THE TRUE TITLE

Two years later, the Castile-Vance Foundation launched a new vocational initiative: *The Heritage Guild of American Craftsmanship*.

Based in Millersburg, Ohio, the guild provided free four-year apprenticeships in timber framing, sustainable cabinetry, and architectural masonry to young men and women from economically depressed industrial communities across the Midwest.

Mark was appointed the guild’s master site supervisor.

He did not sit in an air-conditioned office. He spent eight hours a day on the workshop floor, wearing his leather apron, teaching twenty young apprentices how to read the grain of raw timber, how to sharpen a chisel by hand, and how to build structures that would outlive their makers.

He lived in a small, beautiful timber farmhouse he had built with his own hands on five acres of woodland near the mill.

His children, Noah and Clara, spent every weekend with him, running through the sawdust, learning how to plant apple trees, and listening to stories about their grandfather Arthur.

One sunny afternoon in June, Mark was helping twelve-year-old Noah cut a mortise joint in a large pine beam.

Noah paused, wiping sweat from his forehead. ""Dad, why do we use wooden pegs instead of steel nails?""

Mark knelt beside his son, running his finger across the interlocking joint.

""Because steel rusts and fights the wood, Noah,"" Mark explained gently. ""A wooden peg expands and breathes with the beam. When the storm comes, the joint doesn't snap; it holds together because it shares the load.""