Chapter 11: The Sawdust on the Lace
Monday morning arrived with a hard frost coating the fields of Walworth County in shimmering white crystals.
At 5:55 AM, the door of the timber workshop slid open.
Brooke walked in.
She wore heavy insulated denim work pants, steel-toed work boots, and an old wool sweater that had belonged to her father. Her hair was pulled back tightly, her face free of makeup, her breath misting in the freezing shop air.
Samuel Thorne looked up from the sharpening stone, nodding with silent, begrudging approval.
""Grab that six-foot crosscut saw, girl,"" Samuel ordered, pointing toward the timber rack. ""We're bucking eight-by-eight white oak posts for the community center pavilion.""
Brooke took the heavy steel saw, took her place opposite Samuel at the trestle, and pulled the blade across the green wood.
The teeth bit deep, throwing off fragrant showers of white oak sawdust.
Within twenty minutes, Brooke’s shoulders burned with fiery agony. Her palms blistered beneath the leather gloves; sweat stung her eyes, and her lungs heaved in the cold air.
She wanted to drop the saw. She wanted to scream, cry, and run back to her bedroom.
Then, she looked across the shop and saw Nora working at the mortising bench, lifting a forty-pound timber beam with effortless, fluid strength, her face calm, focused, and completely at peace.
Brooke set her jaw, gripped the wooden handle tighter, and pulled the saw again.
*Scritch-scratch. Scritch-scratch.*
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With every stroke of the blade, the poison of her old vanity was planed away, leaving behind the raw, clean grain of honest labor.
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