"Pa will be gone for a week this time," Nellie said. "What would happen if we had an emergency? Like a bear ripping into our cabin. Or a forest fire in the middle of the night? Phones die, you know."
Pa was a foreman. A lumberjack. Had scars to prove the dangers of chain saws and axes.
"When you are old enough," he had announced to Nell before leaving, "I expect you to help on a road crew. Girls can earn as much as a man. No reason you can't use power tools. Boomer will be on the job in two years. By the time he's fourteen I'll convince the big boss that he's about to go into the military. I survived working in the woods. So can he."
"Pa," Nellie had hesitated, "you said before that no sane foreman would let a kid anywhere near a logging camp. How will you sneak Boomer in?"
"I'll tell them he's my sidekick. Older than he looks. If he works for me, no one can object."
"That's not what I heard," she mumbled in her softest voice.
..."
from Pas de Deux, Cats & Other Tales
Copyright © 1999 by Marilyn Schoefer Wagner Table of Contents
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