"Then you'd let them go on wasting and destroying?" demanded Amy scornfully.
"I don't know," hesitated Bob; "I haven't thought all this out. Perhaps I'm not very much on the think. It seems to me rather this way: We've got to have lumber, haven't we? And somebody has to cut it and supply it. Men like Mr. Welton are doing it, by the methods they've found effective. They are working for the Present; we of the new generation want to work for the Future. It's a fair division. Somebody's got to attend to them both."
"Well, that's what I say!" cried Amy. "If they wouldn't waste and slash and leave good material in the woods—"
Bob smiled whimsically.
"A lumberman doesn't like to leave things in the woods," said he. "If somebody will pay for the tops and the needles, he'll sell them; if there's a market for cull lumber, he'll supply it; and if somebody will create a demand for knotholes, he'll invent some way of getting them out! You see I'm a lumberman myself."
"Why don't you log with some reference to the future, then?" demanded Amy.
"Because it doesn't pay," stated Bob deliberately.
"Pay!" cried Amy.
"Yes," said Bob mildly. "Why not? The lumberman fulfills a commercial function, like any one else; why shouldn't he be allowed freely a commercial reward? You can't lead a commercial class by ideals that absolutely conflict with commercial motives. If you want to introduce your ideals among lumbermen, you want to educate them; and in order to educate them you must fix it so your ideals don't actually spell loss! Rearrange the scheme of taxation, for one thing. Get your ideas of fire protection and conservation on a practical basis. It's all very well to talk about how nice it would be to chop up all the waste tops and pile them like cordwood, and to scrape together the twigs and needles and burn them. It would certainly be neat and effective. But can't you get some scheme that would be just as effective, but not so neat? It's the difference between a yacht and a lumber schooner. We can't expect everybody to turn right in and sacrifice themselves to be philanthropists because the spirit of the age tells them they ought to be. We've got to make it so easy to do things right that anybody at all decent will be ashamed not to. Then we've got to wait for the spirit of the people to grow to new things. It's coming, but it's not here yet."
California John, who had listened with the closest attention, slapped his knee.