CHAPTER 26: THE ROAD GOES ON
Winter settled soft and deep over the valley, wrapping pine boughs in thick white frost, frosting the workshop windows, and turning the familiar trails into quiet paths lined with snowdrifts. The new sawmill hummed steady from dawn till dusk, its low thrum carrying across the fields, stacks of cured timber growing higher by the week, and the first group of trade apprentices started their lessons — hands calloused from hauling lumber, eyes bright with something sharper and warmer than just hope.
We sat around the main hall’s long oak table one evening, snow falling thick and silent outside the glass, going over the latest stack of letters and requests that had piled up on our desk. Communities from every corner of the state were writing in now: families asking
