She doggedly went on with her work; the contracts were made; she was forced to.  As the work neared completion, her faith in the enterprise grew.  She studied by the hour everything she could find pertaining to the business.  When the machinery began to arrive, George frequently spoke about having timber ready to begin work on, but he never really believed the thing which did happen, would happen, until the first load of logs slowly crossed the bridge and began unloading in the yards.  A few questions elicited from the driver the reply that he had sold the timber to young Adam Bates of Bates Corners, who was out buying right and left and paying cash on condition the seller did his own delivering.  George saw the scheme, and that it was good.  Also the logs were good, while the price was less than he hoped to pay for such timber.  His soul was filled with bitterness.  The mill was his scheme.  He had planned it all.  Those thieving Bates had stolen his plan, and his location, and his home, and practically separated him from his wife and children.  It was his mill, and all he was getting from it was to work with all his might, and not a decent word from morning until night.  That day instead of working as before, he sat in the shade most of the time, and that night instead of going to bed he went down town.

When the mill was almost finished Kate employed two men who lived in Walden, but had been working in the Hartley mills for years.  They were honest men of much experience.  Kate made the better of them foreman, and consulted with him in every step of completing the mill, and setting up the machinery.  She watched everything with sharp eyes, often making suggestions that were useful about the placing of different parts as a woman would arrange them.  Some of these the men laughed at, some they were more than glad to accept.  When the engine was set up, the big saw in place, George went to Kate.

“See here!” he said roughly.  “I know I was wrong about the sluice-gate.  I was a fool to shut it with the water that high, but I’ve learned my lesson; I’ll never touch it again; I’ve worked like a dog for weeks to pay for it; now where do I come in?  What’s my job, how much is my share of the money, and when do I get it?”

“The trouble with you, George, is that you have to learn a new lesson about every thing you attempt.  You can’t carry a lesson about one thing in your mind, and apply it to the next thing that comes up.  I know you have worked, and I know why.  It is fair that you should have something, but I can’t say what, just now.  Having to rebuild the dam, and with a number of incidentals that have come up, in spite of the best figuring I could do, I have been forced to use my money saved for rebuilding the house; and even with that, I am coming out a hundred or two short.  I’m strapped; and until money begins to come in I have none myself.  The first must go toward paying the men’s wages, the next for timber.  If Jim Milton can find work for you, go to work at the mill, and when we get started I’ll pay you what is fair and just, you may depend on that.  If he hasn’t work for you, you’ll have to find a job at something else.”