“Nice boy, yess,” said Heinie, smiling. “But he don’t got no efficiency. Look down the trail—Charlie, making benches—toys. He can chop down four trees aready, while me unt you chops down one. Look at shingles, how he nail them on. Look at Burke, quartering logs for chinking. In an hour aready Charlie would make such a pile big enuff for all day. Och, dot feller could work, I would say dot. Sure—but down the trail you find him—see? Making bench toys! He ask Tom for diss job—easy!”
“No, no, Charlie isn’t lazy,” I said.
“Sure not. I wouldn’t deny he got us all beat for work—sure. Dot’s it! Why don’t he got work wot counts mitt getting cabins up? Sure, nice boy, Tom. Laugh, play pinocle, work like ten devils! But for boss—och, he got no efficiency.... Neider I got no good light mitt diss,” he added, intent on his work. Tom’s deficiencies seemed neither to trouble nor prejudice him.
I strolled up the trail toward where Rivers was working. It did seem odd, I reflected, that Tom had set our best worker to this odd job just after the planking had come and the more important labor had been resumed. As for Heinie, his lettering occupied but an hour or so every now and then. But I wondered not only that Tom had set Rivers to this task, but that Rivers (a competent and rapid worker if ever there was one) should have asked for the job.
You will understand that this wagon trail through the woods led to the public road. It was up that way, where the trail reached this public road, that Rivers was working. I did not go straight along the trail, but cut into the woods, for I thought that Brent was gathering sphagnum moss for chinking the storehouse cabin and I wanted to speak with him. He was nowhere to be seen and I went on through the woods, reaching the public road at a point perhaps a hundred yards from the wagon trail. Thus, approaching along the road, I could see Rivers working a few yards from it on the trail. He heard me approaching, and arose suddenly as if startled. I was astonished at this, for I was still some distance from him. He seemed relieved as soon as he had identified me.
“H’lo Charlie,” I greeted. “How’s the work coming on? May I sit down on this bench? Did I startle you?”
“Not many folks come along the road,” he said.
“You’re all by your lonesome up here, huh? I was looking for Brent in the woods.”
He did not pause to entertain me, proceeding with his task as if I were not there. He was the hardest man to talk to I ever knew. It takes two to make a conversation and I could not seduce him into responsiveness. So I made a bold plunge. “Charlie,” I said, “I wonder if I didn’t meet you before I ever came here?”
He paused in his work, looking not at me, but straight ahead of him. “I don’t reckon I did,” he said; “not unless you’re more a man of the woods than I take yer ter be.”