His father, on the contrary, wasted no time in
singing, but would toss him to the ceiling or set him astride his
foot and swing him until he screamed in ecstasy. Moreover, his father
took him on wonderful journeys which no other member of the household
had even suggested. Together they were wont to ride to and from the
woods in the cab of the logging locomotive, and once they both got on
the log carriage in the mill with Dan Keyes, the head sawyer, and had
a jolly ride up to the saw and back again, up and back again until
the log had been completely sawed; and because he had refrained from
crying aloud when the greedy saw bit into the log with a shrill
whine, Dan Keyes had given him a nickel to put in his tin bank.
Of all their adventures together, however, those which occurred on
their frequent excursions up to the Valley of the Giants impressed
themselves imperishably upon Bryce's memory. How well he remembered
their first trip, when, seated astride his father's shoulders with
his sturdy little legs around Cardigan's neck and his chubby little
hands clasping the old man's ears, they had gone up the abandoned
skid-road and into the semi-darkness of the forest, terminating
suddenly in a shower of sunshine that fell in an open space where a
boy could roll and play and never get dirty.
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