The smoke of the donkey-engines was vanished, fires grown cold with the
end of the day's work. But upriver and down the spoil of axe and saw lay
in red booms along the bunk. He could mark the place where he had stood
that afternoon and watched a puffing yarder bunt a string of forty-foot
logs into the booming-ground. He could see figures about in the gardens,
and the shrill voices and laughter of children echoed up to them on the
hill.
"It is a great view, and there is more in it than meets the eye,"
Thompson said. "Eh, little woman? The greatest war of all, the biggest
struggle. One that never ends. Man struggling to subdue his environment
to his needs."
Sophie smiled understandingly. She looked over the valley with a wistful
air.
"Did you ever read 'The Sons of Martha'?" she asked. Do you remember
these lines:
"'Not as a ladder to reach high Heaven,
Not as an altar to any creed,
But simple service simply given
To his own kind in their common need.'"
"It is a noble mark to shoot at," Thompson said.
He fell silent. Sophie went on after a minute.
"Dad said he was going back to first principles when he began this.
There are men here who have found economic salvation and self-respect,
who think he is greater than any general.
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