uld have seen it when it was only marsh and weeds and
mud-holes and sluices you'd appreciate what we've reclaimed and the
work that has been done."

The motor pitched down a badly bruised road.

"Where's the ship that's nearly done--your mother's ship?"

"Behind the shed, in among all that scaffolding."

"Don't tell me there's a ship in there!"

"Yep, and she's just bursting to come out."

They entered the yard, past a guardian who looked as if a bottle of
beer would buy him, and a breath strong enough to blow off the froth
would blow him over.

Within a great cage of falsework Marie Louise could see the ship that
Davidge had dedicated to his mother. But he did not believe Marie
Louise ready to understand it.

"Let's begin at the beginning," he said. "See those railroad tracks
over there? Well, that's where the timber comes from the forests and
the steel from the mills. Now we'll see what happens to 'em in the
shop."

He took her into the shed and showed her the traveling-cranes that
could pick up a locomotive between their long fingers and carry it
across the long room like a captured beetle.

"Up-stairs is the mold-loft. It's our dressmaking-shop. We lay down
the design on the floor, and mark out every piece of the ship in exact
size, and then make templates of wood to match--those are the
patterns. It's something like making a gown, I suppose."

"I see," said Marie Louise. "Then you fit the dress together out in
the yard."

"Exactly," said Davidge. "You've mastered the whole thing already.
It's a long climb up there. Will you try it?"

"Later, perhaps. I want to see these delightful what-you-may-call-'ems
first."

She watched the men at work, each group about its own machine, like
priests at their various altars. Davidge explained to her the cruncher
that manicured thick plates of steel sheets as if they were
finger-nails, or beveled their edges; the puncher that needled
rivet-holes through them as if they were silk, the ingenious Lysholm
tables with rollers for tops.

Marie Louise was like a child in a wholesale toy-shop, understanding
nothing, ecstatic over everything, forbidden to touch anything. In her
ignorance of technical matters, the simplest device was miraculous.
The whole place was a vast laboratory of mysteries and magic.

There was a something hallowed and awesome about it all. It had a
cathedral grandeur, even though it was a temple builded with hands for
the sake of the things bui