The Raid from Beausejour; and How the Carter Boys Lifted the Mortgage Part 11

"And good diked land, or _ma'sh_ as these people call it, is worth about two hundred dollars an acre, isn't it?" went on Mrs. Carter.

"_This_ will be, in two or three years, anyway," answered Will, "for it will be _deep_ marsh, alluvial to the bottom and permanently fertile."

"And what do you suppose it ought to be worth next year, as soon as it's diked in?" asked Ted.

"O," said Will, carelessly, "maybe a hundred and fifty, or ten better, perhaps!"

"Dear boys," said Mrs. Carter, "if all goes well you'll both be able to get through college, perhaps. I must keep on steadily with Ted's Latin this fall and winter. Dear me, I'm so sorry I let them laugh me out of my desire to study Greek when I was a girl. I could be so useful to you both now if I'd learnt it!"

"Don't you worry about that, muz," said Ted, jumping up to kiss her.

"If you plug me up in my Latin, we'll find some way to manage about the Greek time enough!"

When haying was over there was a slack time on the farm for a few weeks, and these few weeks sufficed the boys, working with eager energy, to get all the warping dikes laid down. To avoid the nuisance of neighbors'

questionings, the idea occurred to Ted of sticking up stakes at intervals along the rows of brush and stone. When these stakes were connected at the tops by binders, they looked like the framework of a long and elaborate series of fish weirs. Gaspereaux were fairly abundant in the creek at certain seasons, so there was nothing unreasonable in the supposition. But the dwellers in Frosty Hollow laughed hugely.

"Them Carter boys thinks they knows everything," was the universal comment, "but they don't know the first thing about how to run a fish weir. Why, them there weirs 'll shet every gaspereaux aout o' the cove, 'n 'tain't much of a place fur gaspereaux, anyways!"

When such remarks were tendered to the boys they would merely reply, "You just wait till you see how our way works. If it doesn't work the way we expect, then maybe it'll be time enough to try your way!"

The experiment interested the village for a few weeks, and at length died out of notice.

It was utterly eclipsed, indeed, by a topic of profounder interest.

The village learned that Mr. Hand was foreclosing his mortgage, and that the Carters were to be sold out the ensuing spring. Some of the people were sympathetic, but others, resenting Mrs. Carter's proud exclusiveness, took a malicious delight in the near prospect of her humiliation.

Roused at last to a sense of the reality of the danger, Mrs. Carter, who was quite too busy at her b.u.t.termaking and other indoor farmwork to spare time for her threatened visit to Barchester, wrote urgently to the Hon. Mr. Germain. The boys posted her letter, from which they knew nothing could come, and then went to comfort themselves with a sight of the way the silt was piling up inside their warping dikes.

The growth of the deposit had exceeded their most sanguine expectations.

Early in August they decided that it was time to begin the permanent dike, the "running dike," as it was called in local parlance. That same day came a letter from Mr. Germain. When the boys came in to tea they found their mother in tears of indignation and despair.

"_There's_ what he says!" exclaimed she, pointing to the open letter, which she had laid on Will's plate. "I do think things have come to a strange pa.s.s in these days. I _certainly_ never dreamed that Charles Germain could change like the rest!"

"Never mind, mother dear," said Will, soothingly. "We're not in our last ditch yet. Trust me!"

And taking up the letter he read aloud for Ted's benefit:

"_My dear Mrs. Carter_: Believe me, it gives me great grief to learn of the difficulties you are in, and to feel myself so powerless to render you a.s.sistance. I feel bound to tell you that Mr. Hand, if I understand your letter, is entirely within his rights. You would have not a shadow of a case against him in the courts. There is but one way of escape from the penalty, and that is by payment of your indebtedness to him. In this, alas! I cannot help you at all adequately, as I have lately suffered such losses that I am just now financially embarra.s.sed. Even had you good security to offer I could not lend you the sum you need, as my own borrowing powers (this strictly between ourselves) are just now taxed to their utmost. I think I can, however, offer one of your boys a position in my office on a small salary; and for the other I could, perhaps, within the next few months, obtain a situation in the Exchange Bank of this town. This, perhaps, would relieve your most pressing anxieties, and it would be a great pleasure to me to serve you.

"Yours, with sincerest regards and sympathy, CHARLES GERMAIN."

"That's a jolly nice letter!" exclaimed Ted.

"Yes, mother," said Will, handing it back to her, "I don't see anything the matter with that."

Mrs. Carter drew herself up proudly. "Don't you see," said she, "that he _puts me off!_ I asked him to extricate me from this difficulty, to defend for me _my rights!_ In reply he offers me, as if I were a beggar, employment for my sons. Practically, he takes the part of old Hand.

O, I've no patience with such men! I'm serious!"

"Well, mother, you must allow," said Will, "that if Mr. Germain says so, it's no use thinking of going to law against old Hand, is it? As for Mr. Germain's kind offer to find places for Ted and me, why, if the worst comes to the worst, that wouldn't be _too_ bad. We could live pretty comfortably in Barchester with our little salaries and your clever housekeeping. But maybe we won't have to leave here after all! _That's_ what Ted and I have been up to all summer. We antic.i.p.ated that Mr. Germain would disappoint you; but we wouldn't say so. Our plan is to _sell the new marsh_, when we get it diked in, and with the proceeds pay off Hand's mortgage with all the arrears of interest. There ought to be something left over, too!"

"But I was proposing--I wanted to deed that piece of marsh to you boys!"

objected Mrs. Carter, in a voice of mingled gratification and doubt.

"O, muz!" answered Will, putting his arm around her, "what do we want of it? The whole farm is ours, in that it's yours. That's all we want the new marsh for--just to clear off the mortgage. And we're going to do it, too! We begin work on the running dike to-morrow."

"You are two dear, good boys!" exclaimed their mother, tenderly. "If only your poor father could have lived! How proud he would have been of both of you!" And her eyes filled with tears. Next day Will and Ted armed themselves with diking spades, and set to work determinedly. They had the old horse, Jerry, on the spot, harnessed to a light cart, ready to haul material as wanted. They began at the lower end of the cove, building upward from the corner of the old dike. Their purpose in this was to keep the scouring in check. By this method of procedure they would have the final outlet (usually so difficult to close) located at the shallowest part of the cove. There would thus, as soon as the dike extended a little distance, be some water left behind after every flood tide, and there would be so much less to make violent escape with the ebb. If there should be left, finally, more imprisoned water than the sun could well evaporate that autumn, Will explained to Ted that it would be a simple matter to drain it off and close up the outlet between tides.

At the end of the first day's work Mrs. Carter came down to note progress, and was shown several feet of sound, shapely dike, with planks and large stones laid on the exposed end as a protection against the tide. A little calculation showed that it would be quite feasible, with perhaps a week or so of hired help toward the last, to finish the dike before hard weather should set in.

Everybody now at the yellow cottage on the hill was cheerful in the hope of speedy success. To their ears the clamor of the ebbing and flowing tides was a jubilant music. Their loved "crick" was becoming their friend-in-need. Its unctuous red flats acquired a new beauty in their eyes, and the mighty, sweeping tides they came to regard as the embodiment of their good genius.

With the rapidly growing dike all went swimmingly for a time. But the neighbors were now completely undeceived. Though nettled at their former dullness, they could not but applaud the ingenuity of the scheme; and they rather approved the reticence which the boys had observed in the matter.

Among the villagers, however, there was one who did not like the turn affairs were taking. Mr. Hand perceived that he might yet be defeated in his effort to gain possession of the Carters' farm.

He was an astute old man, if he _didn't_ at first understand the warping dikes.

His first step was to threaten Will with proceedings to stop the work.

He owned the marsh on the opposite side of the creek, and he claimed that the building of the new dike would so alter the channel that his property would be endangered. Will presently proved to him, beyond cavil, that the slight deflection of the currents would only throw the scouring force of the stream against a point of rocky upland, some hundreds of yards below his marsh, where it could not possibly do any harm. Then Mr. Hand professed himself entirely satisfied, and departed to devise other weapons.

By the middle of September the dike extended more than halfway across the mouth of the cove, and the work was daily growing easier. The facing of the water front, of course, was being left to do afterwards, when the weather should be unfit for digging.

One morning, after a very high tide, the boys came down to find a good ten feet or more of their work washed away. They were terribly cast down.

"How on earth did it happen?" groaned Ted. "Do you suppose we didn't protect the end properly?"

"I don't see any other explanation," said Will, gloomily.

"But if the stones were _swept_ off by the tide," exclaimed Ted, with sudden significance, "wouldn't they be lying to one side or the other?

These look as if they had been pulled off!"

"By the great horn spoon, you've hit it, young one!" cried Will, excited beyond his wont. "Good for you! The tide never did it! Some one has been helping the tide!"

"Will Hen Baizley!" declared Ted. "I shouldn't wonder a bit!" said Will. "Well, Ted, there's nothing to do but go to work and build it up again. And to-night, why, we'll 'lay for him,' that's all!"

Doggedly and wrathfully the boys toiled all day. At tea they told their mother what had occurred. Mrs. Carter was furious. But when Will declared their intention of watching that night for the depredator, her anger vanished in fear. At first she forbid positively all thought of such a thing. Will declared that he _must_ do it--it simply had to be done. Thereupon she said she would forbid Ted going. At this Ted burst forth indignantly.

"What, mother, would you have me leave Will all alone out there?"

An idea which was, of course, to Mrs. Carter intolerable. She forgot to be imperative; she became appealing.

"But, muz," said Will, rea.s.suringly, "there is no danger at all. You can trust me, can't you? Ted and I will each take a good, big club, and if, as we think, it is Will Hen Baizley, we'll give him a pounding that will keep him civil for a while."

"But what if he should have some ruffians with him?" urged the mother.

"Well, just to be safe, _I'll_ take my gun, so as to be able to give them a scare, you know. But Ted is so impetuous and bloodthirsty that he'd better not take anything but a club!"

"O, dear me! I suppose you _will_ go!" said Mrs. Carter. "But at least you must wrap up warm and take something in your pockets to eat!"

Just about dark the boys betook themselves to the lower corner of the new dike. Under the shelter of the old dike they fixed themselves a hiding place of brush and gra.s.s. From this point they could see distinctly the figure of anyone approaching across the marsh. When they were comfortably established Ted inquired:

"Say, old fellow, have you got your gun loaded?"