"An' then you talk as if what I did to-night could count for anything—alongside of that!"
Marian's own lips were quivering. She did not dare to reply.
Yet as she put out her bedroom candle and stood looking out on the dark starlit woods, the narrow black ribbon of the canal, a whimsical wonder stirred in her thought.
"I'll tell Rod to-morrow that his red pencils must have the credit of it all. It's the story of the little Dutch hero who stuffed his thumb into the crack in the dike and saved the city, right over again. Only this time it's something even tinier than a thumb that has saved the day. It's just a little red lead-pencil. And, oh, how glad I am for Roderick's sake! The dear, stodgy old slow-coach, I'm proud of every inch of his success. Though maybe Slow-Coach isn't just the fitting name for Rod nowadays. Sometimes the slow coaches are the very ones that win the race—in the long run."
CHAPTER X
HONORED GUESTS
Marian's wish for quiet and monotonous days was promptly granted. Only too promptly and too thoroughly, she owned ruefully. The next morning dawned bleak and gray, with a chill east wind and a driving rain. Held prisoner in the house by the storm, Marian amused herself through the long dreary day as best she could. At supper-time, feeling very lonely indeed, she called Roderick up on the telephone; but their long-distance visit gave her little satisfaction.
Roderick had spent a hard day, hurrying from one lateral to another, crowding the levee work to the highest possible speed; for in this wide-spread rain the creeks to the north were rising an inch an hour, and every inch meant danger to his half-built embankments. Marian sympathized eagerly and declared that she would come down to the canal the next day and help him with his reports.
"Not if it rains you won't," croaked Roderick hoarsely. "Don't let me catch you outside the house. You'll catch cold just as I have done, wading through this swamp. Mind, now. Don't you dare leave the farm-house unless it clears."
Marian promised. When the morning came, dark and drizzly, she found it hard to keep her word. The hours went on leaden feet. The downpour never slackened. It was impossible for her to go out-doors even as far as the driveway. In that flat, low country a two-days' rain means an inundation. Meadows and fields were like flooded marshes. Sheets of water spread through the orchards; the yard paths were so many brooks, the barn-yard was an infant lake.