An eyeball for detail

A French carpenter swings into action

by Max Alexander

The truth is, I hadn’t planned to repair my sagging sheep shed on John Henry Day. I didn’t even know our country had a special day in honor of the mythical freed slave who used two 20-pound hammers to carve West Virginia’s Big Bend railroad tunnel faster than a steam drill. But when I heard on the radio that morning about John Henry Day, I felt it was a good sign.

I felt I needed John Henry. The sheep shed that came with the deed to my land is beyond primitive; indeed to call it a structure would be to use the word in vain. Archeological evidence suggests that it was once a 16-by-18-foot gable-roofed enclosure, open on two sides, eight feet high at the peak and supported by eight massive hemlock trunks set about two feet into the earth. Running on top of those trunks are hand-hewn oak barn beams recycled from a much earlier (and better made) building, each one weighing more than a large asteroid. The rafters are simply pine logs, stripped of bark and crudely shaped with a hatchet. They, in turn, support a roof of rough-cut inch-thick pine boards so rotten that a pocket knife cuts through them like Styrofoam. Both roof and siding have so many jagged cracks that sunlight streams through in crazed patterns — resembling one of those modern churches with Expressionistic stained-glass windows.

Whoever designed it had neglected to remove the bark from the hemlock trunks, thus opening a B&B for bugs and other wood-destroying organisms. Decades later, carpenter ants, nor’easters and neglect had beaten my shed down, down, down — 45 degrees down, more or less, to the point where it was downright dangerous. I would have to pull it up with a two-ton hand winch that Mainers call a come-along, then replace the rotten hemlock trunks with pressure-treated six-by-six posts set in concrete, then replace the rotten roof.

Fortunately, I had solicited the help of my father-in-law, but like myself he is a writer, and thus of the head-scratching school of carpentry. We managed to get the come-along rigged up between a large white pine and the shed, and we even managed to start pulling the building straight. But it groaned and creaked, and the ancient beams wobbled dangerously. It was scary and unpredictable, and we were wondering what to do next when John Henry appeared.

“My name is Pierre,” he said, extending a hand. Pierre, it turns out, was the husband of a former graduate-school classmate of Sarah’s; they had come up from Kennebunk for the day, and he had wandered out back to see what all the fuss was about.

In the pantheon of French musclemen, Pierre was no André the Giant. He was in fact a man of average height and weight, but he had the deep tan and rippled biceps of someone who works hard, and outdoors. I explained our project as sweat tumbled down my brow, and asked if he had any bright ideas. “Well, perhaps we take a look,” he said. “I am a carpentaire.”

Out of misplaced respect for our own efforts, Pierre was at first diplomatic in his advice. “Eef I may say some-zing about your lev-elle,” he began daintily. “A two-foot lev-elle on zees span is really inadequate. Much bettaire you use ze eye-ball.”

We looked eyeball to eyeball and decided to use Pierre’s eyeball — and any other body parts he could spare. In a flash he was hefting beams, planting posts, sawing boards, and driving spikes with a sledgehammer. Had the shed required cleaning, I am certain he could have diverted a river through it. He explained how its original builder failed to properly brace the structure, and showed me how to do it right.

When it came time to notch out a crossbeam, Pierre suggested we use a Skil saw to dig out a channel, then chisel out the remaining wood. I was familiar with that technique but pointed out that the shed was too far to reach with my hundred-foot extension cord. “No problem,” he said, pointing to my 21-inch Stihl, “we use ze chainsaw.”

Chainsaw carpentry is, of course, a distinctly Maine-based branch of the applied arts, so I was curious to see how a Frenchman would rise to this native woodworking task. Minutes later he stood in a pile of sawdust as we admired the near-perfect joint he had fashioned with a tool meant for demolishing trees.

It turns out Pierre was from a region of France that is at least spiritually akin to Maine — the rugged and remote central department called the Auvergne. The Auvergnat are no-nonsense woodsy types who shake their heads disapprovingly at the air-kissing sophisticates of Paris. As it happens, I have spent a fair amount of time in the Auvergne (for an American), and Pierre and I talked wistfully of cabbage soup and goose stew. When it came time for lunch we hauled out a leftover roast chicken, and green beans from our garden; Pierre’s wife Marta produced a loaf of bread from their car, as well as a round of blue cheese from the Auvergne that they apparently never travel without. I asked Pierre what he wanted to drink, but I already knew the answer. We washed it all down with a jug of red wine.

Legend says that John Henry died as soon as he finished carving the Big Bend tunnel, and by the end of the day I knew how he felt; watching Pierre work made me dead tired. They say John Henry was buried one night on the White House lawn, while President Grant was sleeping. Personally I’d settle for a meadow in Maine, or maybe the Auvergne. Just lay me in a box of rough-cut pine — and don’t bother to take my measurements. You can eyeball it.

Max Alexander can be reached at malex@midcoast.net.