He had been at work for perhaps two hours. He was resting. To be
explicit, he was standing on a fallen tree. Between his feet there was a
notch cut half-way through the wood. In this white gash the blade of his
axe was driven solidly, and he rested his hands on the rigid haft while
he stood drawing gulps of forest-scented air into his lungs.
Mr. Thompson was not gifted with eyes in the back of his head. His
hearing was keen enough, but the soft, turfy earth absorbed footfalls,
especially when that foot was shod with a buckskin moccasin. So he did
not see Sophie Carr, nor hear her until a thought that was running in
his mind slipped off the end of his tongue.
"This is going to make a terrible amount of labor."
He said this aloud, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"And a terrible waste of labor," Sophie answered him.
He looked quickly over one shoulder, saw her standing there, got down
off his log--blushing a little at his comparative nakedness. It seemed
to him that he must appear shockingly nude, since the upper part of his
body was but thinly covered by a garment that opened wide over his
breast. He felt a good deal like a shy girl first appearing on the beach
in an abbreviated bathing suit. But Sophie seemed unconscious of his
embarrassment, or the cause of it. However, Mr. Thompson picked up his
coat, and felt more at ease when he had slipped it on. He sat down,
still breathing heavily from his recent exertions.
"Why do you say that?" he asked.
"Oh, well," she said--and left the sentence unfinished, save by an
outward motion of her hands that might have meant anything. But she
smiled, and Mr. Thompson observed that she had fine, white, even teeth.
Each time he saw her some salient personal feature seemed to claim his
attention. To be sure he had seen other girls with good teeth and red
lips and other physical charms perhaps as great as Sophie Carr's. But
these things had never riveted his attention. There was something about
this girl that quickened every fiber of his being. And even while she
made him always acutely conscious of her bodily presence, he was a
little bit afraid of her. He had swift, discomforting visions of her
standing afar beckoning to him, and of himself unable to resist, no
matter what the penalty. She stirred up things in his mind that made him
blush. He was conscious of a desire to touch her hand, to kiss her. He
found himself totally unable to close the gates of his mind against such
thoughts when she was near him. And it was self-generated within him.
Sophie Carr was never more than impersonally pleasant to him. Sometimes
she was utterly indifferent. Often she said things about his calling
that made him wince.