“Of course! That is what will back up the water and fill the depression. If there is no dam, the water will go right on running away as it now does.”
The two now started for the road in order to gain the far side of the briar area, but Frances was seen coming from the barn in the automobile. They reached the gateway about the same time and Mrs. James asked: “Where are you going, Frances?”
“Over to Dorothy Ames’s to see if she can come over and advise Janet about some pigeons. Dot raises them, you know, and we want her to find a suitable place for Sam to start the cote.”
“Then I wish you would stop at the other Ames’s farm and see if Mr. Ames is home. If he can come over for a half hour, I’d like very much to ask him about some work to be done here,” said Mrs. James.
“I’ll not only stop and ask him, but we’ll stop and bring him back with us, if he can get away,” agreed Frances.
While the two were waiting for Frances to reappear with Farmer Ames, they talked eagerly of the lake they could already visualize in the place where bog and weeds now stood.
“If we build a dam, Jimmy, that means we will have a water falls, too, doesn’t it?” was Norma’s eager question.
“Yes, and I will want a bridge, too, over the lake.”
“Oh, how lovely! Maybe we can build a bridge like I’ve seen in magazines, where the large estates have landscape gardeners beautify the grounds. I’ve seen Japanese gardens with the loveliest bridges and islands in the lakes! I’d like a bridge with stone lanterns and Japanese idols and temples on it.”
Mrs. James laughed. “I’d like them, too, but I will be contented with a rustic bridge of cedar, for the time being. We may be able to have the upright posts heavy enough to hold up an iron lantern on its top, but the temple and little gods are out of the question, because they cost so much in the city.”