through? No, I shall never apply that word to you, but you--you don't
seem to realise--" The father hesitated a few moments, then, as if
taking a plunge:

"You don't realise just how big a thing--how big an investment there is
in that business down there--." His hand swept toward the window through
which could be seen the lights of that part of the town which clustered
about the various mills and factories of which he was owner.

"I know there is a lot, Dad, but how much I don't know."

"There's $250,000 in plant alone, boy, but there's more than money, a
lot more than money--" Then, after a pause, as if to himself, "A lot
more than money--there's brain sweat and heart agony and prayers and
tears--and, yes, life, boy, your mother's life and mine. We worked and
saved and prayed and planned--"

He stepped quickly toward the window, drew aside the curtain and pointed
to a dark mass of headland beyond the twinkling lights.

"You see the Bluff there. Fifty years ago I stood with my father on
that Bluff and watched the logs come down the river to the sawmill--his
sawmill, into which he had put his total capital, five hundred dollars.
I remember well his words, 'My son, if you live out your life you will
see on that flat a town where thousands of men and women will find homes
and, please God, happiness.' Your mother and I watched that town grow
for forty years, and we tried to make people happy--at least, if they
were not it was no fault of hers. Of course, other hands have been at
the work since then, but her hands and mine more than any other, and
more than all others together were in it, and her heart, too, was in it