"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?"