Beside him Shirley
sat, her glance bent musingly out across the roofs of Sequoia and on
to the bay shore, where the smoke and exhaust-steam floated up from
two sawmills--her own and Bryce Cardigan's. To her came at regularly
spaced intervals the faint whining of the saws and the rumble of log-
trains crawling out on the log-dumps; high over the piles of bright,
freshly sawed lumber she caught from time to time the flash of white
spray as the great logs tossed from the trucks, hurtled down the
skids, and crashed into the Bay. At the docks of both mills vessels
were loading, their tall spars cutting the skyline above and beyond
the smokestacks; far down the Bay a steam schooner, loaded until her
main-deck was almost flush with the water, was putting out to sea,
and Shirley heard the faint echo of her siren as she whistled her
intention to pass to starboard of a wind-jammer inward bound in tow
of a Cardigan tug.
"It's wonderful," she said presently, apropos of nothing.
"Aye," he replied in his deep, melodious voice, "I've been sitting
here, my dear, listening to your thoughts. You know something, now,
of the tie that binds my boy to Sequoia. This"--he waved his arm
abroad in the darkness--"this is the true essence of life--to create,
to develop the gifts that God has given us--to work and know the
blessing of weariness--to have dreams and see them come true.
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