"Although I don't despise the very sight of camp, as I did at first," she reflected. "It is rather queer that I don't, too. Perhaps one can get used to anything. And I do want to learn more about Rod's work, for he loves it so dearly, and I know he wants me to enjoy it too. Though how anybody can enjoy such a life! To spend day after day, month on month, toiling like a slave in a steaming marsh like this!"
A brisk finger tapped on the window-pane above her.
"Come in, Miss Northerner! Poor dear, you're all but drowned. Stand on the oil-cloth and drip till Mammy can help you to take off those boots and put on my slippers."
Marian entered the dry, warm little house with a sigh of pleasure. Presently she sat at the window with Thomas Tucker bouncing on her knee. Thomas Tucker had charms that could cheer the most pensive spirit. Yet Marian stared soberly past his bobbing yellow head at the swarming camp below.
"Don't look so droopy, Miss Northerner. Perk up, do!" Sally Lou gave her ear a gentle nip. "You and I will have to manufacture cheerfulness in car-load lots this week, to counterbalance our partners' gloom."
"Why? Have the boys met with more ill-luck on the contract?"
"More ill-luck!" Sally Lou checked off point by point on her slim fingers. "Day before yesterday—the morning after the fire—the district inspector was due here to pass judgment on the two upper laterals. As you know, the contract provides that the inspector must look over every yard of excavation and approve it before it can be considered as actually done. Lo and behold, no inspector appeared. The boys were wild with anxiety to start their levee-work before the rain should wash the soft new banks down into the canal; for the company is responsible for every cave-in, and every slide of land means double labor in digging all that soil out of the ditch again. By noon the inspector had not been heard from, but two small cave-ins had occurred, and the company was losing money at the rate of thirty dollars an hour, because of the enforced idleness of the laborers and the shutting down of the machinery. Finally Roderick took his launch and started out in search of the inspector. At Grafton he managed to get telephone connections with his office, and he was cheerfully assured that the inspector would appear on the scene 'as soon as the rain stops.'"
"'As soon as the rain stops?' Why, Sally Lou! Then he hasn't come at all!"
"Precisely. Back came poor Rod, very cross and doleful indeed. Then he and Ned gave up work on the laterals and set the men to hacking away at the regular excavation. The laborers are sulky accordingly. Yesterday they threatened a strike. I don't blame them. The bank-cutting is all very well in dry weather, but in this rain it is a miserable task."
"Well, Rod can keep the men pacified. He's a splendid manager."