, MINN. 1^66 MAUD AVENUE ,^^ warehouse 



DES ARK, ARKANSAS CHICAGO CHICAGO, ILL. 



Rotary Cut Veneers 



and 



Panels 



CARLOAD LOTS OR L. C. L. SHIPMENTS 



One day soon afterward, when the wind was right, 

 I heard the cHnk-clank of the pawls on the anchor wind- 

 lass; the crew came running over me, and aloft in the 

 shrouds and out on the skeleton-like spars, to set sail for 

 the start of the long journey. 



There were men in the crew of many nationalities which 

 1, in my royal aloofness of the jungle, had never known. 

 There was the captain, a grizzled down-easter who had 

 first set sail from Maine's forbidding coast, an Italian, a 

 Swede or two, a Finn, a couple of old British tars, a Mar- 

 tinique nigger for a cook, and a few other wastrels of the 

 world's ports and wharves who could hardly more than 

 lay claim to the flag of their birthland. 



The wind which first bore us off the African coast died 

 away and we floated down in a southeasterly direction, 

 helpless in the grip of the Guinea current, towards the 

 island of Fernando Po. Willy-nilly, we carried down to 

 the Equator and for a long, dreary month lay sweltering 

 in the doldrums. With a glassy sea and not a breath of 

 wind stirring the crew kept doggedly at their daytime 

 tasks of chipping rust, swabbing and painting. By night 

 they lay on deck, sleepless, perspiring, below the Southern 

 Cross and myriad other lights of the glaring tropic 

 night, with the sails flapping uselessly above. 



I could hear the crew, feverishly restless and impatient, 

 on the border of mutiny, cursing their luck and the ship's 

 master in the idle hours of the night, and 1 knew that 

 trouble was brewing. The simmering pot boiled over one 

 night when a knife flew aft through the darkness, towards 

 the captain, leaning on the railing of the poop deck. But 

 it missed its mark and struck the rail below where the 

 captain was leaning, to quiver harmlessly there. 



The skipper had been ready. A revolver shot rang out 

 and somewhere close by me a man slipped to the deck, 

 dead. He was wrapped in sail canvas and weighted with 

 sand the next morning, and with the brief sea burial service 

 was slid over the bulwarks to his last salty resting place 

 at noon. Cowed, the rest of the crew carried wearily on 

 with the dull monotony of their work in the equatorial 

 heat. The spark had failed to touch ofi^ the smouldering 

 potential explosive of the foc'sle, and mahogany had 

 exacted another life as toll. 



But at length we carried farther southward into the 



trade winds, and with new hope bowled westward below 

 the equator. For twenty days we plowed ahead with good 

 and indifferent winds and then, like a blight, came another 

 calm. With food supplies running low, and what was 

 left of little sustaining value, the men were in an appal- 

 lingly weakened condition. Only three were able to go 

 aloft. The rest lay sick in their bunks, or were carried out 

 to lie on deck in the sun. Another man, with swollen 

 limbs, curled up in his bunk and died, to follow on his 

 way overboard to an unmarked grave. 



"Beri-beri! " I heard the fearsome whispers about me, 

 "it will get us all!" 



But again fortune smiled, and a fresh wind came out 

 of the south. We carried up over the line and to the west 

 until one fine morning the island of Barbados rose up out 

 of the horizon. With a wonderful regained zest the crew 

 worked the ship into the welcome harbor and we dropped 

 anchor. We spent a few d»ys doctoring the sick and 

 taking supplies aboard, took on two negroes to fill out the 

 depleted but now heartened crew, and set sail again. Up 

 through the winding channels of the West Indies, north- 

 ward across the Gulf of Mexico, and we found our berth 

 at Pensacola, Florida, after ninety days on the sea. 



Once again the steel slings slip about me, the boom 

 cables whine, the steam winch groans, and I go up over 

 the rail to drop on a flat car. Northward still, but now 

 with steam and wheels, and not by the inconstant grace 

 of the fickle winds, I ride to Louisville. The great hooks 

 of the Lidgerwood cableway grapple w^ith me, out and up 

 again 1 swing, to be laid down for a brief respite on the 

 wide log-yard. 



Then the short ride up the incline to the mill and I am 

 mauled about by the steam nigger as if 1 were a child's 

 plaything, and not six tons of precious mahogany. Down 

 come the clamps, the carriage shoots forward, and 1 feel 

 the remorseless bite of the whirling bandsaw. Now you 

 may see my inner charms and beauty as 1 am ripped into 

 long boards or veneer flitches and carried off on the live 

 rolls to the dry kilns, or for the more leisurely seasoning 

 on the yards, to receive the final touches before 1 am 

 ready for the artisan. 



And where is the poet who could still maintain that I, 

 MAHOGANY, have not a romantic story to tell? For 1 

 have exacted my toll of the brains and brawn, the blood 

 and the lives, of men of many races, and I have come 

 these many thousand miles from Africa's far jungle, to 

 serve your purposes and delight your eye. For 1 am King 

 of the Woods— KING MAHOGANY. 



Norway Pine Plywood 



What is known as Norway pine plywood has lately 

 attracted attention in England. Pine plywood until re- 

 cently was an innovation in England, but now large quan- 

 tities of it are being bought from various sources, chiefly 

 the Scandinavian manufacturers. 



