The Raid from Beausejour; and How the Carter Boys Lifted the Mortgage Part 10

"The trouble is, mother, in this matter we haven't any rights left to speak of. It is the rights of Mr. Hand that the law will think of,"

said Will, gently.

"Willie," said his mother with severity, "I don't want to hear any more nonsense. I'm sure it was not so when _I_ was young, that the law would allow our domestics to trample upon us. The judges in those days were all gentlemen. I'm sure, Willie, I don't know where you get those low, radical ideas. I fear I have been foolish not to look more closely into the kind of books you read!"

"Now, mother," began Ted, pugnaciously, fired as usual with indiscreet zeal to make his mother see things with Will's eyes.

But Will interrupted him. "Come off, Ted," said he, "mother's right.

The very best thing she can do is to go and see Mr. Germain. Come along now, it's time the cattle were tended."

"Hurry in again, then," said Mrs. Carter, mollified. "I'm going to have pancakes for you to-night, because you've been working so hard."

"Bully for you, muz!" cried Ted, joyously, regardless of his mother's aversion to slang. And Will smiled back his gratification as they started for the barn.

In a few minutes the cow stable was musical with the recurrent bubbling swish of the streams of milk which the boys' skilled hands were directing into their tin pails.

"Say, Ted," exclaimed Will, from under the red and white flank of his cow.

"What's up now?" inquired Ted.

"I've just got hold of a brilliant idea," continued Will. "We may escape old Hand yet, and come out of this sc.r.a.pe fairly and creditably."

"But you _are_ a clever old beggar!" responded Ted, in a voice of admiration. "You've got the brains of the family! What is it?"

"Come down to the crick with me after tea, and I'll explain," said Will.

"But don't say anything to mother. It's no use worrying her, and she's got enough to attend to!"

"Now don't keep me dying with curiosity," urged Ted, pausing in his milking and turning round. "Just give me a hint, to keep me from 'bursting,' so to speak!"

"Well," answered Will, "it's _new marsh_ I'm after. Some more dike.

See? Now wait till we're on the spot. I'm thinking."

"By all means, _let_ it think if it can think like that," exclaimed Ted, jubilantly, and went on with his milking. Already he saw the mortgage lifted, and all their difficulties at an end, so unbounded was his confidence in Will's resources.

After tea Will led his brother down to the marsh. Along the breezy top of the dike the boys walked rapidly, one behind the other, the dike top being narrow. It was near low tide, and the creek clamored cheerfully along the bottom of its naked red channel. A crisp, salty fragrance came from the moist slopes and gullies; and here and there a little pond, left behind by the ebb, gleamed like flames in the low sunset.

Toward the upper end of the Carter farm the dike curved sharply inland till it joined the steep slope of their pasture lot. Here was a s.p.a.cious cove, inclosed by the Carter's pasture lot on the south and west, by their dike on the east, and on the north by the channel of the creek.

At the time the dike was built the channel had lain close in along the foot of the upland, but it had gradually moved out to a straight course as the cove filled up with sediment. Of this change the dike itself had been the main cause. Now the cove appeared at high water as a bay or lagoon; but very early in the ebb its whole surface was uncovered, and, except along the outermost edge, thin patches of salt gra.s.s were already beginning to appear.

To this spot the boys betook themselves, treading the way gingerly over the tenacious but slippery surface. Will pointed to a half barrel sunk level in the ooze. It was full to the brim with fine silt.

"What do you think of that?" inquired Will, mysteriously.

Ted racked his brain for a suitable reply. He could gather no clew to Will's purpose, so he remarked:

"Very nice, healthy looking mud, seems to me? Going to sell it for brown paint?"

"Paint!" exclaimed Will, scornfully. "But how long do you suppose that tub has been there?"

"Looks as if it had been there from the year one," replied Ted, still hopelessly adrift.

"_I_ put _it_ there just three weeks ago!" said Will, watching his brother's face.

"You _did!_" said Ted, blankly. Then a light dawned upon him.

"But that's mighty quick work!" he continued. "You don't mean to tell me that all that mud was deposited by the tide in three weeks!"

"Every bit of it!" averred Will. "You see the Tantramar water is just loaded with silt. It has so much that the moment it stops to rest it throws down as much of the load as it can. When it gets moving, regularly under way, it has to pick it up again. But the longer it stops the more it throws down; and the slower it moves the less it picks up again. Inside the tub it is always slack water, so whatever falls there stays there. That's why the tub has filled up so quick.

Nearly a foot and a half in three weeks! Why, Ted, a raise of a foot and a half along the outer slope of this cove, and we could dike in the whole cove. See?"

Ted's eyes grew round and triumphant at the suggestion.

"But how can it be done?" he asked

"Won't we have to wait till the tide does it for us?" and his tone dropped gradually from elation to dejection.

"Not much!" said Will, turning back to the dike. "Just look here a minute!"

Seating himself on the dike top, he took a book from his pocket and began making rough diagrams on the fly leaf.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram of Warping d.y.k.es.]

CHAPTER III.

A PIECE OF ENGINEERING.

Ted craned his neck eagerly to watch the movements of Will's pencil.

"You know," began Will, with his head on one side, "in some parts of the world, when they want to make the tide work for them, they use things they call 'warping dikes.' These run on a slant out from the sh.o.r.e toward the channel. They generally slope up stream pretty sharply.

The tide comes in, loaded right up with fine mud, flows over and into and around the long lines of warping dike, then stops and begins to unload. Now, you see, when there are no warping dikes, the current has nothing to delay it, so it soon gets going on the ebb so fast that it washes away pretty near all it has deposited. But these warping dikes bring in a new state of affairs. They so hinder the ebb that there is more silt deposited, and at the same time there is less current on the flats to carry the mud away. As the engineers say, there is not so much 'scouring'--a first-rate word to express it. Haven't you noticed how, in some spots, the current seems to scour away all the mud and leave naked stones and pebbles?"

"Yes," exclaimed Ted, "I get hold of the idea now. And when the warping dikes have got their work in, what then?"

"Why, we'll dike the whole cove in. A short bit of dike from that corner straight across to the point will do it. We'll be able to get at it in a couple of months; and then, if you and I can't put the job through before the ground gets frozen, why, I'll hire help, that's all!"

"But it's a pretty big contract you're giving us, isn't it?" queried Ted, doubtfully. "Those warping dikes you're talking of look to me like an all summer's job. What'll they be like, anyway?"

"O, they'll be very slight. We can run them, with the help of old Jerry to haul for us, in less than no time, working evenings and wet days.

We'll just lay lines of brush a foot high, and pile heavy stones along the top to keep it in place. Then we can raise them a little higher as the place fills up!"

"O!" murmured Ted, greatly relieved. "I thought we'd have to _dig_ them all, like the other dikes."

After this the boys' talk was of nothing but deposits and warping dikes and scouring. Their evenings and rainy days, usually spent in their mother's company and in study, were now devoted to the labor of hauling stones and brush down to the sh.o.r.e of the cove. To Mrs. Carter they explained the scheme, but without reference to its connection with Mr. Israel Hand. She grasped its possibilities at once, being clear-headed except where her prejudices were involved.

"How many acres do you expect to reclaim?" she inquired, after praising Will's sagacity warmly.

"Well," said Will, "of course we won't have it surveyed till the work's done and we are sure of the property; but I have an idea it will go a good ten acres, or maybe twelve."