Mr. Welles' curiosity satisfied, he fell back into his old shimmer of
content and walked along, hearing Paul's voice only as one of the
morning sounds of the newly awakened world.

Presently he was summoned out of this day-dream by a tug at his hand.
Paul gave out the word of command, "We turn here, so's to get into the
men's short-cut."

This proved to be a hard-trodden path, lying like a loosely thrown-down
string, over the hill pasture-land which cut Ashley village off from
Crittenden's mill. It was to get around this rough tract that the road
had to make so long a detour.

"Oh, I see," said Mr. Welles. "I'd been thinking that it must bother
them a lot to come the two miles along the road from the village."

"Sure," said Paul. "Only the ones that have got Fords come that way.
This is ever so much shorter. Those that step along fast can make it
easy in twelve or fifteen minutes. There they come now, the first of
them." He nodded backward along the path where a distant dark line of
men came treading swiftly and steadily forward, tin pails glistening in
their hands.

"Some of those in that first bunch are really choppers by rights," Paul
diagnosed them with a practised eye, "but of course nobody does much
chopping come warmer weather. But Father never lays off any men unless
they want to be. He fixes some jobs for them in the lumber-yard or in
the mill, so they live here all the year around, same's the regular
hands."