"And good diked land, or ma'sh as these people call it, is worth about two hundred dollars an acre, isn't it?" went on Mrs. Carter.
"This will be, in two or three years, anyway," answered Will, "for it will be deep marsh, alluvial to the bottom and permanently fertile."
"And what do you suppose it ought to be worth next year, as soon as it's diked in?" asked Ted.
"O," said Will, carelessly, "maybe a hundred and fifty, or ten better, perhaps!"
"Dear boys," said Mrs. Carter, "if all goes well you'll both be able to get through college, perhaps. I must keep on steadily with Ted's Latin this fall and winter. Dear me, I'm so sorry I let them laugh me out of my desire to study Greek when I was a girl. I could be so useful to you both now if I'd learnt it!"
"Don't you worry about that, muz," said Ted, jumping up to kiss her. "If you plug me up in my Latin, we'll find some way to manage about the Greek time enough!"
When haying was over there was a slack time on the farm for a few weeks, and these few weeks sufficed the boys, working with eager energy, to get all the warping dikes laid down. To avoid the nuisance of neighbors' questionings, the idea occurred to Ted of sticking up stakes at intervals along the rows of brush and stone. When these stakes were connected at the tops by binders, they looked like the framework of a long and elaborate series of fish weirs. Gaspereaux were fairly abundant in the creek at certain seasons, so there was nothing unreasonable in the supposition. But the dwellers in Frosty Hollow laughed hugely.
"Them Carter boys thinks they knows everything," was the universal comment, "but they don't know the first thing about how to run a fish weir. Why, them there weirs 'll shet every gaspereaux aout o' the cove, 'n 'tain't much of a place fur gaspereaux, anyways!"
When such remarks were tendered to the boys they would merely reply, "You just wait till you see how our way works. If it doesn't work the way we expect, then maybe it'll be time enough to try your way!" The experiment interested the village for a few weeks, and at length died out of notice.
It was utterly eclipsed, indeed, by a topic of profounder interest. The village learned that Mr. Hand was foreclosing his mortgage, and that the Carters were to be sold out the ensuing spring. Some of the people were sympathetic, but others, resenting Mrs. Carter's proud exclusiveness, took a malicious delight in the near prospect of her humiliation.