A CLERK'S WORK ON A NATIONAL 



FOREST 



By Julia T. Shinn, Clerk on the Sierra National Forest 



W 



HO cares about it? Any- 

 body but another clerk?" 

 Which only goes to prove 

 that you've never been a 

 clerk in the field. There a clerk is a 

 clerk and any number of other things 

 not a Pooh-Bah, for her duties are 

 humble enough, but a sort of "crew of 

 the Nancy Brig." 



Many a Forest office is at the end of 

 a stage line where there is a small 

 whirl of a center hotel, store, black- 

 smith shop and saloon (or if the place 

 be "dry," a pool-hall) and possibly a 

 chapel to which the roads converge 

 from the canyons and the passes. The 

 clerk lives, perhaps, at the hotel; in 

 summer the rendezvous of teamsters 

 stockmen, millmen, "traveling men" 

 and passing tourists intent on higher 



regions, 



but in winter without guests 



save herself and the school-mistress. 

 Or perhaps she lives in her own home 

 on a hill farm within a mile of the 

 Forest office. 



In either case she is part of the little 

 hill community; and just as the Deputy 

 Supervisor runs the cinematograph for 

 the Improvement League picture shows, 

 so she and that Deputy's wife help 

 with the refreshments served thereafter, 

 and count the door money taken in by 

 one of the forest rangers. She plays 

 the baby organ for the Sunday School 

 in the little chapel which the aforesaid 

 door money is to paint and the Forest 

 Supervisor is president of the organized 

 congregation; the Forest Examiner 

 teaches the Bible class. 



When, therefore, on a morning, the 

 Supervisor is dictating letters and the 

 telephone bell rings, the clerk turns to 



A Forest Supervisor's Office 



THE UP TO DATE EQUIPMENT IS APPARENT AND THE OFFICE LOOKS AS IF IT IS USED FOR IMPORTANT AND PRACTICAL 



WORK, AS IT IS 



653 



