The Raid from Beausejour; and How the Carter Boys Lifted the Mortgage / Two Stories of Acadie

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

"Well, mother, you must allow," said Will, "that if Mr. Germain says so, it's no use thinking of going to law against old Hand, is it? As for Mr. Germain's kind offer to find places for Ted and me, why, if the worst comes to the worst, that wouldn't be too bad. We could live pretty comfortably in Barchester with our little salaries and your clever housekeeping. But maybe we won't have to leave here after all! That's what Ted and I have been up to all summer. We anticipated that Mr. Germain would disappoint you; but we wouldn't say so. Our plan is to sell the new marsh, when we get it diked in, and with the proceeds pay off Hand's mortgage with all the arrears of interest. There ought to be something left over, too!"

"But I was proposing--I wanted to deed that piece of marsh to you boys!" objected Mrs. Carter, in a voice of mingled gratification and doubt.

"O, muz!" answered Will, putting his arm around her, "what do we want of it? The whole farm is ours, in that it's yours. That's all we want the new marsh for--just to clear off the mortgage. And we're going to do it, too! We begin work on the running dike to-morrow."

"You are two dear, good boys!" exclaimed their mother, tenderly. "If only your poor father could have lived! How proud he would have been of both of you!" And her eyes filled with tears. Next day Will and Ted armed themselves with diking spades, and set to work determinedly. They had the old horse, Jerry, on the spot, harnessed to a light cart, ready to haul material as wanted. They began at the lower end of the cove, building upward from the corner of the old dike. Their purpose in this was to keep the scouring in check. By this method of procedure they would have the final outlet (usually so difficult to close) located at the shallowest part of the cove. There would thus, as soon as the dike extended a little distance, be some water left behind after every flood tide, and there would be so much less to make violent escape with the ebb. If there should be left, finally, more imprisoned water than the sun could well evaporate that autumn, Will explained to Ted that it would be a simple matter to drain it off and close up the outlet between tides.

At the end of the first day's work Mrs. Carter came down to note progress, and was shown several feet of sound, shapely dike, with planks and large stones laid on the exposed end as a protection against the tide. A little calculation showed that it would be quite feasible, with perhaps a week or so of hired help toward the last, to finish the dike before hard weather should set in.

Everybody now at the yellow cottage on the hill was cheerful in the hope of speedy success. To their ears the clamor of the ebbing and flowing tides was a jubilant music. Their loved "crick" was becoming their friend-in-need. Its unctuous red flats acquired a new beauty in their eyes, and the mighty, sweeping tides they came to regard as the embodiment of their good genius.

With the rapidly growing dike all went swimmingly for a time. But the neighbors were now completely undeceived. Though nettled at their former dullness, they could not but applaud the ingenuity of the scheme; and they rather approved the reticence which the boys had observed in the matter.

Among the villagers, however, there was one who did not like the turn affairs were taking. Mr. Hand perceived that he might yet be defeated in his effort to gain possession of the Carters' farm. He was an astute old man, if he didn't at first understand the warping dikes.

His first step was to threaten Will with proceedings to stop the work. He owned the marsh on the opposite side of the creek, and he claimed that the building of the new dike would so alter the channel that his property would be endangered. Will presently proved to him, beyond cavil, that the slight deflection of the currents would only throw the scouring force of the stream against a point of rocky upland, some hundreds of yards below his marsh, where it could not possibly do any harm. Then Mr. Hand professed himself entirely satisfied, and departed to devise other weapons.

By the middle of September the dike extended more than halfway across the mouth of the cove, and the work was daily growing easier. The facing of the water front, of course, was being left to do afterwards, when the weather should be unfit for digging.