Master Forster, Jim, Forster of all of Donnell's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Jim counted three days until his father would ride through the gate. He walked the length of the sawmill, then walked it again, and knew the old man could not sleep here on sawdust. Jim had built a mill, not a home. He had no cabin ready. A tired man of fifty who had traveled four days would not settle for a cot in a shed. If the welcome felt thin, his father would turn the horse around and be gone by dusk. Jim went to the writing house at the edge of the yard. Pink resin still streaked the boards, and the young saplings on the porch had grown taller. He needed a room, a table, a bed, and he needed them fast. The curator kept ledgers of every trade and every hand in Donnell. If anyone knew who owed a favor and who had lumber to spare, it was him. Steve Lynch opened the door with ink on his knuckles. He was Jim's father's oldest partner from the paper trade up north, and now the curator of the mill Jim's father would soon walk past. The two men had not spoken plainly in years. Steve looked at Jim over his glasses and did not smile. "You waited long enough." "He arrives in three days," Jim said. "He has no place to sleep." Steve wiped his hands on a rag. "There's the old cabin in the north cut. Abandoned since the loggers pulled out. Roof holds. Floor holds. Nobody's claimed it." "It's a wreck." "It's a wreck with four walls and a stove." Steve set the rag down. "Your father slept rougher than that for twenty years. He won't care about paint. He'll care that you thought of him." Jim took the cabin. He spent two days on it. He hauled fresh boards from the mill yard and patched the floor. He scrubbed the stove and cut a new pipe. He walked to the greenhouse and asked for something living for the sill. The keeper of the glass house gave him two potted starts from her benches, wrapped in damp cloth, and told him to keep them out of the draft. He set them by the window where the morning light would hit. On the third evening he stood in the doorway and looked at what he had. A clean floor. A made bed. A fed stove. Two green plants on the sill. It was small. It was honest. His father rode in at dusk on the fourth day. Jim walked him past the mill without stopping and up the path to the cabin. The old man ducked through the door, set his pack on the floor, and touched the leaf of one of the plants. "You cleaned this yourself," he said. It was not a question. "I did." His father sat on the bed. He did not take off his coat. "Show me the mill in the morning. If the blade cuts true, I'll sign."