We did ten miles, getting back in time for lunch and an afternoon of learning to use axes. We thinned out a stand of spindly pines on the post’s perimeter.

Apple, still speculating about our assignments, said, “Where I really want to go is Yellowstone Park. I hear there’s so many CCC’ers there, they’ve got all kinds of stuff going on like boxing matches and fishing contests. And I wouldn’t mind seeing those geysers. Maybe get my picture taken next to Old Faithful, and then go inside that big hotel they got there and treat myself to a fine meal. You think—”

“I think,” Sam said, “you better pay attention to what you’re doing, before you chop off your foot.”

“Aw,” Apple said, “I learned to use an ax about the time I got baby teeth.”

“I wish I had,” Sam said. It was as close as he’d come to complaining, though several popped blisters had made the palms of his hands sore things to look at.

His tennis racket had disappeared, but other stuff, like the blisters and his educated way of talking, set him apart from most of us. Whenever he got asked why he’d joined the CCC, though, he’d just joke, “Why, I came to fix the country’s dust bowl.”

It was more restraint than most showed.

I couldn’t get used to people making free with personal business. It was impossible not to hear this or that about where guys came from, or why they’d joined up.

Workwise, several fellows were like Nate and Apple and me, come to the CCC already knowing how to use shovels and picks, and with the calluses to prove it. More than one of them told about some hardship farm.

Others, like Klein and Lukowski, were city smart in a sharp, take-care-of-yourself kind of way, and some of the things they threw out about gang fights and tenement rats were enough to make your hair curl. Most of the city fellows got friendly soon enough, though. Just Klein and Lukowski stayed as disagreeable as a couple of boils on your behind.

Compton was the other pain, bent on turning us into a shipshape outfit or knowing the reason why. It was always Make that bed again, Enrollee Lundgren! or Enrollee Durgan! Tuck in your shirt!

He had it in for Klein and Lukowski, especially after Klein bragged on how they were only in the CCC because of being picked up on shoplifting charges. A judge had let them choose between juvenile detention and joining up.

“The CCC is not supposed to be a substitute for jail,” Compton said.

And of course he had it in for me, and for Sam, Nate, and Apple, on account of they were my friends. I apologized for the way Compton was hassling them because of me.

Nate, easygoing, said he hadn’t noticed.