“I’m mighty sorry for him”; the little fellow twisted his hands together and looked afar; “it’s powerful mizzable to be borned with ways that you can’t help.”
The old man’s attention and sympathy were his in an instant. “Don’t you go to takin’ on about sleep walkin’, Grover Cleveland,” he said drawing his arm tightly about the child; “you’re bound to outgrow that before long.”
“I paid him,” the old man went on addressing his daughter, “I paid him more for them trees than ary other somebody had offered him, jes’ because I was willin’ to help make up to him the loss of his barn that burnt down; but he didn’ thank me for it.”
“What’s curly wa’nuts good for, gran’daddy?”
“They’re good for veneerin’, Grover Cleveland. You see this is how ’tis: they don’t saw the logs through like they do down to Campbell’s saw-mill but they saw ’em, round and round, into sheets mighty nigh as thin as writin’-paper. There hadn’t ought to be any cuts or holes in the log, so that they can make big smooth sheets of it, and they’ll saw that log up till there ain’t a core left that’s as thick as my arm.”
“What can they make out of timber as thin as writin’-paper, gran’daddy?”
Then to the extent of his own imperfect knowledge of the veneering process, the old man explained it to the child.
“So far as I know, there’s only three veneering mills in the country. When I sold my tree I wrote a letter to all three of ’em and told ’em what I had to sell and they wrote back and made me a offer—only that Kentucky fellow, he’s the nearest by and he made out like he had business in this direction and he stopped round to see it; and ’twas him I sold the tree to.
“And I aimed to work it jes’ that-a-way for Cap’n Sumter; I aimed to write the letters for him—for he ain’t a mite handy with a pen, Sam Sumter ain’t (a education is a mighty handy thing to get hold of Grover Cleveland), and get in the three bids for the tree and let him take up with ary one he see fit.”
“You’ve sure done your duty by him now, daddy,” said Carolina, “and that tree is yours anyway you can fix it.”