“Buttonwood? I don’t think I ever heard of that. I know the beech and the maple, and some kinds of oak, but there my wood lore ends. Why the buttonwood?”
“The buttonwood happens to be exactly suited to the purpose. It is a tree that is very fine to look at. It seems all right, but it generally isn’t. It is hollow or rotten within, and, even when sound, the timber made from it is of little value, as it doesn’t last. Yet you can’t tell until you begin to chop whether it is of any use or not.” Kitty shot a quick glance at the young man, who was sitting on a log watching her.
“Go on, Miss Bartlett; I see what you mean. There are men like the buttonwood tree. The woods are full of them. I’ve met lots of that kind, fair to look upon, but hollow. Of course you don’t mean anything personal; for you must have seen my worth by the way I stuck to the water hauling. But go on.”
“Dear me, I never thought of such a thing; but a guilty conscience, they say——” said Kitty, with a giggle.
“Of course they say; but it’s wrong, like most other things they say. It’s the man with the guilty conscience who looks you straight in the eye. Now that the buttonwood is chopped down, what’s the next thing to be done?”
“It is sawn off at the proper length, square at one end and slanting at the other.”
“Why slanting?”
“Don’t you see, the foundation of plank on which it rests is inclined, so the end of the leach that is down must be slantingly cut, otherwise it would not stand perpendicularly. It would topple over in the first windstorm.”
“I see, I see. Then they haul it in and set it up?”
“Oh, dear no; not yet. They build a fire in it when it gets dry enough.”