CHAPTER VIII
"'Tain't no tarnel use of you talking of going away now," Howard exploded, when I hinted at leaving. "You've stuck your nose in them papers of your'n every minute an' I haven't had even a chance to talk. You got away from me for five years and can never do that ag'in if I have to spend half my time on yer trail," he added, whimsically.
I spent that day with him and learned that his organization and planning were wonderful. Cabins for his men and a store for their wants, standard-gauge tracks built out into the stump land from which a giant crane plucked stumps as you would turnips and dropped them on flat cars. The plant digested stumps with relish, released the turpentine and rosin, and handed the remaining fiber, like overdone corned beef, to the beating engines of the pulp mill. A long row of cotton bales under cover waiting for a favorable market testified impressively to the general efficiency of the management.
"An' when you told me to pull 'em out and boil 'em, I thought you was half joking," Howard would mention every now and then with the glee of a boy getting the point of a joke a day or so late.
As I came through the paper mill his schooner Canby was just closing her hatches over a load of paper in rolls for New York. I returned to the bungalow, sat on my end of the veranda smoking, meditating on human probabilities, when Mother Purdue waddled up from somewhere. Perhaps waddle may be an exaggeration, but as I didn't especially want to see her then, it so seemed to me. She appeared to be in an excellent humor and I was wrong in expecting a dose of refined caustic. I offered her a chair, but she preferred the log edge of the veranda against a post, her feet just reaching the ground.
"Mr. Wood," she began rather impressively, "I wish to apologize for my rudeness when you returned that morning. I was quite beside myself. I never passed such a night and I shudder now when I recall it. But I am indeed sorry I spoke the way I did. I know now that the children might have perished had it not been for you and Mr. Byng, and with utmost gratitude I thank you." Her lips quivered as she finished.
"I had little to do with it. I assisted Mr. Byng all I could." A billow of harnessed adipose tissue was a poor substitute for my meditations.
"Mr. Byng says it was all your work; quite modest of him. He is a wonderful fellow, isn't he?" this time facing me.