The young man laughed. "Why, there's no question of the dam yet. You all seem to think that we're here to build it. We have to make a report to the commission first, and the commission will lay the report before the legislature. That's how it is."
Mrs. Ray folded her arms and joined in suddenly, "So—that's how it is, is it? Well, I don't wonder it's difficult to run a post-office, when anything as plain as a dam has to be fussed over like that. By the way, you're one of the surveyors and you ought to know,—is it true that if they do build the dam, it may get a little too full and run over into our valley or burst altogether and drown Rochester? I'm interested to know."
"That's what we want to know, too," said Ingram's assistant; "that's what we're surveying for."
"How long will it take you to tell? I've got a friend—maybe you know him, Sammy Adams?—and he owns most of the valley back here. He's the worrying kind, and he's worried. Yes, indeed."
"It wouldn't make so much difference about Rochester," said Mrs. Dunstall; "it's a deal easier to go for our shopping to Buffalo from here; but wouldn't it be awful for Sammy Adams! Why, his house is right in the valley."
"Yes," said Mrs. Ray, "and as a general thing Sammy's right in his house. It's bad enough now, with the freshets scooping sand all over the farm every other spring, but if the dam goes and scoops Sammy Adams, the legislature'll have something else to settle besides the Capitol at Albany. Sammy Adams looks meek, but he'd never take being drowned quietly; he's got too much spirit for that. Yes, indeed!"
"We're going to do away with the freshets, Mrs. Ray," the young man said; "the dam—if it comes—will be the biggest blessing that ever came this way, let me tell you. In the summer you'll have a beautiful lake to sail on, and no end of excursions."
"Why, I thought they were going to store up the water in spring, and draw it off in the summer," said Mrs. Dunstall. "A man told my husband that that was what they wanted the dam for,—to save the high water in the spring so as to use it in the summer. Wasn't that what Ebenezer said, Pinkie?"
"Yes, it was," said Pinkie.
"How do you explain that?" asked Mrs. Ray, turning an inquisitorial eye sternly on the surveyor. "Where's your beautiful lake going to be by July? Marsh and mosquitoes, that's what we'll have left. Don't tell me; I've seen too many kind thoughts about making folks happy end that way, and I've seen one or two reservoirs, too. The dam'll drown Sammy Adams, that's what it'll do, and Ledge'll be left high and dry with a lot of dead fish lying all over the fields. I know!"