“Practically all of it comes from the South.  That’s one reason lumber costs so much here.  The people of Pennsylvania pay $25,000,000 a year in freight charges on the lumber they use.  That’s one of the reasons those cedar boards you were looking at cost so much.  When the new freight rates go into effect the cost of hauling our lumber to us will be something like $40,000,000 a year.”

The two boys were very thoughtful as they made their way back to Charley’s shop.

“What are people going to do for wood pretty soon?” Lew inquired of his companion.  “If we can’t build a little boat because the wood costs too much, how are people going to get homes and furniture and wagons and motor-cars and a thousand other things?  Seems to me pretty much everything we use is made of wood.”

“I don’t know,” replied Charley.  “But what bothers me more just now is to know what we are going to do during Easter vacation.  It may be the last vacation I shall ever have, and I’d like to have a good time.”

“Why not follow the lumber dealer’s suggestion and go out to the forests?  Easter doesn’t come this year until after the trout season opens.  We could go out to our old camp in the mountains and spend the vacation there, fishing and hiking.”

“That’s a mighty good suggestion, Lew.  If we have our packs ready, we can start from high school the minute it is dismissed.  We can make that early afternoon train and get off at that little flag-station at the foot of Stone Mountain.  Then we can hike through the notch and reach the far slope of Old Ironsides before dark.  We shall have to camp overnight along the run from the spring there, as it is the only water for miles around.  Then the next day we can go on into that little valley where we saw so many trout.  That is so hard to reach that not many fishermen ever go there.  The little stream from the spring on Old Ironsides runs into that brook.  Do you remember what lots of little trout we saw not far below the spring?  They will have become big fellows by this time and moved down into the larger stream.  There ought to be some fine fishing there this spring.”

“They say it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.  I’m sorry we can’t build the boat, but we shall have just as good a time in the mountains as we should have had on the river.  We’ll borrow that little pup tent of Johnnie Lee’s, and take our blankets, hatchets, fishing-rods, and grub.”

“I’d rather leave the tent at home and build a lean-to after we get there.  Then we could take a portable wireless outfit and talk to the fellows at home here in the evening.  Half a dozen dry cells would give us one-sixth of a kilowatt of current, and that ought to carry a message twenty-five or thirty miles easily.  At night we might be able to talk fifty miles.  We can carry six cells easily.  The remainder of the outfit won’t weigh much.  We’ll have to go as light as we can, for it’s a mighty tough hike over Old Ironsides and on into that little valley.”