Barkskins

by Annie Proulx

Mr. Brandon was nowhere in sight—“closeted with another fit,” said Mistress Brandon, whose first name, he learned, was Posey. She smiled, she looked at his lips when he spoke, questioned him about his cousins and the Duke business, asked his advice on the choice between a deep blue shawl and one of rose cashmere, and then, from the corner cupboard, she pulled out a sheaf of closely inscribed pages held together by a dressmaker’s pin detailing the structure and proceedings of her father’s timber contracting business—his work as timber looker, the cheapest kinds of lumber camps, where to find the best men (Penobscot men, found in Bangor). He thought he had never met so intelligent and fine a woman and told her so. To himself he thought that not only were her eyes beautiful, but she had the grace of a swan, the voice of a dove. Batting those beautiful eyes and blushing from cleavage to hairline, she begged him to call on her again the next week, when he should have digested all the workings of her timber business scrawls. She would answer his questions and even quiz him if he thought it beneficial. But before then came the dinner at the Trumbulls’—seven the next evening. He would at last meet the Duke cousins.