The millhouse was to be filled with all sorts of big machines for cutting pine. The whole world needed wood during these hard times. Paul had told Vern that Mister Dreyfus was a crook who would bleed money from anything he could get his hands on. Even trees. This millhouse, Paul said, would bring Dreyfus a lot of money.

Vern had spent four days painting the enormous structure. Yesterday he had painted while cradling the baby in one arm, which had slowed him. He would hold a brush with his left hand and the baby in his right arm. Or maybe it was the baby in his left arm and the brush in his right hand. He wasn’t sure. Vern wasn’t good with left and right. Most times Vern had to hold both hands in front of him, sticking his thumbs and pointy fingers out, to see which hand made the correct L. Though most times he forgot which way a correct L was supposed to be facing.

Dreyfus’s antebellum home sat on a hill behind the new millhouse. His estate looked like a castle with fat columns and big porches and tall windows. It must’ve taken years to build, Vern thought. Maybe ten years or more, depending on how many men he had.

Mister Dreyfus was a stiff man with hair the color of a raccoon, kind of silver and brown. The man ran his finger along the edge of the wet paint on the wood.

“I wouldn’t go running my hands all over it like that,” said Paul. “Paint ain’t dry yet.”

“I thought,” said Mister Dreyfus, “you were gonna bring this roofline farther over the doors, so rain wouldn’t fall so close to the entrance.”

“Never agreed to that,” said Paul.

“I distinctly remember that we did.”

Vern watched Dreyfus’s two men go over the barn with careful eyes. They were checking every joint and surface. It made him nervous for some reason.

He held the child against his shoulder and gave her a little bounce because she liked it when he did that. She was happier when she was moving. She liked to always be moving.

Mister Dreyfus said, “I thought those doors were going to be wider. I ain’t sure I’ll be able to get my gang edger through that narrow opening.”

“We measured,” said Paul. “It’ll fit.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Sure as God made little green apples and beavers, sir.”

Vern switched the baby to his other shoulder to give his right shoulder a rest. Or maybe it was his left.

“Well, I must say, you do slow work, Mister Foldger,” said Dreyfus. “You’ve cost me a lot of time and money.”

Then Mister Dreyfus pointed to Vern. “I don’t reckon that baby helped move things any faster. Your friend crawled all over this place with that baby latched onto him.”