"He's a little gentleman," said the rough saw-miller; "he shall sit near me."
Sometimes, when "the boss" was resting, he would talk kindly to Cyril, explaining to him all about the wonderful work which went on in the heart of that strange, wild land.
"You would never think, lad," said he, "that houses built in London, York, Sheffield, Liverpool, and so on, in the old country, are floored and partly 'run up' with boards made of our forest pines. Yet it is so; our timber goes to the wood markets of old England."
Then he related graphically how large parties of men, called lumberers, came over to Michigan and Canada just before the long winter and set up great camps, at which they lived a hard, rough life, going out long before light on intensely cold winter mornings to fell the giant pine trees, and returning early in the evenings to eat and sleep heavily until it was again time to go to work. In the winter months when the ground was covered with snow and ice the forest would resound with the blows of the axe, and the trees would lie prone on the ground until they were chained together into rough sleighs and dragged over the frozen snow to the banks of the frozen rivers. There they would lie waiting until the spring, when the ice would melt, and the timber would be slipped into the river and borne by the force of the current on, on, for many miles until it reached its destination.
"Yes," he said, "our timber comes floating down to us on our river. We stop it when it reaches us, and saw it up as you have seen. Afterwards the same river bears it away towards its distant market."
"Then the river is your road, your railway, and everything," said Cyril.
"Yes. And we make the water serve us doubly. It is our carriage or boat, as well as our road or river." And then Mr. Ellison told him of greater wonders still, of timber being formed into gigantic rafts, these "shooting the rapids" and being "tugged" across lakes by steamers.
It was all very wonderful; Cyril was deeply interested. But still he longed to leave that marvellous country to return to his friends and his father's friends in old England.