He smiled at her childish look of bewilderment. "I've been painfully aware of it for some time back. I've been suffering for food while you slept."
"Why didn't you get into the basket?"
"How could I, with you on my manly bosom?"
She colored up a little. They had not been married long, evidently.
They were soon eating a breakfast with the spirit of picnickers. Occasionally she looked out of the window.
"What a wild country!" she said. He did not emphasize its qualities to her; rather, he distracted her attention from the desolation.
The train roared round its curves, conforming with the general course of the river. On every hand were thickening signs of active lumber industry. They flashed by freight trains loaded with logs or lumber or ties. Mills in operation grew thicker.
The car echoed with the talk of lumber. A brisk man with a red mustache was exhibiting a model of a machine to cut certain parts of machinery out of "two by fours." Another was describing a new shingle mill he had just built.
A couple of elderly men, one a German, were discussing the tariff on lumber. The workmen mainly sat silent.
"It's all so strange!" the young wife said again and again.