"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.