“Send me to the mill,” I replied, “and let me learn the business. I like the place and will do well there if I get a chance. I will marry soon and settle down.”
He was too wise to discuss a thing like my marriage, which seemed so far in the future.
“Humph!” said he, “we will see about it.”
Seeing about it was never a very lengthy process with him. Generally when he said that, his mind was already made up.
Letters passed between him and Mason, and in a few days the matter was arranged. I was to assist Mason and learn what I could from him, at the rate of five dollars per week during good behaviour. These things were, of course, made known to Muriel, who loved to mother and advise me.
If Mrs. Joseph had shown the wisdom of my father and taken for granted that the affair between her daughter and one Wesblock was a boy and girl love of no consequence, I might not have been married yet. But she disliked me particularly. She saw no future for her daughter with me. In her anxiety to oppose me she just overshot the mark, as so many over-anxious mothers do. She gave our affair an importance it never would have had unopposed and unobtrusively watched.
My start in life, as my going to the saw-mill was considered to be, was highly satisfactory to every one concerned. To Muriel and me, the prospect of our being able presently to live in a nice little house in the woods, to live there together till we became rich, when we would come back to Montreal and show our relatives and friends what we had become—seemed like a beautiful dream. It turned out almost exactly that way, with several minor differences to be presently set forth. To Mrs. Joseph my taking off to the wilderness, ninety miles from the city, was a distinct relief. The Doctor wished me well with smiles. He had not much faith in me, but liked me well enough to hope. Father and mother were also hopeful, with misgivings.
The parting from Muriel came as partings will. How much she suffered I do not know, but it made me ill—seriously ill—I could neither sleep nor eat, and for days after my arrival at the mill I was in a half-dazed condition. Muriel wrote splendid letters daily, and I lived on these until I came to myself and started what I considered the simple task of learning the lumber business.
It had been stipulated by my father that I should remain at my post six months, entirely under the hand of Mason, without trips to Montreal oftener than once in thirty days. I was lodged and fed like all the mill hands, and once every two weeks received my pay envelope.
Mason was kind to me and allowed me great liberty, but I had to work, and work hard, at every kind of labour, from keeping tally to loading slabs. I was a joke to the little community; but I did not know it. For weeks I was abed at eight o’clock, sometimes before sundown, I was so tired out.