The two left Bob to his own devices. The old riverman and the astonishingly thawed1 and rejuvenated2 Mr. Fox disappeared in the private office. Bob proffered3 a question to the busy Collins, discovered himself free until afternoon, and so went out through the office and into the clear open air.
He headed at once across the wide sawdust area toward the mill and the lake. A great curiosity, a great interest filled him. After a moment he found himself walking between tall, leaning stacks of lumber4, piled crosswise in such a manner that the sweet currents of air eddied5 through the interstices between the boards and in the narrow, alley6-like spaces between the square and separate stacks. A coolness filled these streets, a coolness born of the shade in which they were cast, the freshness of still unmelted snow lying in patches, the quality of pine with its faint aromatic7 pitch smell and its suggestion of the forest. Bob wandered on slowly, his hands in his pockets. For the time being his more active interest was in abeyance9, lulled10 by the subtle, elusive11 phantom12 of grandeur13 suggested in the aloofness14 of this narrow street fronted by its square, skeleton, windowless houses through which the wind rattled15. After a little he glimpsed blue through the alleys16 between. Then a side street offered, full of sun. He turned down it a few feet, and found himself standing17 over an inlet of the lake.
Then for the first time he realized that he had been walking on "made ground." The water chugged restlessly against the uneven18 ends of the lath-like slabs20, thousands of them laid, side by side, down to and below the water's surface. They formed a substructure on which the sawdust had been heaped. Deep shadows darted21 from their shelter and withdrew, following the play of the little waves. The lower slabs were black with the wet, and from them, too, crept a spicy22 odour set free by the moisture. On a pile head sat an urchin23 fishing, with a long bamboo pole many sizes too large for him. As Bob watched, he jerked forth24 diminutive25 flat sunfish.
"Good work!" called Bob in congratulation.
The urchin looked up at the large, good-humoured man and grinned.
Bob retraced26 his steps to the street on which he had started out. There he discovered a steep stairway, and by it mounted to the tramway above. Along this he wandered for what seemed to him an interminable distance, lost as in a maze28 among the streets and byways of this tenantless29 city. Once he stepped aside to give passage to the great horse, or one like him, and his train of little cars. The man driving nodded to him. Again he happened on two men unloading similar cars, and passing the boards down to other men below, who piled them skilfully30, two end planks32 one way, and then the next tier the other, in regular alternation. They wore thick leather aprons33, and square leather pieces strapped34 across the insides of their hands as a protection against splinters. These, like all other especial accoutrements, seemed to Bob somehow romantic, to be desired, infinitely35 picturesque36. He passed on with the clear, yellow-white of the pine boards lingering back of his retina.
But now suddenly his sauntering brought him to the water front. The tramway ended in a long platform running parallel to the edge of the docks below. There were many little cars, both in the process of unloading and awaiting their turn. The place swarmed37 with men, all busily engaged in handing the boards from one to another as buckets are passed at a fire. At each point where an unending stream of them passed over the side of each ship, stood a young man with a long, flexible rule. This he laid rapidly along the width of each board, and then as rapidly entered a mark in a note-book. The boards seemed to move fairly of their own volition38, like a scutellate monster of many joints39, crawling from the cars, across the dock, over the side of the ship and into the black hold where presumably it coiled. There were six ships; six, many-jointed monsters creeping to their appointed places under the urging of these their masters; six young men absorbed and busy at the tallying40; six crews panoplied41 in leather guiding the monsters to their lairs42. Here, too, the sun-warmed air arose sluggish43 with the aroma8 of pitch, of lumber, of tar27 from the ships' cordage, of the wetness of unpainted wood. Aloft in the rigging, clear against the sky, were sailors in contrast of peaceful, leisurely44 industry to those who toiled45 and hurried below. The masts swayed gently, describing an arc against the heavens. The sailors swung easily to the motion. From below came the quick dull sounds of planks thrown down, the grind of car wheels, the movement of feet, the varied46, complex sound of men working together, the clapping of waters against the structure. It was confusing, confusing as the noise of many hammers. Yet two things seemed to steady it, to confine it, keep it in the bounds of order, to prevent it from usurping47 more than its meet and proper proportion. One was the tingling48 lake breeze singing through the rigging of the ship; the other was the idle and intermittent49 whistling of one of the sailors aloft. And suddenly, as though it had but just commenced, Bob again became aware of the saw shrieking50 in ecstasy52 as it plunged53 into a pine log.
The sound came from the left, where at once he perceived the tall stacks showing above the lumber piles, and the plume54 of white steam glittering in the sun. In a moment the steam fell, and the shriek51 of the saw fell with it. He turned to follow the tramway, and in so doing almost bumped into Mason, the mill foreman.
"They're hustling55 it in," said the latter. "That's right. Can't give me yard room any too soon. The drive'll be down next month. Plenty doing then. Damn those Dutchmen!"
He spoke56 abstractedly, as though voicing his inner thoughts to himself, unconscious of his companion. Then he roused himself.
"Going to the mill?" he asked. "Come on."
They walked along the high, narrow platform overlooking the water front and the lading of the ships. Soon the trestles widened, the tracks diverging57 like the fingers of a hand on the broad front to the second story of the mill. Mason said something about seeing the whole of it, and led the way along a narrow, railed outside passage to the other end of the structure.
There Bob's attention was at once caught by a great water enclosure of logs, lying still and sluggish in the manner of beasts resting. Rank after rank, tier after tier, in strange patterns they lay, brown and round, with the little strips of blue water showing between like a fantastic pattern. While Bob looked, a man ran out over them. He was dressed in short trousers, heavy socks, and spiked58 boots, and a faded blue shirt. The young man watched with interest, old memories of his early boyhood thronging59 back on him, before his people had moved from Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically60, but with an accurate purpose. Behind him the big logs bent61 in dignified62 reminiscence of his tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically63 in a turmoil64 of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again, sleek65 and wet as seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped easily on, pausing on the timbers heavy enough to support him, barely spurning66 those too small to sustain his weight. In a moment he stopped abruptly67 without the transitorial balancing Bob would have believed necessary, and went calmly to pushing mightily69 with a long pike-pole. The log on which he stood rolled under the pressure; the man quite mechanically kept pace with its rolling, treading it in correspondence now one way, now the other. In a few moments thus he had forced the mass of logs before him toward an inclined plane leading to the second story of the mill.
Up this ran an endless chain armed with teeth. The man pushed one of the logs against the chain; the teeth bit; at once, shaking itself free of the water, without apparent effort, without haste, calmly and leisurely as befitted the dignity of its bulk, the great timber arose. The water dripped from it, the surface streamed, a cheerful _patter, patter_ of the falling drops made itself heard beneath the mill noises. In a moment the log disappeared beneath projecting eaves. Another was just behind it, and behind that yet another, and another, like great patient beasts rising from the coolness of a stream to follow a leader through the narrowness, of pasture bars. And in the booms, up the river, as far as the eye could see, were other logs awaiting their turn. And beyond them the forest trees, straight and tall and green, dreaming of the time when they should follow their brothers to the ships and go out into the world.
Mason was looking up the river.
"I've seen the time when she was piled thirty feet high there, and the freshet behind her. That was ten year back."
"What?" asked Bob.
"A jam!" explained Mason.
He ducked his head below his shoulders and disappeared beneath the eaves of the mill. Bob followed.
First it was dusky; then he saw the strip of bright yellow sunlight and the blue bay in the opening below the eaves; then he caught the glitter and whirr of the two huge saws, moving silently but with the deadly menace of great speed on their axes. Against the light in irregular succession, alternately blotting70 and clearing the foreground at the end of the mill, appeared the ends of the logs coming up the incline. For a moment they poised71 on the slant72, then fell to the level, and glided73 forward to a broad platform where they were ravished from the chain and rolled into line.
Bob's eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He made out pulleys, belts, machinery74, men. While he watched a black, crooked75 arm shot vigorously up from the floor, hurried a log to the embrace of two clamps, rolled it a little this way, a little that, hovered76 over it as though in doubt as to whether it was satisfactorily placed, then plunged to unknown depths as swiftly and silently as it had come. So abrupt68 and purposeful were its movements, so detached did it seem from control, that, just as when he was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of the notion that it was possessed77 of volition, that it led a mysterious life of its own down there in the shadows, that it was in the nature of an intelligent and agile78 beast trained to apply its powers independently.
Bob remembered it as the "nigger," and looked about for the man standing by a lever.
A momentary79 delay seemed to have occurred, owing to some obscure difficulty. The man at the lever straightened his back. Suddenly all that part of the floor seemed to start forward with extraordinary swiftness. The log rushed down on the circular saw. Instantly the wild, exultant80 shriek arose. The car went on, burying the saw, all but the very top, from which a stream of sawdust flew up and back. A long, clean slab19 fell to a succession of revolving81 rollers which carried it, passing it from one to the other, far into the body of the mill. The car shot back to its original position in front of the saw. The saw hummed an undersong of strong vibration82. Again it ploughed its way the length of the timber. This time a plank31 with bark edges dropped on the rollers. And when the car had flown back to its starting point the "nigger" rose from obscurity to turn the log half way around.
They picked their way gingerly on. Bob looked back. Against the light the two graceful83, erect84 figures, immobile, but carried back and forth over thirty feet with lightning rapidity; the brute85 masses of the logs; the swift decisive forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of the other men handling the logs far in the background; and the bright, smooth, glittering, dangerous saws, clear-cut in outline by their very speed, humming in anticipation86, or shrieking like demons87 as they bit--these seemed to him to swell88 in the dim light to the proportions of something gigantic, primeval--to become forces beyond the experience of to-day, typical of the tremendous power that must be invoked89 to subdue90 the equally tremendous power of the wilderness91.
He and Mason together examined the industriously92 working gang-saws, long steel blades with the up-and-down motion of cutting cord-wood. They passed the small trimming saws, where men push the boards between little round saws to trim their edges. Bob noticed how the sawdust was carried away automatically, and where the waste slabs went. They turned through a small side room, strangely silent by contrast to the rest, where the filer did his minute work. He was an old man, the filer, with steel-rimmed, round spectacles, and he held Bob some time explaining how important his position was.
They emerged finally to the broad, open platform with the radiating tram-car tracks. Here Bob saw the finished boards trundled out on the moving rollers to be transferred to the cars.
Mason left him. He made his way slowly back toward the office, noticing on the way the curious pairs of huge wheels beneath which were slung93 the heavy timbers or piles of boards for transportation at the level of the ground.
At the edge of the lumber piles Bob looked back. The noises of industry were in his ears; the blur94 of industry before his eyes; the clean, sweet smell of pine in his nostrils95. He saw clearly the row of ships and the many-jointed serpent of boards making its way to the hold, the sailors swinging aloft; the miles of ruminating96 brown logs, and the alert little man zigzagging97 across them; the shadow of the mill darkening the water, and the brown leviathan timbers rising dripping in regular succession from them; the whirr of the deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect men dominating the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the sparkling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue of the sky. Here was activity, business, industry, the clash of forces. He admired the quick, compact alertness of Johnny Mason; he joyed in the absorbed, interested activity of the brown young men with the scaler's rules; he envied a trifle the muscle-stretching, physical labour of the men with the leather aprons and hand-guards, piling the lumber. It was good to draw in deep breaths of this air, to smell deeply of he aromatic odours of the north.
Suddenly the mill whistle began to blow. Beneath the noise he could hear the machinery beginning to run down. From all directions men came. They converged98 in the central alley, hundreds of them. In a moment Bob was caught up in their stream, and borne with them toward the weather-stained shanty99 town.
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thawed
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| 解冻 | |
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rejuvenated
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| 更生的 | |
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proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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eddied
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| 起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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abeyance
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| n.搁置，缓办，中止，产权未定 | |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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spicy
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| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
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urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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retraced
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| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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tenantless
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| adj.无人租赁的，无人居住的 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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tallying
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| v.计算，清点( tally的现在分词 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合 | |
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panoplied
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| adj.全套披甲的，装饰漂亮的 | |
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lairs
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| n.（野兽的）巢穴，窝( lair的名词复数 )；（人的）藏身处 | |
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43
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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usurping
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的现在分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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50
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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51
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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52
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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hustling
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| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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diverging
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| 分开( diverge的现在分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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thronging
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
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erratically
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| adv.不规律地，不定地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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spurning
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的现在分词 ) | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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blotting
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| 吸墨水纸 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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industriously
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slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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ruminating
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| v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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zigzagging
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| v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的现在分词 )；盘陀 | |
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converged
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| v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的过去式 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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