THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL
"Bad news, is it?" puffed Mulcahy. "Indeed, sir, I'm sorry to be the
one to bring it to you. Lateral Four has caved in again."
"Lateral Four! The cut where we've spent more time and work, filling
in, than we've spent anywhere else on the whole ditch!"
"Yes, Lateral Four. The ungrateful piece of fill she is! And when you
have shored up the margins with brush, twice over!"
"How far up is the cave-in, Mulcahy?"
"Half a mile from the mouth. Right where Mr. Ellingworth Locke's land
begins, sir."
"Right on President Locke's land! Will you hear that, Hallowell? And
he's the biggest grumbler in the whole district! And the most powerful
grumbler, too. Of all the hard luck!"
"I do hear. And I'm going to get busy." Rod pulled himself together
with a grim little chuckle. "It's an all-night job, Burford. Or else
we can add one more calamity to our head-quarters report. 'One bad
cave-in, on lateral draining land owned by H. R. H., the acting
president of the Central Mississippi Association.' Do you see us
putting in that cheery news?"
"No, I don't. Not just yet." Burford wiped the last soot-streak from
his chin and jumped into the launch. "Here we go!"
"Wait a jiffy, Burford. You'd better stay by the dredge an hour or so.
Keep the men at work flooding her deck. We can't be certain-sure that
the fire is completely out. There's always a risk."
"That's a fact. You go up to the cave-in and set the levee crews to
work. I'll follow in an hour."
Rod started his engine, but Marian stopped him.
"Wait, Rod. Take me up to the lateral, too."
"Take you up to the cave-in, you mean? Why on earth should you go? At
this time of night----"
"Because I want to see just what you have to do. I'm getting very
much interested in the work, truly. Please, brother."
"Of all the notions!" Rod looked completely puzzled. Yet a warm little
gratified smile brightened his tired face. Again he felt the
heart-warming satisfaction that he had felt on the day he had come
home, fagged and blue, to find that Marian had sorted all his accounts
and cleared up his reports for him. It was wonderfully pleasant to
find that his sister could show such real comradeship in his work.
"Of course you shall go with me if you wish, dear. Hop in. Careful!"
"Let me steer, Rod."
"Think you can see all right?"
"With this big search-light? I should hope so. Lie down on the
cushions and rest for two minutes. I'll run very carefully."
"Good enough." Rod stretched his weary bones on the seat. At the end
of the six-mile run he sat up, with a shamed grin.
"Lazy sinner I am, I dropped off the minute I struck those cushions.
My, that snooze makes one thirsty for more! Put the launch inshore,
Sis. Hello there, boys! Is that Dredge A crew? Why, how did you swing
the dredge downstream so quickly?"
"We had steam up, so we dropped down the lateral the minute we got
word of the cave-in," answered the dredge foreman. "It was Mister Jim
Conover who happened by and saw the landslip, sir. He came a-gallopin'
over with his horse all lather, and brought us the news, not fifteen
minutes after it happened. Then he called his own hired men and a
crowd of neighbors, and they all set to to shore up the bank, above
and below the break, with sand-bags and brush. They're workin' at it
now, sir, lickety-cut." He pointed up the lateral to a dim glow of
torch-light. "Shovellin' away like beavers they are, sir. There won't
be another slump in that margin, you can depend on that. They've saved
you and the company two days' work and five hundred dollars clear in
damages alone, I'm thinkin'."
"Five hundred damages? It would have been nearer a thousand if they
hadn't stopped that slide on the double-quick." Roderick sat staring
at the hurrying figures in the dull glow of smoky light. He could
hardly grasp this amazing stroke of fortune. "But how--why--I never
heard of such a royal piece of kindness!"
"It's all Conover's doing. He said you folks had done mighty
neighborly by him, and that he wanted to show his appreciation."
"_Conover!_ Why, I never even heard the man's name till now!"
"Conover?" Marian screwed up her forehead. A vague recollection
flickered in her mind.
"Yes, sir, Conover. He has a good-sized farm back here a piece. Likely
you've forgotten. There's him and his wife and his little girl.
Crippled she is, the poor child. Mamie, they call her."
"Mamie Conover--Oh! The poor little soul who was so delighted with
your red pencils, Rod! That visitors' Sunday, don't you remember?"
"Oh, to be sure. You're better at remembering than I am, Sis. Well,
I'm going up to thank him, this minute. Then we'll ship the dredge
into trim and begin digging out the channel again. Think it will take
us all night?"
"Now that Conover's gang has stopped the slide so good and square for
us, we ought to be able to cut out and tamp down, too, by daybreak,
sir. Maybe sooner. Here comes Conover this minute."
Coated with mud, squashing heavily into the sodden crest of the bank
with every step, Conover tramped down the ditch. In that shambling
figure, Marian instantly recognized little Mamie's father. Vividly she
remembered his deep, weary look at her, the infinite tenderness with
which he had lifted the little frail body from her arms.
In the white glare of the search-light, his gaunt face was radiant
with friendly concern.
"We've done what little we could, Mr. Hallowell," he said, in reply to
Rod's eager thanks. "Little enough at that. But now if you'll put in a
few hours' dredging to get out that slide, your ditch will be all
right again. Mr. Locke there, whose land borders on this lateral, is a
little--well, a little fussy, you know. That's why we fellows kinder
butted in and set to work without waitin' to hear from you. Land, it
wasn't nothing to thank us for. Just a little troke between neighbors.
You here, Miss Hallowell? My buckboard is right up-shore. Can't I
drive you to Mr. Gates's? It's right on my way home--only a mile or
so off my road, that is."
"Run along, Sis. Please. It's late and damp, and chilly besides.
Scoot, now."
"But I don't want to go, Rod. I want to stay and see the dredge make
the cut over again. This is the most interesting performance I ever
dreamed of."
"I'd much rather have you go home, old lady. You can't see much in
this half-light. And you can't help me. Worse, you'll catch cold sure
and certain." Yet that odd little glow warmed Rod's heart once more.
It was a wonderful satisfaction to hear Marian speak with such keen
interest of his beloved work.
"Well, then--" reluctantly Marian scrambled ashore. Mr. Conover wiped
his muddy hands on the lap-robe and helped her into the buckboard,
with awkward care. They drove swiftly away, up the wide country road,
between the dark, level fields.
Neither spoke for some minutes. At last Marian began, rather clumsily,
to tell him of their exciting day.
The man made no comment. Still more clumsily, she tried to thank him
for his generous and timely aid to Roderick.
Suddenly Mr. Conover turned to her. In the faint starlight she saw
that his dull face was working painfully.
"So you want to thank me for this job, eh? Why, if I'd done ten times
as much, I wouldn't have begun to do what I want to do for you and
your brother. I've been aimin' to come over and tell you, long ago.
But seems like I never get around to it. Don't you mind about them red
pencils?"
"Those red and blue pencils of Rod's, you mean? What of them?"
"What of them? My, if you could see Mamie with them, you wouldn't
ask!" The color burned in his thin face. His eyes were shining now.
"They're the one pleasure that ain't never failed her. If I could ever
tell you what they've meant! I've sent to the city and bought her
three or four dozen assorteds, so's to be sure she never gets short of
all the colors. No matter how bad her back hurts, she'll set there in
her pillows and mark away, happy's a kitten. Seems like long's she's
workin' with those pencils, she forgets everything, even the pain. And
that's the best we can ever do for our baby." His voice broke on a
terrible and piteous note. "The only thing we can do--help her
forget."
There was a long silence.
"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."