“Getting the forms in for the concrete work is one job we want to get done before the ground freezes,” Pops told us. “We can spread some tarps to keep warmth in, but we still ought to move fast.”

Riley Maxwell, who was from Alabama, said, “You are joking, aren’t you? Freeze like ice?”

“As hard as,” Pops answered. “Hard enough you won’t want to be pickaxing through it.”

Not that that would have been much harder than a lot of the other stuff we did.

Once we were ready for the concrete work, we loaded cement, sand, gravel, and water—all in just the right proportions—into a big barrel that had a long-handled crank on one side. Then we took shifts, three of us at a time, leaning in with all our weight to keep the thing turning.

An East Coast city fellow named Con Hermiker looked truly perplexed. “How come we don’t just get a mixing machine?” he asked.

“Because, son,” Pops answered, “the CCC runs on muscle and elbow grease.”

One of the farm boys added, “I never knew anything that didn’t. Mainly mine, or some mule’s.”

It helped that what was strange to one fellow was familiar to another; it kept us, as a crew, from being all thumbs at any particular task. And in no time, we were pulling together to get the camp built on schedule.

Chapter 14

Once we got the concrete in, work really speeded up, mainly because of the clever way the CCC provided us with a lot of things already made, like the wall panels that arrived by truck. Prefabricated, they were called.

Pops said they came from a factory where they were being turned out by the hundreds, all the same and ready to put up.

We’d run floor joists and build the floor and sills. Then we’d raise a set of those prefabricated wall panels, join them together with ceiling rafters, and, presto, we’d have ourselves a shop, maybe, or an infirmary. Of course there’d still be the roof to put on, but that part went fast, being only boards covered with tar paper.

And there was finish work to do, of course. Lots of that.

An electrician from town gave us a quick course in stringing wire, which Nate proved especially good at. “It’s not all that different from stringing fence,” he said, “except you don’t want to stretch it.”

It turned out that Apple had a knack for plumbing jobs, and Sam learned to fit joints prettier than anybody.

I sometimes needed to leave the construction detail long enough to work on a truck engine. Mostly, though, I was kind of an all-jobs builder, as was most of the fellows.