“Been around the country much?”
“No,” said Scott, “that’s one reason why I came out here to College. I’ve seen every rock in the country around home, but I have never been away from there.”
“Then you have never seen a real forest,” exclaimed Johnson.
“Only the woodlots on the farms.”
“What sort of work did you do in the summer there?”
“Went to summer school and loafed.” Scott, like most of the boys in the East, had always considered the holidays sacred to recreation, and had thought himself particularly virtuous for devoting six weeks of it to summer school each year. “Do you work in vacation time?” he asked.
“You bet,” said Johnson. “I’ve worked every summer since I can remember, and every winter, too, for that matter. I’ve paid all my expenses at school for the past ten years.”
Scott gazed at him in open wonder. “What do you do?” he asked.
“What haven’t I done would be easier. I’ve been ‘bull cook’ on a railroad construction crew in Montana, and driven teams on a slusher in Arizona; I’ve picked apples in Washington, and been a ‘river pig’ on the drive here in northern Minnesota; I’ve carried a rod on a survey party in Colorado, and pushed straw in the harvest fields of North Dakota; I’ve tended furnaces, carried papers, and weighed mail, billed express and smashed baggage during Christmas vacation. Some of ’em were tough and some of ’em were cinches, but they have all netted me a good bunch of experience.”
During the careless listing of his roommate’s experiences Scott had slowly settled back in his chair with a feeling of wondering admiration for Johnson and an overwhelming sense of his own helplessness. He eyed Johnson’s thin freckled face, and ran his glance over his slight, wiry frame, and wondered what he himself, with all his strength, would do if he had to tackle such problems. It had never occurred to him that anyone but a born laboring man could do such things. The feeling of contempt which he had at first for Johnson’s roughness gave way to a kind of new admiration for his ability and self reliance.