FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32  
33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>   >|  
h ink and returned the list to Harvey. Harvey looked sourly at the ink marks, and gave the boy another list to copy. Bob found this task, which lasted until noon, fully as exhilarating as the other. When he returned his copies he ventured an inquiry. "What are these?" he asked. "Descriptions," snapped Harvey. In time he managed to reason out the fact that they were descriptions of land; that each item of the many hundreds meant a separate tract. Thus the first line of his first copy, translated, would have read as follows: "The southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section number four, township number six, north, range number twenty-six, west." --And that it represented forty acres of timber land. The stupendous nature of such holdings made him gasp, and he gasped again when he realized that each of his mistakes meant the misplacement on the map of enough for a good-sized farm. Nevertheless, as day succeeded day, and the lists had no end, the mistakes became more difficult to avoid. The S, W, E, and N keys on the typewriter bothered him, hypnotized him, forced him to strike fantastic combinations of their own. Once Harvey entered to point out to him an impossible N.S. Over his lists Harvey, the second bookkeeper, and Fox held long consultations. Then Bob leaned back in his office chair to examine for the hundredth time the framed photographs of logging crews, winter scenes in the forest, record loads of logs; and to speculate again on the maps, deer heads, and hunting trophies. At first they had appealed to his imagination. Now they had become too familiar. Out the window were the palls of smoke, gigantic buildings, crevasse-like streets, and swirling winds of Chicago. Occasionally men would drift in, inquiring for the heads of the firm. Then Fox would hang one leg over the arm of his swinging chair, light a cigar, and enter into desultory conversation. To Bob a great deal of time seemed thus to be wasted. He did not know that big deals were decided in apparently casual references to business. Other lists varied the monotony. After he had finished the tax lists he had to copy over every description a second time, with additional statistics opposite each, like this: S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4, T. 4 N.R., 17, W. Sec. 32, W.P. 68, N. 16, H. 5. The last characters translated into: "White pine, 68,000 feet; Norway pine, 16,000 feet; hemlock, 5,000 feet," and that inventoried the standi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32  
33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Harvey

 

number

 

quarter

 

mistakes

 

returned

 

translated

 

inventoried

 

hemlock

 
buildings
 
winter

gigantic

 
logging
 

crevasse

 

framed

 

Chicago

 
Norway
 

Occasionally

 
streets
 

swirling

 

scenes


trophies

 
photographs
 

appealed

 
hunting
 

imagination

 

forest

 
speculate
 

window

 

record

 

familiar


standi
 

monotony

 
characters
 

varied

 

apparently

 

decided

 

casual

 

references

 

business

 

finished


opposite

 

statistics

 
description
 
additional
 

desultory

 

conversation

 

swinging

 

hundredth

 

wasted

 

inquiring