“Oh, I dunno. Have to get the timber up from Normanton. Tim Whelan and his boys’ld put that up in a couple of months, I’d say.”
There would be extra buildings needed for the tanning and the dyeing of the hides. “Tell me, Sam,” she said. “Would people here like something of that sort started? Or would they think it just a bit of nonsense?”
“You mean, if it kept the girls here in the town, earning money?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh my word,” he said. “Would they like it. They’d like anything that kept the girls at home, so long as they was happy and got work to do.” He paused thoughtfully. “It isn’t natural the way the girls go off a thousand miles from home in this country,” he said slowly. “That’s what Ma and I was saying the other night. It isn’t natural.”
They sat in silence for a time. “T
