Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/65

 “Then why don’t you want to stick to it?” asked Bub, a bit suspicious.

Stanley threw out his hands passionately as he explained, “I’m not over-conceited, Bub, but that loading job is tiresome. It isn’t the hard work, but I owe it to my intelligence to get something better. We are nothing but cogs in a machine, lumber and pulp, pulp and lumber, day in and day out. I could do it just as well, perhaps better, if I didn’t know how to read or write. Why, they train elephants in India to pile lumber. Now I want a chance where I can think a bit.”

“Why don’t you think while loading? Did you ever stop to think how the boards you pile were cut way up north; how they were sent down the river, towed across lakes, sluiced from one lake to another, hauled against the current between lakes by endless chains, and at last how the cedar is cut into shingles, pine into lumber and clapboards, how fir, spruce and poplar goes into pulp, only we don’t handle much of the last, if any. Did you ever stop to think of the money spent and the lives lost before you can get a job tossing lumber?”

“No; I never thought of it before because I am green,” soberly replied Stanley. “But now you’ve set me thinking I am all the more