The Hallowell Partnership

Katharine Holland Brown

The Hallowell Partnership

CHAPTER I

WHEN SLOW-COACH GOT HIS FIGHTING CHANCE

"Rod!"

No answer.

"Rod, what did that messenger boy bring? A special-delivery letter? Is it anything interesting?" Marian Hallowell pushed Empress from her knee and turned on her pillows to look at Roderick, her brother, who sat absorbed and silent at his desk.

Roderick did not move. Only Empress cocked a topaz eye, and rubbed her orange-tawny head against Marian's chair.

"Rod, why don't you answer me?" Marian's thin hands twitched. A sharp, fretted line deepened across her pretty, girlish forehead. It was not a pleasant line to see. And through her long, slow convalescence it had grown deeper every day.

"Roderick Hallowell!"

Roderick jumped. He turned his sober, kind face to her, then bent eagerly to the closely written letter in his hand.

"Just a minute, Sis."

"Oh, very well, Slow-Coach!" Marian lay back, with a resigned sniff. She pulled Empress up by her silver collar, and lay petting the big, satiny Persian, who purred like a happy windmill against her cheek. Her tired eyes wandered restlessly about the dim, high-ceiled old room. Of all the dreary lodgings on Beacon Hill, surely Roderick had picked out the most forlorn! Still, the old place was quiet and comfortable. And, as Roderick had remarked, his rooms were amazingly inexpensive. That had been an important point; especially since Marian's long, costly illness at college. That siege had been hard on Rod in many ways, she thought, with a mild twinge of self-reproach. In a way, those long weeks of suffering had come through her own fault. The college physician had warned her more than once that she was working and playing beyond her strength. Yet she felt extremely ill-used.

"It wasn't nearly so bad, while I stayed in the infirmary at college." She sighed as she thought of her bright, airy room, the coming and going of the girls with their gay petting and sympathy, the roses and magazines and dainties. "But here, in this tiresome, lonely place! How can I expect to get well!"

Here she lay, shut up in Rod's rooms, alone day after day, save for the vague, pottering kindnesses of Rod's vague old landlady. At night her brother would come home from his long day's work as cub draughtsman in the city engineer's office, too tired to talk. And Marian, forbidden by overstrained eyes to read, could only lie by the fire, and tease Empress, and fret the endless hours away.

At last, with a deep breath, Rod laid down the letter. He pulled his chair beside her lounge.

"Tired, Sis?"

"Not very. What was your letter, Rod?"

"I'll tell you pretty soon. Anything doing to-day?"

"Isabel and Dorothy came in from Wellesley this morning, and brought me those lovely violets, and told me all about the Barn Swallows' masque dance last night. And the doctor came this afternoon."

"H'm. What did he say?"

Marian gloomed.

"Just what he always says. 'No more study this year. Out-door life. Bread and milk and sleep.' Tiresome!"

Roderick nodded.

"Hard lines, Sister. And yet – "

He dropped his sentence, and sat staring at the fire.

"Rod! Are you never going to tell me what is in that letter?"

"That letter? Oh, yes. Sure it won't tire you to talk business?"

"Of course not."

"Well, then – I have an offer of a new position. A splendid big one at that."

"A new position? Truly?" Marian sat up, with brightening eyes.

"Yes. But I'm not sure I can swing it." Rod's face clouded. "It demands a mighty competent engineer."

"Well! Aren't you a competent engineer?" Marian gave his ear a mild tweak. "You're always underrating yourself, you old goose. Tell me about this. Quick."

Rod's thoughtful face grew grave.

"It's such a gorgeous chance that I can't half believe in it," he said, at length. "Through Professor Young, I'm offered an engineer's billet with the Breckenridge Engineering and Construction Company. The Breckenridge Company is the largest and the best-known firm of engineers in the United States. Breckenridge himself is a wonder. I'd rather work under him than under any man I ever heard of. The work is a huge drainage contract in western Illinois. One hundred dollars a month and all my expenses. It's a two-year job."

"A two-year position, out West!" Marian's eyes shone. "The out-West part is dreadful, of course. But think of a hundred-dollar salary, after the sixty dollars that you have been drudging to earn ever since you left Tech! Read Professor Young's letter aloud; do."

Roderick squirmed.

"Oh, you don't want to hear it. It's nothing much."

"Yes I do, too. Read it, I say. Or – give it to me. There!"

There was a short, lively scuffle. However, Marian had captured the letter with the first deft snatch; and Roderick could hardly take it from her shaky, triumphant hands by main force. He gave way, grumbling.

"Professor Young always says a lot of things he doesn't mean. He does it to brace a fellow up, that's all."

"Very likely." Marian's eyes skimmed down the first page.

"' – And as the company has asked me to recommend an engineer of whose work I can speak from first-hand knowledge, I have taken pleasure in referring them to you. To be sure, you have had no experience in drainage work. But from what I recall of your record at Tech, your fundamental training leaves nothing to be desired. When it comes to handling the mass of rough-and-ready labor that the contract employs, I am confident that your father's son will show the needed judgment and authority. It is a splendid undertaking, this reclamation of waste land. It is heavy, responsible work, but it is a man's work, straight through; and there is enough of chance in it to make it a man's game, as well. If you can make good at this difficult opportunity, you will prove that you can make good at any piece of drainage engineering that comes your way. This is your fighting chance at success. And I expect to see you equal to its heaviest demands. Good luck to you!'

"That sounds just like Professor Young. And he means it. Every word." Marian folded the letter carefully and gave it back to her brother. "Honestly, Rod, it does sound too good to be true. And think, what a frabjous time you can have during your vacations! You can run over to the Ozarks for your week-ends, and visit the Moores on their big fruit ranch, and go mountain-climbing – "

Roderick chortled.

"The Ozarks would be a trifling week-end jaunt of three hundred miles, old lady. Didn't they teach you geography at Wellesley? As to mountains, that country is mostly pee-rary and swamp. That's why this contract will be a two-year job, and a stiff job at that."

"What does district drainage work mean, anyway?"

"In district drainage, a lot of farmers and land-owners unite to form what is called, in law, a drainage district. A sort of mutual benefit association, you might call it. Then they tax themselves, and hire engineers and contractors to dig a huge system of ditches, and to build levees and dikes, to guard their fields against high water. You see, an Illinois farmer may own a thousand acres of the richest alluvial land. But if half that land is swamp, and the other half lies so low that the creeks near by may overflow and ruin his crops any day, then his thousand mellow acres aren't much more use than ten acres of hard-scrabble here in New England. To be sure, he can cut his own ditches, and build his own levee, without consulting his neighbors. But the best way is for the whole country-side to unite and do the work on a royal scale."

"How do they go about digging those ditches? Where can they find laboring men to do the work, away out in the country?"

"Why, you can't dig a forty-foot district canal by hand, Sis! That would be a thousand-year job. First, the district calls in an experienced engineer to look over the ground and make plans and estimates. Next, it employs a drainage contractor; say, the Breckenridge firm. This firm puts in three or four huge steam dredge-boats, a squad of dump-carts and scrapers, an army of laborers, and a staff of engineers – including your eminent C. E. brother – to oversee the work. The dredges begin by digging a series of canals; one enormous one, called the main ditch, which runs the length of the district and empties into some large body of water; in this case, the Illinois River. Radiating from this big ditch, they cut a whole family of little ditches, called laterals. The main ditch is to carry off the bulk of water in case of freshets; while the laterals drain the individual farms."

"It sounds like slow, costly work."

"It is. And you've heard only half of it, so far. Then, following the dredges, come the laborers, with their teams and shovels and dump-carts. Along the banks of the ditch they build low brush-and-stone-work walls and fill them in with earth. These walls make a levee. So, even if the floods come, and your ditch runs bank-full, the levee will hold back the water and save the crops from ruin. Do you see?"

"Ye-es. But it sounds rather tangled, Rod."

"It isn't tangled at all. Look." Rod's pencil raced across the envelope. "Here's a rough outline of this very contract. This squirmy line is Willow Creek. It is a broad, deep stream, and it runs for thirty crooked miles through the district, with swampy shores all the way. A dozen smaller creeks feed into it. They're swampy, too. So you can see how much good rich farm-land is being kept idle.

"This straight line is the main ditch, as planned. It will cut straight through the creek course, as the crow flies. Do you see, that means we'll make a new channel for the whole stream? A straight, deep channel, too, not more than ten miles long, instead of the thirty twisted, wasteful miles of the old channel. The short lines at right angles to the main ditch represent the little ditches, or laterals. They'll carry off surplus water from the farm-lands: even from those that lie back from the creek, well out of harm's way."

"What will your work be, Rod?"

"I'll probably be given a night shift to boss. That is – if I take the job at all. The laborers are divided into two shifts, eleven hours each. The dredges have big search-lights, and puff along by night, regardless."

"How will you live?"

"We engineers will be allotted a house-boat to ourselves, and we'll mess together. The laborers live on a big boat called the quarter-boat. The firm furnishes food and bunks, tools, stationery, everything, even to overalls and quinine."

"Quinine?"

"Yes. Those Illinois swamps are chock-full of chills and fever."

"Cheerful prospect! What if you get sick, Rod?"

"Pooh. I never had a sick day in all my life. However, the farm-houses, up on higher ground, are out of the malaria belt. If I get so Miss Nancy-fied that I can't stay in the swamp, I can sleep at a farm-house. They say there are lots of pleasant people living down through that section. It is a beautiful country, too. I – I'd like it immensely, I imagine."

"Of course you will. But what makes you speak so queerly, Rod? You're certainly going to accept this splendid chance!"

Rod's dark, sober face settled into unflinching lines.

"We'll settle that later. What about you, Sis? If I go West, where will you go? How will you manage without me?"

"Oh, I'll go up to Ipswich for the summer. Just as I always do."

Rod considered.

"That won't answer, Marian. Now that the Comstocks have moved away, there is nobody there to look after you. And you'd be lonely, too."

"Well, then, I can go to Dublin. Cousin Evelyn will give me a corner in her cottage."

"But Cousin Evelyn sails for Norway in June."

"Dear me, I forgot! Then I'll visit some of the girls. Isabel was teasing me this morning to come to their place at Beverly Farms for August. Though – I don't know – "

Rod's serious young eyes met hers. A slow red mounted to his thatched black hair.

"I don't believe that would work, Sis. I hate to spoil your fun. But – we can't afford that sort of thing, dear."

"I suppose not. To spend a month with Isabel and her mother, in that Tudor palace of theirs, full of man-servants, and maid-servants, and regiments of guests, and flocks and herds of automobiles, would cost me more, in new clothes alone, than the whole summer at Ipswich. But, Rod, where can I stay? I'd go cheerfully and camp on my relatives, only we haven't a relative in the world, except Cousin Evelyn. Besides, I – I don't see how I can ever stand it, anyway!" Her fretted voice broke, quivering. Mindful of Rod's boyish hatred of sentiment, she gulped back the sob in her throat; but her weak hand clutched his sleeve. "There are only the two of us, Rod, and we've never been separated in all our lives. Not even for a single week. I – I can't let you go away out there and leave me behind."

Now, on nine occasions out of ten, Slow-Coach was Rod's fitting title. This was the tenth time. He stooped over Marian, his black eyes flashing. His big hand caught her trembling fingers tight.

"That will just do, Sis. Stop your forebodings, you precious old 'fraid-cat. I'm going to pack you up and take you right straight along."

"Why, Roderick Thayer Hallowell!"

Marian gasped. She stared up at her brother, wide-eyed.

"Why, I couldn't possibly go with you. It's absurd. I daren't even think of it."

"Why not?"

"Well, it's such a queer, wild place. And it is so horribly far away. And I'm not strong enough for roughing it."

"Nonsense. Illinois isn't a frontier. It's only two days' travel from Boston. As for roughing it, think of the Vermont farm-houses where we've stayed on fishing trips. Remember the smothery feather-beds, and the ice-cold pickled beets and pie for breakfast? Darkest Illinois can't be worse than that."

"N-no, I should hope not. But it will be so tedious and dull!"

"Didn't the doctor order you to spend a dull summer? Didn't he prescribe bread and milk and sleep?"

"Rod, I won't go. I can't. I'd be perfectly miserable. There, now!"

Roderick gave her a long, grave look.

"Then I may as well write and decline the Breckenridge offer, Sis. For I'll take you with me, or else stay here with you. That's all."

"Rod, you're so contrary!" Marian's lips quivered. "You must go West. I won't have you stay here and drudge forever at office work. You must not throw away this splendid chance. It isn't possible!"

"It isn't possible for me to do anything else, Sis." Roderick's stolid face settled into granite lines. Marian started at the new ring of authority in his voice. "Haven't you just said that you couldn't stand it to be left behind? Well, I – I'm in the same boat. I can't go off and leave you, Sis. I won't run the chances of your being sick, or lonely, while I'm a thousand miles away. So you'll have to decide for us both. Either you go with me, or else I stay here and drudge forever, as you call it. For I'd rather drudge forever than face that separation. That's all. Run along to bed now, that's a good girl. You'll need plenty of sleep if you are to start for Illinois with me next week. Good-night."

"Well, but Rod – "

"Run along, I say. Take Empress with you. I want to answer this letter, and she keeps purring like a buzz-saw, and sharpening her claws on my shoes, till I can't think straight."

"But, Rod, you don't understand!" Marian caught his arm. Her eyes brimmed with angry tears. "I don't want to go West. I'll hate it. I know I shall. I want to stay here, where I can be with my friends, where I can have a little fun. It's not fair to make me go with you!"

"Oh, I understand, all right." Roderick's eyes darkened. "You will not like the West. You'll not be contented. I know that. But, remember, I'm taking this job for both of us, Sis. We're partners, you know. I wish you could realize that." His voice grew a little wistful. "If you'd be willing to play up – "

"Oh, I'll play up, of course." Marian put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a pettish kiss. "And I'll go West with you. Though I'd rather go to Moscow or the Sahara. Come, Empress! Good-night, Rod."

The door closed behind her quick, impatient step. Roderick sat down at his desk and opened his portfolio. He did not begin to write at once. Instead, he sat staring at the letter in his hand. He was a slow, plodding boy; he was not given to dreaming; but to-night, as he sat there, his sober young face lighted with eager fire. Certain phrases of that magical letter seemed to float and gleam before his eyes.

– "'A splendid undertaking… heavy, responsible work, but a man's work, and a man's game… This is your fighting chance. If you can make good… And I expect to see you equal to its heaviest demands.'"

Rod's deep eyes kindled slowly.

"I'll make good, all right," he muttered. His strong hand clinched on the folded sheet. "It's my fighting chance. And if I can't win out, with such an opportunity as this one – then I'll take my name off the Engineering Record roster and buy me a pick and a shovel!"

CHAPTER II

TRAVELLERS THREE

"Ready, Marian? The Limited starts in thirty minutes. We haven't a minute to spare."

"Y-yes." Marian caught up her handbag and hurried into the cab. "Only my trunk keys – I'm not sure – "

"Your trunk keys! You haven't lost them, of all things!"

"No. Here they are, safe in my bag. But Empress has been so frenzied I haven't known which way to turn."

Poor insulted Empress, squirming madly in a wicker basket, glared at Rod, and lifted a wild, despairing yowl.

"You don't propose to leave Mount Vernon Street for the wilds of Illinois without a struggle, do you, Empress?" chuckled Rod. "Never you mind. You'll forget your blue silk cushion and your minced steak and cream, and you'll be chasing plebeian chipmunks in a week. Look at the river, Marian. You won't see it again in a long while."

Marian followed his glance. It was a silver hoar-frost morning. The sky shone a cloudless blue, the cold, delicious air sparkled, diamond-clear. Straight down Mount Vernon Street the exquisite little panel of the frozen Charles gleamed like a vista of fairyland. Marian stared at it a little wistfully.

"It will all be very different out West, I suppose. I wonder if any Western river can be half as lovely," she pondered.

Roderick did not answer. A sudden worried question stirred in his thought. Yes, the West would be "different." Very different.

"Maybe I've done the worst possible thing in dragging Marian along," he thought. "But it's too late to turn back now. I can only hope that she can stand the change, and that she'll try to be patient and contented."

Marian, on her part, was in high spirits. She had been shut up for so long that to find herself free, and starting on this trip to a new country, delighted her beyond bounds. At South Station, a crowd of her Wellesley chums stormed down upon her, in what Rod described later as a mass-play, laden with roses and chocolates and gay, loving farewells. Marian tore herself from their hands, half-laughing, half-crying with happy excitement.

"Oh, Rod, I know we're going to have the grandest trip, and the most beautiful good fortunes that ever were!" she cried, as he put her carefully aboard the train. "But you aren't one bit enthusiastic. You stodgy tortoise, why can't you be pleased, too?"

"I'm only too glad if you like the prospect, Sis," he answered soberly.

Marian's spirits soared even higher as the hours passed. Roderick grew as rapt as she when the train whirled through the winter glory of the Berkshires. Every slope rose folded in dazzling snow. Every tree, through mile on mile of forest, blazed in rainbow coats of icy mail. The wide rolling New York country was scarcely less beautiful.

At Buffalo, the next morning, a special pleasure awaited them. A party of friends met them with a huge touring car, and carried them on a flying trip to the ice-bridge at Niagara Falls. To Marian, every minute spelled enchantment. She forgot her dizzy head and her aching bones, and fairly exulted in the wild splendor of the blue ice-walled cataract. Roderick, on his part, was so absorbed by the marvellous engineering system of the great power-plant that for once he had no eyes nor thought for his sister, nor for any other matter.

Their wonderful day closed with an elaborate dinner-party, given in their honor. Neither Marian nor Rod had ever been guests at so grand an affair. As they dashed to their train in their host's beautiful limousine, Marian looked up from her bouquet of violets and orchids with laughing eyes.

"If this is the West, Rod, I really think it will suit me very well!"

Rod's mouth twisted into a rueful grin.

"Glad you enjoy it, Sis. Gloat over your luxury while you may. You'll find yourself swept out of the limousine zone all too soon. By this time next week you'll be thankful for a spring wagon."

By the next morning, Marian's spirits began to flag. All day they travelled in fog and rain, down through a flat, dun country. Not a gleam of snow lightened those desolate, muddy plains. There seemed no end to that sodden prairie, that gray mist-blotted sky. Marian grew more lonely and unhappy with every hour. She struggled to be good-humored for Roderick's sake. But she grew terribly tired; and it was a very white-faced girl who clung to Roderick's arm as their train rolled into the great, clanging terminal at Saint Louis.

Roderick hurried her to a hotel. It seemed to her that she had scarcely dropped asleep before Rod's voice sounded at the door.

"Sorry, Sis, but we'll have to start right away. It's nearly eight o'clock."

"Oh, Rod, I'm so tired! Please let's take a later train."

"There isn't any later train, dear. There isn't any train at all. We're going up-river on a little steamer that is towing a barge-load of coal to our camp. That's the only way to reach the place. There is no railroad anywhere near. There won't be another steamer going up for days. It's a shame to haul you out, but it can't be helped."

An hour later, they picked their way down the wet, slippery stones of the levee to where the Lucy Lee, a tiny flat-bottomed "stern-wheeler," puffed and snorted, awaiting them. As they crossed the gang-plank, the pilot rang the big warning bell. Immediately their little craft nosed its way shivering along the ranks of moored packets, and rocked out into mid-channel.

Marian peered back, but she could see nothing of the city. A thick icy fog hung everywhere, shrouding even the tall warehouses at the river's edge, and drifting in great, gray clouds over the bridges.

"The river is still thick with floating ice," said the captain, at her elbow. "The Lucy is the first steam-boat to dare her luck, trying to go up-stream, since the up-river ice gorge let go. But we'll make it all right. It's a pretty chancy trip, yet it's not as dangerous as you'd think."

Marian twinkled. "It looks chancy enough to me," she confessed. She looked out at the broad, turbid stream. Here and there a black patch marked a drifting ice cake, covered with brush, swept down from some flooded woodland. Through the mist she caught glimpses of high, muddy banks, a group of sooty factories, a gray, murky sky.

"I don't see much charm to the Mississippi, Rod. Is this all there is to it? Just yellow, tumbling water, and mud, and fog?"

"It isn't a beautiful stream, that's a fact," admitted Rod. Yet his eyes sparkled. He was growing more flushed and alert with every turn of the wheels that brought him nearer to his coveted work, his man's game. "This is too raw and cold for you, Marian. Come into the cabin, and I'll fix you all snug by the fire."

"The cabin is so stuffy and horrid," fretted Marian. Yet she added, "But it's the cunningest place I ever dreamed of. It's like a miniature museum."

"A museum? A junk-shop, I'd call it," Rod chuckled, as he settled her into the big red-cushioned rocker, before the roaring cannon stove.

The tight little room was crowded with solemn black-walnut cabinets, full of shells and arrowheads, and hung thick with quaint, high-colored old pictures. Languishing ladies in chignons and crinoline gazed upon lordly gentlemen in tall stocks and gorgeous waistcoats; "Summer Prospects," in vivid chromos fronted "Snow Scenes," made realistic with much powdered isinglass. Crowning all, rose a tall, cupid-wreathed gilt mirror, surmounted by a stern stuffed eagle, who glared down fiercely from two yellow glass eyes. His mighty wings spread above the mirror, a bit moth-eaten, but still terrifying.