"
"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.
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