Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/79

Rh around. I waited to explain. Aunty May called you for breakfast but you didn't hear, and the children were up, so I took the responsibility."

He looked at the clock. It was seven. Helen saw the query in his face.

"We eat at dawn," she explained. "I was up a trifle earlier today because I wanted to drive to Parker's."

The fact of having overslept, coming on top of the rest, made him feel, in truth, like a little boy! She had taken him into her house because the crew in the men's shanty were rough; she had been patient when he overslept and disturbed the routine of the household. He ate alone, served sourly by Aunty May, making the meal very short, and when he left the table Helen at once rose and reached for her jacket, indicating that she had been waiting for him. As they left the house, Pauguk, belly down in her kennel, growled raggedly and shivered and half rose as though she would launch herself at the man who had kicked her yesterday.

"You'll have to watch her," Helen said. "She doesn't understand, and she doesn't forget."

They climbed to the single seat of the battered car and went north through her forest, through the ranks of pine trees, uniform in size, growing closely together, crossing those cleared strips at regular intervals. They overtook Black Joe and the car stopped while Helen talked briefly with him. He carried over one shoulder a long implement with a steel blade: a spud of some sort; and under one arm was a bundle of what looked at first to Taylor like pine twigs, but from the other end protruded roots covered with wet clay. Infant trees ready to be planted, he told himself, and catching a word in the girl's