"Shoveling a ton or two of gravel. Then I assisted in jacking up one side of the engine."
"Why? Did you enjoy it?"
George laughed; he had, as it happened, experienced a curious pleasure in the work. He was accustomed to the more vigorous sports; but, after all, they led to no tangible results, and in this respect his recent task was different—one, as he thought of it, could see what one had done. He had been endowed with some ability of strictly practical description, though it had so far escaped development.
"Yes," he responded. "I enjoyed it very much."
The girl regarded him with a trace of curiosity.
"Was that because work of the kind is new to you?"
"No," George answered. "It isn't altogether a novelty. I once spent three years in manual labor; and now when I look back at them, I believe I was happy then."
She nodded as if she understood.
"Shall we walk back?" she suggested.
They went on together, and though the sun was now fiercely hot and the distance long, George enjoyed the walk. Once they met a ballast train, with a steam plow mounted at one end of it, and a crowd of men riding on the open cars; but when it had passed there was nothing to break the deep silence of the woods. The dark firs shut in the narrow track except when here and there a winding lake or frothing river filled a sunny opening.