The small dwellings south of the tracks housed company workers—those who felled, hauled, scaled and processed the timber. North of the tracks, behind the Headquarters store, a wooden stairway led up to the Circle, where the road threaded between the shop buildings and store before looping back on itself at the top of the hill. The Circle was where the supervisors lived—men who, by skill or inheritance, held positions above the other workers. The homes facing one another across the Circle were larger and better appointed than most I had seen. Real grass rather than wild clover and timothy grew to the doors of the houses. The children who departed the Circle to catch the school bus, taking the wooden steps two at a time, wore store-bought clothes. The boys had cartoon lunch pails; the older girls shimmered in nylons and red leather shoes. Lola Johnson and her husband, Pete, lived in the Circle. They had attended Cardiff Spur Mission for years, and they themselves were active missionaries: whale baleen and ivory decorated their walls and shelves.
