It seemed to the gently nurtured girl from Tillbury as though she
had fallen in with people from another globe. Even the mill-
hands, whom Bess Harley so scorned, were not like these great,
rough fellows whose minds seemed continually to be fixed upon
battle. At least, she had never seen or heard such talk as had
just now come to her ears.
The men began, one by one, to push back the benches and go out.
There was a great bustle of getting under way as the teams
started for the woods, and the choppers, too, went away. Tom
hurried to start his big pair of dapple grays, and Nan was glad
to bundle up again and run out to watch the exodus.
They were a mighty crew. As Uncle Henry had said, the Big Woods
did not breed runts.
Remembering the stunted, quick-moving, chattering French
Canadians, and the scattering of American-born employees among
them, who worked in the Tillbury mills, Nan was the more amazed
by the average size of these workmen. The woodsmen were a race
of giants beside the narrow-shouldered, flat-chested pygmies who
toiled in the mills.
Tom strode by with his timber sled. Rafe leaped on to ride and
Tom playfully snapped his whiplash at him. Nan was glad to see
that the two brothers smiled again at each other.
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