Читать книгу: «The Hallowell Partnership», страница 4

"It's nice while they're little, isn't it?" she said, with a queer, wistful smile. "Though I dassent complain. My boys are the best sons anybody ever had, and they treat me like a queen. Here, son, stop pulling my ears so hard; it hurts. Now, I'll send you a whole bowlful of mutton taller to-morrow; and a jar of goose-grease the very next rendering I make. Didn't you say you're living on the drainage job? Well" – the dim pink grew bright in her cheek – "well, you tell your man that he kin go right ahead and cut his ditch through my land. I'll not stand in the way no longer. Though tell him that I'll expect him to see that his men don't tramp through my garden nor steal my watermelons. Mind that."

"I know I can promise that, always." Sally Lou's eyes were brown stars. "And thank you more than tongue can tell, Mrs. Chrisenberry. You don't know what this will mean to my husband, and I never can tell you how much we shall appreciate your kindness. Packed in all right, Mammy? Come, Edward, son. Good-by!"

They drove away in the silence of utter, astonished joy.

"Your goose-grease worked that miracle, Sally Lou!"

"Nonsense! It was your music that carried the day. But oh, I was so afraid you were going to say no!"

Again Marian's cheeks flushed hot, with queer, vexed shame.

"Well, I did all but refuse. I do hate to play for anybody, especially for strangers."

"Why?" Sally Lou looked hopelessly puzzled. "But when it gives them so much pleasure! And besides, if you want a selfish reason, think how you have helped the boys. There they come now."

With a joyful call Sally Lou waved her scarf to the two figures plodding up the canal road. Then as the flimsy silk could not do justice to her feelings, she caught up little Thomas Tucker and flourished him, a somewhat ponderous banner. The boys hurried to meet them. They listened to the girls' excited tale, at first unbelieving, then with faces of amazement and relief.

"Well, you two girls deserve a diamond medal," declared Burford, heartily. His flushed, perturbed face brightened. "You don't know what a load you have taken off our shoulders." He looked at Roderick. "This is a real sterling-silver lining to our cloud, isn't it, Hallowell? So big that it fairly bulges out around the edges."

"A silver lining to what cloud, Ned?" demanded Sally Lou, promptly curious. "Has something gone wrong with the work? Another break in the machinery? Or trouble among the laborers, or what?"

The two boys looked at each other. Marian studied their faces. Burford was flushed and excited. Rod's stolid, dark face was frowning and intent.

"Own up!" commanded Sally Lou, sternly. "Don't you dare try to keep your dark and dreadful secrets from us!"

The boys laughed. But a quick warning glance flashed from one to the other. Then Burford spoke.

"Don't conjure up so many bogies, Sally Lou. We – we've had bad news from Mr. Carlisle. His doctor told me, over the long-distance, that he would not be able to leave the hospital for a fortnight. And he must not come back on the work for two months at the best."

Sally Lou sobered.

"That is bad news. Poor Mr. Carlisle! But is that all that you have to tell me, Ned?"

Burford jumped. He reddened a little.

"Y-yes, I reckon that's all. You girls will have to excuse us now. Hallowell and I are going back to our boat-house to fix up our March reports."

"Anything we two can help about?"

"You two have put in a mighty good day's work in securing that right of way. Though if you're hunting for a job you might verify the yardage report I left on your desk. Run along now, we're going to be busy."

"Such is gratitude," remarked Sally Lou, with ironic philosophy, as she drove away. "'Run along, we're busy.' Just like a boy!"

Roderick and Ned looked after the buckboard, a little shame-faced at Sally Lou's parting shot.

"Just the same, it does no good to tell them all our ill-luck," said Burford.

"And Marvin's threatening to quit is even worse luck than Carlisle's illness. For his quarrel with the foreman has started half a dozen quarrels among the workmen. Queer, isn't it? A grouch like that will spread like wild-fire through a whole camp."

"Marvin is waiting on the house-boat for us this minute." Ned peered through a telescope of his hands. "Now we'll listen to a tale of woe!"

Marvin did not wait till they could reach the boat. His angry voice rang out across the canal.

"Well, Mister Hallowell! I just got the note that you so kindly sent me. So you and Mr. Burford here think that I ought to stand by the job, hey, 'and not let my private quarrels influence me into deserting the contract?' Thank you, Mister Hallowell, for your kind advice. But I rather guess I can get along without any orders from either of you two swells. No, nor criticisms, either."

"We're not giving orders, and you know that, Marvin." Rod spoke sharply. "But you're never going to throw down your billet just because of a two-cent fuss with the foreman. Think what a hole you'd leave the company in! Carlisle sick, high water holding back our freight, coal shipments stalled, everything tied up – "

"And you're directly responsible to the company for that berm construction," broke in Burford hotly. "You know well enough that we can't watch that work and oversee the ditch-cutting at one and the same time. You're not going to sneak out and play quitter – "

"I'm going to play quitter, as you call it, whenever I choose. That happens to be right now. You two silk-stockings can like it, or lump it. Mulcahy!" he yelled to the camp commissary man, who was just starting down the canal in his launch on his way to Grafton for supplies. "Wait, I'm going with you. Here, take this."

He bolted into his cabin, then dashed back, carrying a heavy suit-case. He heaved it into the launch, then sprang in beside the open-mouthed steward.

"Now, I'm off!" He blazed the words at the two boys staring from the bank. "You can run this contract to suit yourselves, gentlemen. I'll send my resignation direct to the company. I don't have to take orders from you two swells another hour. Good-morning, gentlemen!"

The steward grinned sheepishly at sight of his superior officer behaving himself like a spunky small boy. With a rueful nod toward Roderick he headed the launch down the canal.

Burford expressed himself with some vim.

"Well, he's gone. Good riddance, I call it. The surly hound!"

"I don't know about that," muttered Rod. "It was my fault, maybe, writing him that letter. I was too high and mighty, I suppose."

"You needn't blame yourself," returned Burford bluntly. "We've put up with his insolence and his scamped work and his everlasting wrangling long enough. Mr. Carlisle won't blame us; neither will the company."

"We ought to wire company head-quarters at Chicago, and report just how things stand; then they'll send us a supervising engineer to take Mr. Carlisle's place. And a new scrub, too, instead of Marvin."

"You're right, Hallowell. You wire them straight off, will you? I'm going up to the first lateral to watch the afternoon shift."

Early that evening Roderick received the answering wire from head-quarters. He read it carefully. His sober young face settled into grim lines.

An hour later Burford turned up, tired, but in high spirits, for his dredge had made a flying start on the lateral. Roderick handed him the despatch.

The two boys stared at each other. A deep flush burned to Burford's temples. Rod's hard jaw set.

The message was curt and to the point.

"The Breckenridge Engineering Company. office of the vice-president

Roderick Hallowell, Esq

c/o Contract Camp, Grafton, Illinois

Sir: Your report received. Consider yourself and Burford as jointly in command till further orders. I shall reach camp on route inspection by 26th inst. Kindly report conditions daily by wire.

Breckenridge."

"So we're made jointly responsible. Put in charge by Breckenridge. By Breck the Great, his very self. H'm-m." Burford looked out at the crowded boats, the muddy, half-built levee, stretching far as eye could see; the night shift of laborers, eighty strong, shuffling aboard the quarter-boat for their hot supper; the massed, powerful machinery, stretching its black funnels and cranes against the red evening sky. "So we're the two Grand Panjandrums on this job. Responsible for excavation that means prosperity or ruin for half the farmers in the district, according as we do or don't finish those laterals before the June rise; responsible for a pay-roll that runs over four hundred dollars a day; responsible for a time-lock contract that will cost our company five hundred dollars forfeit money a day for every day that we run over our time limit. Well, Hallowell?"

"It strikes me," said Rod, very briefly, "that it's up to us."

"Yes, it is up to us. But if we don't make good – "

"Don't let that worry you." Rod's jaw set, steel. "Don't give that a thought. We'll make good."

CHAPTER VI
THE CONTRACT'S RECEIVING DAY

"Hello, Sis!" It was Roderick's voice over the telephone. "How are you feeling this fine, muggy morning?"

"Pretty well, I suppose. How are you, Rod? Where are you telephoning from?"

"From Burford's shack. We're in a pinch down here, Marian. We need you to help out. Can't you ask Mr. Gates to hitch up and bring you down to camp right away? Or if you'll walk down to Gates's Landing I'll send Mulcahy with the launch, to bring you the rest of the way. And put on your very best toggery, Sis. War paint and feathers and all that. That pretty lavender silk rig will do. But don't forget the gimcracks. Put on all the jewelry you own."

"Why, Roderick Hallowell! What can you mean? Dress up in my best, and come down to camp at nine in the morning, and on Sunday morning at that?"

"I mean just what I say." Then Roderick chuckled irresistibly. "Poor Sis, I don't wonder you're puzzled. But Sunday is the contract's day at home, and we want you to stand in line and receive; or pour tea, whichever you prefer to do. Do you see?"

"No, I don't see. All I do see is that you're talking nonsense. And I don't intend to come down to the camp. It is such a hot, horrid morning, I don't propose to stir. I want you to come up and spend the day here instead. Mrs. Gates wants you, too, she says, for dinner and for supper as well. And yesterday the rural-delivery man brought a whole armful of new magazines. We'll sit on the porch, and you can read and I'll write letters, and we'll have a lovely, quiet day together."

There was a pause. When Roderick spoke again, his voice was rather quenched.

"Sorry, Sis, but it isn't possible for me to come, even for dinner. I'll be hard at it here, every minute of the day."

"You mean that you must work on the contract all day Sunday? When you have worked fourteen hours a day, ever since you came West?" Marian's voice was very tart. "Can't you stop long enough to go to church with me, even? There's a beautiful little church four miles away. It's just a pleasant drive. Surely you can give up two hours of the morning, if you can spare no more time!"

"It isn't a question of what I'm willing to do. And I am not planning to work on Sunday. As you know, Sis, we bank our fires Saturday night and give the laborers a day off. Nearly all the men left for town last night to stay till Monday. But listen. Burford tells me that, on every clear Sunday, we can expect a visit from most of the land-owners for miles around. And not just from the land-owners themselves: their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts; and the children, and the neighbors, and the family cat. They want to see for themselves just how the work is going on. When you stop to think, it's their own work. Their money is paying for every shovelful of dirt we move, and every inch of levee-work. And they're paying every copper of our salaries, too. They have a right to see how their own investment is being used, Sis."

"So you have to treat these country people as honored guests! Cart them up and down the canal, and show them the excavations, and let them pry into your reports, and ask you silly questions! Of all the tiresome, preposterous things!"

"That's pretty much what we'll do. But there is nothing preposterous about it; it's their right. And we fellows want to do the decent thing. Now, more than ever, we want to do everything properly because Carlisle is sick and away. Burford says that Carlisle was more exacting about these visits of inspection than about anything else on the plant. He said that when a man builds a house to protect his family he has the right to oversee every inch of the construction, if he likes. On the same principle, these farmers who are digging canals and putting up levees to protect their lands should have the right to watch the work, step by step. Burford says, too, that Carlisle, with his everlasting patience and courtesy, was steadily winning over the whole district; even the men who had fought the first assessments tooth and nail. It is the least we boys can do to keep up the good feeling that Carlisle has established."

"Well, I think it is all very absurd. Why should I come down to the work? These people do not even know that I exist. And if you really need somebody to talk to their wives and be gracious and all that, why can't Mrs. Burford do it better than I? She is right on the ground, anyway."

"Yes, she's right on the ground. And so is Thomas Tucker's newest tooth. The poor little skeezicks howled half the night, Burford says. He has stopped yelling just now, but he won't let his mother out of his sight for one minute. Mrs. Burford is pretty much worn to a frazzle. But I don't want to pester you, Marian." There was a worried note in Rod's voice now. "I wouldn't have you come for any consideration, if it were to make you ill or tired. So perhaps we'd better not think of it."

Marian shrugged her shoulders. An odd, teasing question stirred in her mind.

"I rather think I can stand the day if you can. Finnegan and I will be at the landing in half an hour. I, and my best beads and wampum, and my new spring hat. There, now!"

Not waiting for Rod's delighted reply, she hurried away to dress. A whimsical impulse led her to put on her freshest and daintiest gown, a charming lilac silk, with a wide, tilting picture hat, heaped with white and purple lilacs. She was standing at the little pier, tugging at her long gloves, when the duty-launch, with Rod himself at the wheel, shot round the bend. Rod waved his hand; then, at sight of her amazing finery, he burst into a whoop of satisfaction.

"Will you look at that! Marian Hallowell, you're the best ever. I might have known you'd play up. Though I was scared stiff, for fear you'd think that just every-day clothes would do. My, but you're stunning! You're looking stronger, too, Sis. You're not nearly so wan and spooky as you were a week ago."

"I'm feeling better, too." Marian's color rose. Even her sulky humor must melt under Rod's beaming approval. "Now give me my sailing orders, Rod. How many callers will we have? What sort of people will they be? Tart and grim, like Mrs. Chrisenberry, I suppose, or else kindly and bashful and 'woodsy,' like the Gateses? Will they stop by on their way home from church, or will they come promptly after dinner and spend the afternoon?"

Rod laughed. "No telling, Sister. We may have ten callers, we may have a hundred. You'll find all kinds of people among them; precisely as you'll find all kinds of people on Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Massachusetts. There'll be nice, neighborly folks who'll drive up the canal road in Bond Street motoring clothes and sixty-horse-power cars. There'll be other nice, neighborly folks who'll ride in through the woods on their plough horses, wearing slat sunbonnets and hickory shirts. And they'll be friendly, and critical, and enthusiastic, and dubersome, all in a heap. You'll need all your social experience, and all your tact, and all the diplomacy you can muster. See?"

"Yes, I'm beginning to see." Marian's eyes were thoughtful. Then she sprang up to wave her lilac parasol in greeting to the martin-box and Sally Lou.

"Isn't this the most mournful luck that ever was!" Sally Lou sat with Thomas Tucker, a forlorn little figure, planted firmly on her knee. "To think that my son must spend his first afternoon of the season in cutting a wicked double tooth! Maybe it'll come through by dinner-time, though. Then he'll go to sleep, and I can slip over and help you entertain our people – Why, Marian Hallowell! Oh, what a lovely, lovely gown! You wise child, how did you know that to wear it to-day was precisely the wisest thing that you could possibly do!"

"I didn't know that. I just put it on. Partly for fun, and – well, partly to provoke Rod, I suppose." Marian felt rather foolish. But she had no time for further confidences.

Up the muddy canal road came a roomy family carriage, drawn by a superbly matched black team. That carriage was packed solid to the dashboard. Father, two tall boys, and a rosy little daughter crammed the front seat; mother, grandmother, and aunty were fitted neatly into the back; and a fringe of small fry swung from every direction.

"Morning." The father reined in and gave everybody a friendly nod and smile. "How are you, Mr. Burford? Glad to meet you, Mr. Hallowell. No, thank you, we're on our way to Sunday-school and church, so we haven't a minute to stop. But I have been wanting to know how you think lateral four will work out; the one that turns down past my farm. Will that sand cut give you much trouble?"

"It will make slower dredging, Mr. Moore. But we'll put it through as fast as we can."

"Um. I'm in no hurry to see it go through. The high water isn't due for a month, anyway. Now, I don't know much about sand-cutting. But I've been told that your worst trouble in a sand streak is with the slides. After your dredge-dipper has dumped the stuff ashore, it won't stay put. It keeps tobogganing back into the channel and blocking your cut. So sometimes you have to hoist it out two or three times over."

"That's exactly the case, Mr. Moore. Usually our levee gangs follow along and tamp the sand down, or else spread it back from the berm where it has no chance to slide. But it is getting so near the time set for the completion of our upper lateral cut that we are obliged to keep our levee shift at work on the upper laterals and take our chances on the sand staying where we pile it."

"Just what I'd supposed. Now, I shall need a lot of that sand, in a week or so, for some cement work. S'pose I send you a couple of teams and half a dozen hands to-morrow, to cart off the sand under your direction. Would that help things along?"

"Help things along? I should say it would!" Rod beamed. "It would be the most timely help we could ask."

"But won't it put you to a lot of trouble, sir," asked Burford, "to take the hands off their regular farm-work in that way?"

"W-well, no. Anyway they can haul sand for a day or so without making much difference. And it will be a heap handier for you boys to have the stuff carted off as fast as you throw it ashore."

"It surely will. That's the best news we've heard in one while!" The boys stood smiling at each other, completely radiant. Mr. Moore nodded and turned his horses.

"Glad if it will be any accommodation. Well, good day to you all. My good wishes to Mr. Carlisle. Tell him I said he left a couple of mighty competent substitutes, but that his neighbors will be glad to see him coming back, just the same."

The big carriage with its gay load rolled away.

"So Moore will send men and teams to help us on that sand cut!" Burford, fairly chortling with satisfaction, started toward the martin-box. "If all our land-owners treated us with half the consideration that he always gives, our work would be a summer's dream. I'm going up to tell Sally Lou."

He had hardly reached the martin-box before he turned with a shout.

"There come our next visitors, Hallowell. The commodore and Mrs. McCloskey, in that fat little white launch. See?"

Commodore McCloskey it was, indeed. Finnegan's wild yelp of delighted greeting would have told as much. Marian promptly joined the hilarious race to the pier. The commodore, crisp and blinding-white in his starchy duck, stood at his launch wheel, majestic as if he stood on the bridge of an ocean liner. But Mrs. McCloskey, a dainty, soft-eyed, little old lady, with cheeks like Scotch roses, and silky curls white as dandelion down blowing from under her decorous gray bonnet, won Marian's heart at the first glance. She was as quaint and gentle and charming as an old-time miniature.

While the boys took the commodore up and down the laterals that he might see their progress since his last visit, Mrs. McCloskey trailed her soft old black silk skirts to the martin-box door and begged for a glimpse of the baby.

"He's crosser than a prickly little porcupine," protested Sally Lou, handing him over reluctantly.

"Oh, but he'll come to me just the minute! Won't you, lamb?"

And like a lamb Thomas Tucker forgot his sorrows and snuggled happily into her tender arms, while his relieved mother bustled about and helped Marian to make a generous supply of lemonade; for half a dozen carriage loads of visitors were now coming up the road.

"'Tis amazin'. Where do they all come from?" observed Mrs. McCloskey. "Yet there's nigh three hundred land-owners in this district. And the commodore, he passed the word yesterday that there's close on two hundred thousand acres of land that will be protected by this one drainage contract. Think of that, Miss Marian. Is it not grand to know that your brother is giving the power of his hands and his brains to such a big, helping work as all that?"

"Why, I suppose so." Marian spoke absently.

"And ye will be a help to him, too, I can see that." Mrs. McCloskey put out a hesitating little hand in a quaint old silken mitt and patted Marian's fluffy gown. "'Tis not everybody makes as bould as meself to tell you in so many words of your pretty finery. But sure 'tis everybody that will appreciate it, an' be pleased an' honored with the compliment of it."

Marian looked utterly puzzled.

"You think that I can be a help to Rod? Why, I don't know the least thing about his work. I really don't understand – "

"Well, aren't you a magic-maker, Auntie McCloskey!" Sally Lou put down the lemon-squeezer and stared. "Look at that precious baby! Sound asleep in your lap! While I haven't been able to pacify him for one minute, though I walked and sang all night!"

"'Tis the cruel tooth has come through, I'm thinkin'." Mrs. McCloskey laid the peaceful little porcupine tenderly into his crib. "Now, I'll stay and watch him while you two go and meet your guests. I'll call you the minute he chirps."

The two girls hurried to greet their callers, to offer them chairs on the shady side of the quarter-boat, to serve them with iced tea and lemonade. Much to Marian's surprise, she found herself chattering away vigorously and actually enjoying it all. As Rod had said, the slow stream that came and went all day included all sorts and conditions of folk. There were the gracious old clergyman and his sweet, motherly wife, who stopped for a pleasant half-hour, then jogged on across the country to his "afternoon meeting," twelve miles out in the lowlands. There were the two brisk young plutocrats from the great Kensington stock farm up-river, who flashed up in a stunning satiny-gray French car, for a brief exchange of courtesies. There were two of the district commissioners, quiet, keen-eyed gentlemen. One of these men, Rod told his sister later, was doing valuable service to the community by his experiments in improving the yield of corn throughout the district. The other commissioner was a lawyer of national reputation. Mrs. Chrisenberry stopped by, too: a brusque little visitor, sitting very stiff and fine in her cushioned phaeton, her beady eyes darting questions through her shrewd spectacles. Marian, feeling very real gratitude, devoted herself to Mrs. Chrisenberry. That lady, however, hardly spoke till just as she was starting to go. Then she leaned forward in her carriage. She fixed Marian with a gimlet eye.

"It's agreeable to see that you think we district folks is folks," she said, very tartly indeed. "I'd some mistrusted the other day, but I guess now that you know what's what. Good-afternoon, all."

"Well, Sally Lou! Will you tell me what she meant?"

Sally Lou nodded wisely.

"Your pretty dress, I suspect. Didn't you hear Mrs. McCloskey praise it, too?"

"Oh!" And now Marian's face was very thoughtful indeed.

Late in the afternoon came the one disagreeable episode of the day.

The drainage district, upon which Roderick and Burford were employed, had become part of a huge league known as the Central Mississippi Drainage Association. This league had recently been organized. Its object was the cutting of protective ditches on a gigantic scale, and its annual expenditures for this work would run well past the million mark. Naturally there was strong competition between all the great engineering firms to win a favorable standing in the eyes of this new and powerful corporation. The Breckenridge Company, because of its superior record, was easily in the lead. None the less, as Rod had remarked a day or so before, it was up to every member of the Breckenridge Company, from Breck the Great down to the meekest cub engineer, to keep that lead.

Burford jeered mildly at Rod for taking his own small importance to the company so seriously.

"Just you wait and see," retorted Roderick.

"Oh, I'll wait, all right," laughed Burford. To-day, however, he was destined to see; and to see almost too clearly for his own peace of mind.

A sumptuous limousine car whirled up the muddy road. Its lordly door swung open; down stepped a large, autocratic gentleman, in raiment of startling splendor, followed by a quiet, courteous elderly man.

"I am Mr. Ellingworth Locke, of New York. I am the acting president of the Central Mississippi Drainage Association," announced the magnificent one. "You gentlemen, I take it, are the – ah – the junior engineers left in charge by Mr. Carlisle?"

Roderick and Burford admitted their identity.

"This is Mr. Crosby, our consulting engineer. Now that this district has joined the association, it comes under our direct surveillance. Mr. Crosby and I desire to go over your laterals and get an idea of your work thus far."

"We are honored." Burford bowed low and welcomed his guests with somewhat flamboyant courtesy. He led the way to the duty-launch. Roderick followed, bringing the cushions and the tarpaulin which the quick-witted Sally Lou hastily commanded him to carry aboard for the potentate's comfort.

Of all their guests, that long day, the acting president was the sole critic. At every rod of the big ditch, at every turn of the laterals, he found some petty fault. The consulting engineer, Mr. Crosby, followed him about in embarrassed silence. He was obviously annoyed by his employer's rudeness. However, for all Mr. Locke's strictures, it was evident that he could find no serious fault with the work. Yet both boys were tingling with vexation and chagrin when the regal limousine rolled away at last.

"What does ail his highness? Did ever you see such a beautiful grouch?" Rod mopped his forehead and stared belligerently after the car.

"Nothing ails him but a badly swelled head." Burford's jaw set hard. "The fact of it is, that the worshipful Mr. Ellingworth Locke hasn't two pins' worth of practical knowledge of dredging. He is a New York banker, and he has no understanding of conditions west of the Hudson. His bank is to make the loans for the association's drainage, and he has bought a big tract of land in this district. That is why he was elected acting president. Do you see?"

"Yes, that helps to explain things."

"So he struts around and tries to pick flaws with the most trifling points of our construction, to keep us from guessing how little he really knows about the big underlying principles. Gentle innocent, he tries to think he's an expert!" Burford waved a disrespectful muddy paw after the flying car. "All that an acting president is good for, anyway, is to wear white spats and to put on side."

"Well, that engineer knows his job."

"Crosby? Yes, he's an engineer all right. And a gentleman, too. Just the same, I'm glad we kowtowed to Mr. Locke. His opinion is so influential that his approval may mean a tremendous advantage to the Breckenridge Company some day."

"I'm hoping that Breckenridge himself will come before long and give us a looking over."

"I'm hoping for that myself. Half an hour of Breck will swing everything into shape. You want to know Breckenridge if ever you get the chance, Hallowell. He's the grandest ever. Just to watch him tramp up and down a ditch, great big silent figure that he is, and hear him fire off those cool, close-mouthed questions of his at you, brings you bristling up like a fighting-cock. He's a regular inspiration, I call him."

"I'm banking on the chance that I shall know him some day." Rod's eyes lighted. He remembered the words of his old professor, "To work under Breckenridge is not only an advantage to any engineer. It is an education in itself."

It was nearly six o'clock when their last callers arrived. They were not an interesting carriage load: a gaunt, silent, middle-aged man; a sallow-cheeked young woman, in cheap, showy clothes, her rough hands glittering with gaudy rings; and a six-year-old girl – a pitiful little ghost of a girl – who looked like a frail little shadow against Sally Lou's lusty, rosy two-year-old son. Her warped, tiny body in its forlorn lace-trimmed pink silk dress was braced in pillows in her mother's arms. Her dim black eyes stared listlessly with the indifference of long suffering.

Marian was always shaken and repelled by the sight of pain. But by this time Thomas Tucker was awake and loudly demanding his mother; so Marian must do her shrinking best, to make the new-comers feel themselves welcomed.