"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.