Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/254

 “Yes, but you shouldn’t have told him just yet,” she said.

“But spruce gum isn’t money,” protested Stanley.

“But a pound of it is worth one dollar and sixty cents any time, and perhaps more. That’s for the best gum. The seam gum brings about half as much,” she explained. “I earned from five to ten dollars a day. It had never been gummed and I only had to break or cut it off in lovely, clear pieces, large pieces, too. Mr. Reed, over at Byron, will take all you can deliver. He’s sold more gum than any man in the world—meaning spruce gum, of course. In fact, he is affectionately called ‘Gum’ Reed.”

“And have you now exhausted this wonderful storehouse of yours?” asked Stanley, his eyes gleaming with a new light as he wondered at his new knowledge and felt a keen desire to increase it.

“O no,” she replied and shrugged her shoulders. “I am only an ignorant city girl. I know but little of the woods. There are many other lovely and valuable things to be found in the rocks and woods that are fascinating to think of.”

“I say, Bub, think of having a spruce gum