The Hallowell Partnership Part 17

"Good enough." Rod stretched his weary bones on the seat. At the end of the six-mile run he sat up, with a shamed grin.

"Lazy sinner I am, I dropped off the minute I struck those cus.h.i.+ons.

My, that snooze makes one thirsty for more! Put the launch insh.o.r.e, Sis. h.e.l.lo there, boys! Is that Dredge A crew? Why, how did you swing the dredge downstream so quickly?"

"We had steam up, so we dropped down the lateral the minute we got word of the cave-in," answered the dredge foreman. "It was Mister Jim Conover who happened by and saw the landslip, sir. He came a-gallopin'

over with his horse all lather, and brought us the news, not fifteen minutes after it happened. Then he called his own hired men and a crowd of neighbors, and they all set to to sh.o.r.e up the bank, above and below the break, with sand-bags and brush. They're workin' at it now, sir, lickety-cut." He pointed up the lateral to a dim glow of torch-light. "Shovellin' away like beavers they are, sir. There won't be another slump in that margin, you can depend on that. They've saved you and the company two days' work and five hundred dollars clear in damages alone, I'm thinkin'."

"Five hundred damages? It would have been nearer a thousand if they hadn't stopped that slide on the double-quick." Roderick sat staring at the hurrying figures in the dull glow of smoky light. He could hardly grasp this amazing stroke of fortune. "But how--why--I never heard of such a royal piece of kindness!"

"It's all Conover's doing. He said you folks had done mighty neighborly by him, and that he wanted to show his appreciation."

"_Conover!_ Why, I never even heard the man's name till now!"

"Conover?" Marian screwed up her forehead. A vague recollection flickered in her mind.

"Yes, sir, Conover. He has a good-sized farm back here a piece. Likely you've forgotten. There's him and his wife and his little girl.

Crippled she is, the poor child. Mamie, they call her."

"Mamie Conover--Oh! The poor little soul who was so delighted with your red pencils, Rod! That visitors' Sunday, don't you remember?"

"Oh, to be sure. You're better at remembering than I am, Sis. Well, I'm going up to thank him, this minute. Then we'll s.h.i.+p the dredge into trim and begin digging out the channel again. Think it will take us all night?"

"Now that Conover's gang has stopped the slide so good and square for us, we ought to be able to cut out and tamp down, too, by daybreak, sir. Maybe sooner. Here comes Conover this minute."

Coated with mud, squas.h.i.+ng heavily into the sodden crest of the bank with every step, Conover tramped down the ditch. In that shambling figure, Marian instantly recognized little Mamie's father. Vividly she remembered his deep, weary look at her, the infinite tenderness with which he had lifted the little frail body from her arms.

In the white glare of the search-light, his gaunt face was radiant with friendly concern.

"We've done what little we could, Mr. Hallowell," he said, in reply to Rod's eager thanks. "Little enough at that. But now if you'll put in a few hours' dredging to get out that slide, your ditch will be all right again. Mr. Locke there, whose land borders on this lateral, is a little--well, a little fussy, you know. That's why we fellows kinder b.u.t.ted in and set to work without waitin' to hear from you. Land, it wasn't nothing to thank us for. Just a little troke between neighbors.

You here, Miss Hallowell? My buckboard is right up-sh.o.r.e. Can't I drive you to Mr. Gates's? It's right on my way home--only a mile or so off my road, that is."

"Run along, Sis. Please. It's late and damp, and chilly besides.

Scoot, now."

"But I don't want to go, Rod. I want to stay and see the dredge make the cut over again. This is the most interesting performance I ever dreamed of."

"I'd much rather have you go home, old lady. You can't see much in this half-light. And you can't help me. Worse, you'll catch cold sure and certain." Yet that odd little glow warmed Rod's heart once more.

It was a wonderful satisfaction to hear Marian speak with such keen interest of his beloved work.

"Well, then--" reluctantly Marian scrambled ash.o.r.e. Mr. Conover wiped his muddy hands on the lap-robe and helped her into the buckboard, with awkward care. They drove swiftly away, up the wide country road, between the dark, level fields.

Neither spoke for some minutes. At last Marian began, rather clumsily, to tell him of their exciting day.

The man made no comment. Still more clumsily, she tried to thank him for his generous and timely aid to Roderick.

Suddenly Mr. Conover turned to her. In the faint starlight she saw that his dull face was working painfully.

"So you want to thank me for this job, eh? Why, if I'd done ten times as much, I wouldn't have begun to do what I want to do for you and your brother. I've been aimin' to come over and tell you, long ago.

But seems like I never get around to it. Don't you mind about them red pencils?"

"Those red and blue pencils of Rod's, you mean? What of them?"

"What of them? My, if you could see Mamie with them, you wouldn't ask!" The color burned in his thin face. His eyes were s.h.i.+ning now.

"They're the one pleasure that ain't never failed her. If I could ever tell you what they've meant! I've sent to the city and bought her three or four dozen a.s.sorteds, so's to be sure she never gets short of all the colors. No matter how bad her back hurts, she'll set there in her pillows and mark away, happy's a kitten. Seems like long's she's workin' with those pencils, she forgets everything, even the pain. And that's the best we can ever do for our baby." His voice broke on a terrible and piteous note. "The only thing we can do--help her forget."

There was a long silence.

"An' then you talk as if what I did to-night could count for anything--alongside of _that_!"

Marian's own lips were quivering. She did not dare to reply.

Yet as she put out her bedroom candle and stood looking out on the dark starlit woods, the narrow black ribbon of the ca.n.a.l, a whimsical wonder stirred in her thought.

"I'll tell Rod to-morrow that his red pencils must have the credit of it all. It's the story of the little Dutch hero who stuffed his thumb into the crack in the dike and saved the city, right over again. Only this time it's something even tinier than a thumb that has saved the day. It's just a little red lead-pencil. And, oh, how glad I am for Roderick's sake! The dear, stodgy old slow-coach, I'm proud of every inch of his success. Though maybe Slow-Coach isn't just the fitting name for Rod nowadays. Sometimes the slow coaches are the very ones that win the race--in the long run."

CHAPTER X

HONORED GUESTS

Marian's wish for quiet and monotonous days was promptly granted. Only too promptly and too thoroughly, she owned ruefully. The next morning dawned bleak and gray, with a chill east wind and a driving rain. Held prisoner in the house by the storm, Marian amused herself through the long dreary day as best she could. At supper-time, feeling very lonely indeed, she called Roderick up on the telephone; but their long-distance visit gave her little satisfaction.

Roderick had spent a hard day, hurrying from one lateral to another, crowding the levee work to the highest possible speed; for in this wide-spread rain the creeks to the north were rising an inch an hour, and every inch meant danger to his half-built embankments. Marian sympathized eagerly and declared that she would come down to the ca.n.a.l the next day and help him with his reports.

"Not if it rains you won't," croaked Roderick hoa.r.s.ely. "Don't let me catch you outside the house. You'll catch cold just as I have done, wading through this swamp. Mind, now. Don't you dare leave the farm-house unless it clears."

Marian promised. When the morning came, dark and drizzly, she found it hard to keep her word. The hours went on leaden feet. The downpour never slackened. It was impossible for her to go out-doors even as far as the driveway. In that flat, low country a two-days' rain means an inundation. Meadows and fields were like flooded marshes. Sheets of water spread through the orchards; the yard paths were so many brooks, the barn-yard was an infant lake.

"It won't last very long," Mrs. Gates consoled her. "A year ago we'd have been heart-broken at the sight of such a rain. It would have meant ruin for all the crops. The surplus water would not have drained off in a fortnight. But since they began digging the ditches, we know that our crops will be safe, even if it rains for a week."

"I'm glad to learn that Rod's hard work counts for something," said Marian impatiently. She flattened her downcast face against the pane.

"In the meantime, I feel like a marooned pirate. If I can't get out of doors for some fresh air before long, I'll develop a pirate's disposition, too."

At dusk she tried again to call Roderick on the telephone, to demand sympathy for her imprisonment. But to her astonishment she could get no reply from central.

"The wires are all down, I dare say," said Mrs. Gates cheerfully.

"It'll be three or four days before the line-men can get around to repair damages. The roads are hub deep. No telling when they can haul their repair wagons through. You'll see."

Marian did see. The district roads had been all but impa.s.sable ever since her coming. Now, thanks to this downpour, they would be bottomless pits of mire.

"Well! It's worse this morning, if anything," Mrs. Gates announced cheerfully, as Marian appeared on the third gray morning. "'Pears to me that you won't get out-doors again before the Fourth of July."

"But I must have some air. I can't stay cooped up forever," cried Marian. "If you'd only lend me your rubber boots, Mrs. Gates; the ones you wear when you're gardening. Then I could put on my mackintosh and my rubber bathing-cap and splash about beautifully. Besides, I must go down to the ca.n.a.l. I must see how Rod is getting on. Think, it has been two days since I have heard one word from him. Yet he is barely two miles away!"

Mrs. Gates yielded at last to her coaxing. Soon Marian started out, wearing the borrowed boots and Mr. Gates's oil-skin coat. She stumbled and splashed away through the dripping woods, with Finnegan romping gayly behind. Rainy weather held no melancholy for Finnegan. Shut in the house, he had made those three days memorable for the household, especially for poor irate Empress, who had taken refuge at last on the top rafter of the corn-bin. On the way to camp he flushed three rabbits, chased a fat gray squirrel into chattering fury, and dragged Marian knee-deep into a bog, in his wild eagerness to dig out an imaginary woodchuck.