Clearing 233 



casionally the cut next the stump was of no 

 value, with the cuts further up fair. But it 

 was only occasionally. The negroes had a 

 very true saying : " Whut start at de butt, 

 don't end tell hit come ter de lap." 



Burning the woods away back accounted 

 for much of the brash timber. The oaks 

 were but saplings then, thin enough in bark 

 to be badly scorched on the windward side 

 where the fire drove against them. Since the 

 other side escaped with no more than a singe- 

 ing, they lived on, and throve after a fashion, 

 but always kept the fire-scar at the heart. 

 Very often they began rotting there, and the rot 

 spread in and upward, though still they grew 

 fairly and looked green and thrifty outside. 

 When the axes chopped into the rotten wood, 

 the axmen said the tree was " doated at de 

 heart." Joe smiled to hear them. He knew 

 where doated came from — it was a corrup- 

 tion of dotard. His books had told him how 

 the oaks in the royal forests were reckoned, 

 so many thousand sound, so many hundred 

 dotard — that is, failing through age or in- 

 firmity. As in case of the rabbit's foot sup- 

 erstition, slaves had caught the word from 

 English owners and passed it down to their 

 free descendants. It was the same with lap, 

 meaning the branches of a tree. He knew it 

 came from lop. He had read how " lop, top, 



