"Labor's cheap in this country, but I reckon it's some job. However, now there's something doing----"
"You'll stay and see me out?" Jim suggested. "Thank you, partner! Doesn't seem much use in stating that what is mine is yours, but I wish you'd get it. Another thing; this draining is a business proposition and we're partners in that sense, too. Now we'll tell your mother."
They told Mrs. Winter at lunch, and Jim saw that she hesitated and looked at Carrie. The girl's face was, however, inscrutable, and she gave no sign. Jim felt puzzled. He thought Mrs. Winter liked Langrigg and she had developed since she came. She was not so thin, she had lost her careworn look and gained a certain ease of manner. At the store, she had been highly-strung and restless; now she was happily calm. Moreover, she was making her influence felt and quietly taking control. Jim had noted that things were done better and cost him less. He wanted her to stay, because he thought she needed a rest and he would miss her if she went.
"Well," she said, doubtfully, "if you are all satisfied----"
"I am satisfied," Jim declared. "I imagine Jake is, but Carrie hasn't told us yet."
Carrie gave him a quick glance and he thought her color was rather high.
"You are kind," she said. "Mother looks younger than she has looked for long and perhaps we had better accept. But it is a big undertaking to drain the marsh. When do you begin?"
"I thought we might begin this afternoon. However, I don't expect to drain it all right off. There's a pretty dry piece where I mean to start. I reckon I've money enough for the experiment, and can develop my plans afterwards when I see what the first lot costs."
Carrie laughed and the hint of strain all had felt vanished. "You are certainly the hustling Jim we knew," she said. "I feel as if we were back in the woods."
After lunch Jim crossed the marsh with Jake and stopped where a ridge of higher ground broke off at the edge of a muddy creek. In the corner, partly sheltered by a bank of gorse, stood a small white house with a roof of rusty iron where the thatch had been. The whitewash had fallen off in places, exposing a rough, granulated wall, for the house was a dabbin, built of puddled clay. A window was broken and the door hung crookedly. Except for a few rows of withered potatoes, the garden was occupied by weeds. Three or four shellducks, hatched from wild birds' eggs, paddled about the creek.