not be accepted at the mill." He held out to the
stenographer the letter he was answering. "Here, Arthur, copy the name
and address off this. It's one of those French-Canadian names, hard to
spell if you don't see it."

He paused an instant to hear how far Mr. Bayweather had progressed, and
heard him saying, "In the decade from 1850 on, there was a terrible and
scandalous devastation of the mountain-land . . ." and said to himself,
"Halfway through the century. I'll have time to go on a while. All
ready, Arthur." He dictated: "On birch brush-backs of the model
specified, we can furnish you any number up to . . ." He wound his way
swiftly and surely through a maze of figures and specifications without
consulting a paper or record, and drawing breath at the end, heard Mr.
Bayweather pronouncing his own name. ". . . Mr. Crittenden has taught us
all a great deal about the economic aspects of a situation with which we
had had years of more familiarity than he. His idea is that this
mountainous part of New England is really not fit for agriculture.
Farming in the usual sense has been a losing venture ever since the
Civil War high prices for wool ceased. Only the bottoms of the valleys
are fit for crops. Most of our county is essentially forest-land. And
his idea of the proper use to make of it, is to have a smallish
industrial population engaged in wood-working, who would use the bits of
arable land in the valleys as gardens to raise their own food. He has
almost entirely reorganized the life of our valley, along these lines,
and I daresay he cannot at all realize himself the prodigious change
from hopelessness and slow death to energy and forward-looking activity
which his intelligent grasp of the situation has brought to this corner
of the earth."

The young stenographer had heard this too, and had caught the frown of
annoyance which the personal reference brought to Neale's forehead. He
leaned forward and said earnestly, "It's so, Captain . . . Mr. Crittenden.
It's _so_!"

Mr. Bayweather went on, "There is enough wood in the forests within
reach of the mill to keep a moderate-sized wood-working factory going
indefinitely, cutting by rotation and taking care to leave enough trees
for natural reforestration. But of course that has not been the American
way of going at things. Instead of that steady, continuous use of the
woods, which Mr. Crittenden has shown to be possible, furnishing good,
well-paid work at home for the