What does Elias van Rooyen do for a living in Fiela's Child?

Elias van Rooyen is the only one of four families on Barnard's Island who is not a woodcutter. He cuts beams. While the woodcutters have to barter for everything with the two wood buyers in the village, he gets real money from the beams that he cuts. The woodcutters have to sleep in shacks in the forest when they are working. Elias is home every night sleeping in his own bed.