"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
diverging 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 spiked boots, and a faded
blue shirt. The young man watched with interest, old memories of his
early boyhood thronging back on him, before his people had moved from
Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an accurate
purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified reminiscence of his
tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically in a
turmoil of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again,
sleek and wet as seals.
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