I wish more than anything in the world I remembered what the book was called, because I will 100% never find it again (too niche) (hyper local history on Wisconsin lumber camps) and once I type it out no one will believe me BUT
Way out in the woods there wasn’t much opportunity for entertainment, and at night the foreman or whoever would fall back on that tried and true 19th century past time of reading aloud, which was more popular than one might expect. Apparently there’d be a bunch of burly dudes around the campfire rapturously listening to Jane Eyre, to the point where one of them exclaimed, at a moment of peril for the heroine [sadly paraphrased by me] ‘God DAMN them! God them that would be so cruel to one of God’s own lambs!’ etc
I wish more than anything I could find the book again and confirm the quote both for my own sake but also for our proud heritage of being completely insane. Heirloom blorbo.
holy SHIT i found it
“He spent his winter evenings reading from the boss’ collection of Walter Scott novels. The linkage of lumberjacks and literature was not entirely exceptional. James Johnston, a Canadian immigrant who spent the winter of 1856-1857 logging on a branch of the Snake River, was delighted to find in camp a copy of Ivanhoe and a collection of Captain Maryatt novels. Later he "made it a custom to have some book in camp and sometimes at the request of the boys would read aloud while the crew would listen.” On one improbably occasion he was reading Jane Eyre to the men who sat in rapt attention as the young orphan Jane was humiliated by one of her teachers. One of the men, who regarded Jane Eyre as “one of God’s little lambs”, shouted out a curse “from the very bottom of his soul” at the insult to the heroine. The rest of the crew then “broke out in cheers and laughter”
