British Columbia -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Revenge -- Fiction; Sawmills -- Fiction
"Turn to, turn too--toot," said the whistle as brutally as any
Western Ocean bo'sun.
The full fed reluctant gentlemen of the Mill went back into the
battle, waddling and sighing sorely.
"Wish to God it was six o'clock," they said. There's no satisfying
everybody, and going to work full of food is horrid, it really is.
What happened in the morning happened in the afternoon, and all the
saws yelled and the planers complained and the men jumped till six,
when the Engines let steam into the Whistle high up against the Smoke
Stack and made it yell wildly that work was over for the day. Mr.
Engine-man played a fantasia on that pipe and hooted and tooted and
did a dying cadenza that wailed like a lost soul in the pit and then
rose up in a triumphant scream that echoed in the hills and died away
across the waters of the Fraser shining in the peaceful evening sun.
And night came down, the blessed night, when no man works (unless he
be in a night shift, or is a night watchman or a policeman or, or--).
How blessed it is to knock off! But there, what do you know about
it, if you never played with lumber in a Stick Moola? Nothing, I
assure you. Go home and die, man.
II
There were times when the Mill ate wood all night long, but such
times were rare, for now the City of the Fraser was not booming. She
sat sombrely by her bright waters and moaned the bitter fact that the
railway was not coming her way, but was to thrust out its beak into
the waters of the Inlet. The City was a little sad, a little bitter,
her wharves were deserted, dank, lonely. She saw no great future
before her: houses in her precincts were empty: men spoke scornfully
of her beauty and exalted Granville and the forests whence Vancouver
should spring.
But for such as worked in the Mill the City was enough. They lived
their little lives, strove manfully or poorly, thinking of little
things, of few dollars, of a few days, and of Saturdays, and of
Sundays when no man worked. And each night in Sawmill Town, in
Sawdust Territory, was a holiday, for then toil ceased and the shacks
lighted up and there was opportunity for talk. Work was over. 'Halo
Mamook,' no work now, but it might be rye, or other poison and
gambling and debauchery. The respectable workers (note that they
were mostly American) went off up town, to the Farmers' Home or some
such place, or to the City library, or to each other's homes, while
the main body of the toilers of the Mill 'played hell' in their own
way under the very shadow of the Mill itself. For them the end of
the week was a Big Jamboree, but every night was a little one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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