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+*The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Magic Egg and Other Stories*
+#3 in our series by Frank Stockton
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+The Magic Egg and Other Stories
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+by Frank Stockton
+
+February, 1996 [Etext #429]
+
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+
+THE MAGIC EGG
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+BY
+FRANK R. STOCKTON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                           
+THE MAGIC EGG
+"HIS WIFE'S DECEASED SISTER"
+THE WIDOW'S CRUISE
+CAPTAIN ELI'S BEST EAR
+LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST
+THE STAYING POWER OF SIR ROHAN
+A PIECE OF RED CALICO
+THE CHRISTMAS WRECK
+MY WELL AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT
+MR. TOLMAN
+MY UNWILLING NEIGHBOR
+OUR ARCHERY CLUB
+
+
+
+
+                               THE MAGIC EGG
+    
+The pretty little theatre attached to the building of the
+Unicorn Club had been hired for a certain January afternoon by
+Mr. Herbert Loring, who wished to give therein a somewhat novel
+performance, to which he had invited a small audience consisting
+entirely of friends and acquaintances.
+    
+Loring was a handsome fellow about thirty years old, who had
+travelled far and studied much.  He had recently made a long
+sojourn in the far East, and his friends had been invited to the
+theatre to see some of the wonderful things he had brought from
+that country of wonders.  As Loring was a club-man, and belonged
+to a family of good social standing, his circle of acquaintances
+was large, and in this circle a good many unpleasant remarks had
+been made regarding the proposed entertainment--made, of course,
+by the people who had not been invited to be present.  Some of
+the gossip on the subject had reached Loring, who did not
+hesitate to say that he could not talk to a crowd, and that he
+did not care to show the curious things he had collected to
+people who would not thoroughly appreciate them.  He had been
+very particular in regard to his invitations.
+    
+At three o'clock on the appointed afternoon nearly all the
+people who had been invited to the Unicorn Theatre were in their
+seats.  No one had stayed away except for some very good reason,
+for it was well known that if Herbert Loring offered to show
+anything it was worth seeing.
+    
+About forty people were present, who sat talking to one
+another, or admiring the decoration of the theatre.  As Loring
+stood upon the stage--where he was entirely alone, his exhibition
+requiring no assistants--he gazed through a loophole in the
+curtain upon a very interesting array of faces.  There were the
+faces of many men and women of society, of students, of workers
+in various fields of thought, and even of idlers in all fields of
+thought; but there was not one which indicated a frivolous or
+listless disposition.  The owners of those faces had come to see
+something, and they wished to see it.
+    
+For a quarter of an hour after the time announced for the
+opening of the exhibition Loring peered through the hole in the
+curtain, and then, although all the people he had expected had
+not arrived, he felt it would not do for him to wait any longer. 
+The audience was composed of well-bred and courteous men and
+women, but despite their polite self-restraint Loring could see
+that some of them were getting tired of waiting.  So, very
+reluctantly, and feeling that further delay was impossible, he
+raised the curtain and came forward on the stage.
+   
+ Briefly he announced that the exhibition would open with some
+fireworks he had brought from Corea.  It was plain to see that
+the statement that fireworks were about to be set off on a
+theatre stage, by an amateur, had rather startled some of the
+audience, and Loring hastened to explain that these were not
+real fireworks, but that they were contrivances made of colored
+glass, which were illuminated by the powerful lens of a lantern
+which was placed out of sight, and while the apparent pyrotechnic
+display would resemble fireworks of strange and grotesque
+designs, it would be absolutely without danger.  He brought out
+some little bunches of bits of colored glass, hung them at some
+distance apart on a wire which was stretched across the stage
+just high enough for him to reach it, and then lighted his
+lantern, which he placed in one of the wings, lowered all the
+lights in the theatre, and began his exhibition.
+    As Loring turned his lantern on one of the clusters of glass
+lenses, strips, and points, and, unseen himself, caused them to
+move by means of long cords attached, the effects were beautiful
+and marvellous.  Little wheels of colored fire rapidly revolved,
+miniature rockets appeared to rise a few feet and to explode in
+the air, and while all the ordinary forms of fireworks were
+produced on a diminutive scale, there were some effects that were
+entirely novel to the audience.  As the light was turned
+successively upon one and another of the clusters of glass,
+sometimes it would flash along the whole line so rapidly that all
+the various combinations of color and motion seemed to be
+combined in one, and then for a time each particular set of
+fireworks would blaze, sparkle, and coruscate by itself,
+scattering particles of colored light as if they had been real
+sparks of fire.
+   
+This curious and beautiful exhibition of miniature
+pyrotechnics was extremely interesting to the audience, who gazed
+upward with rapt and eager attention at the line of wheels,
+stars, and revolving spheres.  So far as interest gave evidence
+of satisfaction, there was never a better satisfied audience.  At
+first there had been some hushed murmurs of pleasure, but very
+soon the attention of every one seemed so completely engrossed by
+the dazzling display that they simply gazed in silence.
+    
+For twenty minutes or longer the glittering show went on, and
+not a sign of weariness or inattention was made by any one of the
+assembled company.  Then gradually the colors of the little
+fireworks faded, the stars and wheels revolved more slowly, the
+lights in the body of the theatre were gradually raised, and the
+stage curtain went softly down.
+   
+Anxiously, and a little pale, Herbert Loring peered through
+the loophole in the curtain.  It was not easy to judge of the
+effects of his exhibition, and he did not know whether or not it
+had been a success.  There was no applause, but, on the other
+hand, there was no signs that any one resented the exhibition as
+a childish display of colored lights.  It was impossible to look
+upon that audience without believing that they had been
+thoroughly interested in what they had seen, and that they
+expected to see more.
+    
+For two or three minutes Loring gazed through his loophole,
+and then, still with some doubt in his heart, but with a little
+more color in his checks, he prepared for the second part of his
+performance.
+    
+At this moment there entered the theatre, at the very back of
+the house, a young lady.  She was handsome and well dressed, and
+as she opened the door--Loring had employed no ushers or other
+assistants in this little social performance--she paused for a
+moment and looked into the theatre, and then noiselessly
+stepped to a chair in the back row and sat down.
+    
+This was Edith Starr, who, a month before, had been betrothed
+to Herbert Loring.  Edith and her mother had been invited to this
+performance, and front seats had been reserved for them, for each
+guest had received a numbered card.  But Mrs. Starr had a
+headache, and could not go out that afternoon, and for a time her
+daughter had thought that she, too, must give up the pleasure
+Loring had promised her, and stay with her mother.  But when the
+elder lady dropped into a quiet sleep, Edith thought that, late
+as it was, she would go by herself, and see what she could of the
+performance.
+    
+She was quite certain that if her presence were known to
+Loring he would stop whatever he was doing until she had been
+provided with a seat which he thought suitable for her, for he
+had made a point of her being properly seated when he gave the
+invitations.  Therefore, being equally desirous of not disturbing
+the performance and of not being herself conspicuous, she sat
+behind two rather large men, where she could see the stage
+perfectly well, but where she herself would not be likely to be
+seen.
+    
+In a few moments the curtain rose, and Loring came forward,
+carrying a small, light table, which he placed near the front of
+the stage, and for a moment stood quietly by it.  Edith noticed
+upon his face the expression of uncertainty and anxiety which had
+not yet left it.  Standing by the side of the table, and speaking
+very slowly, but so clearly that his words could be heard
+distinctly in all parts of the room, he began some introductory
+remarks regarding the second part of his performance.
+    
+"The extraordinary, and I may say marvellous, thing which I
+am about to show you," he said, "is known among East Indian
+magicians as the magic egg.  The exhibition is a very uncommon
+one, and has seldom been seen by Americans or Europeans, and it
+was by a piece of rare good fortune that I became possessed of
+the appliances necessary for this exhibition.  They are indeed
+very few and simple, but never before, to the best of my
+knowledge and belief, have they been seen outside of India.
+    
+"I will now get the little box which contains the articles
+necessary for this magical performance, and I will say that if I
+had time to tell you of the strange and amazing adventure which
+resulted in my possession of this box, I am sure you would be as
+much interested in that as I expect you to be in the contents of
+the box.  But in order that none of you may think this is an
+ordinary trick, executed by means of concealed traps or doors, I
+wish you to take particular notice of this table, which is, as
+you see, a plain, unpainted pine table, with nothing but a flat
+top, and four straight legs at the corners.  You can see under
+and around it, and it gives no opportunity to conceal anything." 
+Then, standing for a few moments as if he had something else to
+say, he turned and stepped toward one of the wings.
+    
+Edith was troubled as she looked at her lover during these
+remarks.  Her interest was great, greater, indeed, than that of
+the people about her, but it was not a pleasant interest.  As
+Loring stopped speaking, and looked about him, there was a
+momentary flush on his face.  She knew this was caused by
+excitement, and she was pale from the same cause.
+    
+Very soon Loring came forward, and stood by the table.
+    
+"Here is the box," he said, "of which I spoke, and as I hold
+it up I think you all can see it.  It is not large, being
+certainly not more than twelve inches in length and two deep, but
+it contains some very wonderful things.  The outside of this box
+is covered with delicate engraving and carving which you cannot
+see, and these marks and lines have, I think, some magical
+meaning, but I do not know what it is.  I will now open the box
+and show you what is inside.  The first thing I take out is this
+little stick, not thicker than a lead-pencil, but somewhat
+longer, as you see.  This is a magical wand, and is covered with
+inscriptions of the same character as those on the outside of the
+box.  The next thing is this little red bag, well filled, as you
+see, which I shall put on the table, for I shall not yet need it.
+    
+"Now I take out a piece of cloth which is folded into a very
+small compass, but as I unfold it you will perceive that it is
+more than a foot square, and is covered with embroidery.  All
+those strange lines and figures in gold and red, which you can
+plainly see on the cloth as I hold it up, are also characters in
+the same magic language as those on the box and wand.  I will now
+spread the cloth on the table, and then take out the only
+remaining thing in the box, and this is nothing in the world but
+an egg--a simple, ordinary hen's egg, as you all see as I hold it
+up.  It may be a trifle larger than an ordinary egg, but then,
+after all, it is nothing but a common egg--that is, in
+appearance.  In reality it is a good deal more.
+    
+"Now I will begin the performance."  And as he stood by the
+back of the table, over which he had been slightly bending, and
+threw his eyes over the audience, his voice was stronger, and his
+face had lost all its pallor.  He was evidently warming up with
+his subject.
+   
+"I now take up this wand," he said, "which, while I hold it,
+gives me power to produce the phenomena which you are about to
+behold.  You may not all believe that there is any magic whatever
+about this little performance, and that it is all a bit of
+machinery; but whatever you may think about it, you shall see
+what you shall see.
+    
+"Now with this wand I gently touch this egg which is lying on
+the square of cloth.  I do not believe you can see what has
+happened to this egg, but I will tell you.  There is a little
+line, like a hair, entirely around it.  Now that line has become
+a crack.  Now you can see it, I know.  It grows wider and wider! 
+Look!  The shell of the egg is separating in the middle.  The
+whole egg slightly moves.  Do you notice that?  Now you can see
+something yellow showing itself between the two parts of the
+shell.  See!  It is moving a good deal, and the two halves of the
+shell are separating more and more.  And now out tumbles this
+queer little object.  Do you see what it is?  It is a poor, weak,
+little chick, not able to stand, but alive--alive!  You can all
+perceive that it is alive.  Now you can see that it is standing
+on its feet, feebly enough, but still standing.
+    
+"Behold, it takes a few steps!  You cannot doubt that it is
+alive, and came out of that egg.  It is beginning to walk about
+over the cloth.  Do you notice that it is picking the embroidery?
+
+Now, little chick, I will give you something to eat.  This little
+red bag contains grain, a magical grain, with which I shall feed
+the chicken.  You must excuse my awkwardness in opening the bag,
+as I still hold the wand; but this little stick I must not drop. 
+See, little chick, there are some grains!  They look like rice,
+but, in fact, I have no idea what they are.  But he knows, he
+knows!  Look at him!  See how he picks it up!  There!  He has
+swallowed one, two, three.  That will do, little chick, for a
+first meal.
+    
+"The grain seems to have strengthened him already, for see
+how lively he is, and how his yellow down stands out on him, so
+puffy and warm!  You are looking for some more grain, are you? 
+Well, you cannot have it just yet, and keep away from those
+pieces of eggshell, which, by the way, I will put back into the
+box.  Now, sir, try to avoid the edge of the table, and, to quiet
+you, I will give you a little tap on the back with my wand.  Now,
+then, please observe closely.  The down which just now covered
+him has almost gone.  He is really a good deal bigger, and ever
+so much uglier.  See the little pin-feathers sticking out over
+him!  Some spots here and there are almost bare, but he is ever
+so much more active.  Ha!  Listen to that!  He is so strong that
+you can hear his beak as he pecks at the table.  He is actually
+growing bigger and bigger before our very eyes!  See that funny
+little tail, how it begins to stick up, and quills are showing at
+the end of his wings.
+    
+"Another tap, and a few more grains.  Careful, sir!  Don't
+tear the cloth!  See how rapidly he grows!  He is fairly covered
+with feathers, red and black, with a tip of yellow in front.  You
+could hardly get that fellow into an ostrich egg!  Now, then,
+what do you think of him?  He is big enough for a broiler, though
+I don't think any one would want to take him for that purpose. 
+Some more grain, and another tap from my wand.  See!  He does not
+mind the little stick, for he has been used to it from his very
+birth.  Now, then, he is what you would call a good half-grown
+chick.  Rather more than half grown, I should say.  Do you notice
+his tail?  There is no mistaking him for a pullet.  The long
+feathers are beginning to curl over already.  He must have a
+little more grain.  Look out, sir, or you will be off the table! 
+Come back here!  This table is too small for him, but if he were
+on the floor you could not see him so well.
+    
+"Another tap.  Now see that comb on the top of his head; you
+scarcely noticed it before, and now it is bright red.  And see
+his spurs beginning to show--on good thick legs, too.  There is a
+fine young fellow for you!  Look how he jerks his head from side
+to side, like the young prince of a poultry-yard, as he well
+deserves to be!"
+    
+The attentive interest which had at first characterized the
+audience now changed to excited admiration and amazement.  Some
+leaned forward with mouths wide open.  Others stood up so that
+they could see better.  Ejaculations of astonishment and wonder
+were heard on every side, and a more thoroughly fascinated and
+absorbed audience was never seen.
+   
+"Now, my friends," Loring continued, "I will give this
+handsome fowl another tap.  Behold the result--a noble, full-
+grown cock!  Behold his spurs!  They are nearly an inch long! 
+See, there is a comb for you!  And what a magnificent tail of
+green and black, contrasting so finely with the deep red of the
+rest of his body!  Well, sir, you are truly too big for this
+table.  As I cannot give you more room, I will set you up higher.
+Move over a little, and I will set this chair on the table. 
+There!  Upon the seat!  That's right, but don't stop.  There is
+the back, which is higher yet!  Up with you!  Ha!  There, he
+nearly upset the chair, but I will hold it.  See!  He has turned
+around.  Now, then, look at him.  See his wings as he flaps them!
+He could fly with such wings.  Look at him!  See that swelling
+breast!  Ha, ha!  Listen!  Did you ever hear a crow like that? 
+It fairly rings through the house.  Yes, I knew it!  There is
+another!"
+    
+At this point the people in the house were in a state of wild
+excitement.  Nearly all of them were on their feet, and they were
+in such a condition of frantic enthusiasm that Loring was afraid
+some of them might make a run for the stage.
+    
+"Come, sir," cried Loring, now almost shouting, "that will
+do.  You have shown us the strength of your lungs.  Jump down on
+the seat of the chair; now on the table.  There, I will take away
+the chair, and you can stand for a moment on the table and let
+our friends look at you; but only for a moment.  Take that tap on
+your back.  Now do you see any difference?  Perhaps you may not,
+but I do.  Yes, I believe you all do.  He is not the big fellow
+he was a minute ago.  He is really smaller--only a fine
+cockerel.  A nice tail that, but with none of the noble sweep
+that it had a minute ago.  No, don't try to get off the table. 
+You can't escape my wand.  Another tap.  Behold a half-grown
+chicken, good to eat, but with not a crow in him.  Hungry, are
+you?  But you need not pick at the table that way.  You get no
+more grain, but only this little tap.  Ha, ha!  What are you
+coming to?  There is a chicken barely feathered enough for us to
+tell what color he is going to be.
+    
+"Another tap will take still more of the conceit out of him. 
+Look at him!  There are his pin-feathers, and his bare spots. 
+Don't try to get away; I can easily tap you again.  Now then. 
+Here is a lovely little chick, fluffy with yellow down.  He is
+active enough, but I shall quiet him.  One tap, and now what do
+you see?  A poor, feeble chicken, scarcely able to stand, with
+his down all packed close to him as if he had been out in the
+rain.  Ah, little chick, I will take the two halves of the egg-
+shell from which you came, and put them on each side of you. 
+Come, now get in!  I close them up.  You are lost to view.  There
+is nothing to be seen but a crack around the shell!  Now it has
+gone!  There, my friends; as I hold it on high, behold the magic
+egg, exactly as it was when I first took it out of the box, into
+which I will place it again, with the cloth and the wand and the
+little red bag, and shut it up with a snap.  I will let you take
+one more look at this box before I put it away behind the scenes.
+Are you satisfied with what I have shown you?  Do you think it is
+really as wonderful as you supposed it would be?"
+    
+At these words the whole audience burst into riotous
+applause, during which Loring disappeared, but he was back in a
+moment.
+    
+"Thank you!" he cried, bowing low, and waving his arms before
+him in the manner of an Eastern magician making a salaam.  From
+side to side he turned, bowing and thanking, and then, with a
+hearty "Good-by to you; good-by to you all!" he stepped back and
+let down the curtain.
+    
+For some moments the audience remained in their seats as if
+they were expecting something more, and then they rose quietly
+and began to disperse.  Most of them were acquainted with one
+another, and there was a good deal of greeting and talking as
+they went out of the theatre.
+    
+When Loring was sure the last person had departed, he turned
+down the lights, locked the door, and gave the key to the steward
+of the club.
+    
+He walked to his home a happy man.  His exhibition had been a
+perfect success, with not a break or a flaw in it from beginning
+to end.
+    
+"I feel," thought the young man, as he strode along, "as if I
+could fly to the top of that steeple, and flap and crow until all
+the world heard me."
+    
+That evening, as was his daily custom, Herbert Loring called
+upon Miss Starr.  He found the young lady in the library.
+    
+"I came in here," she said, "because I have a good deal to
+talk to you about, and I do not want interruptions."
+    
+With this arrangement the young man expressed his entire
+satisfaction, and immediately began to inquire the cause of her
+absence from his exhibition in the afternoon.
+    
+"But I was there," said Edith.  "You did not see me, but I
+was there.  Mother had a headache, and I went by myself."
+    
+"You were there!" exclaimed Loring, almost starting from his
+chair.  "I don't understand.  You were not in your seat."
+   
+ "No," answered Edith.  "I was on the very back row of seats. 
+You could not see me, and I did not wish you to see me."
+    
+"Edith!" exclaimed Loring, rising to his feet and leaning
+over the library table, which was between them.  "When did you
+come?  How much of the performance did you see?"
+    
+"I was late," she said.  "I did not arrive until after the
+fireworks, or whatever they were."
+    
+For a moment Loring was silent, as if he did not understand
+the situation.
+    
+"Fireworks!" he said.  "How did you know there had been
+fireworks?"
+    
+"I heard the people talking of them as they left the
+theatre," she answered.
+    
+"And what did they say?" he inquired quickly.
+    
+"They seemed to like them very well," she replied, "but I do
+not think they were quite satisfied.  From what I heard some
+persons say, I inferred that they thought it was not very much of
+a show to which you had invited them."
+    
+Again Loring stood in thought, looking down at the table. 
+But before he could speak again, Edith sprang to her feet.
+    
+"Herbert Loring," she cried, "what does all this mean?  I was
+there during the whole of the exhibition of what you called the
+magic egg.  I saw all those people wild with excitement at
+the wonderful sight of the chicken that came out of the egg, and
+grew to full size, and then dwindled down again, and went back
+into the egg, and, Herbert, there was no egg, and there was no
+little box, and there was no wand, and no embroidered cloth, and
+there was no red bag, nor any little chick, and there was no
+full-grown fowl, and there was no chair that you put on the
+table!  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, but you and that
+table!  Even the table was not what you said it was.  It was not
+an unpainted pine table with four straight legs.  It was a table
+of dark polished wood, and it stood on a single post with feet. 
+There was nothing there that you said was there.  Everything was
+a sham and a delusion; every word you spoke was untrue.  And yet
+everybody in that theatre, excepting you and me, saw all the
+things that you said were on the stage.  I know they saw them
+all, for I was with the people, and heard them, and saw them, and
+at times I fairly felt the thrill of enthusiasm which possessed
+them as they glared at the miracles and wonders you said were
+happening."
+    
+Loring smiled.  "Sit down, my dear Edith," he said.  "You are
+excited, and there is not the slightest cause for it.  I will
+explain the whole affair to you.  It is simple enough.  You know
+that study is the great object of my life.  I study all sorts of
+things; and just now I am greatly interested in hypnotism.  The
+subject has become fascinating to me.  I have made a great many
+successful trials of my power, and the affair of this afternoon
+was nothing but a trial of my powers on a more extensive scale
+than anything I have yet attempted.  I wanted to see if it were
+possible for me to hypnotize a considerable number of people
+without any one suspecting what I intended to do. The result was
+a success.  I hypnotized all those people by means of the first
+part of my performance, which consisted of some combinations of
+colored glass with lights thrown upon them.  They revolved, and
+looked like fireworks, and were strung on a wire high up on the
+stage.
+    
+"I kept up the glittering and dazzling show--which was well
+worth seeing, I can assure you--until the people had been
+straining their eyes upward for almost half an hour.  And this
+sort of thing--I will tell you if you do not know it--is one of
+the methods of producing hypnotic sleep.
+    
+"There was no one present who was not an impressionable
+subject, for I was very careful in sending out my invitations,
+and when I became almost certain that my audience was thoroughly
+hypnotized, I stopped the show and began the real exhibition,
+which was not really for their benefit, but for mine.
+    
+"Of course, I was dreadfully anxious for fear I had not
+succeeded entirely, and that there might be at least some one
+person who had not succumbed to the hypnotic influences, and so I
+tested the matter by bringing out that table and telling them it
+was something it was not.  If I had had any reason for supposing
+that some of the audience saw the table as it really was, I had
+an explanation ready, and I could have retired from my position
+without any one supposing that I had intended making hypnotic
+experiments.  The rest of the exhibition would have been some
+things that any one could see, and as soon as possible I would
+have released from their spell those who were hypnotized.  But
+when I became positively assured that every one saw a light pine
+table with four straight legs, I confidently went on with the
+performances of the magic egg."
+    
+Edith Starr was still standing by the library table.  She had
+not heeded Loring's advice to sit down, and she was trembling
+with emotion.
+    
+"Herbert Loring," she said, "you invited my mother and me to
+that exhibition.  You gave us tickets for front seats, where we
+would be certain to be hypnotized if your experiment succeeded,
+and you would have made us see that false show, which faded from
+those people's minds as soon as they recovered from the spell,
+for as they went away they were talking only of the fireworks,
+and not one of them mentioned a magic egg, or a chicken, or
+anything of the kind.  Answer me this: did you not intend that I
+should come and be put under that spell?"
+    
+Loring smiled.  "Yes," he said, "of course I did.  But then
+your case would have been different from that of the other
+spectators: I should have explained the whole thing to you, and I
+am sure we would have had a great deal of pleasure, and profit
+too, in discussing your experiences.  The subject is extremely--"
+    
+"Explain to me!" she cried.  "You would not have dared to do
+it!  I do not know how brave you may be, but I know you would not
+have had the courage to come here and tell me that you had taken
+away my reason and my judgment, as you took them away from all
+those people, and that you had made me a mere tool of your will--
+glaring and panting with excitement at the wonderful things you
+told me to see where nothing existed.  I have nothing to say
+about the others.  They can speak for themselves if they ever
+come to know what you did to them.  I speak for myself.  I stood
+up with the rest of the people.  I gazed with all my power, and
+over and over again I asked myself if it could be possible that
+anything was the matter with my eyes or my brain, and if I could
+be the only person there who could not see the marvellous
+spectacle that you were describing.  But now I know that nothing
+was real, not even the little pine table--not even the man!"
+    
+"Not even me!" exclaimed Loring.  "Surely I was real enough!"
+    
+"On that stage, yes," she said.  "But you there proved you
+were not the Herbert Loring to whom I promised myself.  He was an
+unreal being.  If he had existed he would not have been a man who
+would have brought me to that public place, all ignorant of his
+intentions, to cloud my perceptions, to subject my intellect to
+his own, and make me believe a lie.  If a man should treat me in
+that way once he would treat me so at other times, and in other
+ways, if he had the chance.  You have treated me in the past as
+to-day you treated those people who glared at the magic egg.  In
+the days gone by you made me see an unreal man, but you will
+never do it again!  Good-by."
+    
+"Edith," cried Loring, "you don't--"
+    
+But she had disappeared through a side door, and he never
+spoke to her again.
+    
+Walking home through the dimly lighted streets, Loring
+involuntarily spoke aloud.
+    
+"And this," he said, "is what came out of the magic egg!"
+
+
+
+                        "HIS WIFE'S DECEASED SISTER"
+
+It is now five years since an event occurred which so colored my
+life, or rather so changed some of its original colors, that I
+have thought it well to write an account of it, deeming that its
+lessons may be of advantage to persons whose situations in life
+are similar to my own.
+    
+When I was quite a young man I adopted literature as a
+profession, and having passed through the necessary preparatory
+grades, I found myself, after a good many years of hard and often
+unremunerative work, in possession of what might be called a fair
+literary practice.  My articles, grave, gay, practical, or
+fanciful, had come to be considered with a favor by the editors
+of the various periodicals for which I wrote, on which I found in
+time I could rely with a very comfortable certainty.  My
+productions created no enthusiasm in the reading public; they
+gave me no great reputation or very valuable pecuniary return;
+but they were always accepted, and my receipts from them, at the
+time to which I have referred, were as regular and reliable as a
+salary, and quite sufficient to give me more than a comfortable
+support.
+    
+It was at this time I married.  I had been engaged for more
+than a year, but had not been willing to assume the support of
+a wife until I felt that my pecuniary position was so assured
+that I could do so with full satisfaction to my own conscience. 
+There was now no doubt in regard to this position, either in my
+mind or in that of my wife.  I worked with great steadiness and
+regularity, I knew exactly where to place the productions of my
+pen, and could calculate, with a fair degree of accuracy, the
+sums I should receive for them.  We were by no means rich, but we
+had enough, and were thoroughly satisfied and content.
+    
+Those of my readers who are married will have no difficulty
+in remembering the peculiar ecstasy of the first weeks of their
+wedded life.  It is then that the flowers of this world bloom
+brightest; that its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are
+the scarcest; that its fruit is the most delicious; that the air
+is the most balmy; that its cigars are of the highest flavor;
+that the warmth and radiance of early matrimonial felicity so
+rarefy the intellectual atmosphere that the soul mounts higher,
+and enjoys a wider prospect, than ever before.
+    
+These experiences were mine.  The plain claret of my mind was
+changed to sparkling champagne, and at the very height of its
+effervescence I wrote a story.  The happy thought that then
+struck me for a tale was of a very peculiar character, and it
+interested me so much that I went to work at it with great
+delight and enthusiasm, and finished it in a comparatively short
+time.  The title of the story was "His Wife's Deceased Sister,"
+and when I read it to Hypatia she was delighted with it, and at
+times was so affected by its pathos that her uncontrollable
+emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes which
+prevented my seeing the words I had written.  When the reading
+was ended and my wife had dried her eyes, she turned to me and
+said, "This story will make your fortune.  There has been nothing
+so pathetic since Lamartine's `History of a Servant Girl.'"
+    
+As soon as possible the next day I sent my story to the
+editor of the periodical for which I wrote most frequently, and
+in which my best productions generally appeared.  In a few days I
+had a letter from the editor, in which he praised my story as he
+had never before praised anything from my pen.  It had interested
+and charmed, he said, not only himself, but all his associates in
+the office.  Even old Gibson, who never cared to read anything
+until it was in proof, and who never praised anything which had
+not a joke in it, was induced by the example of the others to
+read this manuscript, and shed, as he asserted, the first tears
+that had come from his eyes since his final paternal castigation
+some forty years before.  The story would appear, the editor
+assured me, as soon as he could possibly find room for it.
+   
+ If anything could make our skies more genial, our flowers
+brighter, and the flavor of our fruit and cigars more delicious,
+it was a letter like this.  And when, in a very short time, the
+story was published, we found that the reading public was
+inclined to receive it with as much sympathetic interest and
+favor as had been shown to it by the editors.  My personal
+friends soon began to express enthusiastic opinions upon it.  It
+was highly praised in many of the leading newspapers, and,
+altogether, it was a great literary success.  I am not inclined
+to be vain of my writings, and, in general, my wife tells me,
+I think too little of them.  But I did feel a good deal of pride
+and satisfaction in the success of "His Wife's Deceased Sister." 
+If it did not make my fortune, as my wife asserted it would, it
+certainly would help me very much in my literary career.
+    
+In less than a month from the writing of this story,
+something very unusual and unexpected happened to me.  A
+manuscript was returned by the editor of the periodical in which
+"His Wife's Deceased Sister" had appeared.
+
+    
+"It is a good story," he wrote, "but not equal to what you
+have just done.  You have made a great hit, and it would not do
+to interfere with the reputation you have gained by publishing
+anything inferior to `His Wife's Deceased Sister,' which has had
+such a deserved success."
+
+    
+I was so unaccustomed to having my work thrown back on my
+hands that I think I must have turned a little pale when I read
+the letter.  I said nothing of the matter to my wife, for it
+would be foolish to drop such grains of sand as this into the
+smoothly oiled machinery of our domestic felicity, but I
+immediately sent the story to another editor.  I am not able to
+express the astonishment I felt when, in the course of a week, it
+was sent back to me.  The tone of the note accompanying it
+indicated a somewhat injured feeling on the part of the editor.
+
+    
+"I am reluctant," he said, "to decline a manuscript from you;
+but you know very well that if you sent me anything like `His
+Wife's Deceased Sister' it would be most promptly accepted."
+    
+I now felt obliged to speak of the affair to my wife, who was
+quite as much surprised, though, perhaps, not quite as much
+shocked, as I had been.
+    
+"Let us read the story again," she said, "and see what is the
+matter with it."  When we had finished its perusal, Hypatia
+remarked:  "It is quite as good as many of the stories you have
+had printed, and I think it very interesting, although, of
+course, it is not equal to `His Wife's Deceased Sister.'"
+    
+"Of course not," said I; "that was an inspiration that I
+cannot expect every day.  But there must be something wrong about
+this last story which we do not perceive.  Perhaps my recent
+success may have made me a little careless in writing it."
+    
+"I don't believe that," said Hypatia.
+    
+"At any rate," I continued, "I will lay it aside, and will go
+to work on a new one."
+    
+In due course of time I had another manuscript finished, and
+I sent it to my favorite periodical.  It was retained some weeks,
+and then came back to me.
+    
+"It will never do," the editor wrote, quite warmly, "for you
+to go backward.  The demand for the number containing `His Wife's
+Deceased Sister' still continues, and we do not intend to let you
+disappoint that great body of readers who would be so eager to
+see another number containing one of your stories."
+
+    
+I sent this manuscript to four other periodicals, and from
+each of them it was returned with remarks to the effect that,
+although it was not a bad story in itself, it was not what they
+would expect from the author of "His Wife's Deceased Sister."
+    
+The editor of a Western magazine wrote to me for a story
+to be published in a special number which he would issue for the
+holidays.  I wrote him one of the character and length he
+desired, and sent it to him.  By return mail it came back to me.
+
+    
+"I had hoped," the editor wrote, "when I asked for a story
+from your pen, to receive something like `His Wife's Deceased
+Sister,' and I must own that I am very much disappointed."
+
+    
+I was so filled with anger when I read this note that I
+openly objurgated "His Wife's Deceased Sister."  "You must excuse
+me," I said to my astonished wife, "for expressing myself thus in
+your presence, but that confounded story will be the ruin of me
+yet.  Until it is forgotten nobody will ever take anything I
+write."
+    
+"And you cannot expect it ever to be forgotten," said
+Hypatia, with tears in her eyes.
+    
+It is needless for me to detail my literary efforts in the
+course of the next few months.  The ideas of the editors with
+whom my principal business had been done, in regard to my
+literary ability, had been so raised by my unfortunate story of
+"His Wife's Deceased Sister" that I found it was of no use to
+send them anything of lesser merit.  And as to the other journals
+which I tried, they evidently considered it an insult for me to
+send them matter inferior to that by which my reputation had
+lately risen.  The fact was that my successful story had ruined
+me.  My income was at an end, and want actually stared me in the
+face; and I must admit that I did not like the expression of its
+countenance.  It was of no use for me to try to write another
+story like "His Wife's Deceased Sister."  I could not get married
+every time I began a new manuscript, and it was the
+exaltation of mind caused by my wedded felicity which produced
+that story.
+    
+"It's perfectly dreadful!" said my wife.  "If I had had a
+sister, and she had died, I would have thought it was my fault."
+    
+"It could not be your fault," I answered, "and I do not think
+it was mine.  I had no intention of deceiving anybody into the
+belief that I could do that sort of thing every time, and it
+ought not to be expected of me.  Suppose Raphael's patrons had
+tried to keep him screwed up to the pitch of the Sistine Madonna,
+and had refused to buy anything which was not as good as that. 
+In that case I think he would have occupied a much earlier and
+narrower grave than the one on which Mr. Morris Moore hangs his
+funeral decorations."
+    
+"But, my dear," said Hypatia, who was posted on such
+subjects, "the Sistine Madonna was one of his latest paintings."
+    
+"Very true," said I.  "But if he had married as I did, he
+would have painted it earlier."
+    
+I was walking homeward one afternoon about this time, when I
+met Barbel, a man I had known well in my early literary career. 
+He was now about fifty years of age, but looked older.  His hair
+and beard were quite gray, and his clothes, which were of the
+same general hue, gave me the idea that they, like his hair, had
+originally been black.  Age is very hard on a man's external
+appointments.  Barbel had an air of having been to let for a long
+time, and quite out of repair.  But there was a kindly gleam in
+his eye, and he welcomed me cordially.
+    
+"Why, what is the matter, old fellow?" said he.  "I never saw
+you look so woe-begone."
+    
+I had no reason to conceal anything from Barbel.  In my
+younger days he had been of great use to me, and he had a right
+to know the state of my affairs.  I laid the whole case plainly
+before him.
+    
+"Look here," he said, when I had finished; "come with me to
+my room; I have something I would like to say to you there."
+    
+I followed Barbel to his room.  It was at the top of a very
+dirty and well-worn house, which stood in a narrow and lumpy
+street, into which few vehicles ever penetrated, except the ash
+and garbage-carts, and the rickety wagons of the venders of stale
+vegetables.
+    
+"This is not exactly a fashionable promenade," said Barbel,
+as we approached the house, "but in some respects it reminds me
+of the streets in Italian towns, where the palaces lean over
+toward each other in such a friendly way."
+    
+Barbel's room was, to my mind, rather more doleful than the
+street.  It was dark, it was dusty, and cobwebs hung from every
+corner.  The few chairs upon the floor and the books upon a
+greasy table seemed to be afflicted with some dorsal epidemic,
+for their backs were either gone or broken.  A little bedstead in
+the corner was covered with a spread made of New York "Heralds"
+with their edges pasted together.
+    
+"There is nothing better," said Barbel, noticing my glance
+toward this novel counterpane, "for a bed-covering than
+newspapers; they keep you as warm as a blanket, and are much
+lighter.  I used to use `Tribunes,' but they rattled too much."
+    
+The only part of the room which was well lighted was one
+end near the solitary window.  Here, upon a table with a spliced
+leg, stood a little grindstone.
+    
+"At the other end of the room," said Barbel, "is my cook-
+stove, which you can't see unless I light the candle in the
+bottle which stands by it.  But if you don't care particularly to
+examine it, I won't go to the expense of lighting up.  You might
+pick up a good many odd pieces of bric-a-brac, around here, if
+you chose to strike a match and investigate.  But I would not
+advise you to do so.  It would pay better to throw the things out
+of the window than to carry them down-stairs.  The particular
+piece of indoor decoration to which I wish to call your attention
+is this."  And he led me to a little wooden frame which hung
+against the wall near the window.  Behind a dusty piece of glass
+it held what appeared to be a leaf from a small magazine or
+journal.  "There," said he, "you see a page from the
+`Grasshopper,' a humorous paper which flourished in this city
+some half-dozen years ago.  I used to write regularly for that
+paper, as you may remember."
+    
+"Oh, yes, indeed!" I exclaimed.  "And I shall never forget
+your `Conundrum of the Anvil' which appeared in it.  How often
+have I laughed at that most wonderful conceit, and how often have
+I put it to my friends!"
+    
+Barbel gazed at me silently for a moment, and then he pointed
+to the frame.  "That printed page," he said solemnly, "contains
+the `Conundrum of the Anvil.'  I hang it there so that I can see
+it while I work.  That conundrum ruined me.  It was the last
+thing I wrote for the `Grasshopper.'  How I ever came to imagine
+it, I cannot tell.  It is one of those things which occur to
+a man but once in a lifetime.  After the wild shout of delight
+with which the public greeted that conundrum, my subsequent
+efforts met with hoots of derision.  The `Grasshopper' turned its
+hind legs upon me.  I sank from bad to worse,--much worse,--until
+at last I found myself reduced to my present occupation, which is
+that of grinding points on pins.  By this I procure my bread,
+coffee, and tobacco, and sometimes potatoes and meat.  One day
+while I was hard at work, an organ-grinder came into the street
+below.  He played the serenade from `Trovatore' and the familiar
+notes brought back visions of old days and old delights, when the
+successful writer wore good clothes and sat at operas, when he
+looked into sweet eyes and talked of Italian airs, when his
+future appeared all a succession of bright scenery and joyous
+acts, without any provision for a drop-curtain.  And as my ear
+listened, and my mind wandered in this happy retrospect, my every
+faculty seemed exalted, and, without any thought upon the matter,
+I ground points upon my pins so fine, so regular, and so smooth
+that they would have pierced with ease the leather of a boot, or
+slipped, without abrasion, among the finest threads of rare old
+lace.  When the organ stopped, and I fell back into my real world
+of cobwebs and mustiness, I gazed upon the pins I had just
+ground, and, without a moment's hesitation, I threw them into the
+street, and reported the lot as spoiled.  This cost me a little
+money, but it saved me my livelihood."
+    
+After a few moments of silence, Barbel resumed:
+    
+"I have no more to say to you, my young friend.  All I want
+you to do is to look upon that framed conundrum, then upon
+this grindstone, and then to go home and reflect.  As for me, I
+have a gross of pins to grind before the sun goes down."
+    
+I cannot say that my depression of mind was at all relieved
+by what I had seen and heard.  I had lost sight of Barbel for
+some years, and I had supposed him still floating on the sun-
+sparkling stream of prosperity where I had last seen him.  It was
+a great shock to me to find him in such a condition of poverty
+and squalor, and to see a man who had originated the "Conundrum
+of the Anvil" reduced to the soul-depressing occupation of
+grinding pin-points.  As I walked and thought, the dreadful
+picture of a totally eclipsed future arose before my mind.  The
+moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart.
+    
+When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend
+Barbel.  She listened with a sad and eager interest.
+    
+"I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly
+mend, that we shall have to buy two little grindstones.  You know
+I could help you at that sort of thing."
+    
+For a long time we sat together and talked, and devised many
+plans for the future.  I did not think it necessary yet for me to
+look out for a pin contract; but I must find some way of making
+money, or we should starve to death.  Of course, the first thing
+that suggested itself was the possibility of finding some other
+business.  But, apart from the difficulty of immediately
+obtaining remunerative work in occupations to which I had not
+been trained, I felt a great and natural reluctance to give up a
+profession for which I had carefully prepared myself, and which
+I had adopted as my life-work.  It would be very hard for me
+to lay down my pen forever, and to close the top of my inkstand
+upon all the bright and happy fancies which I had seen mirrored
+in its tranquil pool.  We talked and pondered the rest of that
+day and a good deal of the night, but we came to no conclusion as
+to what it would be best for us to do.
+    
+The next day I determined to go and call upon the editor of
+the journal for which, in happier days, before the blight of "His
+Wife's Deceased Sister" rested upon me, I used most frequently to
+write, and, having frankly explained my condition to him, to ask
+his advice.  The editor was a good man, and had always been my
+friend.  He listened with great attention to what I told him, and
+evidently sympathized with me in my trouble.
+    
+"As we have written to you," he said, "the only reason why we
+did not accept the manuscripts you sent us was that they would
+have disappointed the high hopes that the public had formed in
+regard to you.  We have had letter after letter asking when we
+were going to publish another story like `His Wife's Deceased
+Sister.'  We felt, and we still feel, that it would be wrong to
+allow you to destroy the fair fabric which you yourself have
+raised.  But," he added, with a kind smile, "I see very plainly
+that your well-deserved reputation will be of little advantage to
+you if you should starve at the moment that its genial beams are,
+so to speak, lighting you up."
+    
+"Its beams are not genial," I answered.  "They have scorched
+and withered me."
+    
+"How would you like," said the editor, after a short
+reflection, "to allow us to publish the stories you have 
+recently written under some other name than your own?  That would
+satisfy us and the public, would put money in your pocket, and
+would not interfere with your reputation."
+    
+Joyfully I seized the noble fellow by the hand, and instantly
+accepted his proposition.  "Of course," said I, "a reputation is
+a very good thing; but no reputation can take the place of food,
+clothes, and a house to live in, and I gladly agree to sink my
+over-illumined name into oblivion, and to appear before the
+public as a new and unknown writer."
+    
+"I hope that need not be for long," he said, "for I feel sure
+that you will yet write stories as good as `His Wife's Deceased
+Sister.'"
+    
+All the manuscripts I had on hand I now sent to my good
+friend the editor, and in due and proper order they appeared in
+his journal under the name of John Darmstadt, which I had
+selected as a substitute for my own, permanently disabled.  I
+made a similar arrangement with other editors, and John Darmstadt
+received the credit of everything that proceeded from my pen. 
+Our circumstances now became very comfortable, and occasionally
+we even allowed ourselves to indulge in little dreams of
+prosperity.
+    
+Time passed on very pleasantly.  One year, another, and then
+a little son was born to us.  It is often difficult, I believe,
+for thoughtful persons to decide whether the beginning of their
+conjugal career, or the earliest weeks in the life of their
+first-born, be the happiest and proudest period of their
+existence.  For myself I can only say that the same exaltation of
+mind, the same rarefication of idea and invention, which
+succeeded upon my wedding day came upon me now.  As then, my
+ecstatic emotions crystallized themselves into a motive for a
+story, and without delay I set myself to work upon it.  My boy
+was about six weeks old when the manuscript was finished, and one
+evening, as we sat before a comfortable fire in our sitting-room,
+with the curtains drawn, and the soft lamp lighted, and the baby
+sleeping soundly in the adjoining chamber, I read the story to my
+wife.
+    
+When I had finished, my wife arose and threw herself into my
+arms.  "I was never so proud of you," she said, her glad eyes
+sparkling, "as I am at this moment.  That is a wonderful story! 
+It is, indeed I am sure it is, just as good as `His Wife's
+Deceased Sister.'"
+    
+As she spoke these words, a sudden and chilling sensation
+crept over us both.  All her warmth and fervor, and the proud and
+happy glow engendered within me by this praise and appreciation
+from one I loved, vanished in an instant.  We stepped apart, and
+gazed upon each other with pallid faces.  In the same moment the
+terrible truth had flashed upon us both.  This story WAS as
+good as "His Wife's Deceased Sister"!
+    
+We stood silent.  The exceptional lot of Barbel's super-
+pointed pins seemed to pierce our very souls.  A dreadful vision
+rose before me of an impending fall and crash, in which our
+domestic happiness should vanish, and our prospects for our boy
+be wrecked, just as we had began to build them up.
+    
+My wife approached me, and took my hand in hers, which was as
+cold as ice.  "Be strong and firm," she said.  "A great danger
+threatens us, but you must brace yourself against it.  Be strong
+and firm."
+    
+I pressed her hand, and we said no more that night.
+    
+The next day I took the manuscript I had just written, and
+carefully infolded it in stout wrapping-paper.  Then I went to a
+neighboring grocery store and bought a small, strong, tin box,
+originally intended for biscuit, with a cover that fitted
+tightly.  In this I placed my manuscript, and then I took the box
+to a tinsmith and had the top fastened on with hard solder.  When
+I went home I ascended into the garret and brought down to my
+study a ship's cash-box, which had once belonged to one of my
+family who was a sea-captain.  This box was very heavy, and
+firmly bound with iron, and was secured by two massive locks. 
+Calling my wife, I told her of the contents of the tin case,
+which I then placed in the box, and having shut down the heavy
+lid, I doubly locked it.
+    
+"This key," said I, putting it in my pocket, "I shall throw
+into the river when I go out this afternoon."
+    
+My wife watched me eagerly, with a pallid and firm-set
+countenance, but upon which I could see the faint glimmer of
+returning happiness.
+    
+"Wouldn't it be well," she said, "to secure it still further
+by sealing-wax and pieces of tape?"
+    
+"No," said I.  "I do not believe that any one will attempt to
+tamper with our prosperity.  And now, my dear," I continued in an
+impressive voice, "no one but you, and, in the course of time,
+our son, shall know that this manuscript exists.  When I am dead,
+those who survive me may, if they see fit, cause this box to be
+split open and the story published.  The reputation it may give
+my name cannot harm me then."
+
+
+
+
+                            THE WIDOW'S CRUISE
+
+The Widow Ducket lived in a small village about ten miles
+from the New Jersey sea-coast.  In this village she was born,
+here she had married and buried her husband, and here she
+expected somebody to bury her; but she was in no hurry for this,
+for she had scarcely reached middle age.  She was a tall woman
+with no apparent fat in her composition, and full of activity,
+both muscular and mental.
+    
+She rose at six o'clock in the morning, cooked breakfast, set
+the table, washed the dishes when the meal was over, milked,
+churned, swept, washed, ironed, worked in her little garden,
+attended to the flowers in the front yard, and in the afternoon
+knitted and quilted and sewed, and after tea she either went to
+see her neighbors or had them come to see her.  When it was
+really dark she lighted the lamp in her parlor and read for an
+hour, and if it happened to be one of Miss Mary Wilkins's books
+that she read she expressed doubts as to the realism of the
+characters therein described.
+    
+These doubts she expressed to Dorcas Networthy, who was a
+small, plump woman, with a solemn face, who had lived with the
+widow for many years and who had become her devoted disciple. 
+Whatever the widow did, that also did Dorcas--not so well,
+for her heart told her she could never expect to do that, but
+with a yearning anxiety to do everything as well as she could. 
+She rose at five minutes past six, and in a subsidiary way she
+helped to get the breakfast, to eat it, to wash up the dishes, to
+work in the garden, to quilt, to sew, to visit and receive, and
+no one could have tried harder than she did to keep awake when
+the widow read aloud in the evening.
+   
+All these things happened every day in the summertime, but in
+the winter the widow and Dorcas cleared the snow from their
+little front path instead of attending to the flowers, and in the
+evening they lighted a fire as well as a lamp in the parlor.
+    
+Sometimes, however, something different happened, but this
+was not often, only a few times in the year.  One of the
+different things occurred when Mrs. Ducket and Dorcas were
+sitting on their little front porch one summer afternoon, one on
+the little bench on one side of the door, and the other on the
+little bench on the other side of the door, each waiting until
+she should hear the clock strike five, to prepare tea.  But it
+was not yet a quarter to five when a one-horse wagon containing
+four men came slowly down the street.  Dorcas first saw the
+wagon, and she instantly stopped knitting.
+    
+"Mercy on me!" she exclaimed.  "Whoever those people are,
+they are strangers here, and they don't know where to stop, for
+they first go to one side of the street and then to the other."
+    
+The widow looked around sharply.  "Humph!" said she.  "Those
+men are sailormen.  You might see that in a twinklin' of an eye. 
+Sailormen always drive that way, because that is the way they
+sail ships.  They first tack in one direction and then in
+another."
+    
+"Mr. Ducket didn't like the sea?" remarked Dorcas, for about
+the three hundredth time.
+    
+"No, he didn't," answered the widow, for about the two
+hundred and fiftieth time, for there had been occasions when she
+thought Dorcas put this question inopportunely.  "He hated it,
+and he was drowned in it through trustin' a sailorman, which I
+never did nor shall.  Do you really believe those men are comin'
+here?"
+    
+"Upon my word I do!" said Dorcas, and her opinion was
+correct.
+    
+The wagon drew up in front of Mrs. Ducket's little white
+house, and the two women sat rigidly, their hands in their laps,
+staring at the man who drove.
+    
+This was an elderly personage with whitish hair, and under
+his chin a thin whitish beard, which waved in the gentle breeze
+and gave Dorcas the idea that his head was filled with hair which
+was leaking out from below.
+    
+"Is this the Widow Ducket's?" inquired this elderly man, in a
+strong, penetrating voice.
+    
+"That's my name," said the widow, and laying her knitting on
+the bench beside her, she went to the gate.  Dorcas also laid her
+knitting on the bench beside her and went to the gate.
+    
+"I was told," said the elderly man, "at a house we touched at
+about a quarter of a mile back, that the Widow Ducket's was the
+only house in this village where there was any chance of me and
+my mates getting a meal.  We are four sailors, and we are making
+from the bay over to Cuppertown, and that's eight miles ahead
+yet, and we are all pretty sharp set for something to eat."
+    
+"This is the place," said the widow, "and I do give meals if
+there is enough in the house and everything comes handy."
+    
+"Does everything come handy to-day?" said he.
+    
+"It does," said she, "and you can hitch your horse and come
+in; but I haven't got anything for him."
+    
+"Oh, that's all right," said the man, "we brought along
+stores for him, so we'll just make fast and then come in."
+    
+The two women hurried into the house in a state of bustling
+preparation, for the furnishing of this meal meant one dollar in
+cash.
+    
+The four mariners, all elderly men, descended from the wagon,
+each one scrambling with alacrity over a different wheel.
+    
+A box of broken ship-biscuit was brought out and put on the
+ground in front of the horse, who immediately set himself to
+eating with great satisfaction.
+    
+Tea was a little late that day, because there were six
+persons to provide for instead of two, but it was a good meal,
+and after the four seamen had washed their hands and faces at the
+pump in the back yard and had wiped them on two towels furnished
+by Dorcas, they all came in and sat down.  Mrs. Ducket seated
+herself at the head of the table with the dignity proper to the
+mistress of the house, and Dorcas seated herself at the other end
+with the dignity proper to the disciple of the mistress.  No
+service was necessary, for everything that was to be eaten or
+drunk was on the table.
+    
+When each of the elderly mariners had had as much bread
+and butter, quickly baked soda-biscuit, dried beef, cold ham,
+cold tongue, and preserved fruit of every variety known, as his
+storage capacity would permit, the mariner in command, Captain
+Bird, pushed back his chair, whereupon the other mariners pushed
+back their chairs.
+   
+"Madam," said Captain Bird, "we have all made a good meal,
+which didn't need to be no better nor more of it, and we're
+satisfied; but that horse out there has not had time to rest
+himself enough to go the eight miles that lies ahead of us, so,
+if it's all the same to you and this good lady, we'd like to sit
+on that front porch awhile and smoke our pipes.  I was a-looking
+at that porch when I came in, and I bethought to myself what a
+rare good place it was to smoke a pipe in."
+    
+"There's pipes been smoked there," said the widow, rising,
+"and it can be done again.  Inside the house I don't allow
+tobacco, but on the porch neither of us minds."
+   
+ So the four captains betook themselves to the porch, two of
+them seating themselves on the little bench on one side of the
+door, and two of them on the little bench on the other side of
+the door, and lighted their pipes.
+    
+"Shall we clear off the table and wash up the dishes," said
+Dorcas, "or wait until they are gone?"
+    
+"We will wait until they are gone," said the widow, "for now
+that they are here we might as well have a bit of a chat with
+them.  When a sailorman lights his pipe he is generally willin'
+to talk, but when he is eatin' you can't get a word out of him."
+    
+Without thinking it necessary to ask permission, for the
+house belonged to her, the Widow Ducket brought a chair and
+put it in the hall close to the open front door, and Dorcas
+brought another chair and seated herself by the side of the
+widow.
+    
+"Do all you sailormen belong down there at the bay?" asked
+Mrs. Ducket; thus the conversation began, and in a few minutes it
+had reached a point at which Captain Bird thought it proper to
+say that a great many strange things happen to seamen sailing on
+the sea which lands-people never dream of.
+    
+"Such as anything in particular?" asked the widow, at which
+remark Dorcas clasped her hands in expectancy.
+    
+At this question each of the mariners took his pipe from his
+mouth and gazed upon the floor in thought.
+    
+"There's a good many strange things happened to me and my
+mates at sea.  Would you and that other lady like to hear any of
+them?" asked Captain Bird.
+    
+"We would like to hear them if they are true," said the
+widow.
+    
+"There's nothing happened to me and my mates that isn't
+true," said Captain Bird, "and here is something that once
+happened to me:  I was on a whaling v'yage when a big sperm-
+whale, just as mad as a fiery bull, came at us, head on, and
+struck the ship at the stern with such tremendous force that his
+head crashed right through her timbers and he went nearly half
+his length into her hull.  The hold was mostly filled with empty
+barrels, for we was just beginning our v'yage, and when he had
+made kindling-wood of these there was room enough for him.  We
+all expected that it wouldn't take five minutes for the vessel to
+fill and go to the bottom, and we made ready to take to the
+boats; but it turned out we didn't need to take to no boats,
+for as fast as the water rushed into the hold of the ship, that
+whale drank it and squirted it up through the two blow-holes in
+the top of his head, and as there was an open hatchway just over
+his head, the water all went into the sea again, and that whale
+kept working day and night pumping the water out until we beached
+the vessel on the island of Trinidad--the whale helping us
+wonderful on our way over by the powerful working of his tail,
+which, being outside in the water, acted like a propeller.  I
+don't believe any thing stranger than that ever happened to a
+whaling ship."
+    
+"No," said the widow, "I don't believe anything ever did."
+    
+Captain Bird now looked at Captain Sanderson, and the latter
+took his pipe out of his mouth and said that in all his sailing
+around the world he had never known anything queerer than what
+happened to a big steamship he chanced to be on, which ran into
+an island in a fog.  Everybody on board thought the ship was
+wrecked, but it had twin screws, and was going at such a
+tremendous speed that it turned the island entirely upside down
+and sailed over it, and he had heard tell that even now people
+sailing over the spot could look down into the water and see the
+roots of the trees and the cellars of the houses.
+    
+Captain Sanderson now put his pipe back into his mouth, and
+Captain Burress took out his pipe.
+    
+"I was once in an obelisk-ship," said he, "that used to trade
+regular between Egypt and New York, carrying obelisks.  We had a
+big obelisk on board.  The way they ship obelisks is to make a
+hole in the stern of the ship, and run the obelisk in, p'inted
+end foremost; and this obelisk filled up nearly the whole of
+that ship from stern to bow.  We was about ten days out, and
+sailing afore a northeast gale with the engines at full speed,
+when suddenly we spied breakers ahead, and our Captain saw we was
+about to run on a bank.  Now if we hadn't had an obelisk on board
+we might have sailed over that bank, but the captain knew that
+with an obelisk on board we drew too much water for this, and
+that we'd be wrecked in about fifty-five seconds if something
+wasn't done quick.  So he had to do something quick, and this is
+what he did:  He ordered all steam on, and drove slam-bang on
+that bank.  Just as he expected, we stopped so suddint that that
+big obelisk bounced for'ard, its p'inted end foremost, and went
+clean through the bow and shot out into the sea.  The minute it
+did that the vessel was so lightened that it rose in the water
+and we easily steamed over the bank.  There was one man knocked
+overboard by the shock when we struck, but as soon as we missed
+him we went back after him and we got him all right.  You see,
+when that obelisk went overboard, its butt-end, which was
+heaviest, went down first, and when it touched the bottom it just
+stood there, and as it was such a big obelisk there was about
+five and a half feet of it stuck out of the water.  The man who
+was knocked overboard he just swum for that obelisk and he
+climbed up the hiryglyphics.  It was a mighty fine obelisk, and
+the Egyptians had cut their hiryglyphics good and deep, so that
+the man could get hand and foot-hold; and when we got to him and
+took him off, he was sitting high and dry on the p'inted end of
+that obelisk.  It was a great pity about the obelisk, for it was
+a good obelisk, but as I never heard the company tried to
+raise it, I expect it is standing there yet."
+    
+Captain Burress now put his pipe back into his mouth and
+looked at Captain Jenkinson, who removed his pipe and said:
+    
+"The queerest thing that ever happened to me was about a
+shark.  We was off the Banks, and the time of year was July, and
+the ice was coming down, and we got in among a lot of it.  Not
+far away, off our weather bow, there was a little iceberg which
+had such a queerness about it that the captain and three men went
+in a boat to look at it.  The ice was mighty clear ice, and you
+could see almost through it, and right inside of it, not more
+than three feet above the waterline, and about two feet, or maybe
+twenty inches, inside the ice, was a whopping big shark, about
+fourteen feet long,--a regular man-eater,--frozen in there hard
+and fast.  `Bless my soul,' said the captain, `this is a
+wonderful curiosity, and I'm going to git him out.'  Just then
+one of the men said he saw that shark wink, but the captain
+wouldn't believe him, for he said that shark was frozen stiff and
+hard and couldn't wink.  You see, the captain had his own idees
+about things, and he knew that whales was warm-blooded and would
+freeze if they was shut up in ice, but he forgot that sharks was
+not whales and that they're cold-blooded just like toads.  And
+there is toads that has been shut up in rocks for thousands of
+years, and they stayed alive, no matter how cold the place was,
+because they was cold-blooded, and when the rocks was split, out
+hopped the frog.  But, as I said before, the captain forgot
+sharks was cold-blooded, and he determined to git that one
+out.
+    
+"Now you both know, being housekeepers, that if you take a
+needle and drive it into a hunk of ice you can split it.  The
+captain had a sail-needle with him, and so he drove it into the
+iceberg right alongside of the shark and split it.  Now the
+minute he did it he knew that the man was right when he said he
+saw the shark wink, for it flopped out of that iceberg quicker
+nor a flash of lightning."
+    
+"What a happy fish he must have been!" ejaculated Dorcas,
+forgetful of precedent, so great was her emotion.
+    
+"Yes," said Captain Jenkinson, "it was a happy fish enough,
+but it wasn't a happy captain.  You see, that shark hadn't had
+anything to eat, perhaps for a thousand years, until the captain
+came along with his sail-needle."
+    
+"Surely you sailormen do see strange things," now said the
+widow, "and the strangest thing about them is that they are
+true."
+    
+"Yes, indeed," said Dorcas, "that is the most wonderful
+thing."
+    
+"You wouldn't suppose," said the Widow Ducket, glancing from
+one bench of mariners to the other, "that I have a sea-story to
+tell, but I have, and if you like I will tell it to you."
+    
+Captain Bird looked up a little surprised.
+    
+"We would like to hear it--indeed, we would, madam," said he.
+    
+"Ay, ay!" said Captain Burress, and the two other mariners
+nodded.
+    
+"It was a good while ago," she said, "when I was living on
+the shore near the head of the bay, that my husband was away and
+I was left alone in the house.  One mornin' my sister-in-law,
+who lived on the other side of the bay, sent me word by a boy on
+a horse that she hadn't any oil in the house to fill the lamp
+that she always put in the window to light her husband home, who
+was a fisherman, and if I would send her some by the boy she
+would pay me back as soon as they bought oil.  The boy said he
+would stop on his way home and take the oil to her, but he never
+did stop, or perhaps he never went back, and about five o'clock I
+began to get dreadfully worried, for I knew if that lamp wasn't
+in my sister-in-law's window by dark she might be a widow before
+midnight.  So I said to myself, `I've got to get that oil to her,
+no matter what happens or how it's done.'  Of course I couldn't
+tell what might happen, but there was only one way it could be
+done, and that was for me to get into the boat that was tied to
+the post down by the water, and take it to her, for it was too
+far for me to walk around by the head of the bay.  Now, the
+trouble was, I didn't know no more about a boat and the managin'
+of it than any one of you sailormen knows about clear starchin'. 
+But there wasn't no use of thinkin' what I knew and what I didn't
+know, for I had to take it to her, and there was no way of doin'
+it except in that boat.  So I filled a gallon can, for I thought
+I might as well take enough while I was about it, and I went down
+to the water and I unhitched that boat and I put the oil-can into
+her, and then I got in, and off I started, and when I was about a
+quarter of a mile from the shore--"
+    
+"Madam," interrupted Captain Bird, "did you row or--or was
+there a sail to the boat?"
+    
+The widow looked at the questioner for a moment.  "No,"
+said she, "I didn't row.  I forgot to bring the oars from the
+house; but it didn't matter, for I didn't know how to use them,
+and if there had been a sail I couldn't have put it up, for I
+didn't know how to use it, either.  I used the rudder to make the
+boat go.  The rudder was the only thing I knew anything about. 
+I'd held a rudder when I was a little girl, and I knew how to
+work it.  So I just took hold of the handle of the rudder and
+turned it round and round, and that made the boat go ahead, you
+know, and--" 
+    
+"Madam!" exclaimed Captain Bird, and the other elderly
+mariners took their pipes from their mouths.
+    
+"Yes, that is the way I did it," continued the widow,
+briskly.  "Big steamships are made to go by a propeller turning
+round and round at their back ends, and I made the rudder work in
+the same way, and I got along very well, too, until suddenly,
+when I was about a quarter of a mile from the shore, a most
+terrible and awful storm arose.  There must have been a typhoon
+or a cyclone out at sea, for the waves came up the bay bigger
+than houses, and when they got to the head of the bay they turned
+around and tried to get out to sea again.  So in this way they
+continually met, and made the most awful and roarin' pilin' up of
+waves that ever was known.
+    
+"My little boat was pitched about as if it had been a feather
+in a breeze, and when the front part of it was cleavin' itself
+down into the water the hind part was stickin' up until the
+rudder whizzed around like a patent churn with no milk in it. 
+The thunder began to roar and the lightnin' flashed, and three
+seagulls, so nearly frightened to death that they began to turn
+up the whites of their eyes, flew down and sat on one of the
+seats of the boat, forgettin' in that awful moment that man was
+their nat'ral enemy.  I had a couple of biscuits in my pocket,
+because I had thought I might want a bite in crossing, and I
+crumbled up one of these and fed the poor creatures.  Then I
+began to wonder what I was goin' to do, for things were gettin'
+awfuller and awfuller every instant, and the little boat was a-
+heavin' and a-pitchin' and a-rollin' and h'istin' itself up,
+first on one end and then on the other, to such an extent that if
+I hadn't kept tight hold of the rudder-handle I'd slipped off the
+seat I was sittin' on.
+    
+"All of a sudden I remembered that oil in the can; but just
+as I was puttin' my fingers on the cork my conscience smote me. 
+`Am I goin' to use this oil,' I said to myself, `and let my
+sister-in-law's husband be wrecked for want of it?'  And then I
+thought that he wouldn't want it all that night, and perhaps they
+would buy oil the next day, and so I poured out about a
+tumblerful of it on the water, and I can just tell you sailormen
+that you never saw anything act as prompt as that did.  In three
+seconds, or perhaps five, the water all around me, for the
+distance of a small front yard, was just as flat as a table and
+as smooth as glass, and so invitin' in appearance that the three
+gulls jumped out of the boat and began to swim about on it,
+primin' their feathers and lookin' at themselves in the
+transparent depths, though I must say that one of them made an
+awful face as he dipped his bill into the water and tasted
+kerosene.
+    
+"Now I had time to sit quiet in the midst of the placid space
+I had made for myself, and rest from workin' of the rudder. 
+Truly it was a wonderful and marvellous thing to look at.  The
+waves was roarin' and leapin' up all around me higher than the
+roof of this house, and sometimes their tops would reach over so
+that they nearly met and shut out all view of the stormy sky,
+which seemed as if it was bein' torn to pieces by blazin'
+lightnin', while the thunder pealed so tremendous that it almost
+drowned the roar of the waves.  Not only above and all around me
+was every thing terrific and fearful, but even under me it was
+the same, for there was a big crack in the bottom of the boat as
+wide as my hand, and through this I could see down into the water
+beneath, and there was--"
+    
+"Madam!" ejaculated Captain Bird, the hand which had been
+holding his pipe a few inches from his mouth now dropping to his
+knee; and at this motion the hands which held the pipes of the
+three other mariners dropped to their knees.
+    
+"Of course it sounds strange," continued the widow, "but I
+know that people can see down into clear water, and the water
+under me was clear, and the crack was wide enough for me to see
+through, and down under me was sharks and swordfishes and other
+horrible water creatures, which I had never seen before, all
+driven into the bay, I haven't a doubt, by the violence of the
+storm out at sea.  The thought of my bein' upset and fallin' in
+among those monsters made my very blood run cold, and
+involuntary-like I began to turn the handle of the rudder, and in
+a moment I shot into a wall of ragin' sea-water that was towerin'
+around me.  For a second I was fairly blinded and stunned, but I
+had the cork out of that oil-can in no time, and very soon--you'd
+scarcely believe it if I told you how soon--I had another placid
+mill-pond surroundin' of me.  I sat there a-pantin' and fannin'
+with my straw hat, for you'd better believe I was flustered, and
+then I began to think how long it would take me to make a line of
+mill-ponds clean across the head of the bay, and how much oil it
+would need, and whether I had enough.  So I sat and calculated
+that if a tumblerful of oil would make a smooth place about seven
+yards across, which I should say was the width of the one I was
+in,--which I calculated by a measure of my eye as to how many
+breadths of carpet it would take to cover it,--and if the bay was
+two miles across betwixt our house and my sister-in-law's, and,
+although I couldn't get the thing down to exact figures, I saw
+pretty soon that I wouldn't have oil enough to make a level
+cuttin' through all those mountainous billows, and besides, even
+if I had enough to take me across, what would be the good of
+goin' if there wasn't any oil left to fill my sister-in-law's
+lamp?
+    
+"While I was thinkin' and calculatin' a perfectly dreadful
+thing happened, which made me think if I didn't get out of this
+pretty soon I'd find myself in a mighty risky predicament.  The
+oil-can, which I had forgotten to put the cork in, toppled over,
+and before I could grab it every drop of the oil ran into the
+hind part of the boat, where it was soaked up by a lot of dry
+dust that was there.  No wonder my heart sank when I saw this. 
+Glancin' wildly around me, as people will do when they are
+scared, I saw the smooth place I was in gettin' smaller and
+smaller, for the kerosene was evaporatin', as it will do even off
+woollen clothes if you give it time enough.  The first pond I had
+come out of seemed to be covered up, and the great, towerin',
+throbbin' precipice of sea-water was a-closin' around me.
+    
+"Castin' down my eyes in despair, I happened to look through
+the crack in the bottom of the boat, and oh, what a blessed
+relief it was! for down there everything was smooth and still,
+and I could see the sand on the bottom, as level and hard, no
+doubt, as it was on the beach.  Suddenly the thought struck me
+that that bottom would give me the only chance I had of gettin'
+out of the frightful fix I was in.  If I could fill that oil-can
+with air, and then puttin' it under my arm and takin' a long
+breath if I could drop down on that smooth bottom, I might run
+along toward shore, as far as I could, and then, when I felt my
+breath was givin' out, I could take a pull at the oil-can and
+take another run, and then take another pull and another run, and
+perhaps the can would hold air enough for me until I got near
+enough to shore to wade to dry land.  To be sure, the sharks and
+other monsters were down there, but then they must have been
+awfully frightened, and perhaps they might not remember that man
+was their nat'ral enemy.  Anyway, I thought it would be better to
+try the smooth water passage down there than stay and be
+swallowed up by the ragin' waves on top.
+    
+"So I blew the can full of air and corked it, and then I tore
+up some of the boards from the bottom of the boat so as to make a
+hole big enough for me to get through,--and you sailormen needn't
+wriggle so when I say that, for you all know a divin'-bell hasn't
+any bottom at all and the water never comes in,--and so when I
+got the hole big enough I took the oil-can under my arm, and
+was just about to slip down through it when I saw an awful turtle
+a-walkin' through the sand at the bottom.  Now, I might trust
+sharks and swordfishes and sea-serpents to be frightened and
+forget about their nat'ral enemies, but I never could trust a
+gray turtle as big as a cart, with a black neck a yard long, with
+yellow bags to its jaws, to forget anything or to remember
+anything.  I'd as lieve get into a bath-tub with a live crab as
+to go down there.  It wasn't of no use even so much as thinkin'
+of it, so I gave up that plan and didn't once look through that
+hole again."
+    
+"And what did you do, madam?" asked Captain Bird, who was
+regarding her with a face of stone.
+    
+"I used electricity," she said.  "Now don't start as if you
+had a shock of it.  That's what I used.  When I was younger than
+I was then, and sometimes visited friends in the city, we often
+amused ourselves by rubbing our feet on the carpet until we got
+ourselves so full of electricity that we could put up our fingers
+and light the gas.  So I said to myself that if I could get full
+of electricity for the purpose of lightin' the gas I could get
+full of it for other purposes, and so, without losin' a moment, I
+set to work.  I stood up on one of the seats, which was dry, and
+I rubbed the bottoms of my shoes backward and forward on it with
+such violence and swiftness that they pretty soon got warm and I
+began fillin' with electricity, and when I was fully charged with
+it from my toes to the top of my head, I just sprang into the
+water and swam ashore.  Of course I couldn't sink, bein' full of
+electricity."
+    
+Captain Bird heaved a long sigh and rose to his feet,
+whereupon the other mariners rose to their feet "Madam," said
+Captain Bird, "what's to pay for the supper and--the rest of the
+entertainment?"
+    
+"The supper is twenty-five cents apiece," said the Widow
+Ducket, "and everything else is free, gratis."
+    
+Whereupon each mariner put his hand into his trousers pocket,
+pulled out a silver quarter, and handed it to the widow.  Then,
+with four solemn "Good evenin's," they went out to the front
+gate.
+    
+"Cast off, Captain Jenkinson," said Captain Bird, "and you,
+Captain Burress, clew him up for'ard.  You can stay in the bow,
+Captain Sanderson, and take the sheet-lines.  I'll go aft."
+    
+All being ready, each of the elderly mariners clambered over
+a wheel, and having seated themselves, they prepared to lay their
+course for Cuppertown.
+    
+But just as they were about to start, Captain Jenkinson asked
+that they lay to a bit, and clambering down over his wheel, he
+reentered the front gate and went up to the door of the house,
+where the widow and Dorcas were still standing.
+    
+"Madam," said he, "I just came back to ask what became of
+your brother-in-law through his wife's not bein' able to put no
+light in the window?"
+    
+"The storm drove him ashore on our side of the bay," said
+she, "and the next mornin' he came up to our house, and I told
+him all that had happened to me.  And when he took our boat and
+went home and told that story to his wife, she just packed up and
+went out West, and got divorced from him.  And it served him
+right, too."
+    
+"Thank you, ma'am," said Captain Jenkinson, and going out
+of the gate, he clambered up over the wheel, and the wagon
+cleared for Cuppertown.
+    
+When the elderly mariners were gone, the Widow Ducket, still
+standing in the door, turned to Dorcas.
+    
+"Think of it!" she said.  "To tell all that to me, in my own
+house!  And after I had opened my one jar of brandied peaches,
+that I'd been keepin' for special company!"
+    
+"In your own house!" ejaculated Dorcas.  "And not one of them
+brandied peaches left!"
+    
+The widow jingled the four quarters in her hand before she
+slipped them into her pocket.
+    
+"Anyway, Dorcas," she remarked, "I think we can now say we
+are square with all the world, and so let's go in and wash the
+dishes."
+    
+"Yes," said Dorcas, "we're square."
+
+
+
+                          CAPTAIN ELI'S BEST EAR
+
+
+The little seaside village of Sponkannis lies so quietly upon a
+protected spot on our Atlantic coast that it makes no more stir
+in the world than would a pebble which, held between one's finger
+and thumb, should be dipped below the surface of a millpond and
+then dropped.  About the post-office and the store--both under
+the same roof--the greater number of the houses cluster, as if
+they had come for their week's groceries, or were waiting for the
+mail, while toward the west the dwellings become fewer and fewer,
+until at last the village blends into a long stretch of sandy
+coast and scrubby pine-woods.  Eastward the village ends abruptly
+at the foot of a windswept bluff, on which no one cares to build.
+    
+Among the last houses in the western end of the village stood
+two neat, substantial dwellings, one belonging to Captain Eli
+Bunker, and the other to Captain Cephas Dyer.  These householders
+were two very respectable retired mariners, the first a widower
+about fifty, and the other a bachelor of perhaps the same age, a
+few years more or less making but little difference in this
+region of weather-beaten youth and seasoned age.
+    
+Each of these good captains lived alone, and each took
+entire charge of his own domestic affairs, not because he was
+poor, but because it pleased him to do so.  When Captain Eli
+retired from the sea he was the owner of a good vessel, which he
+sold at a fair profit; and Captain Cephas had made money in many
+a voyage before he built his house in Sponkannis and settled
+there.
+    
+When Captain Eli's wife was living she was his household
+manager.  But Captain Cephas had never had a woman in his house,
+except during the first few months of his occupancy, when certain
+female neighbors came in occasionally to attend to little matters
+of cleaning which, according to popular notions, properly belong
+to the sphere of woman.
+    
+But Captain Cephas soon put an end to this sort of thing.  He
+did not like a woman's ways, especially her ways of attending to
+domestic affairs.  He liked to live in sailor fashion, and to
+keep house in sailor fashion.  In his establishment everything
+was shipshape, and everything which could be stowed away was
+stowed away, and, if possible, in a bunker.  The floors were
+holystoned nearly every day, and the whole house was repainted
+about twice a year, a little at a time, when the weather was
+suitable for this marine recreation.  Things not in frequent use
+were lashed securely to the walls, or perhaps put out of the way
+by being hauled up to the ceiling by means of blocks and tackle. 
+His cooking was done sailor fashion, like everything else, and he
+never failed to have plum-duff on Sunday.  His well was near his
+house, and every morning he dropped into it a lead and line, and
+noted down the depth of water.  Three times a day he entered in a
+little note-book the state of the weather, the height of the
+mercury in barometer and thermometer, the direction of the wind,
+and special weather points when necessary.
+    
+Captain Eli managed his domestic affairs in an entirely
+different way.  He kept house woman fashion--not, however, in the
+manner of an ordinary woman, but after the manner of his late
+wife, Miranda Bunker, now dead some seven years.  Like his
+friend, Captain Cephas, he had had the assistance of his female
+neighbors during the earlier days of his widowerhood.  But he
+soon found that these women did not do things as Miranda used to
+do them, and, although he frequently suggested that they should
+endeavor to imitate the methods of his late consort, they did not
+even try to do things as she used to do them, preferring their
+own ways.  Therefore it was that Captain Eli determined to keep
+house by himself, and to do it, as nearly as his nature would
+allow, as Miranda used to do it.  He swept his doors and he shook
+his door-mats; he washed his paint with soap and hot water; he
+dusted his furniture with a soft cloth, which he afterwards stuck
+behind a chest of drawers.  He made his bed very neatly, turning
+down the sheet at the top, and setting the pillow upon edge,
+smoothing it carefully after he had done so.  His cooking was
+based on the methods of the late Miranda.  He had never been able
+to make bread rise properly, but he had always liked ship-
+biscuit, and he now greatly preferred them to the risen bread
+made by his neighbors.  And as to coffee and the plainer articles
+of food with which he furnished his table, even Miranda herself
+would not have objected to them had she been alive and very
+hungry.
+    
+The houses of the two captains were not very far apart,
+and they were good neighbors, often smoking their pipes together
+and talking of the sea.  But this was always on the little porch
+in front of Captain Cephas's house, or by his kitchen fire in the
+winter.  Captain Eli did not like the smell of tobacco smoke in
+his house, or even in front of it in summer-time, when the doors
+were open.  He had no objection himself to the odor of tobacco,
+but it was contrary to the principles of woman housekeeping that
+rooms should smell of it, and he was always true to those
+principles.
+    
+It was late in a certain December, and through the village
+there was a pleasant little flutter of Christmas preparations. 
+Captain Eli had been up to the store, and he had stayed there a
+good while, warming himself by the stove, and watching the women
+coming in to buy things for Christmas.  It was strange how many
+things they bought for presents or for holiday use--fancy soap
+and candy, handkerchiefs and little woollen shawls for old
+people, and a lot of pretty little things which he knew the use
+of, but which Captain Cephas would never have understood at all
+had he been there.
+    
+As Captain Eli came out of the store he saw a cart in which
+were two good-sized Christmas trees, which had been cut in the
+woods, and were going, one to Captain Holmes's house, and the
+other to Mother Nelson's.  Captain Holmes had grandchildren, and
+Mother Nelson, with never a child of her own, good old soul, had
+three little orphan nieces who never wanted for anything needful
+at Christmas-time or any other time.
+    
+Captain Eli walked home very slowly, taking observations in
+his mind.  It was more than seven years since he had had
+anything to do with Christmas, except that on that day he had
+always made himself a mince-pie, the construction and the
+consumption of which were equally difficult.  It is true that
+neighbors had invited him, and they had invited Captain Cephas,
+to their Christmas dinners, but neither of these worthy seamen
+had ever accepted any of these invitations.  Even holiday food,
+when not cooked in sailor fashion, did not agree with Captain
+Cephas, and it would have pained the good heart of Captain Eli if
+he had been forced to make believe to enjoy a Christmas dinner so
+very inferior to those which Miranda used to set before him.
+    
+But now the heart of Captain Eli was gently moved by a
+Christmas flutter.  It had been foolish, perhaps, for him to go
+up to the store at such a time as this, but the mischief had been
+done.  Old feelings had come back to him, and he would be glad to
+celebrate Christmas this year if he could think of any good way
+to do it.  And the result of his mental observations was that he
+went over to Captain Cephas's house to talk to him about it.
+    
+Captain Cephas was in his kitchen, smoking his third morning
+pipe.  Captain Eli filled his pipe, lighted it, and sat down by
+the fire.
+    
+"Cap'n," said he, "what do you say to our keepin Christmas
+this year?  A Christmas dinner is no good if it's got to be eat
+alone, and you and me might eat ourn together.  It might be in my
+house, or it might be in your house--it won't make no great
+difference to me which.  Of course, I like woman housekeepin', as
+is laid down in the rules of service fer my house.  But next best
+to that I like sailor housekeepin', so I don't mind which
+house the dinner is in, Cap'n Cephas, so it suits you."
+    
+Captain Cephas took his pipe from his mouth.  "You're pretty
+late thinkin' about it," said he, "fer day after to-morrow's
+Christmas."
+    
+"That don't make no difference," said Captain Eli.  "What
+things we want that are not in my house or your house we can
+easily get either up at the store or else in the woods."
+    
+"In the woods!" exclaimed Captain Cephas.  "What in the name
+of thunder do you expect to get in the woods for Christmas?"
+    
+"A Christmas tree," said Captain Eli.  "I thought it might be
+a nice thing to have a Christmas tree fer Christmas.  Cap'n
+Holmes has got one, and Mother Nelson's got another.  I guess
+nearly everybody's got one.  It won't cost anything--I can go and
+cut it."
+    
+Captain Cephas grinned a grin, as if a great leak had been
+sprung in the side of a vessel, stretching nearly from stem to
+stern.
+    
+"A Christmas tree!" he exclaimed.  "Well, I am blessed!  But
+look here, Cap'n Eli.  You don't know what a Christmas tree's
+fer.  It's fer children, and not fer grown-ups.  Nobody ever does
+have a Christmas tree in any house where there ain't no
+children."
+    
+Captain Eli rose and stood with his back to the fire.  "I
+didn't think of that," he said, "but I guess it's so.  And when I
+come to think of it, a Christmas isn't much of a Christmas,
+anyway, without children."
+    
+"You never had none," said Captain Cephas, "and you've kept
+Christmas."
+    
+"Yes," replied Captain Eli, reflectively, "we did do it,
+but there was always a lackment--Miranda has said so, and I have
+said so."
+    
+"You didn't have no Christmas tree," said Captain Cephas.
+    
+"No, we didn't.  But I don't think that folks was as much set
+on Christmas trees then as they 'pear to be now.  I wonder," he
+continued, thoughtfully gazing at the ceiling, "if we was to fix
+up a Christmas tree--and you and me's got a lot of pretty things
+that we've picked up all over the world, that would go miles
+ahead of anything that could be bought at the store fer Christmas
+trees--if we was to fix up a tree real nice, if we couldn't get
+some child or other that wasn't likely to have a tree to come in
+and look at it, and stay awhile, and make Christmas more like
+Christmas.  And then, when it went away, it could take along the
+things that was hangin' on the tree, and keep 'em fer its own."
+    
+"That wouldn't work," said Captain Cephas.  "If you get a
+child into this business, you must let it hang up its stockin'
+before it goes to bed, and find it full in the mornin', and then
+tell it an all-fired lie about Santa Claus if it asks any
+questions.  Most children think more of stockin's than they do of
+trees--so I've heard, at least."
+    
+"I've got no objections to stockin's," said Captain Eli.  "If
+it wanted to hang one up, it could hang one up either here or in
+my house, wherever we kept Christmas."
+    
+"You couldn't keep a child all night," sardonically remarked
+Captain Cephas, "and no more could I.  Fer if it was to get up a
+croup in the night, it would be as if we was on a lee shore with
+anchors draggin' and a gale a-blowin'."
+    
+"That's so," said Captain Eli.  "You've put it fair.  I
+suppose if we did keep a child all night, we'd have to have some
+sort of a woman within hail in case of a sudden blow."
+    
+Captain Cephas sniffed.  "What's the good of talkin'?" said
+he.  "There ain't no child, and there ain't no woman that you
+could hire to sit all night on my front step or on your front
+step, a-waitin' to be piped on deck in case of croup."
+    
+"No," said Captain Eli.  "I don't suppose there's any child
+in this village that ain't goin' to be provided with a Christmas
+tree or a Christmas stockin', or perhaps both--except, now I come
+to think of it, that little gal that was brought down here with
+her mother last summer, and has been kept by Mrs. Crumley sence
+her mother died."
+    
+"And won't be kept much longer," said Captain Cephas, "fer
+I've hearn Mrs. Crumley say she couldn't afford it."
+    
+"That's so," said Captain Eli.  "If she can't afford to keep
+the little gal, she can't afford to give no Christmas trees nor
+stockin's, and so it seems to me, cap'n, that that little gal
+would be a pretty good child to help us keep Christmas."
+    
+"You're all the time forgettin'," said the other, "that
+nuther of us can keep a child all night."
+    
+Captain Eli seated himself, and looked ponderingly into the
+fire.  "You're right, cap'n," said he.  "We'd have to ship some
+woman to take care of her.  Of course, it wouldn't be no use to
+ask Mrs. Crumley?"
+    
+Captain Cephas laughed.  "I should say not."
+    
+"And there doesn't seem to be anybody else," said his
+companion.  "Can you think of anybody, cap'n?"
+    
+"There ain't anybody to think of," replied Captain Cephas,
+"unless it might be Eliza Trimmer.  She's generally ready enough
+to do anything that turns up.  But she wouldn't be no good--her
+house is too far away for either you or me to hail her in case a
+croup came up suddint."
+    
+"That's so," said Captain Eli.  "She does live a long way off."
+    
+"So that settles the whole business," said Captain Cephas. 
+"She's too far away to come if wanted, and nuther of us couldn't
+keep no child without somebody to come if they was wanted, and
+it's no use to have a Christmas tree without a child.  A
+Christmas without a Christmas tree don't seem agreeable to you,
+cap'n, so I guess we'd better get along just the same as we've
+been in the habit of doin', and eat our Christmas dinner, as we
+do our other meals in our own houses."
+    
+Captain Eli looked into the fire.  "I don't like to give up
+things if I can help it.  That was always my way.  If wind and
+tide's ag'in' me, I can wait till one or the other, or both of
+them, serve."
+   
+ "Yes," said Captain Cephas, "you was always that kind of a
+man."
+    
+"That's so.  But it does 'pear to me as if I'd have to give
+up this time, though it's a pity to do it, on account of the
+little gal, fer she ain't likely to have any Christmas this year.
+
+She's a nice little gal, and takes as natural to navigation as if
+she'd been born at sea.  I've given her two or three things
+because she's so pretty, but there's nothing she likes so much as
+a little ship I gave her."
+    
+"Perhaps she was born at sea," remarked Captain Cephas.
+    
+"Perhaps she was," said the other; "and that makes it the
+bigger pity."
+    
+For a few moments nothing was said.  Then Captain Eli
+suddenly exclaimed, "I'll tell you what we might do, cap'n!  We
+might ask Mrs. Trimmer to lend a hand in givin' the little gal a
+Christmas.  She ain't got nobody in her house but herself, and I
+guess she'd be glad enough to help give that little gal a regular
+Christmas.  She could go and get the child, and bring her to your
+house or to my house, or wherever we're goin' to keep Christmas,
+and--"
+    
+"Well," said Captain Cephas, with an air of scrutinizing
+inquiry, "what?"
+    
+"Well," replied the other, a little hesitatingly, "so far as
+I'm concerned,--that is, I don't mind one way or the other,--she
+might take her Christmas dinner along with us and the little gal,
+and then she could fix her stockin' to be hung up, and help with
+the Christmas tree, and--"
+    
+"Well," demanded Captain Cephas, "what?"
+    
+"Well," said Captain Eli, "she could--that is, it doesn't
+make any difference to me one way or the other--she might stay
+all night at whatever house we kept Christmas in, and then you
+and me might spend the night in the other house, and then she
+could be ready there to help the child in the mornin', when she
+came to look at her stockin'."
+    
+Captain Cephas fixed upon his friend an earnest glare. 
+"That's pretty considerable of an idea to come upon you so
+suddint," said he.  "But I can tell you one thing: there ain't a-
+goin' to be any such doin's in my house.  If you choose to come
+over here to sleep, and give up your house to any woman you can
+find to take care of the little gal, all right.  But the
+thing can't be done here."
+    
+There was a certain severity in these remarks, but they
+appeared to affect Captain Eli very pleasantly.
+    
+"Well," said he, "if you're satisfied, I am.  I'll agree to
+any plan you choose to make.  It doesn't matter to me which house
+it's in, and if you say my house, I say my house.  All I want is
+to make the business agreeable to all concerned.  Now it's time
+fer me to go to my dinner, and this afternoon we'd better go and
+try to get things straightened out, because the little gal, and
+whatever woman comes with her, ought to be at my house to-morrow
+before dark.  S'posin' we divide up this business: I'll go and
+see Mrs. Crumley about the little gal, and you can go and see
+Mrs. Trimmer."
+    
+"No, sir," promptly replied Captain Cephas, "I don't go to
+see no Mrs. Trimmer.  You can see both of them just the same as
+you can see one--they're all along the same way.  I'll go cut the
+Christmas tree."
+    
+"All right," said Captain Eli.  "It don't make no difference
+to me which does which.  But if I was you, cap'n, I'd cut a good
+big tree, because we might as well have a good one while we're
+about it."
+    
+When he had eaten his dinner, and washed up his dishes, and
+had put everything away in neat, housewifely order, Captain Eli
+went to Mrs. Crumley's house, and very soon finished his business
+there.  Mrs. Crumley kept the only house which might be
+considered a boarding-house in the village of Sponkannis; and
+when she had consented to take charge of the little girl who had
+been left on her hands she had hoped it would not be very long
+before she would hear from some of her relatives in regard to
+her maintenance.  But she had heard nothing, and had now ceased
+to expect to hear anything, and in consequence had frequently
+remarked that she must dispose of the child some way or other,
+for she couldn't afford to keep her any longer.  Even an absence
+of a day or two at the house of the good captain would be some
+relief, and Mrs. Crumley readily consented to the Christmas
+scheme.  As to the little girl, she was delighted.  She already
+looked upon Captain Eli as her best friend in the world.
+    
+It was not so easy to go to Mrs. Trimmer's house and put the
+business before her.  "It ought to be plain sailin' enough,"
+Captain Eli said to himself, over and over again, "but, fer all
+that, it don't seem to be plain sailin'."
+    
+But he was not a man to be deterred by difficult navigation,
+and he walked straight to Eliza Trimmer's house.
+    
+Mrs. Trimmer was a comely woman about thirty-five, who had
+come to the village a year before, and had maintained herself, or
+at least had tried to, by dressmaking and plain sewing.  She had
+lived at Stetford, a seaport about twenty miles away, and from
+there, three years before, her husband, Captain Trimmer, had
+sailed away in a good-sized schooner, and had never returned. 
+She had come to Sponkannis because she thought that there she
+could live cheaper and get more work than in her former home. 
+She had found the first quite possible, but her success in regard
+to the work had not been very great.
+    
+When Captain Eli entered Mrs. Trimmer's little room, he found
+her busy mending a sail.  Here fortune favored him.  "You
+turn your hand to 'most anything, Mrs. Trimmer," said he, after
+he had greeted her.
+    
+"Oh, yes," she answered, with a smile, "I am obliged to do
+that.  Mending sails is pretty heavy work, but it's better than
+nothing."
+    
+"I had a notion," said he, "that you was ready to turn your
+hand to any good kind of business, so I thought I would step in
+and ask you if you'd turn your hand to a little bit of business
+I've got on the stocks."
+    
+She stopped sewing on the sail, and listened while Captain
+Eli laid his plan before her.  "It's very kind in you and Captain
+Cephas to think of all that," said she.  "I have often noticed
+that poor little girl, and pitied her.  Certainly I'll come, and
+you needn't say anything about paying me for it.  I wouldn't
+think of asking to be paid for doing a thing like that.  And
+besides,"--she smiled again as she spoke,--"if you are going to
+give me a Christmas dinner, as you say, that will make things
+more than square."
+    
+Captain Eli did not exactly agree with her, but he was in
+very good humor, and she was in good humor, and the matter was
+soon settled, and Mrs. Trimmer promised to come to the captain's
+house in the morning and help about the Christmas tree, and in
+the afternoon to go to get the little girl from Mrs. Crumley's
+and bring her to the house.
+    
+Captain Eli was delighted with the arrangements.  "Things now
+seem to be goin' along before a spankin' breeze,"said he.  "But I
+don't know about the dinner.  I guess you will have to leave that
+to me.  I don't believe Captain Cephas could eat a woman-
+cooked dinner.  He's accustomed to livin sailor fashion, you
+know, and he has declared over and over again to me that woman-
+cookin' doesn't agree with him."
+    
+"But I can cook sailor fashion," said Mrs. Trimmer,--"just as
+much sailor fashion as you or Captain Cephas, and if he don't
+believe it, I'll prove it to him; so you needn't worry about
+that."
+    
+When the captain had gone, Mrs. Trimmer gayly put away the
+sail.  There was no need to finish it in a hurry, and no knowing
+when she would get her money for it when it was done.  No one had
+asked her to a Christmas dinner that year, and she had expected
+to have a lonely time of it.  But it would be very pleasant to
+spend Christmas with the little girl and the two good captains. 
+Instead of sewing any more on the sail, she got out some of her
+own clothes to see if they needed anything done to them.
+    
+The next morning Mrs. Trimmer went to Captain Eli's house,
+and finding Captain Cephas there, they all set to work at the
+Christmas tree, which was a very fine one, and had been planted
+in a box.  Captain Cephas had brought over a bundle of things
+from his house, and Captain Eli kept running here and there,
+bringing, each time that he returned, some new object, wonderful
+or pretty, which he had brought from China or Japan or Corea, or
+some spicy island of the Eastern seas; and nearly every time he
+came with these treasures Mrs. Trimmer declared that such things
+were too good to put upon a Christmas tree, even for such a nice
+little girl as the one for which that tree was intended.  The
+presents which Captain Cephas brought were much more suitable for
+the purpose; they were odd and funny, and some of them pretty,
+but not expensive, as were the fans and bits of shellwork and
+carved ivories which Captain Eli wished to tie upon the twigs of
+the tree.
+    
+There was a good deal of talk about all this, but Captain Eli
+had his own way.
+    
+"I don't suppose, after all," said he, "that the little gal
+ought to have all the things.  This is such a big tree that it's
+more like a family tree.  Cap'n Cephas can take some of my
+things, and I can take some of his things, and, Mrs. Trimmer, if
+there's anything you like, you can call it your present and take
+it for your own, so that will be fair and comfortable all round. 
+What I want is to make everybody satisfied."
+    
+"I'm sure I think they ought to be," said Mrs. Trimmer,
+looking very kindly at Captain Eli.
+    
+Mrs. Trimmer went home to her own house to dinner, and in the
+afternoon she brought the little girl.  She had said there ought
+to be an early supper, so that the child would have time to enjoy
+the Christmas tree before she became sleepy.
+    
+This meal was prepared entirely by Captain Eli, and in sailor
+fashion, not woman fashion, so that Captain Cephas could make no
+excuse for eating his supper at home.  Of course they all ought
+to be together the whole of that Christmas eve.  As for the big
+dinner on the morrow, that was another affair, for Mrs. Trimmer
+undertook to make Captain Cephas understand that she had always
+cooked for Captain Trimmer in sailor fashion, and if he objected
+to her plum-duff, or if anybody else objected to her mince-pie,
+she was going to be very much surprised.
+    
+Captain Cephas ate his supper with a good relish, and was
+still eating when the rest had finished.  As to the Christmas
+tree, it was the most valuable, if not the most beautiful, that
+had ever been set up in that region.  It had no candles upon it,
+but was lighted by three lamps and a ship's lantern placed in the
+four corners of the room, and the little girl was as happy as if
+the tree were decorated with little dolls and glass balls.  Mrs.
+Trimmer was intensely pleased and interested to see the child so
+happy, and Captain Eli was much pleased and interested to see the
+child and Mrs. Trimmer so happy, and Captain Cephas was
+interested, and perhaps a little amused in a superior fashion, to
+see Captain Eli and Mrs. Trimmer and the little child so happy.
+    
+Then the distribution of the presents began.  Captain Eli
+asked Captain Cephas if he might have the wooden pipe that the
+latter had brought for his present.  Captain Cephas said he might
+take it, for all he cared, and be welcome to it.  Then Captain
+Eli gave Captain Cephas a red bandanna handkerchief of a very
+curious pattern, and Captain Cephas thanked him kindly.  After
+which Captain Eli bestowed upon Mrs. Trimmer a most beautiful
+tortoise-shell comb, carved and cut and polished in a wonderful
+way, and with it he gave a tortoise-shell fan, carved in the same
+fashion, because he said the two things seemed to belong to each
+other and ought to go together; and he would not listen to one
+word of what Mrs. Trimmer said about the gifts being too good for
+her, and that she was not likely ever to use them.
+    
+"It seems to me," said Captain Cephas, "that you might be
+giving something to the little gal."
+    
+Then Captain Eli remembered that the child ought not to be
+forgotten, and her soul was lifted into ecstasy by many
+gifts, some of which Mrs. Trimmer declared were too good for any
+child in this wide, wide world.  But Captain Eli answered that
+they could be taken care of by somebody until the little girl was
+old enough to know their value.
+    
+Then it was discovered that, unbeknown to anybody else, Mrs.
+Trimmer had put some presents on the tree, which were things
+which had been brought by Captain Trimmer from somewhere in the
+far East or the distant West.  These she bestowed upon Captain
+Cephas and Captain Eli.  And the end of all this was that in the
+whole of Sponkannis, from the foot of the bluff to the east, to
+the very last house on the shore to the west, there was not one
+Christmas eve party so happy as this one.
+    
+Captain Cephas was not quite so happy as the three others
+were, but he was very much interested.  About nine o'clock the
+party broke up, and the two captains put on their caps and
+buttoned up their pea-jackets, and started for Captain Cephas's
+house, but not before Captain Eli had carefully fastened every
+window and every door except the front door, and had told Mrs.
+Trimmer how to fasten that when they had gone, and had given her
+a boatswain's whistle, which she might blow out of the window if
+there should be a sudden croup and it should be necessary for any
+one to go anywhere.  He was sure he could hear it, for the wind
+was exactly right for him to hear a whistle from his house.  When
+they had gone Mrs. Trimmer put the little girl to bed, and was
+delighted to find in what a wonderfully neat and womanlike
+fashion that house was kept.
+    
+It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when Captain Eli,
+sleeping in his bunk opposite that of Captain Cephas, was aroused
+by hearing a sound.  He had been lying with his best ear
+uppermost, so that he should hear anything if there happened to
+be anything to hear.  He did hear something, but it was not a
+boatswain's whistle; it was a prolonged cry, and it seemed to
+come from the sea.
+    
+In a moment Captain Eli was sitting on the side of his bunk,
+listening intently.  Again came the cry.  The window toward the
+sea was slightly open, and he heard it plainly.
+    
+"Cap'n! " said he, and at the word Captain Cephas was sitting
+on the side of his bunk, listening.  He knew from his companion's
+attitude, plainly visible in the light of a lantern which hung on
+a hook at the other end of the room, that he had been awakened to
+listen.  Again came the cry.
+    
+"That's distress at sea," said Captain Cephas.  "Harken!"
+    
+They listened again for nearly a minute, when the cry was
+repeated.
+    
+"Bounce on deck, boys!" said Captain Cephas, getting out on
+the floor.  "There's some one in distress off shore."
+    
+Captain Eli jumped to the floor, and began to dress quickly.
+    
+"It couldn't be a call from land?" he asked hurriedly.  "It
+don't sound a bit to you like a boatswain's whistle, does it?"
+    
+"No," said Captain Cephas, disdainfully.  "It's a call from
+sea."  Then, seizing a lantern, he rushed down the companionway.
+    
+As soon as he was convinced that it was a call from sea,
+Captain Eli was one in feeling and action with Captain Cephas. 
+The latter hastily opened the draughts of the kitchen stove, and
+put on some wood, and by the time this was done Captain Eli had
+the kettle filled and on the stove.  Then they clapped on their
+caps and their pea-jackets, each took an oar from a corner in the
+back hall, and together they ran down to the beach.
+    
+The night was dark, but not very cold, and Captain Cephas had
+been to the store that morning in his boat.
+    
+Whenever he went to the store, and the weather permitted, he
+rowed there in his boat rather than walk.  At the bow of the
+boat, which was now drawn up on the sand, the two men stood and
+listened.  Again came the cry from the sea.
+    
+"It's something ashore on the Turtle-back Shoal," said
+Captain Cephas.
+    
+"Yes," said Captain Eli, "and it's some small craft, fer that
+cry is down pretty nigh to the water."
+    
+"Yes," said Captain Cephas.  "And there's only one man
+aboard, or else they'd take turns a-hollerin'."
+    
+"He's a stranger," said Captain Eli, "or he wouldn't have
+tried, even with a cat-boat, to get in over that shoal on ebb-
+tide."
+    
+As they spoke they ran the boat out into the water and jumped
+in, each with an oar.  Then they pulled for the Turtle-back
+Shoal.
+    
+Although these two captains were men of fifty or thereabout,
+they were as strong and tough as any young fellows in the
+village, and they pulled with steady strokes, and sent the heavy
+boat skimming over the water, not in a straight line toward the
+Turtle-back Shoal, but now a few points in the darkness this
+way, and now a few points in the darkness that way, then with a
+great curve to the south through the dark night, keeping always
+near the middle of the only good channel out of the bay when the
+tide was ebbing.
+    
+Now the cries from seaward had ceased, but the two captains
+were not discouraged.
+    
+"He's heard the thumpin' of our oars," said Captain Cephas.
+    
+"He's listenin', and he'll sing out again if he thinks we're
+goin' wrong," said Captain Eli.  "Of course he doesn't know
+anything about that."
+    
+And so when they made the sweep to the south the cry came
+again, and Captain Eli grinned.  "We needn't to spend no breath
+hollerin'," said he.  "He'll hear us makin' fer him in a minute."
+    
+When they came to head for the shoal they lay on their oars
+for a moment, while Captain Cephas turned the lantern in the bow,
+so that its light shone out ahead.  He had not wanted the
+shipwrecked person to see the light when it would seem as if the
+boat were rowing away from him.  He had heard of castaway people
+who became so wild when they imagined that a ship or boat was
+going away from them that they jumped overboard.
+    
+When the two captains reached the shoal, they found there a
+cat-boat aground, with one man aboard.  His tale was quickly
+told.  He had expected to run into the little bay that afternoon,
+but the wind had fallen, and in trying to get in after dark, and
+being a stranger, he had run aground.  If he had not been so
+cold, he said, he would have been willing to stay there till the
+tide rose; but he was getting chilled, and seeing a light not
+far away, he concluded to call for help as long as his voice held
+out.
+    
+The two captains did not ask many questions.  They helped
+anchor the cat-boat, and then they took the man on their boat and
+rowed him to shore.  He was getting chilled sitting out there
+doing nothing, and so when they reached the house they made him
+some hot grog, and promised in the morning, when the tide rose,
+they would go out and help him bring his boat in.  Then Captain
+Cephas showed the stranger to a bunk, and they all went to bed. 
+Such experiences had not enough of novelty to the good captains
+to keep them awake five minutes.
+    
+In the morning they were all up very early, and the stranger,
+who proved to be a seafaring man with bright blue eyes, said
+that, as his cat-boat seemed to be riding all right at its
+anchorage, he did not care to go out after her just yet.  Any
+time during flood-tide would do for him, and he had some business
+that he wanted to attend to as soon as possible.
+    
+This suited the two captains very well, for they wished to be
+on hand when the little girl discovered her stocking.
+    
+"Can you tell me," said the stranger, as he put on his cap,
+"where I can find a Mrs. Trimmer, who lives in this village?"
+    
+At these words all the sturdy stiffness which, from his youth
+up, had characterized the legs of Captain Eli entirely went out
+of them, and he sat suddenly upon a bench.  For a few moments
+there was silence.
+    
+Then Captain Cephas, who thought some answer should be made
+to the question, nodded his head.
+    
+"I want to see her as soon as I can," said the stranger.  "I have
+come to see her on particular business that will be a surprise to
+her.  I wanted to be here before Christmas began, and that's the
+reason I took that cat-boat from Stetford, because I thought I'd
+come quicker that way than by land.  But the wind fell, as I told
+you.  If either one of you would be good enough to pilot me to
+where Mrs. Trimmer lives, or to any point where I can get a sight
+of the place, I'd be obliged."
+    
+Captain Eli rose and with hurried but unsteady steps went
+into the house (for they had been upon the little piazza), and
+beckoned to his friend to follow.  The two men stood in the
+kitchen and looked at each other.  The face of Captain Eli was of
+the hue of a clam-shell.
+    
+"Go with him, cap'n," he said in a hoarse whisper.  "I can't
+do it."
+    
+"To your house?" inquired the other.
+    
+"Of course.  Take him to my house.  There ain't no other
+place where she is.  Take him along."
+    
+Captain Cephas's countenance wore an air of the deepest 
+concern, but he thought that the best thing to do was to 
+get the stranger away.
+   
+ As they walked rapidly toward Captain Eli's house there was
+very little said by either Captain Cephas or the stranger.  The
+latter seemed anxious to give Mrs. Trimmer a surprise, and not to
+say anything which might enable another person to interfere with
+his project.
+    
+The two men had scarcely stepped upon the piazza when Mrs.
+Trimmer, who had been expecting early visitors, opened the door. 
+She was about to call out "Merry Christmas!" but, her eyes
+falling upon a stranger, the words stopped at her lips. 
+First she turned red, then she turned pale, and Captain Cephas
+thought she was about to fall.  But before she could do this the
+stranger had her in his arms.  She opened her eyes, which for a
+moment she had closed, and, gazing into his face, she put her
+arms around his neck.  Then Captain Cephas came away, without
+thinking of the little girl and the pleasure she would have in
+discovering her Christmas stocking.
+    
+When he had been left alone, Captain Eli sat down near the
+kitchen stove, close to the very kettle which he had filled with
+water to heat for the benefit of the man he had helped bring in
+from the sea, and, with his elbows on his knees and his fingers
+in his hair, he darkly pondered.
+    
+"If I'd only slept with my hard-o'-hearin' ear up," he said
+to himself, "I'd never have heard it."
+    
+In a few moments his better nature condemned this thought.
+    
+"That's next to murder," he muttered, "fer he couldn't have
+kept himself from fallin' asleep out there in the cold, and when
+the tide riz held have been blowed out to sea with this wind.  If
+I hadn't heard him, Captain Cephas never would, fer he wasn't
+primed up to wake, as I was."
+    
+But, notwithstanding his better nature, Captain Eli was again
+saying to himself, when his friend returned, "If I'd only slept
+with my other ear up!"
+    
+Like the honest, straightforward mariner he was, Captain
+Cephas made an exact report of the facts.  "They was huggin' when
+I left them," he said, "and I expect they went indoors pretty
+soon, fer it was too cold outside.  It's an all-fired shame she
+happened to be in your house, cap'n, that's all I've got to
+say about it. It's a thunderin' shame."
+   
+Captain Eli made no answer.  He still sat with his elbows on
+his knees and his hands in his hair.
+    
+"A better course than you laid down fer these Christmas times
+was never dotted on a chart," continued Captain Cephas.  "From
+port of sailin' to port of entry you laid it down clear and fine.
+But it seems there was rocks that wasn't marked on the chart."
+    
+"Yes," groaned Captain Eli, "there was rocks."
+    
+Captain Cephas made no attempt to comfort his friend, but
+went to work to get breakfast.
+    
+When that meal--a rather silent one--was over, Captain Eli
+felt better.  "There was rocks," he said, "and not a breaker to
+show where they lay, and I struck 'em bow on.  So that's the end
+of that voyage.  But I've tuk to my boats, cap'n, I've tuk to my
+boats."
+    
+"I'm glad to hear you've tuk to your boats," said Captain
+Cephas, with an approving glance upon his friend.
+    
+About ten minutes afterwards Captain Eli said, "I'm goin' up
+to my house."
+    
+"By yourself?" said the other.
+    
+"Yes, by myself.  I'd rather go alone.  I don't intend to
+mind anything, and I'm goin' to tell her that she can stay there
+and spend Christmas,--the place she lives in ain't no place to
+spend Christmas,--and she can make the little gal have a good
+time, and go 'long just as we intended to go 'long--plum-duff and
+mince-pie all the same.  I can stay here, and you and me can have
+our Christmas dinner together, if we choose to give it that name.
+
+And if she ain't ready to go to-morrow, she can stay a day or
+two longer.  It's all the same to me, if it's the same to you,
+cap'n."
+    
+Captain Cephas having said that it was the same to him,
+Captain Eli put on his cap and buttoned up his pea-jacket,
+declaring that the sooner he got to his house the better, as she
+might be thinking that she would have to move out of it now that
+things were different.
+    
+Before Captain Eli reached his house he saw something which
+pleased him.  He saw the sea-going stranger, with his back toward
+him, walking rapidly in the direction of the village store.
+    
+Captain Eli quickly entered his house, and in the doorway of
+the room where the tree was he met Mrs. Trimmer, beaming brighter
+than any morning sun that ever rose.
+    
+"Merry Christmas!" she exclaimed, holding out both her hands.  
+"I've been wondering and wondering when you'd come to bid me
+`Merry Christmas'--the merriest Christmas I've ever had."
+    
+Captain Eli took her hands and bid her "Merry Christmas" very
+gravely.
+    
+She looked a little surprised.  "What's the matter, Captain Eli?"
+she exclaimed.  "You don't seem to say that as if you meant it."
+    
+"Oh, yes, I do," he answered.  "This must be an all-fired--I
+mean a thunderin' happy Christmas fer you, Mrs. Trimmer."
+    
+"Yes," said she, her face beaming again.  "And to think that
+it should happen on Christmas day--that this blessed morning,
+before anything else happened, my Bob, my only brother, should--"
+    
+"Your what!" roared Captain Eli, as if he had been shouting
+orders in a raging storm.
+    
+Mrs. Trimmer stepped back almost frightened.  "My brother,"
+said she.  "Didn't he tell you he was my brother--my brother Bob,
+who sailed away a year before I was married, and who has been in
+Africa and China and I don't know where?  It's so long since I
+heard that he'd gone into trading at Singapore that I'd given him
+up as married and settled in foreign parts.  And here he has come
+to me as if he'd tumbled from the sky on this blessed Christmas
+morning."
+    
+Captain Eli made a step forward, his face very much flushed.
+    
+"Your brother, Mrs. Trimmer--did you really say it was your
+brother?"
+    
+"Of course it is," said she.  "Who else could it be?"  Then
+she paused for a moment and looked steadfastly at the captain.
+    
+"You don't mean to say, Captain Eli," she asked, "that you
+thought it was--"
+    
+"Yes, I did," said Captain Eli, promptly.
+    
+Mrs. Trimmer looked straight in the captain's eyes, then she
+looked on the ground.  Then she changed color and changed back
+again.
+    
+"I don't understand," she said hesitatingly, "why--I mean what
+difference it made."
+    
+"Difference!" exclaimed Captain Eli.  "It was all the
+difference between a man on deck and a man overboard--that's the
+difference it was to me.  I didn't expect to be talkin' to you so
+early this Christmas mornin', but things has been sprung on me,
+and I can't help it I just want to ask you one thing:  Did you
+think I was gettin' up this Christmas tree and the Christmas
+dinner and the whole business fer the good of the little gal, and
+fer the good of you, and fer the good of Captain Cephas?"
+    
+Mrs. Trimmer had now recovered a very fair possession of
+herself.  "Of course I did," she answered, looking up at him as
+she spoke.  "Who else could it have been for!"
+    
+"Well," said he, "you were mistaken.  It wasn't fer any one
+of you.  It was all fer me--fer my own self."
+    
+"You yourself?" said she.  "I don't see how."
+    
+"But I see how," he answered.  "It's been a long time since I
+wanted to speak my mind to you, Mrs. Trimmer, but I didn't ever
+have no chance.  And all these Christmas doin's was got up to
+give me the chance not only of speakin' to you, but of showin' my
+colors better than I could show them in any other way. 
+Everything went on a-skimmin' till this mornin', when that
+stranger that we brought in from the shoal piped up and asked fer
+you.  Then I went overboard--at least, I thought I did--and sunk
+down, down, clean out of soundin's."
+    
+"That was too bad, captain," said she, speaking very gently,
+"after all your trouble and kindness."
+    
+"But I don't know now," he continued, "whether I went
+overboard or whether I am on deck.  Can you tell me, Mrs.
+Trimmer?"
+    
+She looked up at him.  Her eyes were very soft, and her lips
+trembled just a little.  "It seems to me, captain," she said,
+"that you are on deck--if you want to be."
+    
+The captain stepped closer to her.  "Mrs. Trimmer," said he,
+"is that brother of yours comin' back?"
+    
+"Yes," she answered, surprised at the sudden question.  "He's
+just gone up to the store to buy a shirt and some things.  He got
+himself splashed trying to push his boat off last night."
+    
+"Well, then," said Captain Eli, "would you mind tellin' him
+when he comes back that you and me's engaged to be married?  I
+don't know whether I've made a mistake in the lights or not, but
+would you mind tellin' him that?"
+    
+Mrs. Trimmer looked at him.  Her eyes were not so soft as
+they had been, but they were brighter.  "I'd rather you'd tell
+him that yourself," said she.
+    
+The little girl sat on the floor near the Christmas tree,
+just finishing a large piece of red-and-white candy which she had
+taken out of her stocking.  "People do hug a lot at Christmas-
+time," said she to herself.  Then she drew out a piece of blue-
+and-white candy and began on that.
+    
+Captain Cephas waited a long time for his friend to return,
+and at last he thought it would be well to go and look for him. 
+When he entered the house he found Mrs. Trimmer sitting on the
+sofa in the parlor, with Captain Eli on one side of her and her
+brother on the other, and each of them holding one of her hands.
+    
+"It looks as if I was in port, don't it?" said Captain Eli to
+his astonished friend.  "Well, here I am, and here's my fust
+mate," inclining his head toward Mrs. Trimmer.  "And she's in
+port too, safe and sound.  And that strange captain on the other
+side of her, he's her brother Bob, who's been away for years and
+years, and is just home from Madagascar."
+    
+"Singapore," amended Brother Bob.
+    
+Captain Cephas looked from one to the other of the three
+occupants of the sofa, but made no immediate remark.  Presently a
+smile of genial maliciousness stole over his face, and he asked,
+"How about the poor little gal?  Have you sent her back to Mrs.
+Crumley's?"
+    
+The little girl came out from behind the Christmas tree, her
+stocking, now but half filled, in her hand.  "Here I am," she
+said.  "Don't you want to give me a Christmas hug, Captain
+Cephas?  You and me's the only ones that hasn't had any."
+    
+The Christmas dinner was as truly and perfectly a sailor-
+cooked meal as ever was served on board a ship or off it. 
+Captain Cephas had said that, and when he had so spoken there was
+no need of further words.
+    
+It was nearly dark that afternoon, and they were all sitting
+around the kitchen fire, the three seafaring men smoking, and
+Mrs. Trimmer greatly enjoying it.  There could be no objection to
+the smell of tobacco in this house so long as its future mistress
+enjoyed it.  The little girl sat on the floor nursing a Chinese
+idol which had been one of her presents.
+    
+"After all," said Captain Eli, meditatively, "this whole
+business come out of my sleepin' with my best ear up.  Fer if I'd
+slept with my hard-o'-hearin' ear up--"  Mrs. Trimmer put one
+finger on his lips.  "All right," said Captain Eli, "I won't say
+no more.  But it would have been different."
+    
+Even now, several years after that Christmas, when there is
+no Mrs. Trimmer, and the little girl, who has been regularly
+adopted by Captain Eli and his wife, is studying geography, and
+knows more about latitude and longitude than her teacher at
+school, Captain Eli has still a slight superstitious dread of
+sleeping with his best ear uppermost.
+    
+"Of course it's the most all-fired nonsense," he says to
+himself over and over again.  Nevertheless, he feels safer when
+it is his "hard-o'-hearin' ear" that is not upon the pillow.
+
+
+
+
+                           LOVE BEFORE BREAKFAST
+
+I was still a young man when I came into the possession of an
+excellent estate.  This consisted of a large country house,
+surrounded by lawns, groves, and gardens, and situated not far
+from the flourishing little town of Boynton.  Being an orphan
+with no brothers or sisters, I set up here a bachelor's hall, in
+which, for two years, I lived with great satisfaction and
+comfort, improving my grounds and furnishing my house.  When I
+had made all the improvements which were really needed, and
+feeling that I now had a most delightful home to come back to, I
+thought it would be an excellent thing to take a trip to Europe,
+give my mind a run in fresh fields, and pick up a lot of bric-a-
+brac and ideas for the adornment and advantage of my house and
+mind.
+    
+It was the custom of the residents in my neighborhood who
+owned houses and travelled in the summer to let their houses
+during their absence, and my business agent and myself agreed
+that this would be an excellent thing for me to do.  If the house
+were let to a suitable family it would yield me a considerable
+income, and the place would not present on my return that air of
+retrogression and desolation which I might expect if it were
+left unoccupied and in charge of a caretaker.
+    
+My agent assured me that I would have no trouble whatever in
+letting my place, for it offered many advantages and I expected
+but a reasonable rent.  I desired to leave everything just as it
+stood, house, furniture, books, horses, cows, and poultry, taking
+with me only my clothes and personal requisites, and I desired
+tenants who would come in bringing only their clothes and
+personal requisites, which they could quietly take away with them
+when their lease should expire and I should return home.
+    
+In spite, however, of the assurances of the agent, it was not
+easy to let my place.  The house was too large for some people,
+too small for others, and while some applicants had more horses
+than I had stalls in my stable, others did not want even the
+horses I would leave.  I had engaged my steamer passage, and the
+day for my departure drew near, and yet no suitable tenants had
+presented themselves.  I had almost come to the conclusion that
+the whole matter would have to be left in the hands of my agent,
+for I had no intention whatever of giving up my projected
+travels, when early one afternoon some people came to look at the
+house.  Fortunately I was at home, and I gave myself the pleasure
+of personally conducting them about the premises.  It was a
+pleasure, because as soon as I comprehended the fact that these
+applicants desired to rent my house I wished them to have it.
+    
+The family consisted of an elderly gentleman and his wife,
+with a daughter of twenty or thereabout.  This was a family that
+suited me exactly.  Three in number, no children, people of
+intelligence and position, fond of the country, and anxious for
+just such a place as I offered them--what could be better?
+    
+The more I walked about and talked with these good people and
+showed them my possessions, the more I desired that the young
+lady should take my house.  Of course her parents were included
+in this wish, but it was for her ears that all my remarks were
+intended, although sometimes addressed to the others, and she was
+the tenant I labored to obtain.  I say "labored" advisedly,
+because I racked my brain to think of inducements which might
+bring them to a speedy and favorable decision.
+    
+Apart from the obvious advantages of the arrangement, it
+would be a positive delight to me during my summer wanderings in
+Europe to think that that beautiful girl would be strolling
+through my grounds, enjoying my flowers, and sitting with her
+book in the shady nooks I had made so pleasant, lying in my
+hammocks, spending her evening hours in my study, reading my
+books, writing at my desk, and perhaps musing in my easy-chair. 
+Before these applicants appeared it had sometimes pained me to
+imagine strangers in my home; but no such thought crossed my mind
+in regard to this young lady, who, if charming in the house and
+on the lawn, grew positively entrancing when she saw my Jersey
+cows and my two horses, regarding them with an admiration which
+even surpassed my own.
+    
+Long before we had completed the tour of inspection I had
+made up my mind that this young lady should come to live in my
+house.  If obstacles should show themselves they should be
+removed.  I would tear down, I would build, I would paper and
+paint, I would put in all sorts of electric bells, I would reduce
+the rent until it suited their notions exactly, I would have my
+horses' tails banged if she liked that kind of tails better than
+long ones--I would do anything to make them definitely decide to
+take the place before they left me.  I trembled to think of her
+going elsewhere and giving other householders a chance to tempt
+her.  She had looked at a good many country houses, but it was
+quite plain that none of them had pleased her so well as mine.
+    
+I left them in my library to talk the matter over by
+themselves, and in less than ten minutes the young lady herself
+came out on the lawn to tell me that her father and mother had
+decided to take the place and would like to speak with me.
+    
+"I am so glad," she said as we went in.  "I am sure I shall
+enjoy every hour of our stay here.  It is so different from
+anything we have yet seen."
+    
+When everything had been settled I wanted to take them again
+over the place and point out a lot of things I had omitted.  I
+particularly wanted to show them some lovely walks in the woods. 
+But there was no time, for they had to catch a train.
+    
+Her name was Vincent--Cora Vincent, as I discovered from her
+mother's remarks.
+    
+As soon as they departed I had my mare saddled and rode into
+town to see my agent.  I went into his office exultant.
+    
+"I've let my house," I said, "and I want you to make out the
+lease and have everything fixed and settled as soon as possible. 
+This is the address of my tenants."
+    
+The agent asked me a good many questions, being particularly
+anxious to know what rent had been agreed upon.
+    
+"Heavens!" he exclaimed, when I mentioned the sum, "that is
+ever so much less than I told you you could get.  I am in
+communication now with a party whom I know would pay you
+considerably more than these people.  Have you definitely settled
+with them?  Perhaps it is not too late to withdraw."
+    
+"Withdraw!" I cried.  "Never!  They are the only tenants I
+want.  I was determined to get them, and I think I must have
+lowered the rent four or five times in the course of the
+afternoon.  I took a big slice out of it before I mentioned the
+sum at all.  You see," said I, very impressively, "these Vincents
+exactly suit me."  And then I went on to state fully the
+advantages of the arrangement, omitting, however, any references
+to my visions of Miss Vincent swinging in my hammocks or musing
+in my study-chair.
+    
+It was now May 15, and my steamer would sail on the twenty-
+first.  The intervening days I employed, not in preparing for my
+travels, but in making every possible arrangement for the comfort
+and convenience of my incoming tenants.  The Vincents did not
+wish to take possession until June 1, and I was sorry they had
+not applied before I had engaged my passage, for in that case I
+would have selected a later date.  A very good steamer sailed on
+June 3, and it would have suited me just as well.
+    
+Happening to be in New York one day, I went to the Vincents'
+city residence to consult with them in regard to some awnings
+which I proposed putting up at the back of the house.  I found no
+one at home but the old gentleman, and it made no difference
+to him whether the awnings were black and brown or red and
+yellow.  I cordially invited him to come out before I left, and
+bring his family, that they might look about the place to see if
+there was anything they would like to have done which had not
+already been attended to.  It was so much better, I told him, to
+talk over these matters personally with the owner than with an
+agent in his absence.  Agents were often very unwilling to make
+changes.  Mr. Vincent was a very quiet and exceedingly pleasant
+elderly gentleman, and thanked me very much for my invitation,
+but said he did not see how he could find the time to get out to
+my house before I sailed.  I did not like to say that it was not
+at all necessary for him to neglect his affairs in order to
+accompany his family to my place, but I assured him that if any
+of them wished to go out at any time before they took possession
+they must feel at perfect liberty to do so.
+    
+I mentioned this matter to my agent, suggesting that if he
+happened to be in New York he might call on the Vincents and
+repeat my invitation.  It was not likely that the old gentleman
+would remember to mention it to his wife and daughter, and it was
+really important that everything should be made satisfactory
+before I left.
+    
+"It seems to me," he said, smiling a little grimly, "that the
+Vincents had better be kept away from your house until you have
+gone.  If you do anything more to it you may find out that it
+would have been more profitable to have shut it up while you are
+away."
+    
+He did call, however, partly because I wished him to and
+partly because he was curious to see the people  I was so
+anxious to install in my home, and to whom he was to be my legal
+representative.  He reported the next day that he had found no
+one at home but Miss Vincent, and that she had said that she and
+her mother would be very glad to come out the next week and go
+over the place before they took possession.
+    
+"Next week!" I exclaimed.  "I shall be gone then!"
+    
+"But I shall be here," said Mr. Barker, "and I'll show them
+about and take their suggestions."
+    
+This did not suit me at all.  It annoyed me very much to
+think of Barker showing Miss Vincent about my place.  He was a
+good-looking young man and not at all backward in his manners.
+    
+"After all," said I, "I suppose that everything that ought to
+be done has been done.  I hope you told her that."
+    
+"Of course not," said he.  "That would have been running dead
+against your orders.  Besides, it's my business to show people
+about places.  I don't mind it."
+    
+This gave me an unpleasant and uneasy feeling.  I wondered if
+Mr. Barker were the agent I ought to have, and if a middle-aged
+man with a family and more experience might not be better able to
+manage my affairs.
+    
+"Barker," said I, a little later, "there will be no use of
+your going every month to the Vincents to collect their rent.  I
+shall write to Mr. Vincent to pay as he pleases.  He can send a
+check monthly or at the end of the season, as it may be
+convenient.  He is perfectly responsible, and I would much prefer
+to have the money in a lump when I come back."
+    
+Barker grinned.  "All right," said he, "but that's not the
+way to do business, you know."
+    
+I may have been mistaken, but I fancied that I saw in my
+agent's face an expression which indicated that he intended to
+call on the first day of each month, on the pretext of telling
+Vincent that it was not necessary to pay the rent at any
+particular time, and that he also proposed to make many other
+intervening visits to inquire if repairs were needed.  This might
+have been a good deal to get out of his expression, but I think I
+could have got more if I had thought longer.
+    
+On the day before that on which I was to sail, my mind was in
+such a disturbed condition that I could not attend to my packing
+or anything else.  It almost enraged me to think that I was
+deliberately leaving the country ten days before my tenants would
+come to my house.  There was no reason why I should do this. 
+There were many reasons why I should not.  There was Barker.  I
+was now of the opinion that he would personally superintend the
+removal of the Vincents and their establishment to my home.  I
+remembered that the only suggestion he had made about the
+improvement of the place had been the construction of a tennis-
+court.  I knew that he was a champion player.  Confound it!  What
+a dreadful mistake I had made in selecting such a man for my
+house-agent.  With my mind's eye I could already see Miss Vincent
+and Barker selecting a spot for tennis and planning the
+arrangements of the court.
+    
+I took the first train to New York and went directly to the
+steamboat office.  It is astonishing how many obstacles can be
+removed from a man's path if he will make up his mind to
+give them a good kick.  I found that my steamer was crowded.  The
+applications for passage exceeded the accommodations, and the
+agent was delighted to transfer me to the steamer that sailed on
+June 3.  I went home exultant.  Barker drove over in the evening
+to take his last instructions, and a blank look came over his
+face when I told him that business had delayed my departure, and
+that I should not sail the next day.  If I had told him that part
+of that business was the laying out of a tennis-court he might
+have looked blanker.
+    
+Of course the date of my departure did not concern the
+Vincents, provided the house was vacated by June 1, and I did not
+inform them of the change in my plans, but when the mother and
+daughter came out the next week they were much surprised to find
+me waiting to receive them instead of Barker.  I hope that they
+were also pleased, and I am sure that they had every reason to be
+so.  Mrs. Vincent, having discovered that I was a most complacent
+landlord, accommodated herself easily to my disposition and made
+a number of minor requirements, all of which I granted without
+the slightest hesitation.  I was delighted at last to put her
+into the charge of my housekeeper, and when the two had betaken
+themselves to the bedrooms I invited Miss Vincent to come out
+with me to select a spot for a tennis-court.  The invitation was
+accepted with alacrity, for tennis, she declared, was a passion
+with her.
+    
+The selection of that tennis-court took nearly an hour, for
+there were several good places for one and it was hard to make a
+selection; besides, I could not lose the opportunity of taking
+Miss Vincent into the woods and showing her the walks I had
+made and the rustic seats I had placed in pleasant nooks.  Of
+course she would have discovered these, but it was a great deal
+better for her to know all about them before she came.  At last
+Mrs. Vincent sent a maid to tell her daughter that it was time to
+go for the train, and the court had not been definitely planned.
+    
+The next day I went to Miss Vincent's house with a plan of
+the grounds, and she and I talked it over until the matter was
+settled.  It was necessary to be prompt about this, I explained,
+as there would be a great deal of levelling and rolling to be
+done.
+    
+I also had a talk with the old gentleman about books.  There
+were several large boxes of my books in New York which I had
+never sent out to my country house.  Many of these I thought
+might be interesting to him, and I offered to have them taken out
+and left at his disposal.  When he heard the titles of some of
+the books in the collection he was much interested, but insisted
+that before he made use of them they should be catalogued, as
+were the rest of my effects.  I hesitated a moment, wondering if
+I could induce Barker to come to New York and catalogue four big
+boxes of books, when, to my surprise, Miss Vincent incidentally
+remarked that if they were in any place where she could get at
+them she would be pleased to help catalogue them; that sort of
+thing was a great pleasure to her.  Instantly I proposed that I
+should send the books to the Vincent house, that they should
+there be taken out so that Mr. Vincent could select those he
+might care to read during the summer, that I would make a list of
+these, and if Vincent would assist me I would be grateful
+for the kindness, and those that were not desired could be
+returned to the storehouse.
+    
+What a grand idea was this!  I had been internally groaning
+because I could think of no possible pretence, for further
+interviews with Miss Vincent, and here was something better than
+I could have imagined.  Her father declared that he could not put
+me to so much trouble, but I would listen to none of his words,
+and the next morning my books were spread over his library floor.
+    
+The selection and cataloguing of the volumes desired occupied
+the mornings of three days.  The old gentleman's part was soon
+done, but there were many things in the books which were far more
+interesting to me than their titles, and to which I desired to
+draw Miss Vincent's attention.  All this greatly protracted our
+labors.  She was not only a beautiful girl, but her intelligence
+and intellectual grasp were wonderful.  I could not help telling
+her what a great pleasure it would be to me to think, while
+wandering in foreign lands, that such an appreciative family
+would be enjoying my books and my place.
+    
+"You are so fond of your house and everything you have," said
+she, "that we shall almost feel as if we were depriving you of
+your rights.  But I suppose that Italian lakes and the Alps will
+make you forget for a time even your beautiful home."
+    
+"Not if you are in it," I longed to say, but I restrained
+myself.  I did not believe that it was possible for me to be more
+in love with this girl than I was at that moment, but, of course,
+it would be the rankest stupidity to tell her so.  To her I was
+simply her father's landlord.
+   
+ I went to that house the next day to see that the boxes were
+properly repacked, and I actually went the next day to see if the
+right boxes had gone into the country, and the others back to the
+storehouse.  The first day I saw only the father.  The second day
+it was the mother who assured me that everything had been
+properly attended to.  I began to feel that if I did not wish a
+decided rebuff I would better not make any more pretences of
+business at the Vincent house.
+    
+There were affairs of my own which should have been attended
+to, and I ought to have gone home and attended to them, but I
+could not bear to do so.  There was no reason to suppose she
+would go out there before the first of June.
+    
+Thinking over the matter many times, I came to the conclusion
+that if I could see her once more I would be satisfied.  Then I
+would go away, and carry her image with me into every art-
+gallery, over every glacier, and under every lovely sky that I
+should enjoy abroad, hoping all the time that, taking my place,
+as it were, in my home, and making my possessions, in a measure,
+her own, she would indirectly become so well acquainted with me
+that when I returned I might speak to her without shocking her.
+    
+To obtain this final interview there was but one way.  I had
+left my house on Saturday, the Vincents would come on the
+following Monday, and I would sail on Wednesday.  I would go on
+Tuesday to inquire if they found everything to their
+satisfaction.  This would be a very proper attention from a
+landlord about to leave the country.
+    
+When I reached Boynton I determined to walk to my house,
+for I did not wish to encumber myself with a hired vehicle.  I
+might be asked to stay to luncheon.  A very strange feeling came
+over me as I entered my grounds.  They were not mine.  For the
+time being they belonged to somebody else.  I was merely a
+visitor or a trespasser if the Vincents thought proper so to
+consider me.  If they did not like people to walk on the grass I
+had no right to do it.
+    
+None of my servants had been left on the place, and the maid
+who came to the door informed me that Mr. Vincent had gone to New
+York that morning, and that Mrs. Vincent and her daughter were
+out driving.  I ventured to ask if she thought they would soon
+return, and she answered that she did not think they would, as
+they had gone to Rock Lake, which, from the way they talked about
+it, must be a long way off.
+    
+Rock Lake!  When I had driven over there with my friends, we
+had taken luncheon at the inn and returned in the afternoon.  And
+what did they know of Rock Lake?  Who had told them of it?  That
+officious Barker, of course.
+    
+"Will you leave a message, sir?" said the maid, who, of
+course, did not know me.
+    
+"No," said I, and as I still stood gazing at the piazza
+floor, she remarked that if I wished to call again she would go
+out and speak to the coachman and ask him if anything had been
+said to him about the time of the party's return.
+    
+Worse and worse!  Their coachman had not driven them!  Some
+one who knew the country had been their companion.  They were not
+acquainted in the neighborhood, and there could not be a shadow
+of a doubt that it was that obtrusive Barker who had
+indecently thrust himself upon them on the very next day
+after their arrival, and had thus snatched from me this last
+interview upon which I had counted so earnestly.
+    
+I had no right to ask any more questions.  I left no message
+nor any name, and I had no excuse for saying I would call again.
+    
+I got back to my hotel without having met any one whom I
+knew, and that night I received a note from Barker, stating that
+he had fully intended coming to the steamer to see me off, but
+that an engagement would prevent him.  He sent, however, his best
+good wishes for my safe passage, and assured me that he would
+keep me fully informed of the state of my affairs on this side.
+    
+"Engagement!" I exclaimed.  "Is he going to drive with her
+again to-morrow?"
+   
+My steamer sailed at two o'clock the next day, and after an
+early breakfast I went to the company's office to see if I could
+dispose of my ticket.  It had become impossible, I told the
+agent, for me to leave America at present.  He said it was a very
+late hour to sell my ticket, but that he would do what he could,
+and if an applicant turned up he would give him my room and
+refund the money.  He wanted me to change to another date, but I
+declined to do this.  I was not able to say when I should sail.
+    
+I now had no plan of action.  All I knew was that I could not
+leave America without finding out something definite about this
+Barker business.  That is to say, if it should be made known to
+me that instead of attending to my business, sending a carpenter
+to make repairs, if such were necessary, or going personally to
+the plumber to make sure that that erratic personage would give
+his attention to any pipes in regard to which Mr. Vincent might
+have written, Barker should mingle in sociable relations with my
+tenants, and drive or play tennis with the young lady of the
+house, then would I immediately have done with him.  I would
+withdraw my business from his hands and place it in those of old
+Mr. Poindexter.  More than that, it might be my duty to warn Miss
+Vincent's parents against Barker.  I did not doubt that he was a
+very good house and land-agent, but in selecting him as such I
+had no idea of introducing him to the Vincents in a social way. 
+In fact, the more I thought about it the more I became convinced
+that if ever I mentioned Barker to my tenants it would be to warn
+them against him.  From certain points of view he was actually a
+dangerous man.
+    
+This, however, I would not do until I found my agent was
+really culpable.  To discover what Barker had done, what he was
+doing, and what he intended to do, was now my only business in
+life.  Until I had satisfied myself on these points I could not
+think of starting out upon my travels.
+    
+Now that I had determined I would not start for Europe until
+I had satisfied myself that Mr. Barker was contenting himself
+with attending to my business, and not endeavoring to force
+himself into social relations with my tenants, I was anxious that
+the postponement of my journey should be unknown to my friends
+and acquaintances, and I was, therefore, very glad to see in a
+newspaper, published on the afternoon of the day of my intended
+departure, my name among the list of passengers who had sailed
+upon the Mnemonic.  For the first time I commended the
+super-enterprise of a reporter who gave more attention to the
+timeliness of his news than to its accuracy.
+    
+I was stopping at a New York hotel, but I did not wish to
+stay there.  Until I felt myself ready to start on my travels the
+neighborhood of Boynton would suit me better than anywhere else. 
+I did not wish to go to the town itself, for Barker lived there,
+and I knew many of the townspeople; but there were farmhouses not
+far away where I might spend a week.  After considering the
+matter, I thought of something that might suit me.  About three
+miles from my house, on an unfrequented road, was a mill which
+stood at the end of an extensive sheet of water, in reality a
+mill-pond, but commonly called a lake.  The miller, an old man,
+had recently died, and his house near by was occupied by a
+newcomer whom I had never seen.  If I could get accommodations
+there it would suit me exactly.  I left the train two stations
+below Boynton and walked over to the mill.
+    
+The country-folk in my neighborhood are always pleased to
+take summer boarders if they can get them, and the miller and his
+wife were glad to give me a room, not imagining that I was the
+owner of a good house not far away.  The place suited my
+requirements very well.  It was near her, and I might live here
+for a time unnoticed, but what I was going to do with my
+opportunity I did not know.  Several times the conviction forced
+itself upon me that I should get up at once and go to Europe by
+the first steamer, and so show myself that I was a man of sense.
+    
+This conviction was banished on the second afternoon of my
+stay at the mill.  I was sitting under a tree in the orchard
+near the house, thinking and smoking my pipe, when along the road
+which ran by the side of the lake came Mr. Vincent on my black
+horse General and his daughter on my mare Sappho.  Instinctively
+I pulled my straw hat over my eyes, but this precaution was not
+necessary.  They were looking at the beautiful lake, with its
+hills and overhanging trees, and saw me not!
+    
+When the very tip of Sappho's tail had melted into the
+foliage of the road, I arose to my feet and took a deep breath of
+the happy air.  I had seen her, and it was with her father she
+was riding.
+    
+I do not believe I slept a minute that night through thinking
+of her, and feeling glad that I was near her, and that she had
+been riding with her father.
+    
+When the early dawn began to break an idea brighter than the
+dawn broke upon me: I would get up and go nearer to her.  It is
+amazing how much we lose by not getting up early on the long
+summer days.  How beautiful the morning might be on this earth I
+never knew until I found myself wandering by the edge of my woods
+and over my lawn with the tender gray-blue sky above me and all
+the freshness of the grass and flowers and trees about me, the
+birds singing among the branches, and she sleeping sweetly
+somewhere within that house with its softly defined lights and
+shadows.  How I wished I knew what room she occupied!
+    
+The beauties and joys of that hour were lost to every person
+on the place, who were all, no doubt, in their soundest sleep.  I
+did not even see a dog.  Quietly and stealthily stepping from
+bush to hedge, I went around the house, and as I drew near the
+barn I fancied I could hear from a little room adjoining it
+the snores of the coachman.  The lazy rascal would probably not
+awaken for two or three hours yet, but I would ran no risks, and
+in half an hour I had sped away.
+    
+Now I knew exactly why I was staying at the house of the
+miller.  I was doing so in order that I might go early in the
+mornings to my own home, in which the girl I loved lay dreaming,
+and that for the rest of the day and much of the night I might
+think of her.
+    
+"What place in Europe," I said to myself, "could be so
+beautiful, so charming, and so helpful to reflection as this
+sequestered lake, these noble trees, these stretches of
+undulating meadow?"
+    
+Even if I should care to go abroad, a month or two later
+would answer all my purposes.  Why had I ever thought of spending
+five months away?
+    
+There was a pretty stream which ran from the lake and wended
+its way through a green and shaded valley, and here, with a rod,
+I wandered and fished and thought.  The miller had boats, and in
+one of these I rowed far up the lake where it narrowed into a
+creek, and between the high hills which shut me out from the
+world I would float and think.
+    
+Every morning, soon after break of day, I went to my home and
+wandered about my grounds.  If it rained I did not mind that.  I
+like a summer rain.
+    
+Day by day I grew bolder.  Nobody in that household thought
+of getting up until seven o'clock.  For two hours, at least, I
+could ramble undisturbed through my grounds, and much as I had
+once enjoyed these grounds, they never afforded me the pleasure
+they gave me now.  In these happy mornings I felt all the 
+life and spirits of a boy.  I went into my little field and
+stroked the sleek sides of my cows as they nibbled the dewy
+grass.  I even peeped through the barred window of Sappho's box
+and fed her, as I had been used to doing, with bunches of clover.
+I saw that the young chickens were flourishing.  I went into the
+garden and noted the growth of the vegetables, feeling glad that
+she would have so many fine strawberries and tender peas.
+    
+I had not the slightest doubt that she was fond of flowers,
+and for her sake now, as I used to do for my own sake, I visited
+the flower beds and borders.  Not far from the house there was a
+cluster of old-fashioned pinks which I was sure were not doing
+very well.  They had been there too long, perhaps, and they
+looked stunted and weak.  In the miller's garden I had noticed
+great beds of these pinks, and I asked his wife if I might have
+some, and she, considering them as mere wild flowers, said I
+might have as many as I liked.  She might have thought I wanted
+simply the blossoms, but the next morning I went over to my house
+with a basket filled with great matted masses of the plants taken
+up with the roots and plenty of earth around them, and after
+twenty minutes' work in my own bed of pinks, I had taken out all
+the old plants and filled their places with fresh, luxuriant
+masses of buds and leaves and blossoms.  How glad she would be
+when she saw the fresh life that had come to that flower-bed! 
+With light footsteps I went away, not feeling the weight of the
+basket filled with the old plants and roots.
+    
+The summer grew and strengthened, and the sun rose earlier,
+but as that had no effect upon the rising of the present
+inhabitants of my place, it gave me more time for my morning
+pursuits.  Gradually I constituted myself the regular flower-
+gardener of the premises.  How delightful the work was, and how
+foolish I thought I had been never to think of doing this thing
+for myself! but no doubt it was because I was doing it for her
+that I found it so pleasant.
+    
+Once again I had seen Miss Vincent.  It was in the afternoon,
+and I had rowed myself to the upper part of the lake, where, with
+the high hills and the trees on each side of me, I felt as if I
+were alone in the world.  Floating, idly along, with my thoughts
+about three miles away, I heard the sound of oars, and looking
+out on the open part of the lake, I saw a boat approaching.  The
+miller was rowing, and in the stern sat an elderly gentleman and
+a young lady.  I knew them in an instant: they were Mr. and Miss
+Vincent.
+    
+With a few vigorous strokes I shot myself into the shadows,
+and rowed up the stream into the narrow stretches among the lily-
+pads, under a bridge, and around a little wooded point, where I
+ran the boat ashore and sprang upon the grassy bank.  Although I
+did not believe the miller would bring them as far as this, I
+went up to a higher spot and watched for half an hour; but I did
+not see them again.  How relieved I was!  It would have been
+terribly embarrassing had they discovered me.  And how
+disappointed I was that the miller turned back so soon!
+    
+I now extended the supervision of my grounds.  I walked
+through the woods, and saw how beautiful they were in the early
+dawn.  I threw aside the fallen twigs and cut away encroaching
+saplings, which were beginning to encumber the paths I had made,
+and if I found a bough which hung too low I cut it off. 
+There was a great beech-tree, between which and a dogwood I had
+the year before suspended a hammock.  In passing this, one
+morning, I was amazed to see a hammock swinging from the hooks I
+had put in the two trees.  This was a retreat which I had
+supposed no one else would fancy or even think of!  In the
+hammock was a fan--a common Japanese fan.  For fifteen minutes I
+stood looking at that hammock, every nerve a-tingle.  Then I
+glanced around.  The spot had been almost unfrequented since last
+summer.  Little bushes, weeds, and vines had sprung up here and
+there between the two trees.  There were dead twigs and limbs
+lying about, and the short path to the main walk was much
+overgrown.
+    
+I looked at my watch.  It was a quarter to six.  I had yet a
+good hour for work, and with nothing but my pocket-knife and my
+hands I began to clear away the space about that hammock.  When I
+left it, it looked as it used to look when it was my pleasure to
+lie there and swing and read and reflect.
+    
+To approach this spot it was not necessary to go through my
+grounds, for my bit of woods adjoined a considerable stretch of
+forest-land, and in my morning walks from the mill I often used a
+path through these woods.  The next morning when I took this path
+I was late because I had unfortunately overslept myself.  When I
+reached the hammock it wanted fifteen minutes to seven o'clock. 
+It was too late for me to do anything, but I was glad to be able
+to stay there even for a few minutes, to breathe that air, to
+stand on that ground, to touch that hammock.  I did more than
+that.  Why shouldn't I?  I got into it.  It was a better one 
+than that I had hung there.  It was delightfully comfortable.  At
+this moment, gently swinging in that woodland solitude, with the
+sweet odors of the morning all about me, I felt myself nearer to
+her than I had ever been before.
+    
+But I knew I must not revel in this place too long.  I was on
+the point of rising to leave when I heard approaching footsteps. 
+My breath stopped.  Was I at last to be discovered?  This was
+what came of my reckless security.  But perhaps the person, some
+workman most likely, would pass without noticing me.  To remain
+quiet seemed the best course, and I lay motionless.
+    
+But the person approaching turned into the little pathway. 
+The footsteps came nearer.  I sprang from the hammock.  Before me
+was Miss Vincent!
+    
+What was my aspect I know not, but I have no doubt I turned
+fiery red.  She stopped suddenly, but she did not turn red.
+    
+"Oh, Mr. Ripley," she exclaimed, "good morning!  You must
+excuse me.  I did not know--"
+    
+That she should have had sufficient self-possession to say
+good morning amazed me.  Her whole appearance, in fact, amazed
+me.  There seemed to be something wanting in her manner.  I
+endeavored to get myself into condition.
+    
+"You must be surprised," I said, "to see me here.  You
+supposed I was in Europe, but--"
+    
+As I spoke I made a couple of steps toward her, but suddenly
+stopped.  One of my coat buttons had caught in the meshes of the
+hammock.  It was confoundedly awkward.  I tried to loosen the
+button, but it was badly entangled.  Then I desperately
+pulled at it to tear it off.
+    
+"Oh, don't do that," she said.  "Let me unfasten it for you."
+And taking the threads of the hammock in one of her little hands
+and the button in the other, she quickly separated them.  "I
+should think buttons would be very inconvenient things--at least,
+in hammocks," she said smiling.  "You see, girls don't have any
+such trouble."
+    
+I could not understand her manner.  She seemed to take my
+being there as a matter of course.
+    
+"I must beg a thousand pardons for this--this trespass," I
+said.
+    
+"Trespass!" said she, with a smile.  "People don't trespass
+on their own land--"
+    
+"But it is not my land," said I.  "It is your father's for
+the time being.  I have no right here whatever.  I do not know
+how to explain, but you must think it very strange to find me
+here when you supposed I had started for Europe."
+    
+"Oh!  I knew you had not started for Europe," said she,
+"because I have seen you working in the grounds--"
+    
+"Seen me!" I interrupted.  "Is it possible?"
+    
+"Oh, yes," said she.  "I don't know how long you had been
+coming when I first saw you, but when I found that fresh bed of
+pinks all transplanted from somewhere, and just as lovely as they
+could be, instead of the old ones, I spoke to the man; but he did
+not know anything about it, and said he had not had time to do
+anything to the flowers, whereas I had been giving him credit for
+ever so much weeding and cleaning up.  Then I supposed that Mr.
+Barker, who is just as kind and attentive as he can be, had
+done it; but I could hardly believe he was the sort of man to
+come early in the morning and work out of doors,"--("Oh, how I
+wish he had come!" I thought.  "If I had caught him here working
+among the flowers!"),--"and when he came that afternoon to play
+tennis I found that he had been away for two days, and could not
+have planted the pinks.  So I simply got up early one morning and
+looked out, and there I saw you, with your coat off, working just
+as hard as ever you could."
+    
+I stepped back, my mind for a moment a perfect blank.
+    
+"What could you have thought of me?" I exclaimed presently.
+    
+"Really, at first I did not know what to think," said she.  "Of
+course I did not know what had detained you in this country,
+but I remembered that I had heard that you were a very particular
+person about your flowers and shrubs and grounds, and that most
+likely you thought they would be better taken care of if you kept
+an eye on them, and that when you found there was so much to do
+you just went to work and did it.  I did not speak of this to
+anybody, because if you did not wish it to be known that you were
+taking care of the grounds it was not my business to tell people
+about it.  But yesterday, when I found this place where I had
+hung my hammock so beautifully cleared up and made so nice and
+clean and pleasant in every way, I thought I must come down to
+tell you how much obliged I am, and also that you ought not to
+take so much trouble for us.  If you think the grounds need more
+attention, I will persuade my father to hire another man, now and
+then, to work about the place.  Really, Mr. Ripley, you
+ought not to have to--"
+    
+I was humbled, abashed.  She had seen me at my morning devotions,
+and this was the way she interpreted them.  She considered me an
+overnice fellow who was so desperately afraid his place would be
+injured that he came sneaking around every morning to see if any
+damage had been done and to put things to rights.
+    
+She stood for a moment as if expecting me to speak, brushed a
+buzzing fly from her sleeve, and then, looking at me with a
+gentle smile, she turned a little as if she were about to leave.
+    
+I could not let her go without telling her something.  Her
+present opinion of me must not rest in her mind another minute. 
+And yet, what story could I devise?  How, indeed, could I devise
+anything with which to deceive a girl who spoke and looked at me
+as this girl did?  I could not do it.  I must rush away
+speechless and never see her again, or I must tell her all.  I
+came a little nearer to her.
+    
+"Miss Vincent," said I, "you do not understand at all why I
+am here--why I have been here so much--why I did not go to
+Europe.  The truth is, I could not leave.  I do not wish to be
+away; I want to come here and live here always--"
+    
+"Oh, dear! " she interrupted, "of course it is natural that
+you should not want to tear yourself away from your lovely home. 
+It would be very hard for us to go away now, especially for
+father and me, for we have grown to love this place so much.  But
+if you want us to leave, I dare say--"
+    
+"I want you to leave!" I exclaimed.  "Never!  When I say
+that I want to live here myself, that my heart will not let me go
+anywhere else, I mean that I want you to live here too--you, your
+mother and father--that I want--"
+   
+ "Oh, that would be perfectly splendid!" she said.  "I have
+ever so often thought that it was a shame that you should be
+deprived of the pleasures you so much enjoy, which I see you can
+find here and nowhere else.  Now, I have a plan which I think
+will work splendidly.  We are a very small family.  Why shouldn't
+you come here and live with us?  There is plenty of room, and I
+know father and mother would be very glad, and you can pay your
+board, if that would please you better.  You can have the room at
+the top of the tower for your study and your smoking den, and the
+room under it can be your bedroom, so you can be just as
+independent as you please of the rest of us, and you can be
+living on your own place without interfering with us in the
+least.  In fact, it would be ever so nice, especially as I am in
+the habit of going away to the sea-shore with my aunt every
+summer for six weeks, and I was thinking how lonely it would be
+this year for father and mother to stay here all by themselves." 
+
+The tower and the room under it!  For me!  What a contemptibly
+little-minded and insignificant person she must think me.  The
+words with which I strove to tell her that I wished to live here
+as lord, with her as my queen, would not come.  She looked at me
+for a moment as I stood on the brink of saying something but not
+saying it, and then she turned suddenly toward the hammock.
+    
+"Did you see anything of a fan I left here?" she said.  "I
+know I left it here, but when I came yesterday it was gone. 
+Perhaps you may have noticed it somewhere--"
+    
+Now, the morning before, I had taken that fan home with me. 
+It was an awkward thing to carry, but I had concealed it under my
+coat.  It was a contemptible trick, but the fan had her initials
+on it, and as it was the only thing belonging to her of which I
+could possess myself, the temptation had been too great to
+resist.  As she stood waiting for my answer there was a light in
+her eye which illuminated my perceptions.
+    
+"Did you see me take that fan?" I asked.
+    
+"I did," said she.
+    
+"Then you know," I exclaimed, stepping nearer to her, "why it
+is I did not leave this country as I intended, why it was
+impossible for me to tear myself away from this house, why it is
+that I have been here every morning, hovering around and doing
+the things I have been doing?"
+    
+She looked up at me, and with her eyes she said, "How could I
+help knowing?"  She might have intended to say something with her
+lips, but I took my answer from her eyes, and with the quick
+impulse of a lover I stopped her speech.
+    
+"You have strange ways," she said presently, blushing and
+gently pressing back my arm.  "I haven't told you a thing."
+    
+"Let us tell each other everything now," I cried, and we
+seated ourselves in the hammock.
+    
+It was a quarter of an hour later and we were still sitting
+together in the hammock.
+    
+"You may think," said she, "that, knowing what I did, it was
+very queer for me to come out to you this morning, but I
+could not help it.  You were getting dreadfully careless, and
+were staying so late and doing things which people would have
+been bound to notice, especially as father is always talking
+about our enjoying the fresh hours of the morning, that I felt I
+could not let you go on any longer.  And when it came to that fan
+business I saw plainly that you must either immediately start for
+Europe or--"
+    
+"Or what?" I interrupted.
+    
+"Or go to my father and regularly engage yourself as a--"
+    
+I do not know whether she was going to say "gardener" or not,
+but it did not matter.  I stopped her.
+    
+It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and we were standing
+together at the edge of the woods.  She wanted me to come to the
+house to take breakfast with them.
+    
+"Oh, I could not do that!" I said.  "They would be so
+surprised.  I should have so much to explain before I could even
+begin to state my case."
+    
+"Well, then, explain," said she.  "You will find father on
+the front piazza.  He is always there before breakfast, and there
+is plenty of time.  After all that has been said here, I cannot
+go to breakfast and look commonplace while you run away."
+    
+"But suppose your father objects?" said I.
+    
+"Well, then you will have to go back and take breakfast with
+your miller," said she.
+    
+I never saw a family so little affected by surprises as those
+Vincents.  When I appeared on the front piazza the old gentleman
+did not jump.  He shook hands with me and asked me to sit down,
+and when I told him everything he did not even ejaculate,
+but simply folded his hands together and looked out over the
+railing.
+    
+"It seemed strange to Mrs. Vincent and myself," he said,
+"when we first noticed your extraordinary attachment for our
+daughter, but, after all, it was natural enough."
+    
+"Noticed it!" I exclaimed.  "When did you do that?"
+    
+"Very soon," he said.  "When you and Cora were cataloguing
+the books at my house in town I noticed it and spoke to Mrs.
+Vincent, but she said it was nothing new to her, for it was plain
+enough on the day when we first met you here that you were
+letting the house to Cora, and that she had not spoken of it to
+me because she was afraid I might think it wrong to accept the
+favorable and unusual arrangements you were making with us if I
+suspected the reason for them.  We talked over the matter, but,
+of course, we could do nothing, because there was nothing to do,
+and Mrs. Vincent was quite sure you would write to us from
+Europe.  But when my man Ambrose told me he had seen some one
+working about the place in the very early morning, and that, as
+it was a gentleman, he supposed it must be the landlord, for
+nobody else would be doing such things, Mrs. Vincent and I looked
+out of the window the next day, and when we found it was indeed
+you who were coming here every day, we felt that the matter was
+serious and were a good deal troubled.  We found, however, that
+you were conducting affairs in a very honorable way,--that you
+were not endeavoring to see Cora, and that you did not try to
+have any secret correspondence with her,--and as we had no right
+to prevent you from coming on your grounds, we concluded to
+remain quiet until you should take some step which we would be
+authorized to notice.  Later, when Mr. Barker came and told me
+that you had not gone to Europe, and were living with a miller
+not far from here--"
+    
+"Barker!" I cried.  "The scoundrel!"
+    
+"You are mistaken, sir," said Mr. Vincent.  "He spoke with
+the greatest kindness of you, and said that as it was evident you
+had your own reasons for wishing to stay in the neighborhood, and
+did not wish the fact to be known, he had spoken of it to no one
+but me, and he would not have done this had he not thought it
+would prevent embarrassment in case we should meet."
+    
+Would that everlasting Barker ever cease meddling in my affairs?
+    
+"Do you suppose," I asked, "that he imagined the reason for
+my staying here?"
+    
+"I do not know," said the old gentleman, "but after the
+questions I put to him I have no doubt he suspected it.  I made
+many inquiries of him regarding you, your family, habits, and
+disposition, for this was a very vital matter to me, sir, and I
+am happy to inform you that he said nothing of you that was not
+good, so I urged him to keep the matter to himself.  I
+determined, however, that if you continued your morning visits I
+should take an early opportunity of accosting you and asking an
+explanation."
+    
+"And you never mentioned anything of this to your daughter?"
+said I.
+    
+"Oh, no," he answered.  "We carefully kept everything from her."
+    
+"But, my dear sir," said I, rising, "you have given me no answer.
+
+You have not told me whether or not you will accept me as a
+son-in-law."
+    
+He smiled.  "Truly," he said, "I have not answered you; but
+the fact is, Mrs. Vincent and I have considered the matter so
+long, and having come to the conclusion that if you made an
+honorable and straightforward proposition, and if Cora were
+willing to accept you, we could see no reason to object to--"
+    
+At this moment the front door opened and Cora appeared.
+    
+"Are you going to stay to breakfast?" she asked.  "Because,
+if you are, it is ready."
+    
+I stayed to breakfast.
+    
+I am now living in my own house, not in the two tower rooms,
+but in the whole mansion, of which my former tenant, Cora, is now
+mistress supreme.  Mr. and Mrs. Vincent expect to spend the next
+summer here and take care of the house while we are travelling.
+    
+Mr. Barker, an excellent fellow and a most thorough business
+man, still manages my affairs, and there is nothing on the place
+that flourishes so vigorously as the bed of pinks which I got
+from the miller's wife.
+    
+By the way, when I went back to my lodging on that eventful
+day, the miller's wife met me at the door.
+    
+"I kept your breakfast waitin' for you for a good while,"
+said she, "but as you didn't come, I supposed you were takin'
+breakfast in your own house, and I cleared it away."
+    
+"Do you know who I am?" I exclaimed.
+    
+"Oh, yes, sir," she said.  "We did not at first, but when
+everybody began to talk about it we couldn't help knowin' it."
+    
+"Everybody!" I gasped.  "And may I ask what you and everybody
+said about me?"
+    
+"I think it was the general opinion, sir," said she, "that
+you were suspicious of them tenants of yours, and nobody wondered
+at it, for when city people gets into the country and on other
+people's property, there's no trustin' them out of your sight for
+a minute."
+    
+I could not let the good woman hold this opinion of my
+tenants, and I briefly told her the truth.  She looked at me with
+moist admiration in her eyes.
+    
+"I am glad to hear that, sir," said she.  "I like it very
+much.  But if I was you I wouldn't be in a hurry to tell my
+husband and the people in the neighborhood about it.  They might
+be a little disappointed at first, for they had a mighty high
+opinion of you when they thought that you was layin' low here to
+keep an eye on them tenants of yours."
+
+
+
+                           THE STAYING POWER OF
+                                 SIR ROHAN
+
+During the winter in which I reached my twenty fifth year I lived
+with my mother's brother, Dr. Alfred Morris, in Warburton, a
+small country town, and I was there beginning the practice of
+medicine.  I had been graduated in the spring, and my uncle
+earnestly advised me to come to him and act as his assistant,
+which advice, considering the fact that he was an elderly man,
+and that I might hope to succeed him in his excellent practice,
+was considered good advice by myself and my family.
+    
+At this time I practised very little, but learned a great
+deal, for as I often accompanied my uncle on his professional
+visits, I could not have taken a better postgraduate course.
+    
+I had an invitation to spend the Christmas of that year with
+the Collingwoods, who had opened their country house, about
+twelve miles from Warburton, for the entertainment of a holiday
+house party.  I had gladly accepted the invitation, and on the
+day before Christmas I went to the livery stable in the village
+to hire a horse and sleigh for the trip.  At the stable I met
+Uncle Beamish, who had also come to hire a conveyance.
+    
+"Uncle Beamish," as he was generally called in the village,
+although I am sure he had no nephews or nieces in the place,
+was an elderly man who had retired from some business, I know not
+what, and was apparently quite able to live upon whatever income
+he had.  He was a good man, rather illiterate, but very shrewd. 
+Generous in good works, I do not think he was fond of giving away
+money, but his services were at the call of all who needed them.
+    
+I liked Uncle Beamish very much, for he was not only a good
+story-teller, but he was willing to listen to my stories, and
+when I found he wanted to hire a horse and sleigh to go to the
+house of his married sister, with whom he intended to spend
+Christmas, and that his sister lived on Upper Hill turnpike, on
+which road the Collingwood house was situated, I proposed that we
+should hire a sleigh together.
+    
+"That will suit me," said Uncle Beamish.  "There couldn't
+have been a better fit if I had been measured for it.  Less than
+half a mile after you turn into the turnpike, you pass my
+sister's house.  Then you can drop me and go on to the
+Collingwoods', which I should say isn't more than three miles
+further."
+    
+The arrangement was made, a horse and sleigh ordered, and
+early in the afternoon we started from Warburton.
+    
+The sleighing was good, but the same could not be said of the
+horse.  He was a big roan, powerful and steady, but entirely too
+deliberate in action.  Uncle Beamish, however, was quite
+satisfied with him.
+    
+"What you want when you are goin' to take a journey with a
+horse," said he, "is stayin' power.  Your fast trotter is all
+very well for a mile or two, but if I have got to go into the
+country in winter, give me a horse like this."
+    
+I did not agree with him, but we jogged along quite pleasantly
+until the afternoon grew prematurely dark and it began to snow.
+    
+"Now," said I, giving the roan a useless cut, "what we ought to
+have is a fast horse, so that we may get there before there is
+a storm."
+    
+"No, doctor, you're wrong," said Uncle Beamish.  "What we
+want is a strong horse that will take us there whether it storms
+or not, and we have got him.  And who cares for a little snow
+that won't hurt nobody?"
+    
+I did not care for snow, and we turned up our collars and
+went as merrily as people can go to the music of slowly jingling
+sleigh-bells.
+    
+The snow began to fall rapidly, and, what was worse, the wind
+blew directly in our faces, so that sometimes my eyes were so
+plastered up with snowflakes that I could scarcely see how to
+drive.  I never knew snow to fall with such violence.  The
+roadway in front of us, as far as I could see it, was soon one
+unbroken stretch of white from fence to fence.
+    
+"This is the big storm of the season," said Uncle Beamish,
+"and it is a good thing we started in time, for if the wind keeps
+blowin', this road will be pretty hard to travel in a couple of
+hours."
+    
+In about half an hour the wind lulled a little and I could
+get a better view of our surroundings, although I could not see
+very far through the swiftly descending snow.
+    
+"I was thinkin'," said Uncle Beamish, "that it might be a
+good idee, when we get to Crocker's place, to stop a little, and
+let you warm your fingers and nose.  Crocker's is ruther more
+than half-way to the pike."
+    
+"Oh, I do not want to stop anywhere," I replied quickly.  "I
+am all right."
+    
+Nothing was said for some time, and then Uncle Beamish remarked:
+    
+"I don't want to stop any more than you do, but it does seem
+strange that we ain't passed Crocker's yit.  We could hardly miss
+his house, it is so close to the road.  This horse is slow, but I
+tell you one thing, doctor, he's improvin'.  He is goin' better
+than he did.  That's the way with this kind.  It takes them a
+good while to get warmed up, but they keep on gettin' fresher
+instead of tireder."
+    
+The big roan was going better, but still we did not reach
+Crocker's, which disappointed Uncle Beamish, who wanted to be
+assured that the greater part of his journey was over.
+    
+"We must have passed it," he said, "when the snow was so
+blindin'."
+    
+I did not wish to discourage him by saying that I did not
+think we had yet reached Crocker's, but I believed I had a much
+better appreciation of our horse's slowness than he had.
+    
+Again the wind began to blow in our faces, and the snow fell
+faster, but the violence of the storm seemed to encourage our
+horse, for his pace was now greatly increased.
+    
+"That's the sort of beast to have," exclaimed Uncle Beamish,
+spluttering as the snow blew in his mouth.  "He is gettin' his
+spirits up just when they are most wanted.  We must have passed
+Crocker's a good while ago, and it can't be long before we get to
+the pike.  And it's time we was there, for it's darkenin'."
+    
+On and on we went, but still we did not reach the pike. 
+We had lost a great deal of time during the first part of the
+journey, and although the horse was travelling so much better
+now, his pace was below the average of good roadsters.
+    
+"When we get to the pike," said Uncle Beamish, "you can't
+miss it, for this road doesn't cross it.  All you've got to do is
+to turn to the left, and in ten minutes you will see the lights
+in my sister's house.  And I'll tell you, doctor, if you would
+like to stop there for the night, she'd be mighty glad to have
+you."
+    
+"Much obliged," replied I, "but I shall go on.  It's not late
+yet, and I can reach the Collingwoods' in good time."
+    
+We now drove on in silence, our horse actually arching his
+neck as he thumped through the snow.  Drifts had begun to form
+across the road, but through these he bravely plunged.
+    
+"Stayin' power is what we want, doctor!" exclaimed Uncle
+Beamish.  "Where would your fast trotter be in drifts like these,
+I'd like to know?  We got the right horse when we got this one,
+but I wish we had been goin' this fast all the time."
+    
+It grew darker and darker, but at last we saw, not far in
+front of us, a light.
+    
+"That beats me," said Uncle Beamish.  "I don't remember no
+other house so near the road.  It can't be we ain't passed
+Crocker's yit!  If we ain't got no further than that, I'm in
+favor of stoppin'.  I'm not afraid of a snow-storm, but I ain't a
+fool nuther, and if we haven't got further than Crocker's it will
+be foolhardy to try to push on through the dark and these big
+drifts, which will be gettin' bigger."
+    
+I did not give it up so easily.  I greatly wished to`
+reach my destination that night.  But there were three wills in
+the party, and one of them belonged to the horse.  Before I had
+any idea of such a thing, the animal made a sudden turn,--too
+sudden for safety,--passed through a wide gateway, and after a
+few rapid bounds which, to my surprise, I could not restrain, he
+stopped suddenly.
+    
+"Hello!" exclaimed Uncle Beamish, peering forward, "here's a
+barn door."  And he immediately began to throw off the far robe
+that covered our knees.
+   
+"What are you going to do?" I asked.
+    
+"I'm goin' to open the barn door and let the horse go in,"
+said he.  "He seems to want to.  I don't know whether this is
+Crocker's barn or not.  It don't look like it, but I may be
+mistaken.  Anyway, we will let the horse in, and then go to the
+house.  This ain't no night to be travellin' any further, doctor,
+and that is the long and the short of it.  If the people here
+ain't Crockers, I guess they are Christians!"
+    
+I had not much time to consider the situation, for while he
+had been speaking, Uncle Beamish had waded through the snow, and
+finding the barn door unfastened, had slid it to one side. 
+Instantly the horse entered the dark barn, fortunately finding
+nothing in his way.
+    
+"Now," said Uncle Beamish, "if we can get somethin' to tie
+him with, so that he don't do no mischief, we can leave him here
+and go up to the house."  I carried a pocket lantern, and quickly
+lighted it.  "By George!" said Uncle Beamish, as I held up the
+lantern, "this ain't much of a barn--it's no more than a wagon-
+house.  It ain't Crocker's--but no matter; we'll go up to the
+house.  Here is a hitchin'-rope."
+    
+We fastened the horse, threw a robe over him, shut the barn
+door behind us, and slowly made our way to the back of the house,
+in which there was a lighted window.  Mounting a little portico,
+we reached a door, and were about to knock when it was opened for
+us.  A woman, plainly a servant, stood in a kitchen, light and
+warm.
+    
+"Come right in," she said.  "I heard your bells.  Did you put
+your horse in the barn?"
+    
+"Yes," said Uncle Beamish, "and now we would like to see--"
+    
+"All right," interrupted the woman, moving toward an inner
+door.  "Just wait here for a minute.  I'm going up to tell her."
+    
+"I don't know this place," said Uncle Beamish, as we stood by
+the kitchen stove, "but I expect it belongs to a widow woman."
+    
+"What makes you think that?" I asked.
+    
+"'Cause she said she was goin' to tell HER.  If there had
+been a man in the house, she would have gone to tell HIM."
+    
+In a few moments the woman returned.
+    
+"She says you are to take off your wet things and then go
+into the sitting-room.  She'll be down in a minute."
+    
+I looked at Uncle Beamish, thinking it was his right to make
+explanations, but, giving me a little wink, he began to take off
+his overcoat.  It was plain to perceive that Uncle Beamish
+desired to assume that a place of refuge would be offered us.
+    
+"It's an awful bad night," he said to the woman, as he sat
+down to take off his arctic overshoes.
+    
+"It's all that," said she.  "You may hang your coats over
+them chairs.  It won't matter if they do drip on this bare floor.
+
+Now, then, come right into the sitting-room."
+    
+In spite of my disappointment, I was glad to be in a warm house,
+and hoped we might be able to stay there.  I could hear the storm
+beating furiously against the window-panes behind the drawn
+shades.  There was a stove in the sitting-room, and a large lamp.
+    
+"Sit down," said the woman.  "She will be here in a minute."
+    
+"It strikes me," said Uncle Beamish, when we were left alone,
+"that somebody is expected in this house, most likely to spend
+Christmas, and that we are mistook for them, whoever they are."
+    
+"I have the same idea," I replied, "and we must explain as
+soon as possible."
+    
+"Of course we will do that," said he, "but I can tell you one
+thing: whoever is expected ain't comin', for he can't get here. 
+But we've got to stay here tonight, no matter who comes or
+doesn't come, and we've got to be keerful in speakin' to the
+woman of the house.  If she is one kind of a person, we can offer
+to pay for lodgin's and horse-feed; but if she is another kind,
+we must steer clear of mentionin' pay, for it will make her
+angry.  You had better leave the explainin' business to me."
+    
+I was about to reply that I was more than willing to do so
+when the door opened and a person entered--evidently the mistress
+of the house.  She was tall and thin, past middle age, and
+plainly dressed.  Her pale countenance wore a defiant look, and
+behind her spectacles blazed a pair of dark eyes, which, after
+an instant's survey of her visitors, were fixed steadily
+upon me.  She made but a step into the room, and stood holding
+the door.  We both rose from our chairs.
+    
+"You can sit down again," she said sharply to me.  "I don't
+want you.  Now, sir," she continued, turning to Uncle Beamish,
+"please come with me."
+    
+Uncle Beamish gave a glance of surprise at me, but he
+immediately followed the old lady out of the room, and the door
+was closed behind them.
+    
+For ten minutes, at least, I sat quietly waiting to see what
+would happen next--very much surprised at the remark that had
+been made to me, and wondering at Uncle Beamish's protracted
+absence.  Suddenly he entered the room and closed the door.
+    
+"Here's a go!" said he, slapping his leg, but very gently. 
+"We're mistook the worst kind.  We're mistook for doctors."
+"That is only half a mistake," said I.  "What is the matter, and
+what can I do?"
+    
+"Nothin'," said he, quickly,--"that is, nothin' your own
+self.  Just the minute she got me outside that door she began
+pitchin' into you.  `I suppose that's young Dr. Glover,' said
+she.  I told her it was, and then she went on to say, givin' me
+no chance to explain nothin', that she didn't want to have
+anything to do with you; that she thought it was a shame to turn
+people's houses into paupers' hospitals for the purpose of
+teachin' medical students; that she had heard of you, and what
+she had heard she hadn't liked.  All this time she kept goin' up-
+stairs, and I follerin' her, and the fust thing I knowed she
+opened a door and went into a room, and I went in after her, and
+there, in a bed, was a patient of some kind.  I was took
+back dreadful, for the state of the case came to me like a flash.
+
+Your uncle had been sent for, and I was mistook for him.  Now,
+what to say was a puzzle to me, and I began to think pretty fast.
+
+It was an awkward business to have to explain things to that
+sharp-set old woman.  The fact is, I didn't know how to begin,
+and was a good deal afraid, besides, but she didn't give me no
+time for considerin'.  `I think it's her brain,' said she, `but
+perhaps you'll know better.  Catherine, uncover your head!'  And
+with that the patient turned over a little and uncovered her
+head, which she had had the sheet over.  It was a young woman,
+and she gave me a good look, but she didn't say nothin'.  Now I
+WAS in a state of mind."
+    
+"Of course you must have been," I answered.  "Why didn't you
+tell her that you were not a doctor, but that I was.  It would
+have been easy enough to explain matters.  She might have thought
+my uncle could not come and he had sent me, and that you had come
+along for company.  The patient ought to be attended to without
+delay."
+    
+"She's got to be-attended to," said Uncle Beamish, "or else
+there will be a row and we'll have to travel--storm or no storm. 
+But if you had heard what that old woman said about young
+doctors, and you in particular, you would know that you wasn't
+goin' to have anything to do with this case--at least, you
+wouldn't show in it.  But I've got no more time for talkin'.  I
+came down here on business.  When the old lady said, `Catherine,
+hold out your hand!' and she held it out, I had nothin' to do but
+step up and feel her pulse.  I know how to do that, for I have
+done a lot of nussin' in my life.  And then it seemed nat'ral to
+ask her to put out her tongue, and when she did it I
+gave a look at it and nodded my head.  `Do you think it is her
+brain?' said the old woman, half whisperin'.  `Can't say anything
+about that yit,' said I.  `I must go down-stairs and get the
+medicine-case.  The fust thing to do is to give her a draught,
+and I will bring it up to her as soon as it is mixed.'  You have
+got a pocket medicine-case with you, haven't you?"
+    
+"Oh, yes," said I.  "It is in my overcoat."
+    
+"I knowed it," said Uncle Beamish.  "An old doctor might go
+visitin' without his medicine-case, but a young one would be sure
+to take it along, no matter where he was goin'.  Now you get it,
+please, quick."
+    
+"My notion is," said he, when I returned from the kitchen
+with the case, "that you mix somethin' that might soothe her a
+little, if she has got anything the matter with her brain, and
+which won't hurt her if she hasn't.  And then, when I take it up
+to her, you tell me what symptoms to look for.  I can do it--I
+have spent nights lookin' for symptoms.  Then, when I come down
+and report, you might send her up somethin' that would keep her
+from gettin' any wuss till the doctor can come in the mornin',
+for he ain't comin' here to-night."
+    
+"A very good plan," said I.  "Now, what can I give her?  What
+is the patient's age?"
+    
+"Oh, her age don't matter much," said Uncle Beamish,
+impatiently.  "She may be twenty, more or less, and any mild
+stuff will do to begin with."
+    
+"I will give her some sweet spirits of nitre," said I, taking
+out a little vial.  "Will you ask the servant for a glass of
+water and a teaspoon?"
+    
+"Now," said I, when I had quickly prepared the mixture, "she
+can have a teaspoonful of this, and another in ten minutes, and
+then we will see whether we will go on with it or not."
+    
+"And what am I to look for?" said he.
+    
+"In the first place," said I, producing a clinical thermometer,
+"you must take her temperature.  You know how to do that?"
+    
+"Oh, yes," said he.  "I have done it hundreds of times.  She
+must hold it in her mouth five minutes."
+    
+"Yes, and while you are waiting," I continued, "you must try
+to find out, in the first place, if there are, or have been, any
+signs of delirium.  You might ask the old lady, and besides, you
+may be able to judge for yourself."
+    
+"I can do that," said he.  "I have seen lots of it."
+    
+"Then, again," said I, "you must observe whether or not her
+pupils are dilated.  You might also inquire whether there had
+been any partial paralysis or numbness in any part of the body. 
+These things must be looked for in brain trouble.  Then you can
+come down, ostensibly to prepare another prescription, and when
+you have reported, I have no doubt I can give you something which
+will modify, or I should say--"
+    
+"Hold her where she is till mornin'," said Uncle Beamish. "That's
+what you mean.  Be quick.  Give me that thermometer and the
+tumbler, and when I come down again, I reckon you can fit her
+out with a prescription just as good as anybody."
+    
+He hurried away, and I sat down to consider.  I was full of
+ambition, full of enthusiasm for the practice of my profession. 
+I would have been willing to pay largely for the privilege
+of undertaking an important case by myself, in which it would
+depend upon me whether or not I should call in a consulting
+brother.  So far, in the cases I had undertaken, a consulting
+brother had always called himself in--that is, I had practised in
+hospitals or with my uncle.  Perhaps it might be found necessary,
+notwithstanding all that had been said against me, that I should
+go up to take charge of this case.  I wished I had not forgotten
+to ask the old man how he had found the tongue and pulse.
+    
+In less than a quarter of an hour Uncle Beamish returned.
+    
+"Well," said I, quickly, "what are the symptoms?"
+    
+"I'll give them to you," said he, taking his seat.  "I'm not
+in such a hurry now, because I told the old woman I would like to
+wait a little and see how that fust medicine acted.  The patient
+spoke to me this time.  When I took the thermometer out of her
+mouth she says, `You are comin' up ag'in, doctor?' speakin' low
+and quickish, as if she wanted nobody but me to hear."
+    
+"But how about the symptoms?" said I, impatiently.
+    
+"Well," he answered, "in the fust place her temperature is
+ninety-eight and a half, and that's about nat'ral, I take it."
+    
+"Yes," I said, "but you didn't tell me about her tongue and
+pulse."
+    
+"There wasn't nothin' remarkable about them," said he.
+    
+"All of which means," I remarked, "that there is no
+fever.  But that is not at all a necessary accompaniment of brain
+derangements.  How about the dilatation of her pupils?"
+    
+"There isn't none," said Uncle Beamish; "they are ruther
+squinched up, if anything.  And as to delirium, I couldn't see no
+signs of it, and when I asked the old lady about the numbness,
+she said she didn't believe there had been any."
+    
+"No tendency to shiver, no disposition to stretch?"
+    
+"No," said the old man, "no chance for quinine."
+    
+"The trouble is," said I, standing before the stove and
+fixing my mind upon the case with earnest intensity, "that there
+are so few symptoms in brain derangement.  If I could only get
+hold of something tangible--"
+    
+"If I was you," interrupted Uncle Beamish, "I wouldn't try to
+get hold of nothin'.  I would just give her somethin' to keep her
+where she is till mornin'.  If you can do that, I'll guarantee
+that any good doctor can take her up and go on with her to-
+morrow."
+    
+Without noticing the implication contained in these remarks, I
+continued my consideration of the case.
+    
+"If I could get a drop of her blood," said I.
+    
+"No, no!" exclaimed Uncle Beamish, "I'm not goin' to do
+anything of that sort.  What in the name of common sense would
+you do with her blood?"
+    
+"I would examine it microscopically," I said.  "I might find
+out all I want to know."
+    
+Uncle Beamish did not sympathize with this method of diagnosis.
+    
+"If you did find out there was the wrong kind of germs, you
+couldn't do anything with them to-night, and it would just worry
+you," said the old man.  "I believe that nature will get
+along fust-rate without any help, at least till mornin'.  But
+you've got to give her some medicine--not so much for her good as
+for our good.  If she's not treated we're bounced.  Can't you
+give her somethin' that would do anybody good, no matter what's
+the matter with 'em?  If it was the spring of the year I would
+say sarsaparilla.  If you could mix her up somethin' and put into
+it some of them benevolent microbes the doctors talk about, it
+would be a good deed to do to anybody."
+    
+"The benign bacilli," said I.  "Unfortunately I haven't any
+of them with me."
+    
+"And if you had," he remarked, "I'd be in favor of givin' 'em
+to the old woman.  I take it they would do, her more good than
+anybody else.  Come along now, doctor; it is about time for me to
+go up-stairs and see how the other stuff acted--not on the
+patient, I don't mean, but on the old woman.  The fact is, you
+know, it's her we're dosin'."
+    
+"Not at all," said I, speaking a little severely.  "I am
+trying to do my very best for the patient, but I fear I cannot do
+it without seeing her.  Don't you think that if you told the old
+lady how absolutely necessary--"
+    
+"Don't say anything more about that!" exclaimed Uncle Beamish. 
+"I hoped I wouldn't have to mention it, but she told me ag'in
+that she would never have one of those unfledged medical
+students, just out of the egg-shell, experimentin' on any of her
+family, and from what she said about you in particular, I should
+say she considered you as a medical chick without even down on
+you."
+    
+"What can she know of me?"  I asked indignantly.
+    
+"Give it up," said he.  "Can't guess it.  But that ain't the
+p'int.  The p'int is, what are you goin' to give her?  When I was
+young the doctors used to say, When you are in doubt, give
+calomel--as if you were playin' trumps."
+    
+"Nonsense, nonsense," said I, my eyes earnestly fixed upon my
+open medical case.
+    
+"I suppose a mustard-plaster on the back of her neck--"
+    
+"Wouldn't do at all," I interrupted.  "Wait a minute, now--
+yes--I know what I will do: I will give her sodium bromide--ten
+grains."
+    
+"`Which will hit if it's a deer and miss if it's a calf' as
+the hunter said?" inquired Uncle Beamish.
+    
+"It will certainly not injure her," said I, "and I am quite
+sure it will be a positive advantage.  If there has been cerebral
+disturbance, which has subsided temporarily, it will assist her
+to tide over the interim before its recurrence."
+    
+"All right," said Uncle Beamish, "give it to me, and I'll be
+off.  It's time I showed up ag'in."
+    
+He did not stay up-stairs very long this time.
+    
+"No symptoms yit, but the patient looked at me as if she
+wanted to say somethin'; but she didn't git no chance, for the
+old lady set herself down as if she was planted in a garden-bed
+and intended to stay there.  But the patient took the medicine as
+mild as a lamb."
+    
+"That is very good," said I.  "It may be that she appreciates
+the seriousness of her ewe better than we do."
+    
+"I should say she wants to git well," he replied.  "She looks
+like that sort of a person to me.  The old woman said she thought
+we would have to stay awhile till the storm slackened, and I
+said, yes, indeed, and there wasn't any chance of its slackenin'
+to-night; besides, I wanted to see the patient before bedtime."
+    
+At this moment the door opened and the servant-woman came in.
+    
+"She says you are to have supper, and it will be ready in
+about half an hour.  One of you had better go out and attend to
+your horse, for the man is not coming back to-night."
+    
+"I will go to the barn," said I, rising.  Uncle Beamish also
+rose and said he would go with me.
+    
+"I guess you can find some hay and oats," said the woman, as
+we were putting on our coats and overshoes in the kitchen, "and
+here's a lantern.  We don't keep no horse now, but there's feed
+left."
+    
+As we pushed through the deep snow into the barn, Uncle
+Beamish said:
+    
+"I've been tryin' my best to think where we are without
+askin' any questions, and I'm dead beat.  I don't remember no
+such house as this on the road."
+    
+"Perhaps we got off the road," said I.
+    
+"That may be," said he, as we entered the barn.  "It's a straight
+road from Warburton to the pike near my sister's house, but
+there's two other roads that branch off to the right and strike
+the pike further off to the east.  Perhaps we got on one of them
+in all that darkness and perplexin' whiteness, when it wasn't
+easy to see whether we were keepin' a straight road or not."
+    
+The horse neighed as we approached with a light.
+    
+"I would not be at all surprised," said I, "if this horse had
+once belonged here and that was the reason why, as soon as
+he got a chance, he turned and made straight for his old home."
+    
+"That isn't unlikely," said Uncle Beamish, "and that's the
+reason we did not pass Crocker's.  But here we are, wherever it
+is, and here we've got to stay till mornin'."
+    
+We found hay and oats and a pump in the corner of the wagon-
+house, and having put the horse in the stall and made him as
+comfortable as possible with some old blankets, we returned to
+the house, bringing our valises with us.
+    
+Our supper was served in the sitting-room because there was a
+good fire there, and the servant told us we would have to eat by
+ourselves, as "she" was not coming down.
+    
+"We'll excuse her," said Uncle Beamish, with an alacrity of
+expression that might have caused suspicion.
+    
+We had a good supper, and were then shown a room on the first
+floor on the other side of the hall, where the servant said we
+were to sleep.
+    
+We sat by the stove awhile, waiting for developments, but as
+Uncle Beamish's bedtime was rapidly approaching, he sent word to
+the sick-chamber that he was coming up for his final visit.
+    
+This time he stayed up-stairs but a few minutes.
+    
+"She's fast asleep," said he, "and the old woman says she'll
+call me if I'm needed in the night, and you'll have to jump up
+sharp and overhaul that medicine-case if that happens."
+    
+The next morning, and very early in the morning, I was awaked
+by Uncle Beamish, who stood at my side.
+    
+"Look here," said he, "I've been outside.  It's stopped snowin'
+and it's clearin' off.  I've been to the barn and I've fed the
+horse, and I tell you what I'm in favor of doin'.  There's nobody
+up yit, and I don't want to stay here and make no explanations to
+that old woman.  I don't fancy gittin' into rows on Christmas
+mornin'.  We've done all the good we can here, and the best thing
+we can do now is to git away before anybody is up, and leave a
+note sayin' that we've got to go on without losin' time, and that
+we will send another doctor as soon as possible.  My sister's
+doctor don't live fur away from her, and I know she will be
+willin' to send for him.  Then our duty will be done, and what
+the old woman thinks of us won't make no, difference to nobody."
+    
+"That plan suits me," said I, rising.  "I don't want to stay
+here, and as I am not to be allowed to see the patient, there is
+no reason why I should stay.  What we have done will more than
+pay for our supper and lodgings, so that our consciences are
+clear."
+    
+"But you must write a note," said Uncle Beamish.  "Got any
+paper?"
+    
+I tore a leaf from my note-book, and went to the window,
+where it was barely light enough for me to see how to write.
+    
+"Make it short," said the old man.  "I'm awful fidgety to git
+off."
+    
+I made it very short, and then, valises in hand, we quietly
+took our way to the kitchen.
+    
+"How this floor does creak!" said Uncle Beamish.  "Git on
+your overcoat and shoes as quick as you can, and we'll leave the
+note on this table."
+    
+I had just shaken myself into my overcoat when Uncle Beamish gave
+a subdued exclamation, and quickly turning, I saw entering the
+kitchen a female figure in winter wraps and carrying a hand-bag.
+    
+"By George!" whispered the old man, "it's the patient!"
+    
+The figure advanced directly toward me.
+    
+"Oh, Dr. Glover!" she whispered, "I am so glad to get down
+before you went away!"
+    
+I stared in amazement at the speaker, but even in the dim light I
+recognized her.  This was the human being whose expected presence
+at the Collingwood mansion was taking me there to spend
+Christmas.
+    
+"Kitty!" I exclaimed--"Miss Burroughs, I mean,--what is the
+meaning of this?"
+    
+"Don't ask me for any meanings now," she said.  "I want you
+and your uncle to take me to the Collingwoods'.  I suppose you
+are on your way there, for they wrote you were coming.  And oh!
+let us be quick, for I'm afraid Jane will come down, and she will
+be sure to wake up aunty.  I saw one of you go out to the barn,
+and knew you intended to leave, so I got ready just as fast as I
+could.  But I must leave some word for aunty."
+    
+"I have written a note,"  said I. "But are you well enough to
+travel?"
+    
+"Just let me add a line to it," said she.  "I am as well as I
+ever was."
+    
+I gave her a pencil, and she hurriedly wrote something on the
+paper which I had left on the kitchen table.  Then, quickly
+glancing around, she picked up a large carving-fork, and sticking
+it through the paper into the soft wood of the table, she left it
+standing there.
+    
+"Now it won't blow away when we open the door," she
+whispered.  "Come on."
+    
+"You cannot go out to the barn," I said; "we will bring up
+the sleigh."
+   
+"Oh, no, no, no," she answered, "I must not wait here.  If I
+once get out of the house I shall feel safe.  Of course I shall
+go anyway, but I don't want any quarrelling on this Christmas
+morning."
+    
+"I'm with you there," said Uncle Beamish, approvingly.  "Doctor,
+we can take her to the barn without her touching the snow.  Let
+her sit in this arm-chair, and we can carry her between us. 
+She's no weight."
+    
+In half a minute the kitchen door was softly closed behind
+us, and we were carrying Miss Burroughs to the barn.  My soul was
+in a wild tumult.  Dozens of questions were on my tongue, but I
+had no chance to ask any of them.
+    
+Uncle Beamish and I returned to the porch for the valises,
+and then, closing the back door, we rapidly began to make
+preparations for leaving.
+    
+"I suppose," said Uncle Beamish, as we went into the stable,
+leaving Miss Burroughs in the wagon-house, "that this business is
+all right?  You seem to know the young woman, and she is of age
+to act for herself."
+   
+ "Whatever she wants to do," I answered, "is perfectly right. 
+You may trust to that.  I do not understand the matter any more
+than you do, but I know she is expected at the Collingwoods', and
+wants to go there."
+    
+"Very good," said Uncle Beamish.  "We'll git away fust and
+ask explanations afterwards."
+    
+"Dr. Glover," said Miss Burroughs, as we led the horse into the
+wagon-house, "don't put the bells on him.  Stuff them gently
+under the seat--as softly as you can.  But how are we all to go
+away?  I have been looking at that sleigh, and it is intended
+only for two."
+    
+"It's rather late to think of that, miss," said Uncle Beamish,
+"but there's one thing that's certain.  We're both very polite to
+ladies, but neither of us is willin' to be left behind on this
+trip.  But it's a good-sized sleigh, and we'll all pack in, well
+enough.  You and me can sit on the seat, and the doctor can stand
+up in front of us and drive.  In old times it was considered the
+right thing for the driver of the sleigh to stand up and do his
+drivin'."
+    
+The baggage was carefully stowed away, and, after a look around
+the dimly lighted wagon-house, Miss Burroughs and Uncle Beamish
+got into the sleigh, and I tucked the big fur robe around them.
+    
+"I hate to make a journey before breakfast," said Uncle
+Beamish, as I was doing this, "especially on Christmas mornin',
+but somehow or other there seems to be somethin' jolly about this
+business, and we won't have to wait so long for breakfast,
+nuther.  It can't be far from my sister's, and we'll all stop
+there and have breakfast.  Then you two can leave me and go on. 
+She'll be as glad to see any friends of mine as if they were her
+own.  And she'll be pretty sure, on a mornin' like this, to have
+buckwheat cakes and sausages."
+    
+Miss Burroughs looked at the old man with a puzzled air, but
+she asked him no questions.
+    
+"How are you going to keep yourself warm, Dr. Glover?" she
+said.
+    
+"Oh, this long ulster will be enough for me," I replied, "and
+as I shall stand up, I could not use a robe, if we had another."
+    
+In fact, the thought of being with Miss Burroughs and the
+anticipation of a sleigh-ride alone with her after we had
+left Uncle Beamish with his sister, had put me into such a glow
+that I scarcely knew it was cold weather.
+    
+"You'd better be keerful, doctor," said Uncle Beamish.  "You
+don't want to git rheumatism in your j'ints on this Christmas
+mornin'.  Here's this horse-blanket that we are settin' on.  We
+don't need it, and you'd better wrap it round you, after you git
+in, to keep your legs warm."
+    
+"Oh, do! " said Miss Burroughs.  "It may look funny, but we
+will not meet anybody so early as this."
+    
+"All right!" said I, "and now we are ready to start."
+    
+I slid back the barn door and then led the horse outside. 
+Closing the door, and making as little noise as possible in doing
+it, I got into the sleigh, finding plenty of room to stand up in
+front of my companions.  Now I wrapped the horse-blanket about
+the lower part of my body, and as I had no belt with which to
+secure it, Miss Burroughs kindly offered to fasten it round my
+waist by means of a long pin which she took from her hat.  It is
+impossible to describe the exhilaration that pervaded me as she
+performed this kindly office.  After thanking her warmly, I took
+the reins and we started.
+    
+"It is so lucky," whispered Miss Burroughs, "that I happened
+to think about the bells.  We don't make any noise at all."
+    
+This was true.  The slowly uplifted hoofs of the horse
+descended quietly into the soft snow, and the sleigh-runners
+slipped along without a sound.
+    
+"Drive straight for the gate, doctor," whispered Uncle
+Beamish.  "It don't matter nothin' about goin' over flower-beds
+and grass-plats in such weather."
+    
+I followed his advice, for no roadway could be seen.  But we
+had gone but a short distance when the horse suddenly stopped.
+    
+"What's the matter?" asked Miss Burroughs, in a low voice. 
+"Is it too deep for him?"
+    
+"We're in a drift," said Uncle Beamish.  "But it's not too
+deep.  Make him go ahead, doctor."
+    
+I clicked gently and tapped the horse with the whip, but he
+did not move.
+    
+"What a dreadful thing," whispered Miss Burroughs, leaning
+forward, "for him to stop so near the house!  Dr. Glover, what
+does this mean?"  And, as she spoke, she half rose behind me. 
+"Where did Sir Rohan come from?"
+    
+"Who's he?" asked Uncle Beamish, quickly.
+    
+"That horse," she answered.  "That's my aunt's horse.  She
+sold him a few days ago."
+    
+"By George! " ejaculated Uncle Beamish, unconsciously raising
+his voice a little.  "Wilson bought him, and his bringin' us here
+is as plain as A B C.  And now he don't want to leave home."
+    
+"But he has got to do it," said I, jerking the horse's head
+to one side and giving him a cut with the whip.
+    
+"Don't whip him," whispered Miss Burroughs; "it always makes
+him more stubborn.  How glad I am I thought of the bells!  The
+only way to get him to go is to mollify him."
+    
+"But how is that to be done?" I asked anxiously.  
+
+"You must give him sugar and pat his neck.  If I had some sugar
+and could get out--"
+    
+"But you haven't it, and you can't git out," said Uncle
+Beamish.  "Try him again doctor!"
+    
+I jerked the reins impatiently.  "Go along!" said I.  But he
+did not go along.
+    
+"Haven't you got somethin' in your medicine-case you could
+mollify him with?" said Uncle Beamish.  "Somethin' sweet
+that he might like?"
+    
+For an instant I caught at this absurd suggestion, and my
+mind ran over the contents of my little bottles.  If I had known
+his character, some sodium bromide in his morning feed might, by
+this time, have mollified his obstinacy.
+    
+"If I could be free of this blanket," said I, fumbling at the
+pin behind me, "I would get out and lead him into the road."
+    
+"You could not do it," said Miss Burroughs.  "You might pull
+his head off, but he wouldn't move.  I have seen him tried."
+    
+At this moment a window-sash in the second story of the house
+was raised, and there, not thirty feet from us, stood an elderly
+female, wrapped in a gray shawl, with piercing eyes shining
+through great spectacles.
+    
+"You seem to be stuck," said she, sarcastically.  "You are
+worse stuck than the fork was in my kitchen table."
+    
+We made no answer.  I do not know how Miss Burroughs looked
+or felt, or what was the appearance of Uncle Beamish, but I know
+I must have been very red in the face.  I gave the horse a
+powerful crack and shouted to him to go on.  There was no need
+for low speaking now.
+    
+"You needn't be cruel to dumb animals," said the old lady,
+"and you can't budge him.  He never did like snow,
+especially in going away from home.  You cut a powerful queer
+figure, young man, with that horse-blanket around you.  You don't
+look much like a practising physician."
+    
+"Miss Burroughs," I exclaimed, "please take that pin out of
+this blanket.  If I can get at his head I know I can pull him
+around and make him go."
+    
+But she did not seem to hear me.  "Aunty," she cried, "it's a
+shame to stand there and make fun of us.  We have got a perfect
+right to go away if we want to, and we ought not to be laughed
+at."
+    
+The old lady paid no attention to this remark.
+    
+"And there's that false doctor," she said.  "I wonder how he
+feels just now."
+    
+"False doctor!" exclaimed Miss Burroughs.  "I don't understand."
+    
+"Young lady," said Uncle Beamish, "I'm no false doctor.  I
+intended to tell you all about it as soon as I got a chance, but
+I haven't had one.  And, old lady, I'd like you to know that I
+don't say I'm a doctor, but I do say I'm a nuss, and a good nuss,
+and you can't deny it."
+    
+To this challenge the figure at the window made no answer.
+    
+"Catherine," said she, "I can't stand here and take cold, but
+I just want to know one thing:  Have you positively made up your
+mind to marry that young doctor in the horse-blanket?"
+    
+This question fell like a bomb-shell into the middle of the
+stationary sleigh.
+    
+I had never asked Kitty to marry me.  I loved her with all my
+heart and soul, and I hoped, almost believed, that she loved me. 
+It had been my intention, when we should be left together in
+the sleigh this morning, after dropping Uncle Beamish at his
+sister's house, to ask her to marry me.
+    
+The old woman's question pierced me as if it had been a flash
+of lightning coming through the frosty air of a winter morning. 
+I dropped the useless reins and turned.  Kitty's face was ablaze.
+She made a movement as if she was about to jump out of the sleigh
+and flee.
+    
+"Oh, Kitty!" said I, bending down toward her, "tell her yes! 
+I beg I entreat, I implore you to tell her yes!  Oh, Kitty! if
+you don't say yes I shall never know another happy day."
+   
+For one moment Kitty looked up into my face, and then said she:
+    
+"It is my positive intention to marry him!"
+    
+With the agility of a youth, Uncle Beamish threw the robe
+from him and sprang out into the deep snow.  Then, turning toward
+us, he took off his hat.
+   
+"By George!" said he, "you're a pair of trumps.  I never did
+see any human bein's step up to the mark more prompt.  Madam," he
+cried, addressing the old lady, "you ought to be the proudest
+woman in this county at seein' such a thing as this happen under
+your window of a Christmas mornin'.  And now the best thing that
+you can do is to invite us all in to have breakfast."
+"You'll have to come in," said she, "or else stay out there
+and freeze to death, for that horse isn't going to take you away.
+
+And if my niece really intends to marry the young man, and has
+gone so far as to start to run away with him,--and with a false
+doctor,--of course I've got no more to say about it, and you
+can come in and have breakfast."  And with that she shut down
+the window.
+  
+"That's talkin'," said Uncle Beamish.  "Sit still, doctor,
+and I'll lead him around to the back door.  I guess he'll move
+quick enough when you want him to turn back."
+    
+Without the slightest objection Sir Rohan permitted himself
+to be turned back and led up to the kitchen porch.
+    
+"Now you two sparklin' angels get out," said Uncle Beamish,
+"and go in.  I'll attend to the horse."
+    
+Jane, with a broad grin on her face, opened the kitchen door.
+    
+"Merry Christmas to you both!" said she.
+    
+"Merry Christmas!" we cried, and each of us shook her by the
+hand.
+    
+"Go in the sitting-room and get warm," said Jane.  "She'll be
+down pretty soon."
+    
+I do not know how long we were together in that sitting-room.  We
+had thousands of things to say, and we said most of them. 
+Among other things, we managed to get in some explanations of the
+occurrences of the previous night.  Kitty told her tale briefly. 
+She and her aunt, to whom she was making a visit, and who wanted
+her to make her house her home, had had a quarrel two days
+before.  Kitty was wild to go to the Collingwoods', and the old
+lady, who, for some reason, hated the family, was determined she
+should not go.  But Kitty was immovable, and never gave up until
+she found that her aunt had gone so far as to dispose of her
+horse, thus making it impossible to travel in such weather, there
+being no public conveyances passing the house.  Kitty was an
+orphan, and had a guardian who would have come to her aid, but
+she could not write to him in time, and, in utter despair, she
+went to bed.  She would not eat or drink, she would not speak,
+and she covered up her head.
+    
+"After a day and a night," said Kitty, "aunty got dreadfully
+frightened and thought something was the matter with my brain. 
+Her family are awfully anxious about their brains.  I knew she
+had sent for the doctor and I was glad of it, for I thought he
+would help me.  I must say I was surprised when I first saw that
+Mr. Beamish, for I thought he was Dr. Morris.  Now tell me about
+your coming here."
+    
+"And so," she said, when I had finished, "you had no idea
+that you were prescribing for me!  Please do tell me what were
+those medicines you sent up to me and which I took like a truly
+good girl."
+    
+"I didn't know it at the time," said I, "but I sent you sixty
+drops of the deepest, strongest love in a glass of water, and ten
+grains of perfect adoration."
+    
+"Nonsense!" said Kitty, with a blush, and at that moment
+Uncle Beamish knocked at the door.
+    
+"I thought I'd just step in and tell you," said he, "that
+breakfast will be comin' along in a minute.  I found they were
+goin' to have buckwheat cakes, anyway, and I prevailed on Jane to
+put sausages in the bill of fare.  Merry Christmas to you both! 
+I would like to say more, but here comes the old lady and Jane."
+    
+The breakfast was a strange meal, but a very happy one.  The
+old lady was very dignified.  She made no allusion to Christmas
+or to what had happened, but talked to Uncle Beamish about
+people in Warburton.
+    
+I have a practical mind, and, in spite of the present joy, I
+could not help feeling a little anxiety about what was to be done
+when breakfast was over.  But just as we were about to rise from
+the table we were all startled by a great jingle of sleigh-bells
+outside.  The old lady arose and stopped to the window.
+    
+"There!" said she, turning toward us.  "Here's a pretty
+kettle of fish!  There's a two-horse sleigh outside, with a man
+driving, and a gentleman in the back seat who I am sure is Dr.
+Morris, and he has come all the way on this bitter cold morning
+to see the patient I sent for him to come to.  Now, who is going
+to tell him he has come on a fool's errand?"
+    
+"Fool's errand!" I cried.  "Every one of you wait in here and
+I'll go out and tell him."
+    
+When I dashed out of doors and stood by the side of my
+uncle's sleigh, he was truly an amazed man.
+    
+"I will get in, uncle," said I, "and if you will let John
+drive the horses slowly around the yard, I will tell you how I
+happen to be here."
+    
+The story was a much longer one than I expected it to be, and
+John must have driven those horses backward and forward for half
+an hour.
+    
+"Well," said my uncle, at last, "I never saw your Kitty, but
+I knew her father and her mother, and I will go in and take a
+look at her.  If I like her, I will take you all on to the
+Collingwoods', and drop Uncle Beamish at his sister's house."
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, young doctor," said Uncle Beamish, at
+parting, "you ought to buy that big roan horse.  He has been
+a regular guardian angel to us this Christmas."
+    
+"Oh, that would never do at all," cried Kitty.  "His patients
+would all die before he got there."
+   
+"That is, if they had anything the matter with them," added
+my uncle.
+
+
+
+                           A PIECE OF RED CALICO
+
+Before beginning the relation of the following incidents, I wish
+to state that I am a young married man, doing business in a large
+city, in the suburbs of which I live.
+    
+I was going into town the other morning, when my wife handed
+me a little piece of red calico, and asked me if I would have
+time, during the day, to buy her two yards and a half of calico
+like it.  I assured her that it would be no trouble at all, and
+putting the piece of calico in my pocket, I took the train for
+the city.
+   
+At lunch-time I stopped in at a large dry-goods store to
+attend to my wife's commission.  I saw a well-dressed man walking
+the floor between the counters, where long lines of girls were
+waiting on much longer lines of customers, and asked him where I
+could see some red calico.
+    
+"This way, sir," and he led me up the store.  "Miss Stone,"
+said he to a young lady, "show this gentleman some red calico."
+    
+"What shade do you want!" asked Miss Stone.
+    
+I showed her the little piece of calico that my wife had
+given me.  She looked at it and handed it back to me.  Then
+she took down a great roll of red calico and spread it out on the
+counter.
+    
+"Why, that isn't the shade!" said I.
+    
+"No, not exactly," said she.  "But it is prettier than your
+sample."
+    
+"That may be," said I.  "But, you see, I want to match this
+piece.  There is something already in my house, made of this kind
+of calico, which needs to be made larger, or mended, or
+something.  I want some calico of the same shade."
+    
+The girl made no answer, but took down another roll.
+    
+"That's the shade," said she.
+    
+"Yes," I replied, "but it's striped."
+    
+"Stripes are more worn than anything else in calicoes," said
+she.
+   
+ "Yes.  But this isn't to be worn.  It's for furniture, I
+think.  At any rate, I want perfectly plain stuff, to match
+something already in use."
+    
+"Well, I don't think you can find it perfectly plain, unless
+you get Turkey red."
+    
+"What is Turkey red?" I asked.
+    
+"Turkey red is perfectly plain in calicoes," she answered.
+    
+"Well, let me see some."
+    
+"We haven't any Turkey red calico left," she said, "but we
+have some very nice plain calicoes in other colors."
+    
+"I don't want any other color.  I want stuff to match this."
+    
+"It's hard to match cheap calico like that," she said, and so
+I left her.
+    
+I next went into a store a few doors farther up Broadway.  When I
+entered I approached the "floorwalker," and handing him my
+sample, said:
+    
+"Have you any calico like this?"
+    
+"Yes, sir," said he.  "Third counter to the right."  I went
+to the third counter to the right, and showed my sample to the
+salesman in attendance there.  He looked at it on both sides. 
+Then he said:
+    
+"We haven't any of this."
+    
+"The floorwalker said you had," said I.
+    
+"We had it, but we're out of it now.  You'll get that
+goods at an upholsterers."
+    
+I went across the street to an upholsterer's.
+    
+"Have you any stuff like this?" I asked.
+    
+"No," said the salesman, "we haven't.  Is it for furniture?"
+    
+"Yes," I replied.
+    
+"Then Turkey red is what you want."
+    
+"Is Turkey red just like this?" I asked.
+    
+"No," said he, "but it's much better."
+    
+"That makes no difference to me," I replied.  "I want
+something just like this."
+    
+"But they don't use that for furniture," he said.
+    
+"I should think people could use anything they wanted for
+furniture," I remarked, somewhat sharply.
+    
+"They can, but they don't," he said quite calmly.  "They
+don't use red like that.  They use Turkey red."
+    
+I said no more, but left.  The next place I visited was a
+very large dry-goods store.  Of the first salesman I saw I
+inquired if they kept red calico like my sample.
+    
+"You'll find that on the second story," said he.
+    
+I went up-stairs.  There I asked a man:
+    
+"Where shall I find red calico?"
+    
+"In the far room to the left," and he pointed to a distant
+corner.
+    
+I walked through the crowds of purchasers and salespeople,
+around the counters and tables filled with goods, to the far room
+to the left.  When I got there I asked for red calico.
+    
+"The second counter down this side," said the man.  I went
+there and produced my sample.  "Calicoes down-stairs," said the
+man.
+    
+"They told me they were up here," I said.
+    
+"Not these plain goods.  You'll find them downstairs at the
+back of the store, over on that side."
+    
+I went down-stairs to the back of the store.
+    
+"Where can I find red calico like this?" I asked.
+    
+"Next counter but one, " said the man addressed, walking with
+me in the direction pointed out.  "Dunn, show red calicoes."
+    
+Mr. Dunn took my sample and looked at it.  "We haven't this shade
+in that quality of goods," he said.
+    
+"Well, have you it in any quality of goods?" I asked.
+    
+"Yes.  We've got it finer."  He took down a piece of calico,
+and unrolled a yard or two of it.
+    
+"That's not this shade," I said.
+    
+"No," said he.  "The goods is finer and the color's better."
+    
+"I want it to match this," I said.
+    
+"I thought you weren't particular about the match," said the
+salesman.  "You said you didn't care for the quality of the
+goods, and you know you can't match without you take into
+consideration quality and color both.  If you want that
+quality of goods in red, you ought to get Turkey red."
+    
+I did not think it necessary to answer this remark, but said:
+    
+"Then you've got nothing to match this?"
+    
+"No, sir.  But perhaps they may have it in the upholstery
+department, in the sixth story."
+    
+I got into the elevator and went up to the top of the house.
+    
+"Have you any red stuff like this?" I said to a young man.
+    
+"Red stuff?  Upholstery department--other end of this floor."
+    
+I went to the other end of the floor.
+    
+"I want some red calico," I said to a man.
+    
+"Furniture goods?" he asked.
+    
+"Yes," said I.
+    
+"Fourth counter to the left."
+    
+I went to the fourth counter to the left, and showed my
+sample to a salesman.  He looked at it, and said:  "You'll get
+this down on the first floor--calico department."
+    
+I turned on my heel, descended in the elevator, and went out
+on Broadway.  I was thoroughly sick of red calico.  But I
+determined to make one more trial.  My wife had bought her red
+calico not long before, and there must be some to be had
+somewhere.  I ought to have asked her where she bought it, but I
+thought a simple little thing like that could be procured
+anywhere.
+    
+I went into another large dry-goods store.  As I entered the
+door a sudden tremor seized me.  I could not bear to take out
+that piece of red calico.  If I had had any other kind of a
+rag about me--a pen-wiper or anything of the sort--I think I
+would have asked them if they could match that.
+    
+But I stepped up to a young woman and presented my sample,
+with the usual question.
+    
+"Back room, counter on the left," she said.
+    
+I went there.
+    
+"Have you any red calico like this?" I asked of the lady
+behind the counter.
+    
+"No, sir," she said, "but we have it in Turkey red."
+    
+Turkey red again!  I surrendered.
+    
+"All right," I said.  "Give me Turkey red."
+    
+"How much, sir?" she asked.
+    
+"I don't know--say five yards."
+    
+The lady looked at me rather strangely, but measured off five
+yards of Turkey red calico.  Then she rapped on the counter and
+called out, "Cash!"  A little girl, with yellow hair in two long
+plaits, came slowly up.  The lady wrote the number of yards; the
+name of the goods; her own number; the price; the amount of the
+bank-note I handed her; and some other matters--probably the
+color of my eyes and the direction and velocity of the wind--on a
+slip of paper.  She then copied all this in a little book which
+she kept by her.  Then she handed the slip of paper, the money,
+and the Turkey red to the yellow-haired girl.  This young girl
+copied the slip in a little book she carried, and then she went
+away with the calico, the paper slip, and the money.
+    
+After a very long time--during which the little girl probably
+took the goods, the money, and the slip to some central desk,
+where the note was received, its amount and number entered in a
+book; change given to the girl; a copy of the slip made and
+entered; girl's entry examined and approved; goods wrapped up;
+girl registered; plaits counted and entered on a slip of paper
+and copied by the girl in her book; girl taken to a hydrant and
+washed; number of towel entered on a paper slip and copied by the
+girl in her book; value of my note and amount of change branded
+somewhere on the child, and said process noted on a slip of paper
+and copied in her book--the girl came to me, bringing my change
+and the package of Turkey red calico.
+    I had time for but very little work at the office that
+afternoon, and when I reached home I handed the package of calico
+to my wife.  She unrolled it and exclaimed:
+    
+"Why, this doesn't match the piece I gave you!"
+    
+"Match it!" I cried.  "Oh no! it doesn't match it.  You
+didn't want that matched.  You were mistaken.  What you wanted
+was Turkey red--third counter to the left.  I mean, Turkey red is
+what they use!"
+    
+My wife looked at me in amazement, and then I detailed to her
+my troubles.
+    
+"Well," said she, "this Turkey red is a great deal prettier
+than what I had, and you've bought so much of it that I needn't
+use the other at all.  I wish I had thought of Turkey red
+before."
+    
+"I wish from my heart you had!" said I.
+
+
+
+                            THE CHRISTMAS WRECK
+
+"Well, sir," said old Silas, as he gave a preliminary puff to the
+pipe he had just lighted, and so satisfied himself that the
+draught was all right, "the wind's a-comin', an' so's Christmas. 
+But it's no use bein' in a hurry fur either of 'em, fur sometimes
+they come afore you want 'em, anyway."
+    
+Silas was sitting in the stern of a small sailing-boat which
+he owned, and in which he sometimes took the Sandport visitors
+out for a sail, and at other times applied to its more legitimate
+but less profitable use, that of fishing.  That afternoon he had
+taken young Mr. Nugent for a brief excursion on that portion of
+the Atlantic Ocean which sends its breakers up on the beach of
+Sandport.  But he had found it difficult, nay, impossible, just
+now, to bring him back, for the wind had gradually died away
+until there was not a breath of it left.  Mr. Nugent, to whom
+nautical experiences were as new as the very nautical suit of
+blue flannel which he wore, rather liked the calm.  It was such a
+relief to the monotony of rolling waves.  He took out a cigar and
+lighted it, and then he remarked:
+    
+"I can easily imagine how a wind might come before you sailors
+might want it, but I don't see how Christmas could come too
+soon."
+    
+"It come wunst on me when things couldn't `a' looked more
+onready fur it," said Silas.
+    
+"How was that?" asked Mr. Nugent, settling himself a little
+more comfortably on the hard thwart.  "If it's a story, let's
+have it.  This is a good time to spin a yarn."
+    
+"Very well," said old Silas.  "I'll spin her."
+    
+The bare-legged boy whose duty it was to stay forward and
+mind the jib came aft as soon as he smelt a story, and took a
+nautical position, which was duly studied by Mr. Nugent, on a bag
+of ballast in the bottom of the boat.
+    
+"It's nigh on to fifteen year ago," said Silas, "that I was
+on the bark Mary Auguster, bound for Sydney, New South Wales,
+with a cargo of canned goods.  We was somewhere about longitood a
+hundred an' seventy, latitood nothin', an' it was the twenty-
+second o' December, when we was ketched by a reg'lar typhoon
+which blew straight along, end on, fur a day an' a half.  It blew
+away the storm-sails.  It blew away every yard, spar, shroud, an'
+every strand o' riggin', an' snapped the masts off close to the
+deck.  It blew away all the boats.  It blew away the cook's
+caboose, an' everythin' else on deck.  It blew off the hatches,
+an' sent 'em spinnin' in the air about a mile to leeward.  An'
+afore it got through, it washed away the cap'n an' all the crew
+'cept me an' two others.  These was Tom Simmons, the second mate,
+an' Andy Boyle, a chap from the Adirondack Mount'ins, who'd never
+been to sea afore.  As he was a landsman, he ought, by rights, to
+'a' been swep' off by the wind an' water, consid'rin' that the
+cap'n an' sixteen good seamen had gone a'ready.  But he had hands
+eleven inches long, an' that give him a grip which no
+typhoon could git the better of.  Andy had let out that his
+father was a miller up there in York State, an' a story had got
+round among the crew that his granfather an' great-gran'father
+was millers, too; an' the way the fam'ly got such big hands come
+from their habit of scoopin' up a extry quart or two of meal or
+flour fur themselves when they was levellin' off their customers'
+measures.  He was a good-natered feller, though, an' never got
+riled when I'd tell him to clap his flour-scoops onter a halyard.
+"We was all soaked, an' washed, an' beat, an' battered.  We
+held on some way or other till the wind blowed itself out, an'
+then we got on our legs an' began to look about us to see how
+things stood.  The sea had washed into the open hatches till the
+vessel was more'n half full of water, an' that had sunk her, so
+deep that she must 'a' looked like a canal-boat loaded with
+gravel.  We hadn't had a thing to eat or drink durin' that whole
+blow, an' we was pretty ravenous.  We found a keg of water which
+was all right, and a box of biscuit which was what you might call
+softtack, fur they was soaked through an' through with sea-water.
+
+We eat a lot of them so, fur we couldn't wait, an' the rest we
+spread on the deck to dry, fur the sun was now shinin' hot enough
+to bake bread.  We couldn't go below much, fur there was a pretty
+good swell on the sea, an' things was floatin' about so's to make
+it dangerous.  But we fished out a piece of canvas, which we
+rigged up ag'in' the stump of the mainmast so that we could have
+somethin' that we could sit down an' grumble under.  What struck
+us all the hardest was that the bark was loaded with a whole
+cargo of jolly things to eat, which was just as good as ever they
+was, fur the water couldn't git through the tin cans in which
+they was all put up, an' here we was with nothin' to live on but
+them salted biscuit.  There wasn't no way of gittin' at any of
+the ship's stores, or any of the fancy prog, fur everythin' was
+stowed away tight under six or seven feet of water, an' pretty
+nigh all the room that was left between decks was filled up with
+extry spars, lumber, boxes, an' other floatin' stuff.  All was
+shiftin', an' bumpin', an' bangin' every time the vessel rolled.
+    
+"As I said afore, Tom was second mate, an' I was bo's'n. 
+Says I to Tom, `The thing we've got to do is to put up some kind
+of a spar with a rag on it fur a distress flag, so that we'll
+lose no time bein' took off.'  `There's no use a-slavin' at
+anythin' like that,' says Tom, `fur we've been blowed off the
+track of traders, an' the more we work the hungrier we'll git,
+an' the sooner will them biscuit be gone.'
+    
+"Now when I heared Tom say this I sot still an' began to
+consider.  Bein' second mate, Tom was, by rights, in command of
+this craft.  But it was easy enough to see that if he commanded
+there'd never be nothin' fur Andy an' me to do.  All the grit he
+had in him he'd used up in holdin' on durin' that typhoon.  What
+he wanted to do now was to make himself comfortable till the time
+come for him to go to Davy Jones's locker--an' thinkin',  most
+likely, that Davy couldn't make it any hotter fur him than it was
+on that deck, still in latitood nothin' at all, fur we'd been
+blowed along the line pretty nigh due west.  So I calls to Andy,
+who was busy turnin' over the biscuits on the deck.  `Andy,' says
+I, when he had got under the canvas, `we's goin' to have a
+'lection fur skipper.  Tom, here, is about played out.  He's one
+candydate, an' I'm another.  Now, who do you vote fur?  An' mind
+yer eye, youngster, that you don't make no mistake.'  `I vote fur
+you' says Andy.  `Carried unanermous!' says I.  `An' I want you
+to take notice that I'm cap'n of what's left of the Mary
+Auguster, an' you two has got to keep your minds on that, an'
+obey orders.'  If Davy Jones was to do all that Tom Simmons said
+when he heared this, the old chap would be kept busier than he
+ever was yit.  But I let him growl his growl out, knowin' he'd
+come round all right, fur there wasn't no help fur it,
+consid'rin' Andy an' me was two to his one.  Pretty soon we all
+went to work, an' got up a spar from below, which we rigged to
+the stump of the foremast, with Andy's shirt atop of it.
+    
+"Them sea-soaked, sun-dried biscuit was pretty mean prog, as
+you might think, but we eat so many of 'em that afternoon, an'
+'cordingly drank so much water, that I was obliged to put us all
+on short rations the next day.  `This is the day afore
+Christmas,' says Andy Boyle, `an' to-night will be Christmas eve,
+an' it's pretty tough fur us to be sittin' here with not even so
+much hardtack as we want, an' all the time thinkin' that the hold
+of this ship is packed full of the gayest kind of good things to
+eat.'  `Shut up about Christmas!' says Tom Simmons.  `Them two
+youngsters of mine, up in Bangor, is havin' their toes and noses
+pretty nigh froze, I 'spect, but they'll hang up their stockin's
+all the same to-night, never thinkin' that their dad's bein'
+cooked alive on a empty stomach.'  `Of course they wouldn't hang
+'em up,' says I, if they knowed what a fix you was in, but
+they don't know it, an' what's the use of grumblin' at 'em fur
+bein' a little jolly?'  `Well,' says Andy `they couldn't be more
+jollier than I'd be if I could git at some of them fancy fixin's
+down in the hold.  I worked well on to a week at 'Frisco puttin'
+in them boxes, an' the names of the things was on the outside of
+most of 'em; an' I tell you what it is, mates, it made my mouth
+water, even then, to read 'em, an' I wasn't hungry, nuther,
+havin' plenty to eat three times a day.  There was roast beef,
+an' roast mutton, an' duck, an' chicken, an' soup, an' peas, an'
+beans, an' termaters, an' plum-puddin',an' mince-pie--'  `Shut up
+with your mince-pie!' sung out Tom Simmons.  `Isn't it enough to
+have to gnaw on these salt chips, without hearin' about mince-
+pie?'  `An' more'n that' says Andy, `there was canned peaches,
+an' pears, an' plums, an' cherries.'
+    
+"Now these things did sound so cool an' good to me on that
+br'ilin' deck that I couldn't stand it, an' I leans over to Andy,
+an' I says:  `Now look-a here; if you don't shut up talkin' about
+them things what's stowed below, an' what we can't git at nohow,
+overboard you go!'  `That would make you short-handed,' says
+Andy, with a grin.  `Which is more'n you could say,' says I, `if
+you'd chuck Tom an, me over'--alludin' to his eleven-inch grip. 
+Andy didn't say no more then, but after a while he comes to me,
+as I was lookin' round to see if anything was in sight, an' says
+he, `I spose you ain't got nothin' to say ag'in' my divin' into
+the hold just aft of the foremast, where there seems to be a bit
+of pretty clear water, an' see if I can't git up somethin'?' 
+`You kin do it, if you like,' says I, `but it's at your own risk.
+
+You can't take out no insurance at this office.'  `All
+right, then,' says Andy; `an' if I git stove in by floatin'
+boxes, you an' Tom'll have to eat the rest of them salt
+crackers.'  `Now, boy,' says I,--an' he wasn't much more, bein'
+only nineteen year old,--`you'd better keep out o' that hold. 
+You'll just git yourself smashed.  An' as to movin' any of them
+there heavy boxes, which must be swelled up as tight as if they
+was part of the ship, you might as well try to pull out one of
+the Mary Auguster's ribs.'  `I'll try it,' says Andy, `fur
+to-morrer is Christmas, an' if I kin help it I ain't goin' to be
+floatin' atop of a Christmas dinner without eatin' any on it.'  I
+let him go, fur he was a good swimmer an' diver, an' I did hope
+he might root out somethin' or other, fur Christmas is about the
+worst day in the year fur men to be starvin' on, an' that's what
+we was a-comin' to.
+    
+"Well, fur about two hours Andy swum, an' dove, an' come up
+blubberin', an' dodged all sorts of floatin' an' pitchin' stuff,
+fur the swell was still on.  But he couldn't even be so much as
+sartin that he'd found the canned vittles.  To dive down through
+hatchways, an' among broken bulkheads, to hunt fur any partiklar
+kind o' boxes under seven foot of sea-water, ain't no easy job. 
+An' though Andy said he got hold of the end of a box that felt to
+him like the big uns he'd noticed as havin' the meat-pies in, he
+couldn't move it no more'n if it had been the stump of the
+foremast.  If we could have pumped the water out of the hold we
+could have got at any part of the cargo we wanted, but as it was,
+we couldn't even reach the ship's stores, which, of course, must
+have been mostly sp'iled anyway, whereas the canned vittles was
+just as good as new.  The pumps was all smashed or stopped
+up, for we tried 'em, but if they hadn't 'a' been we three
+couldn't never have pumped out that ship on three biscuit a day,
+an' only about two days' rations at that.
+    
+"So Andy he come up, so fagged out that it was as much as he
+could do to get his clothes on, though they wasn't much, an' then
+he stretched himself out under the canvas an' went to sleep, an'
+it wasn't long afore he was talkin' about roast turkey an'
+cranberry sass, an' punkin-pie, an' sech stuff, most of which we
+knowed was under our feet that present minnit.  Tom Simmons he
+just b'iled over, an' sung out:  `Roll him out in the sun an' let
+him cook!  I can't stand no more of this!'  But I wasn't goin' to
+have Andy treated no sech way as that, fur if it hadn't been fur
+Tom Simmons' wife an' young uns, Andy'd been worth two of him to
+anybody who was consid'rin' savin' life.  But I give the boy a
+good punch in the ribs to stop his dreamin', fur I was as hungry
+as Tom was, an' couldn't stand no nonsense about Christmas
+dinners.
+    
+"It was a little arter noon when Andy woke up, an' he went
+outside to stretch himself.  In about a minute he give a yell
+that made Tom an' me jump.  `A sail!' he hollered. `A sail!'  An'
+you may bet your life, young man, that 'twasn't more'n half a
+second afore us two had scuffled out from under that canvas, an'
+was standin' by Andy.  `There she is!' he shouted, `not a mile to
+win'ard.'  I give one look, an' then I sings out:  `'Tain't a
+sail!  It's a flag of distress!  Can't you see, you land-lubber,
+that that's the Stars and Stripes upside down?'  `Why, so it is,'
+says Andy, with a couple of reefs in the joyfulness of his
+voice. An' Tom he began to growl as if somebody had cheated
+him out of half a year's wages.
+    
+"The flag that we saw was on the hull of a steamer that had
+been driftin' down on us while we was sittin' under our canvas. 
+It was plain to see she'd been caught in the typhoon, too, fur
+there wasn't a mast or a smoke-stack on her.  But her hull was
+high enough out of the water to catch what wind there was, while
+we was so low sunk that we didn't make no way at all.  There was
+people aboard, and they saw us, an' waved their hats an' arms,
+an' Andy an' me waved ours; but all we could do was to wait till
+they drifted nearer, fur we hadn't no boats to go to 'em if we'd
+wanted to.
+    
+"`I'd like to know what good that old hulk is to us,' says
+Tom Simmons.  `She can't take us off.'  It did look to me
+somethin' like the blind leadin' the blind.  But Andy he sings
+out:  `We'd be better off aboard of her, fur she ain't water-
+logged, an', more'n that, I don't s'pose her stores are all
+soaked up in salt water.'  There was some sense in that, an' when
+the steamer had got to within half a mile of us, we was glad to
+see a boat put out from her with three men in it.  It was a queer
+boat, very low an' flat, an' not like any ship's boat I ever see.
+
+But the two fellers at the oars pulled stiddy, an' pretty soon
+the boat was 'longside of us, an' the three men on our deck.  One
+of 'em was the first mate of the other wreck, an' when he found
+out what was the matter with us, he spun his yarn, which was a
+longer one than ours.  His vessel was the Water Crescent,
+nine hundred tons, from 'Frisco to Melbourne, an' they had sailed
+about six weeks afore we did.  They was about two weeks out 
+when some of their machinery broke down, an' when they got it
+patched up it broke ag'in, worse than afore, so that they
+couldn't do nothin' with it.  They kep' along under sail for
+about a month, makin' mighty poor headway till the typhoon struck
+'em, an' that cleaned their decks off about as slick as it did
+ours, but their hatches wasn't blowed off, an' they didn't ship
+no water wuth mentionin', an' the crew havin' kep' below, none of
+'em was lost.  But now they was clean out of provisions an'
+water, havin' been short when the breakdown happened, fur they
+had sold all the stores they could spare to a French brig in
+distress that they overhauled when about a week out.  When they
+sighted us they felt pretty sure they'd git some provisions out
+of us.  But when I told the mate what a fix we was in his jaw
+dropped till his face was as long as one of Andy's hands. 
+Howsomdever, he said he'd send the boat back fur as many men as
+it could bring over, an' see if they couldn't git up some of our
+stores.  Even if they was soaked with salt water, they'd be
+better than nothin'.  Part of the cargo of the Water Crescent
+was tools an, things fur some railway contractors out in
+Australier, an' the mate told the men to bring over some of them
+irons that might be used to fish out the stores.  All their
+ship's boats had been blowed away, an' the one they had was a
+kind of shore boat for fresh water, that had been shipped as part
+of the cargo, an' stowed below.  It couldn't stand no kind of a
+sea, but there wasn't nothin' but a swell on, an' when it come
+back it had the cap'n in it, an' five men, besides a lot of
+chains an' tools.
+    
+"Them fellers an' us worked pretty nigh the rest of the
+day, an' we got out a couple of bar'ls of water, which was all
+right, havin' been tight bunged, an' a lot of sea-biscuit, all
+soaked an sloppy, but we only got a half-bar'l of meat, though
+three or four of the men stripped an' dove fur more'n an hour. 
+We cut up some of the meat an' eat it raw, an' the cap'n sent
+some over to the other wreck, which had drifted past us to
+leeward, an' would have gone clean away from us if the cap'n
+hadn't had a line got out an' made us fast to it while we was a-
+workin' at the stores.
+    
+"That night the cap'n took us three, as well as the
+provisions we'd got out, on board his hull, where the
+'commodations was consid'able better than they was on the half-
+sunk Mary Auguster.  An' afore we turned in he took me aft
+an' had a talk with me as commandin' off'cer of my vessel.  `That
+wreck o' yourn,' says he, `has got a vallyble cargo in it, which
+isn't sp'iled by bein' under water.  Now, if you could get that
+cargo into port it would put a lot of money in your pocket, fur
+the owners couldn't git out of payin' you fur takin' charge of it
+an' havin' it brung in.  Now I'll tell you what I'll do.  I'll
+lie by you, an' I've got carpenters aboard that'll put your pumps
+in order, an' I'll set my men to work to pump out your vessel. 
+An' then, when she's afloat all right, I'll go to work ag'in at
+my vessel--which I didn't s'pose there was any use o' doin', but
+whilst I was huntin' round amongst our cargo to-day I found that
+some of the machinery we carried might be worked up so's to take
+the place of what is broke in our engine.  We've got a forge
+aboard, an' I believe we can make these pieces of machinery fit,
+an' git goin' ag'in.  Then I'll tow you into Sydney, an' we'll
+divide the salvage money.  I won't git nothin' fur savin' my
+vessel, coz that's my business, but you wasn't cap'n o' yourn,
+an' took charge of her a-purpose to save her, which is another
+thing.'  
+
+"I wasn't at all sure that I didn't take charge of the
+Mary Auguster to save myself an' not the vessel, but I didn't
+mention that, an' asked the cap'n how he expected to live all
+this time.
+    
+"`Oh, we kin git at your stores easy enough,' says he, when
+the water's pumped out.'  `They'll be mostly sp'iled,' says I. 
+`That don't matter' says he.  `Men'll eat anything when they
+can't git nothin' else.'  An' with that he left me to think it
+over.
+    
+"I must say, young man, an' you kin b'lieve me if you know
+anything about sech things, that the idee of a pile of money was
+mighty temptin' to a feller like me, who had a girl at home ready
+to marry him, and who would like nothin' better'n to have a
+little house of his own, an' a little vessel of his own, an' give
+up the other side of the world altogether.  But while I was goin'
+over all this in my mind, an' wonderin' if the cap'n ever could
+git us into port, along comes Andy Boyle, an' sits down beside
+me.  `It drives me pretty nigh crazy,' says he, `to think that
+to-morrer's Christmas, an' we've got to feed on that sloppy stuff
+we fished out of our stores, an' not much of it, nuther, while
+there's all that roast turkey an' plum-puddin' an' mince-pie a-
+floatin' out there just afore our eyes, an' we can't have none of
+it.'  `You hadn't oughter think so much about eatin', Andy,' says
+I,`but if I was talkin' about them things I wouldn't leave out
+canned peaches.  By George!  On a hot Christmas like this is
+goin' to be, I'd be the jolliest Jack on the ocean if I could git
+at that canned fruit.'  `Well, there's a way,' says Andy,
+`that we might git some of 'em.  A part of the cargo of this ship
+is stuff far blastin' rocks--ca'tridges, 'lectric bat'ries, an'
+that sort of thing; an' there's a man aboard who's goin' out to
+take charge of 'em.  I've been talkin' to this bat'ry man, an'
+I've made up my mind it'll be easy enough to lower a little
+ca'tridge down among our cargo an' blow out a part of it.'  `What
+'u'd be the good of it,' says I, `blowed into chips?'  `It might
+smash some,' says he, `but others would be only loosened, an'
+they'd float up to the top, where we could git 'em, specially
+them as was packed with pies, which must be pretty light.'  `Git
+out, Andy,' says I, `with all that stuff!'  An' he got out.
+    
+"But the idees he'd put into my head didn't git out, an' as I
+laid on my back on the deck, lookin' up at the stars, they
+sometimes seemed to put themselves into the shape of a little
+house, with a little woman cookin' at the kitchin fire, an' a
+little schooner layin' at anchor just off shore.  An' then ag'in
+they'd hump themselves up till they looked like a lot of new tin
+cans with their tops off, an' all kinds of good things to eat
+inside, specially canned peaches--the big white kind, soft an'
+cool, each one split in half, with a holler in the middle filled
+with juice.  By George, sir! the very thought of a tin can like
+that made me beat my heels ag'in the deck.  I'd been mighty
+hungry, an' had eat a lot of salt pork, wet an' raw, an' now the
+very idee of it, even cooked, turned my stomach.  I looked up to
+the stars ag'in, an' the little house an' the little schooner was
+clean gone, an' the whole sky was filled with nothin' but bright
+new tin cans.
+    
+"In the mornin' Andy he come to me ag'in.  `Have you made up
+your mind,' says he, `about gittin' some of them good things
+fur Christmas dinner?'  `Confound you!' says I, `you talk as if
+all we had to do was to go an' git 'em.'  `An' that's what I
+b'lieve we kin do,' says he, `with the help of that bat'ry man.' 
+`Yes,' says I, `an' blow a lot of the cargo into flinders, an'
+damage the Mary Auguster so's she couldn't never be took into
+port.'  An' then I told him what the cap'n had said to me, an'
+what I was goin' to do with the money.  `A little ca'tridge,'
+says Andy, `would do all we want, an' wouldn't hurt the vessel,
+nuther.  Besides that, I don't b'lieve what this cap'n says about
+tinkerin' up his engine.  'Tain't likely he'll ever git her
+runnin' ag'in, nor pump out the Mary Auguster, nuther.  If I
+was you I'd a durned sight ruther have a Christmas dinner in hand
+than a house an' wife in the bush.'  `I ain't thinkin' o'
+marryin' a girl in Australier,' says I.  An' Andy he grinned, an'
+said I wouldn't marry nobody if I had to live on sp'iled vittles
+till I got her.
+    
+"A little arter that I went to the cap'n an' I told him about
+Andy's idee, but he was down on it.  `It's your vessel, an' not
+mine,' says he, `an' if you want to try to git a dinner out of
+her I'll not stand in your way.  But it's my 'pinion you'll just
+damage the ship, an' do nothin'.'  Howsomdever, I talked to the
+bat'ry man about it, an' he thought it could be done, an' not
+hurt the ship, nuther.  The men was all in favor of it, fur none
+of 'em had forgot it was Christmas day.  But Tom Simmons he was
+ag'in' it strong, fur he was thinkin' he'd git some of the money
+if we got the Mary Auguster into port.  He was a selfish-
+minded man, was Tom, but it was his nater, an' I s'pose he
+couldn't help it.
+    
+"Well, it wasn't long afore I began to feel pretty empty an'
+mean, an' if I'd wanted any of the prog we got out the day afore,
+I couldn't have found much, fur the men had eat it up nearly all
+in the night.  An' so I just made up my mind without any more
+foolin', an' me an' Andy Boyle an' the bat'ry man, with some
+ca'tridges an' a coil of wire, got into the little shore boat,
+an' pulled over to the Mary Auguster.  There we lowered a
+small ca'tridge down the main hatchway, an' let it rest down
+among the cargo.  Then we rowed back to the steamer, uncoilin'
+the wire as. we went.  The bat'ry man clumb up on deck, an' fixed
+his wire to a 'lectric machine, which he'd got all ready afore we
+started.  Andy an' me didn't git out of the boat.  We had too
+much sense fur that, with all them hungry fellers waitin' to jump
+in her.  But we just pushed a little off, an' sot waitin', with
+our mouths awaterin', fur him to touch her off.  He seemed to be
+a long time about it, but at last he did it, an' that instant
+there was a bang on board the Mary Auguster that made my
+heart jump.  Andy an' me pulled fur her like mad, the others a-
+hollerin' arter us, an' we was on deck in no time.  The deck was
+all covered with the water that had been throwed up.  But I tell
+you, sir, that we poked an' fished about, an' Andy stripped an'
+went down an' swum all round, an' we couldn't find one floatin'
+box of canned goods.  There was a lot of splinters, but where
+they come from we didn't know.  By this time my dander was up,
+an' I just pitched around savage.  That little ca'tridge wasn't
+no good, an' I didn't intend to stand any more foolin'.  We just
+rowed back to the other wreck, an' I called to the ba'try man to
+come down, an' bring some bigger ca'tridges with him, fur if
+we was goin' to do anything we might as well do it right.  So he
+got down with a package of bigger ones, an' jumped into the boat.
+
+The cap'n he called out to us to be keerful, an' Tom Simmons
+leaned over the rail an' swored; but I didn't pay no 'tention to
+nuther of 'em, an' we pulled away.
+    
+"When I got aboard the Mary Auguster, I says to the
+bat'ry man:  `We don't want no nonsense this time, an' I want you
+to put in enough ca'tridges to heave up somethin' that'll do fur
+a Christmas dinner.  I don't know how the cargo is stored, but
+you kin put one big ca'tridge 'midship, another for'ard, an'
+another aft, an' one or nuther of 'em oughter fetch up
+somethin'.'  Well, we got the three ca'tridges into place.  They
+was a good deal bigger than the one we fust used, an' we j'ined
+'em all to one wire, an' then we rowed back, carryin' the long
+wire with us.  When we reached the steamer, me an' Andy was a-
+goin' to stay in the boat as we did afore, but the cap'n sung out
+that he wouldn't allow the bat'ry to be touched off till we come
+aboard. `Ther's got to be fair play,' says he.  `It's your
+vittles, but it's my side that's doin' the work.  After we've
+blasted her this time you two can go in the boat an' see what
+there is to git hold of, but two of my men must go along.'  So me
+an' Andy had to go on deck, an' two big fellers was detailed to
+go with us in the little boat when the time come, an' then the
+bat'ry man he teched her off.
+    
+"Well, sir, the pop that followed that tech was somethin' to
+remember.  It shuck the water, it shuck the air, an' it shuck the
+hull we was on.  A reg'lar cloud of smoke an' flyin' bits of
+things rose up out of the Mary Auguster; an' when that smoke
+cleared away, an' the water was all b'ilin' with the splash
+of various-sized hunks that come rainin' down from the sky, what
+was left of the Mary Auguster was sprinkled over the sea like
+a wooden carpet fur water-birds to walk on.
+    
+"Some of the men sung out one thing, an' some another, an' I
+could hear Tom Simmons swear; but Andy an' me said never a word,
+but scuttled down into the boat, follered close by the two men
+who was to go with us.  Then we rowed like devils fur the lot of
+stuff that was bobbin' about on the water, out where the Mary
+Auguster had been.  In we went among the floatin' spars and
+ship's timbers, I keepin' the things off with an oar, the two men
+rowin', an' Andy in the bow.
+    
+"Suddenly Andy give a yell, an' then he reached himself
+for'ard with sech a bounce that I thought he'd go overboard.  But
+up he come in a minnit, his two 'leven-inch hands gripped round a
+box.  He sot down in the bottom of the boat with the box on his
+lap an' his eyes screwed on some letters that was stamped on one
+end.  `Pidjin-pies!' he sings out.  "Tain't turkeys, nor 'tain't
+cranberries but, by the Lord Harry, it's Christmas pies all the
+same!'  After that Andy didn't do no more work, but sot holdin'
+that box as if it had been his fust baby.  But we kep' pushin' on
+to see what else there was.  It's my 'pinion that the biggest
+part of that bark's cargo was blowed into mince-meat, an' the
+most of the rest of it was so heavy that it sunk.  But it wasn't
+all busted up, an' it didn't all sink.  There was a big piece of
+wreck with a lot of boxes stove into the timbers, and some of
+these had in 'em beef ready b'iled an' packed into cans, an'
+there was other kinds of meat, an' dif'rent sorts of
+vegetables, an' one box of turtle soup.  I looked at every one of
+'em as we took 'em in, an' when we got the little boat pretty
+well loaded I wanted to still keep on searchin'; but the men they
+said that shore boat 'u'd sink if we took in any more cargo, an'
+so we put back, I feelin' glummer'n I oughter felt, fur I had
+begun to be afeared that canned fruit, sech as peaches, was
+heavy, an' li'ble to sink.
+    
+"As soon as we had got our boxes aboard, four fresh men put
+out in the boat, an' after a while they come back with another
+load.  An' I was mighty keerful to read the names on all the
+boxes.  Some was meat-pies, an' some was salmon, an' some was
+potted herrin's, an' some was lobsters.  But nary a thing could I
+see that ever had growed on a tree.
+    
+"Well, sir, there was three loads brought in altogether, an'
+the Christmas dinner we had on the for'ard deck of that steamer's
+hull was about the jolliest one that was ever seen of a hot day
+aboard of a wreck in the Pacific Ocean.  The cap'n kept good
+order, an' when all was ready the tops was jerked off the boxes,
+and each man grabbed a can an' opened it with his knife.  When he
+had cleaned it out, he tuk another without doin' much questionin'
+as to the bill of fare.  Whether anybody got pidjin-pie 'cept
+Andy, I can't say, but the way we piled in Delmoniker prog would
+'a' made people open their eyes as was eatin' their Christmas
+dinners on shore that day.  Some of the things would 'a' been
+better cooked a little more, or het up, but we was too fearful
+hungry to wait fur that, an' they was tiptop as they was.
+    
+"The cap'n went out afterwards, an' towed in a couple of
+bar'ls of flour that was only part soaked through, an' he got
+some other plain prog that would do fur future use.  But none of
+us give our minds to stuff like this arter the glorious Christmas
+dinner that we'd quarried out of the Mary Auguster.  Every
+man that wasn't on duty went below and turned in fur a snooze--
+all 'cept me, an' I didn't feel just altogether satisfied.  To be
+sure, I'd had an A1 dinner, an', though a little mixed, I'd never
+eat a jollier one on any Christmas that I kin look back at.  But,
+fur all that, there was a hanker inside o' me.  I hadn't got all
+I'd laid out to git when we teched off the Mary Auguster. 
+The day was blazin' hot, an' a lot of the things I'd eat was
+pretty peppery.  `Now,' thinks I, `if there had been just one can
+o' peaches sech as I seen shinin' in the stars last night!'  An'
+just then, as I was walkin' aft, all by myself, I seed lodged on
+the stump of the mizzenmast a box with one corner druv down among
+the splinters.  It was half split open, an' I could see the tin
+cans shinin' through the crack.  I give one jump at it, an'
+wrenched the side off.  On the top of the first can I seed was a
+picture of a big white peach with green leaves.  That box had
+been blowed up so high that if it had come down anywhere 'cept
+among them splinters it would 'a' smashed itself to flinders, or
+killed somebody.  So fur as I know, it was the only thing that
+fell nigh us, an' by George, sir, I got it!  When I had finished
+a can of 'em I hunted up Andy, an' then we went aft an' eat some
+more.  `Well,' says Andy, as we was a-eatin', `how d'ye feel now
+about blowin' up your wife, an' your house, an' that little
+schooner you was goin' to own?'
+    
+"`Andy,' says I, `this is the joyfulest Christmas I've
+had yit, an' if I was to live till twenty hundred I don't b'lieve
+I'd have no joyfuler, with things comin' in so pat; so don't you
+throw no shadders.'
+    
+"`Shadders!' says Andy.  `That ain't me.  I leave that sort
+of thing fur Tom Simmons.'
+    
+"`Shadders is cool,' says I, `an' I kin go to sleep under all
+he throws.'
+    
+"Well, sir," continued old Silas, putting his hand on the
+tiller and turning his face seaward, "if Tom Simmons had kept
+command of that wreck, we all would 'a' laid there an' waited an'
+waited till some of us was starved, an' the others got nothin'
+fur it, fur the cap'n never mended his engine, an' it wasn't
+more'n a week afore we was took off, an' then it was by a sailin'
+vessel, which left the hull of the Water Crescent behind her,
+just as she would 'a' had to leave the Mary Auguster if that
+jolly old Christmas wreck had been there.
+    
+"An' now, sir," said Silas, "d'ye see that stretch o' little
+ripples over yander, lookin' as if it was a lot o' herrin'
+turnin' over to dry their sides?  Do you know what that is? 
+That's the supper wind.  That means coffee, an' hot cakes, an' a
+bit of br'iled fish, an' pertaters, an' p'r'aps, if the old woman
+feels in a partiklar good humor, some canned peaches--big white
+uns, cut in half, with a holler place in the middle filled with
+cool, sweet juice."
+
+
+
+
+                           MY WELL AND WHAT CAME
+                                 OUT OF IT
+
+Early in my married life I bought a small country estate which my
+wife and I looked upon as a paradise.  After enjoying its delight
+for a little more than a year our souls were saddened by the
+discovery that our Eden contained a serpent.  This was an
+insufficient water-supply.
+    
+It had been a rainy season when we first went there, and for
+a long time our cisterns gave us full aqueous satisfaction, but
+early this year a drought had set in, and we were obliged to be
+exceedingly careful of our water.
+    
+It was quite natural that the scarcity of water for domestic
+purposes should affect my wife much more than it did me, and
+perceiving the discontent which was growing in her mind, I
+determined to dig a well.  The very next day I began to look for
+a well-digger.  Such an individual was not easy to find, for in
+the region in which I lived wells had become unfashionable; but I
+determined to persevere in my search, and in about a week I found
+a well-digger.
+    
+He was a man of somewhat rough exterior, but of an
+ingratiating turn of mind.  It was easy to see that it was his
+earnest desire to serve me.
+    
+"And now, then," said he, when we had had a little
+conversation about terms, "the first thing to do is to find out
+where there is water.  Have you a peach-tree on the place?"  We
+walked to such a tree, and he cut therefrom a forked twig.
+    
+"I thought," said I, "that divining-rods were always of hazel
+wood."
+    
+"A peach twig will do quite as well," said he, and I have
+since found that he was right.  Divining-rods of peach will turn
+and find water quite as well as those of hazel or any other kind
+of wood.
+    
+He took an end of the twig in each hand, and, with the point
+projecting in front of him, he slowly walked along over the grass
+in my little orchard.  Presently the point of the twig seemed to
+bend itself downward toward the ground.
+    
+"There," said he, stopping, "you will find water here."
+    
+"I do not want a well here," said I.  "This is at the bottom
+of a hill, and my barn-yard is at the top.  Besides, it is too
+far from the house."
+    
+"Very good," said he.  "We will try somewhere else."
+    
+His rod turned at several other places, but I had objections
+to all of them.  A sanitary engineer had once visited me, and he
+had given me a great deal of advice about drainage, and I knew
+what to avoid.
+    
+We crossed the ridge of the hill into the low ground on the
+other side.  Here were no buildings, nothing which would
+interfere with the purity of a well.  My well-digger walked
+slowly over the ground with his divining-rod.  Very soon he
+exclaimed:  "Here is water!"  And picking up a stick, he
+sharpened one end of it and drove it into the ground.  Then
+he took a string from his pocket, and making a loop in one end,
+he put it over the stick.
+    
+"What are you going to do?" I asked.
+    
+"I am going to make a circle four feet in diameter," he said. 
+"We have to dig the well as wide as that, you know."
+
+"But I do not want a well here," said I.  "It's too close to
+the wall.  I could not build a house over it.  It would not do at
+all."
+    
+He stood up and looked at me.  "Well, sir," said he, "will
+you tell me where you would like to have a well?"
+    
+"Yes," said I. "I would like to have it over there in the
+corner of the hedge.  It would be near enough to the house; it
+would have a warm exposure, which will be desirable in winter;
+and the little house which I intend to build over it would look
+better there than anywhere else."
+    
+He took his divining-rod and went to the spot I had
+indicated.  "Is this the place?" he asked wishing to be sure he
+had understood me.
+    
+"Yes," I replied.
+    
+He put his twig in position, and in a few seconds it turned
+in the direction of the ground.  Then he drove down a stick,
+marked out a circle, and the next day he came with two men and a
+derrick, and began to dig my well.
+    
+When they had gone down twenty-five feet they found water,
+and when they had progressed a few feet deeper they began to be
+afraid of drowning.  I thought they ought to go deeper, but the
+well-digger said that they could not dig without first taking
+out the water, and that the water came in as fast as they
+bailed it out, and he asked me to put it to myself and tell him
+how they could dig it deeper.  I put the question to myself, but
+could find no answer.  I also laid the matter before some
+specialists, and it was generally agreed that if water came in as
+fast as it was taken out, nothing more could be desired.  The
+well was, therefore, pronounced deep enough.  It was lined with
+great tiles, nearly a yard in diameter, and my well-digger, after
+congratulating me on finding water so easily, bade me good-by and
+departed with his men and his derrick.
+    
+On the other side of the wall which bounded my grounds, and
+near which my well had been dug, there ran a country lane,
+leading nowhere in particular, which seemed to be there for the
+purpose of allowing people to pass my house, who might otherwise
+be obliged to stop.
+    
+Along this lane my neighbors would pass, and often strangers
+drove by, and as my well could easily be seen over the low stone
+wall, its construction had excited a great deal of interest. 
+Some of the people who drove by were summer folks from the city,
+and I am sure, from remarks I overheard, that it was thought a
+very queer thing to dig for water.  Of course they must have
+known that people used to do this in the olden times, even as far
+back as the time of Jacob and Rebecca, but the expressions of
+some of their faces indicated that they remembered that this was
+the nineteenth century.
+    
+My neighbors, however, were all rural people, and much more
+intelligent in regard to water-supplies.  One of them, Phineas
+Colwell by name, took a more lively interest in my
+operations than did any one else.  He was a man of about fifty
+years of age, who had been a soldier.  This fact was kept alive
+in the minds of his associates by his dress, a part of which was
+always military.  If he did not wear an old fatigue-jacket with
+brass buttons, he wore his blue trousers, or, perhaps, a
+waistcoat that belonged to his uniform, and if he wore none of
+these, his military hat would appear upon his head.  I think he
+must also have been a sailor, judging from the little gold rings
+in his ears.  But when I first knew him he was a carpenter, who
+did mason-work whenever any of the neighbors had any jobs of the
+sort.  He also worked in gardens by the day, and had told me that
+he understood the care of horses and was a very good driver.  He
+sometimes worked on farms, especially at harvest-time, and I know
+he could paint, for he once showed me a fence which he said he
+had painted.  I frequently saw him, because he always seemed to
+be either going to his work or coming from it.  In fact, he
+appeared to consider actual labor in the light of a bad habit
+which he wished to conceal, and which he was continually
+endeavoring to reform.
+    
+Phineas walked along our lane at least once a day, and
+whenever he saw me he told me something about the well.  He did
+not approve of the place I had selected for it.  If he had been
+digging a well he would have put it in a very different place. 
+When I had talked with him for some time and explained why I had
+chosen this spot, he would say that perhaps I was right, and
+begin to talk of something else.  But the next time I saw him he
+would again assert that if he had been digging that well he would
+not have put it there.
+    
+About a quarter of a mile from my house, at a turn of the
+lane, lived Mrs. Betty Perch.  She was a widow with about twelve
+children.  A few of these were her own, and the others she had
+inherited from two sisters who had married and died, and whose
+husbands, having proved their disloyalty by marrying again, were
+not allowed by the indignant Mrs. Perch to resume possession of
+their offspring.  The casual observer might have supposed the
+number of these children to be very great,--fifteen or perhaps
+even twenty,--for if he happened to see a group of them on the
+door-step, he would see a lot more if he looked into the little
+garden; and under some cedar-trees at the back of the house there
+were always some of them on fine days.  But perhaps they sought
+to increase their apparent number, and ran from one place to
+another to be ready to meet observation, like the famous clown
+Grimaldi, who used to go through his performances at one London
+theatre, and then dash off in his paint and motley to another, so
+that perambulating theatre-going men might imagine that there
+were two greatest clowns in the world.
+    
+When Mrs. Perch had time she sewed for the neighbors, and,
+whether she had time or not, she was always ready to supply them
+with news.  From the moment she heard I was going to dig a well
+she took a vital interest in it.  Her own water-supply was
+unsatisfactory, as she depended upon a little spring which
+sometimes dried up in summer, and should my well turn out to be a
+good one, she knew I would not object to her sending the children
+for pails of water on occasions.
+    
+"It will be fun for them," she said, "and if your water
+really is good it will often come in very well for me.  Mr.
+Colwell tells me," she continued, "that you put your well in the
+wrong place.  He is a practical man and knows all about wells,
+and I do hope that for your sake he may be wrong."
+    
+My neighbors were generally pessimists.  Country people are
+proverbially prudent, and pessimism is prudence.  We feel safe
+when we doubt the success of another, because if he should
+succeed we can say we were glad we were mistaken, and so step
+from a position of good judgment to one of generous disposition
+without feeling that we have changed our plane of merit.  But the
+optimist often gets himself into terrible scrapes, for if he is
+wrong he cannot say he is glad of it.
+    
+But, whatever else he may be, a pessimist is depressing, and
+it was, therefore, a great pleasure to me to have a friend who
+was an out-and-out optimist.  In fact, he might be called a
+working optimist.  He lived about six miles from my house, and
+had a hobby, which was natural phenomena.  He was always on the
+lookout for that sort of thing, and when he found it he would
+study its nature and effect.  He was a man in the maturity of
+youth, and if the estate on which he lived had not belonged to
+his mother, he would have spent much time and money in
+investigating its natural phenomena.  He often drove over to see
+me, and always told me how glad he would be if he had an
+opportunity of digging a well.
+    
+"I have the wildest desire," he said, "to know what is in the
+earth under our place, and if it should so happen in the course
+of time that the limits of earthly existence should be reached
+by--I mean if the estate should come into my hands--I would
+go down, down, down, until I had found out all that could be
+discovered.  To own a plug of earth four thousand miles long and
+only to know what is on the surface of the upper end of it is
+unmanly.  We might as well be grazing beasts."
+    
+He was sorry that I was digging only for water, because water
+is a very commonplace thing, but he was quite sure I would get
+it, and when my well was finished he was one of the first to
+congratulate me.
+    
+"But if I had been in your place," said he, "with full right
+to do as I pleased, I would not have let those men go away.  I
+would have set them to work in some place where there would be no
+danger of getting water,--at least, for a long time,--and then
+you would have found out what are the deeper treasures of your
+land."
+    
+Having finished my well, I now set about getting the water
+into my residence near by.  I built a house over the well and put
+in it a little engine, and by means of a system of pipes, like
+the arteries and veins of the human body, I proposed to
+distribute the water to the various desirable points in my house.
+
+The engine was the heart, which should start the circulation,
+which should keep it going, and which should send throbbing
+through every pipe the water which, if it were not our life, was
+very necessary to it.
+    
+When all was ready we started the engine, and in a very short
+time we discovered that something was wrong.  For fifteen or
+twenty minutes water flowed into the tank at the top of the
+house, with a sound that was grander in the ears of my wife and
+myself than the roar of Niagara, and then it stopped. 
+Investigation proved that the flow had stopped because there
+was no more water in the well.
+    
+It is needless to detail the examinations, investigations,
+and the multitude of counsels and opinions with which our minds
+were filled for the next few days.  It was plain to see that
+although this well was fully able to meet the demands of a hand-
+pump or of bailing buckets, the water did not flow into it as
+fast as it could be pumped out by an engine.  Therefore, for the
+purposes of supplying the circulation of my domestic water
+system, the well was declared a failure.
+    
+My non-success was much talked about in the neighborhood, and
+we received a great deal of sympathy and condolence.  Phineas
+Colwell was not surprised at the outcome of the affair.  He had
+said that the well had been put in the wrong place.  Mrs. Betty
+was not only surprised, but disgusted.
+    
+"It is all very well for you," she said, "who could afford to
+buy water if it was necessary, but it is very different with the
+widow and the orphan.  If I had not supposed you were going to
+have a real well, I would have had my spring cleaned out and
+deepened.  I could have had it done in the early summer, but it
+is of no use now.  The spring has dried up."
+    
+She told a neighbor that she believed the digging of my well
+had dried up her spring, and that that was the way of this world,
+where the widow and the orphan were sure to come out at the
+little end.
+    
+Of course I did not submit to defeat--at least, not without a
+struggle.  I had a well, and if anything could be done to make
+that well supply me with water, I was going to do it.  I
+consulted specialists, and, after careful consideration of the
+matter, they agreed that it would be unadvisable for me to
+attempt to deepen my present well, as there was reason to suppose
+there was very little water in the place where I had dug it, and
+that the very best thing I could do would be to try a driven
+well.  As I had already excavated about thirty feet, that was so
+much gain to me, and if I should have a six-inch pipe put into my
+present well and then driven down and down until it came to a
+place where there was plenty of water, I would have all I wanted.
+
+How far down the pipe would have to be driven, of course they did
+not know, but they all agreed that if I drove deep enough I would
+get all the water I wanted.  This was the only kind of a well,
+they said, which one could sink as deep as he pleased without
+being interfered with by the water at the bottom.  My wife and I
+then considered the matter, and ultimately decided that it would
+be a waste of the money which we had already spent upon the
+engine, the pipes, and the little house, and, as there was
+nothing else to be done but to drive a well, we would have a well
+driven.
+    
+Of course we were both very sorry that the work must be begun
+again, but I was especially dissatisfied, for the weather was
+getting cold, there was already snow upon the ground, and I was
+told that work could not be carried on in winter weather.  I lost
+no time, however, in making a contract with a well-driver, who
+assured me that as soon as the working season should open, which
+probably would be very early in the spring, he would come to my
+place and begin to drive my well.
+    
+The season did open, and so did the pea-blossoms, and the
+pods actually began to fill before I saw that well-driver
+again.  I had had a good deal of correspondence with him in the
+meantime, urging him to prompt action, but he always had some
+good reason for delay.  (I found out afterwards that he was busy
+fulfilling a contract made before mine, in which he promised to
+drive a well as soon as the season should open.)
+    
+At last--it was early in the summer--he came with his derricks, a
+steam-engine, a trip-hammer, and a lot of men.  They took off the
+roof of my house, removed the engine, and set to work.
+    
+For many a long day, and I am sorry to say for many a longer
+night, that trip-hammer hammered and banged.  On the next day
+after the night-work began, one of my neighbors came to me to
+know what they did that for.  I told him they were anxious to get
+through.
+    
+"Get through what?" said he.  "The earth?  If they do that,
+and your six-inch pipe comes out in a Chinaman's back yard, he
+will sue you for damages."
+    
+When the pipe had been driven through the soft stratum under
+the old well, and began to reach firmer ground, the pounding and
+shaking of the earth became worse and worse.  My wife was obliged
+to leave home with our child.
+    
+"If he is to do without both water and sleep," said she, "he
+cannot long survive."  And I agreed with her.
+    
+She departed for a pleasant summer resort where her married
+sister with her child was staying, and from week to week I
+received very pleasant letters from her, telling me of the charms
+of the place, and dwelling particularly upon the abundance of
+cool spring water with which the house was supplied.
+    
+While this terrible pounding was going on I heard various
+reports of its effect upon my neighbors.  One of them, an
+agriculturist, with whom I had always been on the best of terms,
+came with a clouded brow.
+    
+"When I first felt those shakes," he said, "I thought they
+were the effects of seismic disturbances, and I did not mind, but
+when I found it was your well I thought I ought to come over to
+speak about it.  I do not object to the shaking of my barn,
+because my man tells me the continual jolting is thrashing out
+the oats and wheat, but I do not like to have all my apples and
+pears shaken off my trees.  And then," said he, "I have a late
+brood of chickens, and they cannot walk, because every time they
+try to make a step they are jolted into the air about a foot. 
+And again, we have had to give up having soup.  We like soup, but
+we do not care to have it spout up like a fountain whenever that
+hammer comes down."
+    
+I was grieved to trouble this friend, and I asked him what I
+should do. "Do you want me to stop the work on the well?" said I.
+    
+"Oh, no," said he, heartily.  "Go on with the work.  You must
+have water, and we will try to stand the bumping.  I dare say it
+is good for dyspepsia, and the cows are getting used to having
+the grass jammed up against their noses.  Go ahead; we can stand
+it in the daytime, but if you could stop the night-work we would
+be very glad.  Some people may think it a well-spring of pleasure
+to be bounced out of bed, but I don't."
+    
+Mrs. Perch came to me with a face like a squeezed lemon, and
+asked me if I could lend her five nails.
+    
+"What sort? " said I.
+    
+"The kind you nail clapboards on with," said she.  "There is
+one of them been shook entirely off my house by your well.  I am
+in hopes that before the rest are all shook off I shall get in
+some money that is owing me and can afford to buy nails for
+myself."
+    
+I stopped the night-work, but this was all I could do for
+these neighbors.
+    
+My optimist friend was delighted when he heard of my driven
+well.  He lived so far away that he and his mother were not
+disturbed by the jarring of the ground.  Now he was sure that
+some of the internal secrets of the earth would be laid bare, and
+he rode or drove over every day to see what we were getting out
+of the well.  I know that he was afraid we would soon get water,
+but was too kind-hearted to say so.
+    
+One day the pipe refused to go deeper.  No matter how hard it
+was struck, it bounced up again.  When some of the substance it
+had struck was brought up it looked like French chalk, and my
+optimist eagerly examined it.
+    
+"A French-chalk mine," said he, "would not be a bad thing,
+but I hoped that you had struck a bed of mineral gutta-percha. 
+That would be a grand find."
+    
+But the chalk-bed was at last passed, and we began again to
+bring up nothing but common earth.
+    
+"I suppose," said my optimist to me, one morning, "that you
+must soon come to water, and if you do I hope it will be hot
+water."
+    
+"Hot water!" I exclaimed.  "I do not want that."
+    
+"Oh, yes, you would, if you had thought about it as much as I
+have," he replied.  "I lay awake for hours last night, thinking
+what would happen if you struck hot water.  In the first place,
+it would be absolutely pure, because, even if it were
+possible for germs and bacilli to get down so deep, they would be
+boiled before you got them, and then you could cool that water
+for drinking.  When fresh it would be already heated for cooking
+and hot baths.  And then--just think of it!--you could introduce
+the hot-water system of heating into your house, and there would
+be the hot water always ready.  But the great thing would be your
+garden.  Think of the refuse hot water circulating in pipes up
+and down and under all your beds!  That garden would bloom in the
+winter as others do in the summer; at least, you could begin to
+have Lima-beans and tomatoes as soon as the frost was out of the
+air."
+    
+I laughed.  "It would take a lot of pumping," I said, "to do
+all that with the hot water."
+    
+"Oh, I forgot to say," he cried, with sparkling eyes, "that I
+do not believe you would ever have any more pumping to do.  You
+have now gone down so far that I am sure whatever you find will
+force itself up.  It will spout high into the air or through all
+your pipes, and run always."
+    
+Phineas Colwell was by when this was said, and he must have
+gone down to Mrs. Betty Perch's house to talk it over with her,
+for in the afternoon she came to see me.
+    
+"I understand," said she, "that you are trying to get hot
+water out of your well, and that there is likely to be a lot more
+than you need, so that it will run down by the side of the road. 
+I just want to say that if a stream of hot water comes down past
+my house some of the children will be bound to get into it and be
+scalded to death, and I came to say that if that well is
+going to squirt b'iling water I'd like to have notice so that I
+can move, though where a widow with so many orphans is going to
+move to nobody knows.  Mr. Colwell says that if you had got him
+to tell you where to put that well there would have been no
+danger of this sort of thing."
+    
+The next day the optimist came to me, his face fairly blazing
+with a new idea.  "I rode over on purpose to urge you," he cried,
+"if you should strike hot water, not to stop there.  Go on, and,
+by George! you may strike fire."
+    
+"Heavens!" I cried.
+    
+"Oh, quite the opposite," said he.  "But do not let us joke. 
+I think that would be the grandest thing of this age.  Think of a
+fire well, with the flames shooting up perhaps a hundred feet
+into the air!"
+    
+I wish Phineas Colwell had not been there.  As it was, he
+turned pale and sat down on the wall.
+    
+"You look astonished!" exclaimed the optimist, "but listen to
+me.  You have not thought of this thing as I have.  If you should
+strike fire your fortune would be made.  By a system of
+reflectors you could light up the whole country.  By means of
+tiles and pipes this region could be made tropical.  You could
+warm all the houses in the neighborhood with hot air.  And then
+the power you could generate--just think of it!  Heat is power;
+the cost of power is the fuel.  You could furnish power to all
+who wanted it.  You could fill this region with industries.  My
+dear sir, you must excuse my agitation, but if you should strike
+fire there is no limit to the possibilities of achievement."
+    
+"But I want water," said I.  "Fire would not take the place
+of that."
+    
+"Oh, water is a trifle," said he.  "You could have pipes laid
+from town; it is only about two miles.  But fire!  Nobody has yet
+gone down deep enough for that.  You have your future in your
+hands."
+    
+As I did not care to connect my future with fire, this idea
+did not strike me very forcibly, but it struck Phineas Colwell. 
+He did not say anything to me, but after I had gone he went to
+the well-drivers.
+    
+"If you feel them pipes getting hot," he said to them, "I
+warn you to stop.  I have been in countries where there are
+volcanoes, and I know what they are.  There's enough of them in
+this world, and there's no need of making new ones."
+    
+In the afternoon a wagoner, who happened to be passing,
+brought me a note from Mrs. Perch, very badly spelled, asking if
+I would let one of my men bring her a pail of water, for she
+could not think of coming herself or letting any of the children
+come near my place if spouting fires were expected.
+    
+The well-driving had gone on and on, with intermissions on
+account of sickness in the families of the various workmen, until
+it had reached the limit which I had fixed, and we had not found
+water in sufficient quantity, hot or cold, nor had we struck
+fire, or anything else worth having.
+    
+The well-drivers and some specialists were of the opinion
+that if I were to go ten, twenty, or perhaps a hundred feet
+deeper, I would be very likely to get all the water I wanted. 
+But, of course, they could not tell how deep they must go, for
+some wells were over a thousand feet deep.  I shook my head at
+this.  There seemed to be only one thing certain about this
+drilling business, and that was the expense.  I declined to go
+any deeper.
+    
+"I think," a facetious neighbor said to me, "it would be
+cheaper for you to buy a lot of Apollinaris water,--at wholesale
+rates, of course,--and let your men open so many bottles a day
+and empty them into your tank.  You would find that would pay
+better in the long run."
+    
+Phineas Colwell told me that when he had informed Mrs. Perch
+that I was going to stop operations, she was in a dreadful state
+of mind.  After all she had undergone, she said, it was simply
+cruel to think of my stopping before I got water, and that after
+having dried up her spring!
+    
+This is what Phineas said she said, but when next I met her
+she told me that he had declared that if I had put the well where
+he thought it ought to be, I should have been having all the
+water I wanted before now.
+    
+My optimist was dreadfully cast down when he heard that I
+would drive no deeper.
+    
+"I have been afraid of this," he said.  "I have, been afraid
+of it.  And if circumstances had so arranged themselves that I
+should have command of money, I should have been glad to assume
+the expense of deeper explorations.  I have been thinking a great
+deal about the matter, and I feel quite sure that even if you did
+not get water or anything else that might prove of value to you,
+it would be a great advantage to have a pipe sunk into the earth
+to the depth of, say, one thousand feet."
+    
+"What possible advantage could that be?" I asked.
+    
+"I will tell you," he said.  "You would then have one of
+the grandest opportunities ever offered to man of constructing a
+gravity-engine.  This would be an engine which would be of no
+expense at all to run.  It would need no fuel.  Gravity would be
+the power.  It would work a pump splendidly.  You could start it
+when you liked and stop it when you liked."
+    
+"Pump!" said I.  "What is the good of a pump without water?"
+    
+"Oh, of course you would have to have water," he answered. 
+"But, no matter how you get it, you will have to pump it up to
+your tank so as to make it circulate over your house.  Now, my
+gravity-pump would do this beautifully.  You see, the pump would
+be arranged with cog-wheels and all that sort of thing, and the
+power would be supplied by a weight, which would be a cylinder of
+lead or iron, fastened to a rope and run down inside your pipe. 
+Just think of it!  It would run down a thousand feet, and where
+is there anything worked by weight that has such a fall as that?"
+    
+I laughed.  "That is all very well," said I.  "But how about
+the power required to wind that weight up again when it got to
+the bottom?  I should have to have an engine to do that."
+    
+"Oh, no," said he.  "I have planned the thing better than
+that.  You see, the greater the weight the greater the power and
+the velocity.  Now, if you take a solid cylinder of lead about
+four inches in diameter, so that it would slip easily down your
+pipe,--you might grease it, for that matter,--and twenty feet in
+length, it would be an enormous weight, and in slowly descending
+for about an hour a day--for that would be long enough for your
+pumping--and going down a thousand feet, it would run your
+engine for a year.  Now, then, at the end of the year you could
+not expect to haul that weight up again.  You would have a
+trigger arrangement which would detach it from the rope when it
+got to the bottom.  Then you would wind up your rope,--a man
+could do that in a short time,--and you would attach another
+cylinder of lead, and that would run your engine for another
+year, minus a few days, because it would only go down nine
+hundred and eighty feet.  The next year you would put on another
+cylinder, and so on.  I have not worked out the figures exactly,
+but I think that in this way your engine would run for thirty
+years before the pipe became entirely filled with cylinders. 
+That would be probably as long as you would care to have water
+forced into the house."
+    
+"Yes"' said I, "I think that is likely."
+    
+He saw that his scheme did not strike me favorably.  Suddenly
+a light flashed across his face.
+    
+"I tell you what you can do with your pipe," he said, "just
+as it is.  You can set up a clock over it which would run for
+forty years without winding."
+    
+I smiled, and he turned sadly away to his horse; but he had
+not ridden ten yards before he came back and called to me over
+the wall.
+    
+"If the earth at the bottom of your pipe should ever yield to
+pressure and give way, and if water or gas, or--anything, should
+be squirted out of it, I beg you will let me know as soon as
+possible."
+    
+I promised to do so.
+    
+When the pounding was at an end my wife and child came home. 
+But the season continued dry, and even their presence could not
+counteract the feeling of aridity which seemed to permeate
+everything which belonged to us, material or immaterial.  We had
+a great deal of commiseration from our neighbors.  I think even
+Mrs. Betty Perch began to pity us a little, for her spring had
+begun to trickle again in a small way, and she sent word to me
+that if we were really in need of water she would be willing to
+divide with us.  Phineas Colwell was sorry for us, of course, but
+he could not help feeling and saying that if I had consulted him
+the misfortune would have been prevented.
+    
+It was late in the summer when my wife returned, and when she
+made her first visit of inspection to the grounds and gardens,
+her eyes, of course, fell upon the unfinished well.  She was
+shocked.
+    
+"I never saw such a scene of wreckage," she said.  "It looks
+like a Western town after a cyclone.  I think the best thing you
+can do is to have this dreadful litter cleared up, the ground
+smoothed and raked, the wall mended, and the roof put back on
+that little house, and then if we can make anybody believe it is
+an ice-house, so much the better."
+    
+This was good advice, and I sent for a man to put the
+vicinity of the well in order and give it the air of neatness
+which characterizes the rest of our home.
+    
+The man who came was named Mr. Barnet.  He was a
+contemplative fellow with a pipe in his mouth.  After having
+worked at the place for half a day he sent for me and said:
+    
+"I'll tell you what I would do if I was in your place.  I'd
+put that pump-house in order, and I'd set up the engine, and put
+the pump down into that thirty-foot well you first dug, and I'd
+pump water into my house."
+    
+I looked at him in amazement.
+    
+"There's lots of water in that well," he continued, "and if
+there's that much now in this drought, you will surely have ever
+so much more when the weather isn't so dry.  I have measured the
+water, and I know."
+    
+I could not understand him.  It seemed to me that he was talking
+wildly.  He filled his pipe and lighted it and sat upon the wall.
+    
+"Now," said he, after he had taken a few puffs, "I'll tell
+you where the trouble's been with your well.  People are always
+in too big a hurry in this world about all sorts of things as
+well as wells.  I am a well-digger and I know all about them.  We
+know if there is any water in the ground it will always find its
+way to the deepest hole there is, and we dig a well so as to give
+it a deep hole to go to in the place where we want it.  But you
+can't expect the water to come to that hole just the very day
+it's finished.  Of course you will get some, because it's right
+there in the neighborhood, but there is always a lot more that
+will come if you give it time.  It's got to make little channels
+and passages for itself, and of course it takes time to do that. 
+It's like settling up a new country.  Only a few pioneers come at
+first, and you have to wait for the population to flow in.  This
+being a dry season, and the water in the ground a little sluggish
+on that account, it was a good while finding out where your well
+was.  If I had happened along when you was talking about a well,
+I think I should have said to you that I knew a proverb which
+would about fit your case, and that is:  `Let well enough
+alone.'"
+    
+I felt like taking this good man by the hand, but I did not.  I
+only told him to go ahead and do everything that was proper.
+    
+The next morning, as I was going to the well, I saw Phineas
+Colwell coming down the lane and Mrs. Betty Perch coming up it. 
+I did not wish them to question me, so I stepped behind some
+bushes.  When they met they stopped.
+    
+"Upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Betty, "if he isn't going to
+work again on that everlasting well!  If he's got so much money
+he don't know what to do with it, I could tell him that there's
+people in this world, and not far away either, who would be the
+better for some of it.  It's a sin and a shame and an
+abomination.  Do you believe, Mr. Colwell, that there is the
+least chance in the world of his ever getting water enough out of
+that well to shave himself with?"
+    
+"Mrs. Perch," said Phineas, "it ain't no use talking about
+that well.  It ain't no use, and it never can be no use, because
+it's in the wrong place.  If he ever pumps water out of that well
+into his house I'll do--"
+    
+"What will you do?" asked Mr. Barnet, who just then appeared
+from the recesses of the engine-house.
+    
+"I'll do anything on this earth that you choose to name,"
+said Phineas.  "I am safe, whatever it is."
+    
+"Well, then," said Mr. Barnet, knocking the ashes from his
+pipe preparatory to filling it again, "will you marry Mrs.
+Perch?"
+    
+Phineas laughed.  "Yes," he said.  "I promised I would do
+anything, and I'll promise that."
+    
+"A slim chance for me," said Mrs. Betty, "even if I'd have
+you."  And she marched on with her nose in the air.
+    
+When Mr. Barnet got fairly to work with his derrick, his
+men, and his buckets, he found that there was a good deal more to
+do than he had expected.  The well-drivers had injured the
+original well by breaking some of the tiles which lined it, and
+these had to be taken out and others put in, and in the course of
+this work other improvements suggested themselves and were made. 
+Several times operations were delayed by sickness in the family
+of Mr. Barnet, and also in the families of his workmen, but still
+the work went on in a very fair manner, although much more slowly
+than had been supposed by any one.  But in the course of time--I
+will not say how much time--the work was finished, the engine was
+in its place, and it pumped water into my house, and every day
+since then it has pumped all the water we need, pure, cold, and
+delicious.
+    
+Knowing the promise Phineas Colwell had made, and feeling
+desirous of having everything which concerned my well settled and
+finished, I went to look for him to remind him of his duty toward
+Mrs. Perch, but I could not find that naval and military
+mechanical agriculturist.  He had gone away to take a job or a
+contract,--I could not discover which,--and he has not since
+appeared in our neighborhood.  Mrs. Perch is very severe on me
+about this.
+    
+"There's plenty of bad things come out of that well," she
+said, "but I never thought anything bad enough would come out of
+it to make Mr. Colwell go away and leave me to keep on being a
+widow with all them orphans."
+
+
+
+                                 MR.TOLMAN
+
+Mr. Tolman was a gentleman whose apparent age was of a varying
+character.  At times, when deep in thought on business matters or
+other affairs, one might have thought him fifty-five or fifty-
+seven, or even sixty.  Ordinarily, however, when things were
+running along in a satisfactory and commonplace way, he appeared
+to be about fifty years old, while upon some extraordinary
+occasions, when the world assumed an unusually attractive aspect,
+his age seemed to run down to forty-five or less.
+    
+He was the head of a business firm.  In fact, he was the only
+member of it.  The firm was known as Pusey and Co.  But Pusey had
+long been dead and the "Co.," of which Mr. Tolman had been a
+member, was dissolved.  Our elderly hero, having bought out the
+business, firm-name and all, for many years had carried it on
+with success and profit.  His counting-house was a small and
+quiet place, but a great deal of money had been made in it.  Mr.
+Tolman was rich--very rich indeed.
+    
+And yet, as he sat in his counting-room one winter evening,
+he looked his oldest.  He had on his hat and his overcoat, his
+gloves and his fur collar.  Every one else in the establishment
+had gone home, and he, with the keys in his hand, was ready
+to lock up and leave also.  He often stayed later than any one
+else, and left the keys with Mr. Canterfield, the head clerk, as
+he passed his house on his way home.
+    
+Mr. Tolman seemed in no hurry to go.  He simply sat and
+thought, and increased his apparent age.  The truth was, he did
+not want to go home.  He was tired of going home.  This was not
+because his home was not a pleasant one.  No single gentleman in
+the city had a handsomer or more comfortable suite of rooms.  It
+was not because he felt lonely, or regretted that a wife and
+children did not brighten and enliven his home.  He was perfectly
+satisfied to be a bachelor.  The conditions suited him exactly. 
+But, in spite of all this, he was tired of going home.
+    
+"I wish," said Mr. Tolman to himself, "that I could feel some
+interest in going home."  Then he rose and took a turn or two up
+and down the room.  But as that did not seem to give him any more
+interest in the matter, he sat down again.  "I wish it were
+necessary for me to go home," said he, "but it isn't."  So then
+he fell again to thinking.  "What I need," he said, after a
+while, "is to depend more upon myself--to feel that I am
+necessary to myself.  Just now I'm not.  I'll stop going home--at
+least, in this way.  Where's the sense in envying other men, when
+I can have all that they have just as well as not?  And I'll have
+it, too," said Mr. Tolman, as he went out and locked the doors. 
+Once in the streets, and walking rapidly, his ideas shaped
+themselves easily and readily into a plan which, by the time he
+reached the house of his head clerk, was quite matured.  Mr.
+Canterfield was just going down to dinner as his employer
+rang the bell, so he opened the door himself.  "I will
+detain you but a minute or two," said Mr. Tolman, handing the
+keys to Mr. Canterfield.  "Shall we step into the parlor?"
+    
+When his employer had gone, and Mr. Canterfield had joined
+his family at the dinner-table, his wife immediately asked him
+what Mr. Tolman wanted.
+    "Only to say that he is going away to-morrow, and that I am
+to attend to the business, and send his personal letters to----,"
+naming a city not a hundred miles away.
+    
+"How long is he going to stay?"
+    
+"He didn't say," answered Mr. Canterfield.
+    
+"I'll tell you what he ought to do," said the lady.  "He
+ought to make you a partner in the firm, and then he could go
+away and stay as long as he pleased."
+    
+"He can do that now," returned her husband.  "He has made a
+good many trips since I have been with him, and things have gone
+on very much in the same way as when he is here.  He knows that."
+    
+"But still you'd like to be a partner?"
+    
+"Oh, yes," said Mr. Canterfield.
+    
+"And common gratitude ought to prompt him to make you one,"
+said his wife.
+    
+Mr. Tolman went home and wrote a will.  He left all his
+property, with the exception of a few legacies, to the richest
+and most powerful charitable organization in the country.
+    
+"People will think I am crazy," said he to himself, "and if I
+should die while I am carrying out my plan, I will leave the task
+of defending my sanity to people who are able to make a good
+fight for me."  And before he went to bed his will was
+signed and witnessed.
+    
+The next day he packed a trunk and left for the neighboring
+city.  His apartments were to be kept in readiness for his return
+at any time.  If you had seen him walking over to the railroad
+depot, you would have taken him for a man of forty-five.
+    
+When he arrived at his destination, Mr. Tolman established
+himself temporarily at a hotel, and spent the next three or four
+days in walking about the city looking for what he wanted.  What
+he wanted was rather difficult to define, but the way in which he
+put the matter to himself was something like this:
+    
+"I would like to find a snug little place where, I can live,
+and carry on some business which I can attend to myself, and
+which will bring me into contact with people of all sorts--people
+who will interest me.  It must be a small business, because I
+don't want to have to work very hard, and it must be snug and
+comfortable, because I want to enjoy it.  I would like a shop of
+some sort, because that brings a man face to face with his
+fellow-creatures."
+    
+The city in which he was walking about was one of the best
+places in the country in which to find the place of business he
+desired.  It was full of independent little shops.  But Mr.
+Tolman could not readily find one which resembled his ideal.  A
+small dry-goods establishment seemed to presuppose a female
+proprietor.  A grocery store would give him many interesting
+customers; but he did not know much about groceries, and the
+business did not appear to him to possess any aesthetic features.
+
+He was much pleased by a small shop belonging to a
+taxidermist.  It was exceedingly cosey, and the business was
+probably not so great as to overwork any one.  He might send the
+birds and beasts which were brought to be stuffed to some
+practical operator, and have him put them in proper condition for
+the customers.  He might--  But no.  It would be very
+unsatisfactory to engage in a business of which he knew
+absolutely nothing.  A taxidermist ought not to blush with
+ignorance when asked some simple question about a little dead
+bird or a defunct fish.  And so he tore himself from the window
+of this fascinating place, where, he fancied, had his education
+been differently managed, he could in time have shown the world
+the spectacle of a cheerful and unblighted Mr. Venus.
+    
+The shop which at last appeared to suit him best was one
+which he had passed and looked at several times before it struck
+him favorably.  It was in a small brick house in a side street,
+but not far from one of the main business avenues of the city. 
+The shop seemed devoted to articles of stationery and small
+notions of various kinds not easy to be classified.  He had
+stopped to look at three penknives fastened to a card, which was
+propped up in the little show-window, supported on one side by a
+chess-board with "History of Asia" in gilt letters on the back,
+and on the other by a small violin labelled "1 dollar."  And as
+he gazed past these articles into the interior of the shop, which
+was now lighted up, it gradually dawned upon him that it was
+something like his ideal of an attractive and interesting
+business place.  At any rate, he would go in and look at it.  He
+did not care for a violin, even at the low price marked on the
+one in the window, but a new pocket-knife might be useful. 
+So he walked in and asked to look at pocket-knives.
+    
+The shop was in charge of a very pleasant old lady of about
+sixty, who sat sewing behind the little counter.  While she went
+to the window and very carefully reached over the articles
+displayed therein to get the card of penknives, Mr. Tolman looked
+about him.  The shop was quite small, but there seemed to be a
+good deal in it.  There were shelves behind the counter, and
+there were shelves on the opposite wall, and they all seemed well
+filled with something or other.  In the corner near the old
+lady's chair was a little coal stove with a bright fire in it,
+and at the back of the shop, at the top of two steps, was a glass
+door partly open, through which he saw a small room, with a red
+carpet on the floor, and a little table apparently set for a
+meal.
+    
+Mr. Tolman looked at the knives when the old lady showed them
+to him, and after a good deal of consideration he selected one
+which he thought would be a good knife to give to a boy.  Then he
+looked over some things in the way of paper-cutters, whist-
+markers, and such small matters, which were in a glass case on
+the counter.  And while he looked at them he talked to the old
+lady.
+    
+She was a friendly, sociable body, very glad to have any one
+to talk to, and so it was not at all difficult for Mr. Tolman, by
+some general remarks, to draw from her a great many points about
+herself and her shop.  She was a widow, with a son who, from her
+remarks, must have been forty years old.  He was connected with a
+mercantile establishment, and they had lived here for a long
+time.  While her son was a salesman, and came home every
+evening, this was very pleasant.  But after he became a
+commercial traveller, and was away from the city for months at a
+time, she did not like it at all.  It was very lonely for her.
+    
+Mr. Tolman's heart rose within him, but he did not interrupt her.
+    
+"If I could do it," said she, "I would give up this place,
+and go and live with my sister in the country.  It would be
+better for both of us, and Henry could come there just as well as
+here when he gets back from his trips."
+    
+"Why don't you sell out?" asked Mr. Tolman, a little
+fearfully, for he began to think that all this was too easy
+sailing to be entirely safe.
+    
+"That would not be easy," said she, with a smile.  "It might
+be a long time before we could find any one who would want to
+take the place.  We have a fair trade in the store, but it isn't
+what it used to be when times were better.  And the library is
+falling off, too.  Most of the books are getting pretty old, and
+it don't pay to spend much money for new ones now."
+    
+"The library!" said Mr. Tolman.  "Have you a library?"
+    
+"Oh, yes," replied the old lady.  "I've had a circulating
+library here for nearly fifteen years.  There it is on those two
+upper shelves behind you."
+    
+Mr. Tolman turned, and beheld two long rows of books in
+brown-paper covers, with a short step-ladder, standing near the
+door of the inner room, by which these shelves might be reached. 
+This pleased him greatly.  He had had no idea that there was a
+library here. 
+    
+"I declare!" said he.  "It must be very pleasant to manage a
+circulating library--a small one like this, I mean.  I shouldn't
+mind going into a business of the kind myself."
+    
+The old lady looked up, surprised.  Did he wish to go into
+business?  She had not supposed that, just from looking at him.
+    
+Mr. Tolman explained his views to her.  He did not tell what
+he had been doing in the way of business, or what Mr. Canterfield
+was doing for him now.  He merely stated his present wishes, and
+acknowledged to her that it was the attractiveness of her
+establishment that had led him to come in.
+    
+"Then you do not want the penknife?" she said quickly.
+    
+"Oh, yes, I do," said he.  "And I really believe, if we can
+come to terms, that I would like the two other knives, together
+with the rest of your stock in trade."
+    
+The old lady laughed a little nervously.  She hoped very much
+indeed that they could come to terms.  She brought a chair from
+the back room, and Mr. Tolman sat down with her by the stove to
+talk it over.  Few customers came in to interrupt them, and they
+talked the matter over very thoroughly.  They both came to the
+conclusion that there would be no difficulty about terms, nor
+about Mr. Tolman's ability to carry on the business after a very
+little instruction from the present proprietress.  When Mr.
+Tolman left, it was with the understanding that he was to call
+again in a couple of days, when the son Henry would be at home,
+and matters could be definitely arranged.
+    
+When the three met, the bargain was soon struck.  As each
+party was so desirous of making it, few difficulties were
+interposed.  The old lady, indeed, was in favor of some delay in
+the transfer of the establishment, as she would like to clean and
+dust every shelf and corner and every article in the place.  But
+Mr. Tolman was in a hurry to take possession; and as the son
+Henry would have to start off on another trip in a short time, he
+wanted to see his mother moved and settled before he left.  There
+was not much to move but trunks and bandboxes, and some
+antiquated pieces of furniture of special value to the old lady,
+for Mr. Tolman insisted on buying everything in the house, just
+as it stood.  The whole thing did not cost him, he said to
+himself, as much as some of his acquaintances would pay for a
+horse.  The methodical son Henry took an account of stock, and
+Mr. Tolman took several lessons from the old lady, in which she
+explained to him how to find out the selling prices of the
+various articles from the marks on the little tags attached to
+them.  And she particularly instructed him in the management of
+the circulating library.  She informed him of the character of
+the books, and, as far as possible, of the character of the
+regular patrons.  She told him whom he might trust to take out a
+book without paying for the one brought in, if they didn't happen
+to have the change with them, and she indicated with little
+crosses opposite their names those persons who should be required
+to pay cash down for what they had had, before receiving
+further benefits.
+    
+It was astonishing to see what interest Mr. Tolman took in
+all this.  He was really anxious to meet some of the people about
+whom the old lady discoursed.  He tried, too, to remember a few
+of the many things she told him of her methods of buying and
+selling, and the general management of her shop; and he probably
+did not forget more than three fourths of what she told him.
+    
+Finally everything was settled to the satisfaction of the two
+male parties to the bargain,--although the old lady thought of a
+hundred things she would yet like to do,--and one fine frosty
+afternoon a cart-load of furniture and baggage left the door, the
+old lady and her son took leave of the old place, and Mr. Tolman
+was left sitting behind the little counter, the sole manager and
+proprietor of a circulating library and a stationery and notion
+shop.  He laughed when he thought of it, but he rubbed his hands
+and felt very well satisfied.
+    
+"There is nothing really crazy about it," he said to himself. 
+"If there is a thing that I think I would like, and I can afford
+to have it, and there's no harm in it, why not have it?"
+    
+There was nobody there to say anything against this, so Mr.
+Tolman rubbed his hands again before the fire, and rose to walk
+up and down his shop, and wonder who would be his first customer.
+    
+In the course of twenty minutes a little boy opened the door
+and came in.  Mr. Tolman hastened behind the counter to receive
+his commands.  The little boy wanted two sheets of note-paper and
+an envelope.
+    
+"Any particular kind!" asked Mr. Tolman.
+    
+The boy didn't know of any particular variety being desired. 
+He thought the same kind she always got would do.  And he looked
+very hard at Mr. Tolman, evidently wondering at the change in the
+shopkeeper, but asking no questions.
+    
+"You are a regular customer, I suppose," said Mr. Tolman,
+opening several boxes of paper which he had taken down from the
+shelves.  "I have just begun business here, and don't know what
+kind of paper you have been in the habit of buying.  But I
+suppose this will do."  And he took out a couple of sheets of the
+best, with an envelope to match.  These he carefully tied up in a
+piece of thin brown paper, and gave to the boy, who handed him
+three cents.  Mr. Tolman took them, smiled, and then, having made
+a rapid calculation, he called to the boy, who was just opening
+the door, and gave him back one cent.
+    
+"You have paid me too much," he said.
+    
+The boy took the cent, looked at Mr. Tolman, and then got out
+of the store as quickly as he could.
+    
+"Such profits as that are enormous," said Mr. Tolman, "but I
+suppose the small sales balance them."  This Mr. Tolman
+subsequently found to be the case.
+    
+One or two other customers came in in the course of the
+afternoon, and about dark the people who took out books began to
+arrive.  These kept Mr. Tolman very busy.  He not only had to do
+a good deal of entering and cancelling, but he had to answer a
+great many questions about the change in proprietorship, and the
+probability of his getting in some new books, with suggestions as
+to the quantity and character of these, mingled with a few
+dissatisfied remarks in regard to the volumes already on hand.
+    
+Every one seemed sorry that the old lady had gone away.  But
+Mr. Tolman was so pleasant and anxious to please, and took such
+an interest in their selection of books, that only one of the
+subscribers appeared to take the change very much to heart.  This
+was a young man who was forty-three cents in arrears.  He
+was a long time selecting a book, and when at last he brought it
+to Mr. Tolman to be entered, he told him in a low voice that he
+hoped there would be no objection to letting his account run on
+for a little while longer.  On the first of the month he would
+settle it, and then he hoped to be able to pay cash whenever
+he brought in a book.
+    
+Mr. Tolman looked for his name on the old lady's list, and,
+finding no cross against it, told him that it was all right, and
+that the first of the month would do very well.  The young man
+went away perfectly satisfied with the new librarian.  Thus did
+Mr. Tolman begin to build up his popularity.  As the evening grew
+on he found himself becoming very hungry.  But he did not like to
+shut up the shop, for every now and then some one dropped in,
+sometimes to ask what time it was, and sometimes to make a little
+purchase, while there were still some library patrons coming in
+at intervals.
+    
+However, taking courage during a short rest from customers,
+he put up the shutters, locked the door, and hurried off to a
+hotel, where he partook of a meal such as few keepers of little
+shops ever think of indulging in.
+    
+The next morning Mr. Tolman got his own breakfast.  This was
+delightful.  He had seen how cosily the old lady had spread her
+table in the little back room, where there was a stove suitable
+for any cooking he might wish to indulge in, and he longed for
+such a cosey meal.  There were plenty of stock provisions in the
+house, which he had purchased with the rest of the goods, and he
+went out and bought himself a fresh loaf of bread.  Then he
+broiled a piece of ham, made some good strong tea, boiled some
+eggs, and had a breakfast on the little round table which, though
+plain enough, he enjoyed more than any breakfast at his club
+which he could remember.  He had opened the shop, and sat facing
+the glass door, hoping, almost, that there would be some
+interruption to his meal.  It would seem so much more proper in
+that sort of business if he had to get up and go attend to a
+customer.
+    
+Before the evening of that day Mr. Tolman became convinced
+that he would soon be obliged to employ a boy or some one to
+attend to the establishment during his absence.  After breakfast,
+a woman recommended by the old lady came to make his bed and
+clean up generally, but when she had gone he was left alone with
+his shop.  He determined not to allow this responsibility to
+injure his health, and so at one o'clock boldly locked the shop
+door and went out to his lunch.  He hoped that no one would call
+during his absence, but when he returned he found a little girl
+with a pitcher standing at the door.  She came to borrow half a
+pint of milk.
+    
+"Milk!" exclaimed Mr. Tolman, in surprise.  "Why, my child, I
+have no milk.  I don't even use it in my tea."
+    
+The little girl looked very much disappointed.  "Is Mrs.
+Walker gone away for good?" said she.
+    
+"Yes," replied Mr. Tolman.  "But I would be just as willing
+to lend you the milk as she would be, if I had any.  Is there any
+place near here where you can buy milk?"
+    
+"Oh, yes," said the girl.  "You can get it round in the
+market-house."
+    
+"How much would half a pint cost?" he asked.
+    
+"Three cents," replied the girl.
+    
+"Well, then," said Mr. Tolman, "here are three cents.  You can go
+and buy the milk for me, and then you can borrow it.  Will that
+suit?"
+    
+The girl thought it would suit very well, and away she went.
+    
+Even this little incident pleased Mr. Tolman.  It was so very
+novel.  When he came back from his dinner in the evening, he
+found two circulating library subscribers stamping their feet on
+the door-step, and he afterwards heard that several others had
+called and gone away.  It would certainly injure the library if
+he suspended business at meal-times.  He could easily have his
+choice of a hundred boys if he chose to advertise for one, but he
+shrank from having a youngster in the place.  It would interfere
+greatly with his cosiness and his experiences.  He might possibly
+find a boy who went to school, and who would be willing to come
+at noon and in the evening if he were paid enough.  But it would
+have to be a very steady and responsible boy.  He would think it
+over before taking any steps.
+    
+He thought it over for a day or two, but he did not spend his
+whole time in doing so.  When he had no customers, he sauntered
+about in the little parlor over the shop, with its odd old
+furniture, its quaint prints on the walls, and its absurd
+ornaments on the mantelpiece.  The other little rooms seemed
+almost as funny to him, and he was sorry when the bell on the
+shop door called him down from their contemplation.  It was
+pleasant to him to think that he owned all these odd things.  The
+ownership of the varied goods in the shop also gave him an
+agreeable feeling which none of his other possessions had ever
+afforded him.  It was all so odd and novel.
+    
+He liked much to look over the books in the library.  Many of
+them were old novels, the names of which were familiar enough to
+him, but which he had never read.  He determined to read some of
+them as soon as he felt fixed and settled.
+    
+In looking over the book in which the names and accounts of
+the subscribers were entered, he amused himself by wondering what
+sort of persons they were who had out certain books.  Who, for
+instance, wanted to read "The Book of Cats," and who could
+possibly care for "The Mysteries of Udolpho"?  But the unknown
+person in regard to whom Mr. Tolman felt the greatest curiosity
+was the subscriber who now had in his possession a volume
+entitled "Dormstock's Logarithms of the Diapason."
+    
+"How on earth," exclaimed Mr. Tolman, "did such a book get
+into this library?  And where on earth did the person spring from
+who would want to take it out?  And not only want to take it," he
+continued, as he examined the entry regarding the volume, "but
+come and have it renewed one, two, three, four--nine times!  He
+has had that book for eighteen weeks!"
+    
+Without exactly making up his mind to do so, Mr. Tolman
+deferred taking steps toward getting an assistant until P.
+Glascow, the person in question, should make an appearance, and
+it was nearly time for the book to be brought in again.
+    
+"If I get a boy now," thought Mr. Tolman, "Glascow will be
+sure to come and bring the book while I am out."
+    
+In almost exactly two weeks from the date of the last renewal
+of the book, P. Glascow came in.  It was the middle of the
+afternoon, and Mr. Tolman was alone.  This investigator of
+musical philosophy was a quiet young man of about thirty, wearing
+a light-brown cloak, and carrying under one arm a large book.
+    
+P. Glascow was surprised when he heard of the change in the
+proprietorship of the library.  Still, he hoped that there would
+be no objection to his renewing the book which he had with him,
+and which he had taken out some time ago.
+    
+"Oh, no," said Mr. Tolman, "none in the world.  In fact, I
+don't suppose there are any other subscribers who would want it. 
+I have had the curiosity to look to see if it had ever been taken
+out before, and I find it has not."
+    
+The young man smiled quietly.  "No," said he, "I suppose not.  It
+is not every one who would care to study the higher mathematics
+of music, especially when treated as Dormstock treats the
+subject."
+    
+"He seems to go into it pretty deeply," remarked Mr. Tolman, who
+had taken up the book.  "At least, I should think so, judging
+from all these calculations, and problems, and squares, and
+cubes."
+    
+"Indeed he does," said Glascow.  "And although I have had the
+book some months, and have more reading time at my disposal than
+most persons, I have only reached the fifty-sixth page, and doubt
+if I shall not have to review some of that before I can feel that
+I thoroughly understand it."
+    
+"And there are three hundred and forty pages in all!" said
+Mr. Tolman, compassionately.
+    
+"Yes," replied the other.  "But I am quite sure that the
+matter will grow easier as I proceed.  I have found that out from
+what I have already done."
+    
+"You say you have a good deal of leisure?" remarked Mr.
+Tolman.  "Is the musical business dull at present?"
+    
+"Oh, I'm not in the musical business," said Glascow.  "I have
+a great love for music, and wish to thoroughly understand it. 
+But my business is quite different.  I am a night druggist, and
+that is the reason I have so much leisure for reading."
+    
+"A night druggist?" repeated Mr. Tolman, inquiringly.
+    
+"Yes, sir," said the other.  "I am in a large downtown drug
+store which is kept open all night, and I go on duty after the
+day clerks leave."
+    
+"And does that give you more leisure?" asked Mr. Tolman.
+    
+"It seems to," answered Glascow.  "I sleep until about noon,
+and then I have the rest of the day, until seven o'clock, to
+myself.  I think that people who work at night can make a more
+satisfactory use of their own time than those who work in the
+daytime.  In the summer I can take a trip on the river, or go
+somewhere out of town, every day, if I like."
+    
+"Daylight is more available for many things, that is true,"
+said Mr. Tolman.  "But is it not dreadfully lonely sitting in a
+drug store all night?  There can't be many people to come to buy
+medicine at night.  I thought there was generally a night-bell to
+drug stores, by which a clerk could be awakened if anybody wanted
+anything."
+    
+"It's not very lonely in our store at night," said
+Glascow.  "In fact, it's often more lively then than in the
+daytime.  You see, we are right down among the newspaper offices,
+and there's always somebody coming in for soda-water, or cigars,
+or something or other.  The store is a bright, warm place for the
+night editors and reporters to meet together and talk and drink
+hot soda, and there's always a knot of 'em around the stove about
+the time the papers begin to go to press.  And they're a lively
+set, I can tell you, sir.  I've heard some of the best stories I
+ever heard in my life told in our place after three o'clock in
+the morning."
+    
+"A strange life!" said Mr. Tolman.  "Do you know, I never
+thought that people amused themselves in that way--and night
+after night, I suppose."
+    
+"Yes, sir, night after night, Sundays and all."
+    
+The night druggist now took up his book.
+    
+"Going home to read?" asked Mr. Tolman.
+    
+"Well, no," said the other.  "It's rather cold this afternoon
+to read.  I think I'll take a brisk walk."
+    
+"Can't you leave your book until you return!" asked Mr.
+Tolman.  "That is, if you will come back this way.  It's an
+awkward book to carry about."
+    
+"Thank you, I will," said Glascow.  "I shall come back this
+way."
+    
+When he had gone, Mr. Tolman took up the book, and began to
+look over it more carefully than he had done before.  But his
+examination did not last long.
+    
+"How anybody of common sense can take any interest in this
+stuff is beyond my comprehension," said Mr. Tolman, as he closed
+the book and put it on a little shelf behind the counter.
+    
+When Glascow came back, Mr. Tolman asked him to stay and
+warm himself.  And then, after they had talked for a short time,
+Mr. Tolman began to feel hungry.  He had his winter appetite, and
+had lunched early.  So said he to the night druggist, who had
+opened his "Dormstock,"  "How would you like to sit here and read
+awhile, while I go and get my dinner?  I will light the gas, and
+you can be very comfortable here, if you are not in a hurry."
+    
+P. Glascow was in no hurry at all, and was very glad to have
+some quiet reading by a warm fire; and so Mr. Tolman left him,
+feeling perfectly confident that a man who had been allowed by
+the old lady to renew a book nine times must be perfectly
+trustworthy.
+    
+When Mr. Tolman returned, the two had some further
+conversation in the corner by the little stove.
+    
+"It must be rather annoying," said the night druggist, "not
+to be able to go out to your meals without shutting up your shop. 
+If you like," said he, rather hesitatingly, "I will stop in about
+this time in the afternoon, and stay here while you go to dinner. 
+I'll be glad to do this until you get an assistant.  I can easily
+attend to most people who come in, and others can wait."
+    
+Mr. Tolman jumped at this proposition.  It was exactly what
+he wanted.
+    
+So P. Glascow came every afternoon and read "Dormstock" while
+Mr. Tolman went to dinner; and before long he came at lunch-time
+also.  It was just as convenient as not, he said.  He had
+finished his breakfast, and would like to read awhile.  Mr.
+Tolman fancied that the night druggist's lodgings were, perhaps,
+not very well warmed, which idea explained the desire to walk
+rather than read on a cold afternoon.  Glascow's name was
+entered on the free list, and he always took away the "Dormstock"
+at night, because he might have a chance of looking into it at
+the store, when custom began to grow slack in the latter part of
+the early morning.
+    
+One afternoon there came into the shop a young lady, who
+brought back two books which she had had for more than a month. 
+She made no excuses for keeping the books longer than the
+prescribed time, but simply handed them in and paid her fine. 
+Mr. Tolman did not like to take this money, for it was the first
+of the kind he had received; but the young lady looked as if she
+were well able to afford the luxury of keeping books over their
+time, and business was business.  So he gravely gave her her
+change.  Then she said she would like to take out "Dormstock's
+Logarithms of the Diapason."
+    
+Mr. Tolman stared at her.  She was a bright, handsome young
+lady, and looked as if she had very good sense.  He could not
+understand it.  But he told her the book was out.
+    
+"Out!" she said.  "Why, it's always out.  It seems strange to
+me that there should be such a demand for that book.  I have been
+trying to get it for ever so long."
+    
+"It IS strange," said Mr. Tolman, "but it is certainly in
+demand.  Did Mrs. Walker ever make you any promises about it?"
+    
+"No," said she, "but I thought my turn would come around some
+time.  And I particularly want the book just now."
+    
+Mr. Tolman felt somewhat troubled.  He knew that the night
+druggist ought not to monopolize the volume, and yet he did
+not wish to disoblige one who was so useful to him, and who took
+such an earnest interest in the book.  And he could not temporize
+with the young lady, and say that he thought the book would soon
+be in.  He knew it would not.  There were three hundred and forty
+pages of it.  So he merely remarked that he was sorry.
+    
+"So am I, " said the young lady, "very sorry.  It so happens
+that just now I have a peculiar opportunity for studying that
+book which may not occur again."
+    
+There was something in Mr. Tolman's sympathetic face which
+seemed to invite her confidence, and she continued.
+    
+"I am a teacher," she said, "and on account of certain
+circumstances I have a holiday for a month, which I intended to
+give up almost entirely to the study of music, and I particularly
+wanted "Dormstock."  Do you think there is any chance of its
+early return, and will you reserve it for me?"
+    
+"Reserve it!" said Mr. Tolman.  "Most certainly I will."  And
+then he reflected a second or two.  "If you will come here the
+day after to-morrow, I will be able to tell you something
+definite."
+    
+She said she would come.
+    
+Mr. Tolman was out a long time at lunch-time the next day. 
+He went to all the leading book-stores to see if he could buy a
+copy of Dormstock's great work.  But he was unsuccessful.  The
+booksellers told him that there was no probability that he could
+get a copy in the country, unless, indeed, he found it in the
+stock of some second-hand dealer, and that even if he sent to
+England for it, where it was published, it was not likely he
+could get it, for it had been long out of print.  There was
+no demand at all for it.  The next day he went to several second-
+hand stores, but no "Dormstock" could he find.
+    
+When he came back he spoke to Glascow on the subject.  He was
+sorry to do so, but thought that simple justice compelled him to
+mention the matter.  The night druggist was thrown into a
+perturbed state of mind by the information that some one wanted
+his beloved book.
+    
+"A woman!" he exclaimed.  "Why, she would not understand two
+pages out of the whole of it.  It is too bad.  I didn't suppose
+any one would want this book."
+    
+"Do not disturb yourself too much," said Mr. Tolman.  "I am
+not sure that you ought to give it up."
+    
+"I am very glad to hear you say so," said Glascow.  "I have
+no doubt it is only a passing fancy with her.  I dare say she
+would really rather have a good new novel."  And then, having
+heard that the lady was expected that afternoon, he went out to
+walk, with the "Dormstock" under his arm.
+    
+When the young lady arrived, an hour or so later, she was not
+at all satisfied to take out a new novel, and was very sorry
+indeed not to find the "Logarithms of the Diapason" waiting for
+her.  Mr. Tolman told her that he had tried to buy another copy
+of the work, and for this she expressed herself gratefully.  He
+also found himself compelled to say that the book was in the
+possession of a gentleman who had had it for some time--all the
+time it had been out, in fact--and had not yet finished it.
+    
+At this the young lady seemed somewhat nettled.
+    
+"Is it not against the rules for any person to keep one book
+out so long?" she asked.
+    
+"No," said Mr. Tolman.  "I have looked into that.  Our rules
+are very simple, and merely say that a book may be renewed by the
+payment of a certain sum."
+    
+"Then I am never to have it?" remarked the young lady.
+    
+"Oh, I wouldn't despair about it," said Mr. Tolman.  "He has
+not had time to reflect upon the matter.  He is a reasonable
+young man, and I believe that he will be willing to give up his
+study of the book for a time and let you take it."
+    
+"No," said she, "I don't wish that.  If he is studying, as
+you say he is, day and night, I do not wish to interrupt him.  I
+should want the book at least a month, and that, I suppose, would
+upset his course of study entirely.  But I do not think any one
+should begin in a circulating library to study a book that will
+take him a year to finish; for, from what you say, it will take
+this gentleman at least that time to finish Dormstock's book." 
+So she went her way.
+    
+When P. Glascow heard all this in the evening, he was very
+grave.  He had evidently been reflecting.
+    
+"It is not fair," said he.  "I ought not to keep the book so
+long.  I now give it up for a while.  You may let her have it
+when she comes."  And he put the "Dormstock" on the counter, and
+went and sat down by the stove.
+    
+Mr. Tolman was grieved.  He knew the night druggist had done
+right, but still he was sorry for him.  "What will you do?" he
+asked.  "Will you stop your studies?"
+    
+"Oh, no," said Glascow, gazing solemnly into the stove. 
+"I will take up some other books on the diapason which I have,
+and so will keep my ideas fresh on the subject until this lady is
+done with the book.  I do not really believe she will study it
+very long."  Then he added:  "If it is all the same to you, I
+will come around here and read, as I have been doing, until you
+shall get a regular assistant."
+    
+Mr. Tolman would be delighted to have him come, he said.  He
+had entirely given up the idea of getting an assistant, but this
+he did not say.
+    
+It was some time before the lady came back, and Mr. Tolman
+was afraid she was not coming at all.  But she did come, and
+asked for Mrs. Burney's "Evelina."  She smiled when she named the
+book, and said that she believed she would have to take a novel,
+after all, and she had always wanted to read that one.
+    
+"I wouldn't take a novel if I were you," said Mr. Tolman; and
+he triumphantly took down the "Dormstock" and laid it before her.
+    
+She was evidently much pleased, but when he told her of Mr.
+Glascow's gentlemanly conduct in the matter, her countenance
+instantly changed.
+    
+"Not at all," said she, laying down the book.  "I will not
+break up his study.  I will take the `Evelina' if you please."
+    
+And as no persuasion from Mr. Tolman had any effect upon her,
+she went away with Mrs. Burney's novel in her muff.
+    
+"Now, then," said Mr. Tolman to Glascow, in the evening, "you
+may as well take the book along with you.  She won't have it."
+    
+But Glascow would do nothing of the kind.  "No," he remarked,
+as he sat looking into the stove.  "When I said I would let
+her have it, I meant it.  She'll take it when she sees that it
+continues to remain in the library."
+    
+Glascow was mistaken: she did not take it, having the idea
+that he would soon conclude that it would be wiser for him to
+read it than to let it stand idly on the shelf.
+    
+"It would serve them both right," said Mr. Tolman to himself,
+"if somebody else should come and take it."  But there was no one
+else among his subscribers who would even think of such a thing.
+    
+One day, however, the young lady came in and asked to look at
+the book.  "Don't think that I am going to take it out," she
+said, noticing Mr. Tolman's look of pleasure as he handed her the
+volume.  "I only wish to see what he says on a certain subject
+which I am studying now."  And so she sat down by the stove on
+the chair which Mr. Tolman placed for her, and opened
+"Dormstock."
+    
+She sat earnestly poring over the book for half an hour or
+more, and then she looked up and said:  "I really cannot make out
+what this part means.  Excuse my troubling you, but I would be
+very glad if you would explain the latter part of this passage."
+    
+"Me!" exclaimed Mr. Tolman.  "Why, my good madam,--miss, I
+mean,--I couldn't explain it to you if it were to save my life. 
+But what page is it?" said he, looking at his watch.
+    
+"Page twenty-four," answered the young lady.
+    
+"Oh, well, then," said he, "if you can wait ten or fifteen
+minutes, the gentleman who has had the book will be here, and I
+think he can explain anything in the first part of the work."
+    
+The young lady seemed to hesitate whether to wait or not; but
+as she had a certain curiosity to see what sort of a person he
+was who had been so absorbed in the book, she concluded to sit a
+little longer and look into some other parts of the volume.
+    
+The night druggist soon came in, and when Mr. Tolman
+introduced him to the lady, he readily agreed to explain the
+passage to her if he could.  So Mr. Tolman got him a chair from
+the inner room, and he also sat down by the stove.
+    
+The explanation was difficult, but it was achieved at last,
+and then the young lady broached the subject of leaving the book
+unused.  This was discussed for some time, but came to nothing,
+although Mr. Tolman put down his afternoon paper and joined in
+the argument, urging, among other points, that as the matter now
+stood he was deprived by the dead-lock of all income from the
+book.  But even this strong argument proved of no avail.
+    
+"Then I will tell you what I wish you would do," said Mr.
+Tolman, as the young lady rose to go: "come here and look at the
+book whenever you wish to do so.  I would like to make this more
+of a reading-room, anyway.  It would give me more company."
+    
+After this the young lady looked into "Dormstock" when she
+came in; and as her holidays had been extended by the continued
+absence of the family in which she taught, she had plenty of time
+for study, and came quite frequently.  She often met Glascow in
+the shop, and on such occasions they generally consulted
+"Dormstock," and sometimes had quite lengthy talks on musical
+matters.  One afternoon they came in together, having met on
+their way to the library, and entered into a conversation on
+diapasonic logarithms, which continued during the lady's stay in
+the shop.
+    
+"The proper thing," thought Mr. Tolman, "would be for these
+two people to get married.  Then they could take the book and
+study it to their heart's content.  And they would certainly suit
+each other, for they are both greatly attached to musical
+mathematics and philosophy, and neither of them either plays or
+sings, as they have told me.  It would be an admirable match."
+    
+Mr. Tolman thought over this matter a good deal, and at last
+determined to mention it to Glascow.  When he did so, the young
+man colored, and expressed the opinion that it would be of no use
+to think of such a thing.  But it was evident from his manner and
+subsequent discourse that he had thought of it.
+    
+Mr. Tolman gradually became quite anxious on the subject,
+especially as the night druggist did not seem inclined to take
+any steps in the matter.  The weather was now beginning to be
+warmer, and Mr. Tolman reflected that the little house and the
+little shop were probably much more cosey and comfortable in
+winter than in summer.  There were higher buildings all about the
+house, and even now he began to feel that the circulation of air
+would be quite as agreeable as the circulation of books.  He
+thought a good deal about his airy rooms in the neighboring city.
+    
+"Mr. Glascow," said he, one afternoon, "I have made up my
+mind to sell out this business shortly."
+    
+"What!" exclaimed the other.  "Do you mean you will give it
+up and go away--leave the place altogether?"
+    
+"Yes," replied Mr. Tolman, "I shall give up the place
+entirely, and leave the city."
+    
+The night druggist was shocked.  He had spent many happy hours in
+that shop, and his hours there were now becoming pleasanter than
+ever.  If Mr. Tolman went away, all this must end.  Nothing of
+the kind could be expected of any new proprietor.
+    
+"And considering this," continued Mr. Tolman, "I think it
+would be well for you to bring your love matters to a conclusion
+while I am here to help you."
+    
+"My love matters!" exclaimed Mr. Glascow, with a flush.
+    
+"Yes, certainly," said Mr. Tolman.  "I have eyes, and I know
+all about it.  Now let me tell you what I think.  When a thing is
+to be done, it ought to be done the first time there is a good
+chance.  That's the way I do business.  Now you might as well
+come around here to-morrow afternoon prepared to propose to Miss
+Edwards.  She is due to-morrow, for she has been two days away. 
+If she doesn't come, we will postpone the matter until the next
+day.  But you should be ready to-morrow.  I don't believe you can
+see her much when you don't meet her here, for that family is
+expected back very soon, and from what I infer from her account
+of her employers, you won't care to visit her at their house."
+    
+The night druggist wanted to think about it.
+    
+"There is nothing to think," said Mr. Tolman.  "We know all
+about the lady."  (He spoke truly, for he had informed himself
+about both parties to the affair.)  "Take my advice, and be here
+to-morrow afternoon--and come rather early."
+    
+The next morning Mr. Tolman went up to his parlor on the
+second floor, and brought down two blue stuffed chairs, the best
+he had, and put them in the little room back of the shop.  He
+also brought down one or two knickknacks and put them on the
+mantelpiece, and he dusted and brightened up the room as well as
+he could.  He even covered the table with a red cloth from the
+parlor.
+    
+When the young lady arrived, he invited her to walk into the
+back room to look over some new books he had just got in.  If she
+had known he proposed to give up the business, she would have
+thought it rather strange that he should be buying new books. 
+But she knew nothing of his intentions.  When she was seated at
+the table whereon the new books were spread, Mr. Tolman stepped
+outside of the shop door to watch for Glascow's approach.  He
+soon appeared.
+    
+"Walk right in," said Mr. Tolman.  "She's in the back room
+looking over books.  I'll wait here, and keep out customers as
+far as possible.  It's pleasant, and I want a little fresh air. 
+I'll give you twenty minutes."
+    
+Glascow was pale, but he went in without a word, and Mr.
+Tolman, with his hands under his coat-tail, and his feet rather
+far apart, established a blockade on the doorstep.  He stood
+there for some time, looking at the people outside, and wondering
+what the people inside were doing.  The little girl who had
+borrowed the milk of him, and who had never returned it, was
+about to pass the door; but seeing him standing there, she
+crossed over to the other side of the street.  But he did not
+notice her.  He was wondering if it was time to go in.  A boy
+came up to the door, and wanted to know if he kept Easter eggs. 
+Mr. Tolman was happy to say he did not.  When he had allowed the
+night druggist a very liberal twenty minutes, he went in.  As he
+entered the shop door, giving the bell a very decided ring as he
+did so, P. Glascow came down the two steps that led from the
+inner room.  His face showed that it was all right with him.
+    
+A few days after this Mr. Tolman sold out his stock, good
+will, and fixtures, together with the furniture and lease of the
+house.  And who should he sell out to but to Mr. Glascow!  This
+piece of business was one of the happiest points in the whole
+affair.  There was no reason why the happy couple should not be
+married very soon, and the young lady was charmed to give up her
+position as teacher and governess in a family, and come and take
+charge of that delightful little store and that cunning little
+house, with almost everything in it that they wanted.
+    
+One thing in the establishment Mr. Tolman refused to sell. 
+That was Dormstock's great work.  He made the couple a present of
+the volume, and between two of the earlier pages he placed a
+bank-note which in value was very much more than that of the
+ordinary wedding gift.
+    
+"What are YOU going to do?" they asked of him, when all
+these things were settled.  And then he told them how he was
+going back to his business in the neighboring city, and he told
+them what it was, and how he had come to manage a circulating
+library.  They did not think him crazy.  People who studied the
+logarithms of the diapason would not be apt to think a man crazy
+for such a little thing as that.
+    
+When Mr. Tolman returned to the establishment of Pusey &
+Co., he found everything going on very satisfactorily.
+    
+"You look ten years younger, sir," said Mr. Canterfield.  "You
+must have had a very pleasant time.  I did not think there
+was enough to interest you in ---- for so long a time."
+   
+"Interest me!" exclaimed Mr. Tolman.  "Why, objects of interest
+crowded on me.  I never had a more enjoyable holiday in my life."
+    
+When he went home that evening (and he found himself quite
+willing to go), he tore up the will he had made.  He now felt
+that there was no necessity for proving his sanity.
+
+
+
+                           MY UNWILLING NEIGHBOR
+
+I was about twenty-five years old when I began life as the owner
+of a vineyard in western Virginia.  I bought a large tract of
+land, the greater part of which lay upon the sloping side of one
+of the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge, the exposure being that most
+favorable to the growth of the vine.  I am an enthusiastic lover
+of the country and of country life, and believed that I should
+derive more pleasure as well as profit from the culture of my
+far-stretching vineyard than I would from ordinary farm
+operations.
+    
+I built myself a good house of moderate size upon a little
+plateau on the higher part of my estate.  Sitting in my porch,
+smoking my pipe after the labors of the day, I could look down
+over my vineyard into a beautiful valley, with here and there a
+little curling smoke arising from some of the few dwellings which
+were scattered about among the groves and spreading fields, and
+above this beauty I could imagine all my hillside clothed in
+green and purple.
+    
+My family consisted of myself alone.  It is true that I
+expected some day that there would be others in my house besides
+myself, but I was not ready for this yet.
+    
+During the summer I found it very pleasant to live by
+myself.  It was a novelty, and I could arrange and manage
+everything in my own fashion, which was a pleasure I had not
+enjoyed when I lived in my father's house.  But when winter came
+I found it very lonely.  Even my servants lived in a cabin at
+some little distance, and there were many dark and stormy
+evenings when the company even of a bore would have been welcome
+to me.  Sometimes I walked over to the town and visited my
+friends there, but this was not feasible on stormy nights, and
+the winter seemed to me a very long one.
+    
+But spring came, outdoor operations began, and for a few
+weeks I felt again that I was all-sufficient for my own pleasure
+and comfort.  Then came a change.  One of those seasons of bad
+and stormy weather which so frequently follow an early spring
+settled down upon my spirits and my hillside.  It rained, it was
+cold, fierce winds blew, and I became more anxious for somebody
+to talk to than I had been at any time during the winter.
+    
+One night, when a very bad storm was raging, I went to bed
+early, and as I lay awake I revolved in my mind a scheme of which
+I had frequently thought before.  I would build a neat little
+house on my grounds, not very far away from my house, but not too
+near, and I would ask Jack Brandiger to come there and live. 
+Jack was a friend of mine who was reading law in the town, and it
+seemed to me that it would be much more pleasant, and even more
+profitable, to read law on a pretty hillside overlooking a
+charming valley, with woods and mountains behind and above him,
+where he could ramble to his heart's content.
+    
+I had thought of asking Jack to come and live with me,
+but this idea I soon dismissed.  I am a very particular person,
+and Jack was not.  He left his pipes about in all sorts of
+places--sometimes when they were still lighted.  When he came to
+see me he was quite as likely to put his hat over the inkstand as
+to put it anywhere else.  But if Jack lived at a little distance,
+and we could go backward and forward to see each other whenever
+we pleased, that would be quite another thing.  He could do as he
+pleased in his own house, and I could do as I pleased in mine,
+and we might have many pleasant evenings together.  This was a
+cheering idea, and I was planning how we might arrange with the
+negro woman who managed my household affairs to attend also to
+those of Jack when I fell asleep.
+    
+I did not sleep long before I was awakened by the increased
+violence of the storm.  My house shook with the fury of the wind.
+
+The rain seemed to be pouring on its roof and northern side as if
+there were a waterfall above us, and every now and then I could
+hear a shower of hailstones rattling against the shutters.  My
+bedroom was one of the rooms on the lower floor, and even there I
+could hear the pounding of the deluge and the hailstones upon the
+roof.
+    
+All this was very doleful, and had a tendency to depress the
+spirits of a man awake and alone in a good-sized house.  But I
+shook off this depression.  It was, not agreeable to be up here
+by myself in such a terrible storm, but there was nothing to be
+afraid of, as my house was new and very strongly built, being
+constructed of logs, weather-boarded outside and ceiled within. 
+It would require a hurricane to blow off the roof, and I believed
+my shutters to be hail-proof.  So, as there was no reason to
+stay awake, I turned over and went to sleep.
+    
+I do not know how long it was before I was awakened again,
+this time not by the noise of the storm, but by a curious
+movement of my bedstead.  I had once felt the slight shock of an
+earthquake, and it seemed to me that this must be something of
+the kind.  Certainly my bed moved under me.  I sat up.  The room
+was pitchy dark.  In a moment I felt another movement, but this
+time it did not seem to me to resemble an earthquake shock.  Such
+motion, I think, is generally in horizontal directions, while
+that which I felt was more like the movement of a ship upon the
+water.  The storm was at its height; the wind raged and roared,
+and the rain seemed to be pouring down as heavily as ever.
+    
+I was about to get up and light the lamp, for even the
+faintest candle-flame would be some sort of company at such a
+grewsome moment, when my bedstead gave another movement, more
+shiplike than before.  It actually lurched forward as if it were
+descending into the trough of the sea, but, unlike a ship, it did
+not rise again, but remained in such a slanting position that I
+began to slide down toward the foot.  I believe that if it had
+not been a bedstead provided with a footboard, I should have
+slipped out upon the floor.
+    
+I did not jump out of bed.  I did not do anything.  I was
+trying to think, to understand the situation, to find out whether
+I was asleep or awake, when I became aware of noises in the room
+and all over the house which even through the din of the storm
+made themselves noticed by their peculiarity.  Tables, everything
+in the room, seemed to be grating and grinding on the floor,
+and in a moment there was a crash.  I knew what that meant; my
+lamp had slipped off the table.  Any doubt on that point would
+have been dispelled by the smell of kerosene which soon filled
+the air of the room.
+    
+The motion of the bed, which I now believe must have been the
+motion of the whole house, still continued; but the grating
+noises in the room gradually ceased, from which I inferred that
+the furniture had brought up against the front wall of the room.
+    
+It now was impossible for me to get up and strike a light,
+for to do so with kerosene oil all over the floor and its vapor
+diffused through the room would probably result in setting the
+house on fire.  So I must stay in darkness and wait.  I do not
+think I was very much frightened--I was so astonished that there
+was no room in my mind for fear.  In fact, all my mental energies
+were occupied in trying to find out what had happened.  It
+required, however, only a few more minutes of reflection, and a
+few more minutes of the grating, bumping, trembling of my house,
+to enable me to make up my mind what was happening.  My house was
+sliding downhill!
+    
+The wind must have blown the building from its foundations,
+and upon the slippery surface of the hillside, probably lashed
+into liquid mud by the pouring rain, it was making its way down
+toward the valley!  In a flash my mind's eye ran over the whole
+surface of the country beneath me as far as I knew it.  I was
+almost positive that there was no precipice, no terrible chasm
+into which my house might fall.  There was nothing but sloping
+hillside, and beneath that a wide stretch of fields.
+    
+Now there was a new and sudden noise of heavy objects falling
+upon the roof, and I knew what that meant: my chimney had been
+wrenched from its foundations, and the upper part of it had now
+toppled over.  I could hear, through the storm, the bricks
+banging and sliding upon the slanting roof.  Continuous sounds of
+cracking and snapping came to me through the closed front
+windows, and these were caused, I supposed, by the destruction of
+the stakes of my vines as the heavy house moved over them.
+    
+Of course, when I thoroughly understood the state of the
+case, my first impulse was to spring out of bed, and, as quickly
+as possible, to get out of that thumping and sliding house.  But
+I restrained myself.  The floor might be covered with broken
+glass, I might not be able to find my clothes in the darkness and
+in the jumble of furniture at the end of the room, and even if I
+could dress myself, it would be folly to jump out in the midst of
+that raging storm into a probable mass of wreckage which I could
+not see.  It would be far better to remain dry and warm under my
+roof.  There was no reason whatever to suppose that the house
+would go to pieces, or that it would turn over.  It must stop
+some time or other, and, until it did so, I would be safer in my
+bed than anywhere else.  Therefore in my bed I stayed.
+    
+Sitting upright, with my feet pressed against the footboard,
+I listened and felt.  The noises of the storm, and the cracking
+and the snapping and grinding before me and under me, still
+continued, although I sometimes thought that the wind was
+moderating a little, and that the strange motion was becoming
+more regular.  I believed the house was moving faster than
+when it first began its strange career, but that it was sliding
+over a smooth surface.  Now I noticed a succession of loud cracks
+and snaps at the front of the house, and, from the character of
+the sounds, I concluded that my little front porch, which had
+been acting as a cutwater at the bow of my shiplike house, had
+yielded at last to the rough contact with the ground, and would
+probably soon be torn away.  This did not disturb me, for the
+house must still be firm.
+    
+It was not long before I perceived that the slanting of my
+bed was becoming less and less, and also I was quite sure that
+the house was moving more slowly.  Then the crackings and
+snappings before my front wall ceased altogether.  The bed
+resumed its ordinary horizontal position, and although I did not
+know at what moment the house had ceased sliding and had come to
+a standstill, I was sure that it had done so.  It was now resting
+upon a level surface.  The room was still perfectly dark, and the
+storm continued.  It was useless for me to get up until daylight
+came,--I could not see what had happened,--so I lay back upon my
+pillow and tried to imagine upon what level portion of my farm I
+had stranded.  While doing this I fell asleep.
+    
+When I woke, a little light was stealing into the room
+through the blinds of my shutters.  I quickly slipped out of bed,
+opened a window, and looked out.  Day was just breaking, the rain
+and wind had ceased, and I could discern objects.  But it seemed
+as if I needed some light in my brain to enable me to comprehend
+what I saw.  My eyes fell upon nothing familiar.
+    
+I did not stop to investigate, however, from my window. 
+I found my clothes huddled together with the furniture at the
+front end of the room, and as soon as I was dressed I went into
+the hall and then to my front door.  I quickly jerked this open
+and was about to step outside when, suddenly, I stopped.  I was
+positive that my front porch had been destroyed.  But there I saw
+a porch a little lower than mine and a great deal wider, and on
+the other side of it, not more than eight feet from me, was a
+window--the window of a house, and on the other side of the
+window was a face--the face of a young girl!  As I stood staring
+in blank amazement at the house which presented itself at my
+front door, the face at the window disappeared, and I was left to
+contemplate the scene by myself.  I ran to my back door and threw
+it open.  There I saw, stretching up the fields and far up the
+hillside, the wide path which my house had made as it came down
+from its elevated position to the valley beneath, where it had
+ended its onward career by stopping up against another house.  As
+I looked from the back porch I saw that the ground still
+continued to slope, so that if my house had not found in its path
+another building, it would probably have proceeded somewhat
+farther on its course.  It was lighter, and I saw bushes and
+fences and outbuildings--I was in a back yard.
+    
+Almost breathless with amazement and consternation, I ran
+again to the front door.  When I reached it I found a young woman
+standing on the porch of the house before me.  I was about to say
+something--I know not what--when she put her finger on her lips
+and stepped forward.
+    
+"Please don't speak loudly," she said.  "I am afraid it will
+frighten mother.  She is asleep yet.  I suppose you and your
+house have been sliding downhill?"
+    
+"That is what has happened," said I.  "But I cannot
+understand it.  It seems to me the most amazing thing that ever
+took place on the face of the earth."
+    
+"It is very queer," said she, "but hurricanes do blow away
+houses, and that must have been a hurricane we had last night,
+for the wind was strong enough to loosen any house.  I have often
+wondered if that house would ever slide downhill."
+    
+"My house?"
+    
+"Yes," she said.  "Soon after it was built I began to think
+what a nice clean sweep it could make from the place where it
+seemed to be stuck to the side of the mountain, right down here
+into the valley."
+    
+I could not talk with a girl like this; at least, I could not
+meet her on her own conversational grounds.  I was so agitated
+myself that it seemed unnatural that any one to whom I should
+speak should not also be agitated.
+    
+"Who are you?" I asked rather brusquely.  "At least, to whom
+does this house belong?"
+    
+"This is my mother's house," said she.  "My mother is Mrs.
+Carson.  We happen just now to be living here by ourselves, so I
+cannot call on any man to help you do anything.  My brother has
+always lived with us, but last week he went away."
+    
+"You don't seem to be a bit astonished at what has happened,"
+said I.
+    
+She was rather a pretty girl, of a cheerful disposition, I
+should say, for several times she had smiled as she spoke.
+    
+"Oh, I am astonished," she answered; "or, at least, I 
+was.  But I have had time enough to get over some of it.  It was
+at least an hour ago when I was awakened by hearing something
+crack in the yard.  I went to a window and looked out, and could
+just barely see that something like a big building had grown up
+during the night.  Then I watched it, and watched it, until I
+made out it was a whole house; and after that it was not long
+before I guessed what had happened.  It seemed a simpler thing to
+me, you know, than it did to you, because I had often thought
+about it, and probably you never had."
+    
+"You are right there," said I, earnestly.  "It would have
+been impossible for me to imagine such a thing."
+    
+"At first I thought there was nobody in the house," said she,
+"but when I heard some one moving about, I came down to tell
+whoever had arrived not to make a noise.  I see," she added, with
+another of her smiles, "that you think I am a very strange person
+not to be more flurried by what has happened.  But really I
+cannot think of anything else just now, except what mother will
+say and do when she comes down and finds you and your house here
+at the back door.  I am very sure she will not like it."
+    
+"Like it!" I exclaimed.  "Who on earth could like it?"
+    
+"Please speak more gently," she said.  "Mother is always a
+little irritable when her night's rest has been broken, and I
+would not like to have her wakened up suddenly now.  But really,
+Mr. Warren, I haven't the least idea in the world how she will
+take this thing.  I must go in and be with her when she wakes, so
+that I can explain just what has happened."
+    
+"One moment," I said.  "You know my name."
+    
+"Of course I know your name," she answered.  "Could that
+house be up there on the hillside for more than a year without my
+knowing who lived in it?"  With this she went indoors.
+    
+I could not help smiling when I thought of the young lady
+regretting that there was no man in the house who might help me
+do something.  What could anybody do in a case like this?  I
+turned and went into my house.  I entered the various rooms on
+the lower floor, and saw no signs of any particular damage,
+except that everything movable in each room was jumbled together
+against the front wall.  But when I looked out of the back door I
+found that the porch there was a good deal wrecked, which I had
+not noticed before.
+    
+I went up-stairs, and found everything very much as it was
+below.  Nothing seemed to have been injured except the chimney
+and the porches.  I thanked my stars that I had used hard wood
+instead of mortar for the ceilings of my rooms.
+    
+I was about to go into my bedroom, when I heard a woman
+scream, and of course I hurried to the front.  There on the back
+porch of her house stood Mrs. Carson.  She was a woman of middle
+age, and, as I glanced at her, I saw where her daughter got her
+good looks.  But the placidity and cheerfulness of the younger
+face were entirely wanting in the mother.  Her eyes sparkled, her
+cheeks were red, her mouth was partly opened, and it seemed to me
+that I could almost see that her breath was hot.
+    
+"Is this your house?" she cried, the moment her eyes fell
+upon me.  "And what is it doing here?"  I did not immediately
+answer, I looked at the angry woman, and behind her I saw,
+through the open door, the daughter crossing the hallway.  It was
+plain that she had decided to let me have it out with her mother
+without interference.  As briefly and as clearly as I could, I
+explained what had happened.
+    
+"What is all that to me?" she screamed.  "It doesn't matter
+to me how your house got here.  There have been storms ever since
+the beginning of the world, and I never heard of any of them
+taking a house into a person's back yard.  You ought not to have
+built your house where any such thing could happen.  But all this
+is nothing to me.  I don't understand now how your house did get
+here, and I don't want to understand it.  All I want is for you
+to take it away."
+    
+"I will do that, madam, just as soon as I can.  You may be
+very sure I will do that.  But--"
+    
+"Can you do it now?" she asked.  "Can you do it to-day?  I
+don't want a minute lost.  I have not been outside to see what
+damage has been done, but the first thing to do is to take your
+house away."
+    
+"I am going to the town now, madam, to summon assistance."
+    
+Mrs. Carson made no answer, but she turned and walked to the
+end of her porch.  There she suddenly gave a scream which quickly
+brought her daughter from the house.  "Kitty!  Kitty!" cried her
+mother.  "Do you know what he has done?  He has gone right over
+my round flower-garden.  His house is sitting on it this minute!"
+    
+"But he could not help it, mother," said Kitty.
+    
+"Help it!" exclaimed Mrs. Carson.  "I didn't expect him to
+help it.  What I want--"  Suddenly she stopped.  Her eyes flashed
+brighter, her mouth opened wider, and she became more and
+more excited as she noticed the absence of the sheds, fences, or
+vegetable-beds which had found themselves in the course of my
+all-destroying dwelling.
+    
+It was now well on in the morning, and some of the neighbors
+had become aware of the strange disaster which had happened to
+me, although if they had heard the news from Mrs. Carson they
+might have supposed that it was a disaster which had happened
+only to her.  As they gazed at the two houses so closely jammed
+together, all of them wondered, some of them even laughed, but
+not one offered a suggestion which afforded satisfaction to Mrs.
+Carson or myself.  The general opinion was that, now my house was
+there, it would have to stay there, for there were not enough
+horses in the State to pull it back up that mountainside.  To be
+sure, it might possibly be drawn off sidewise.  But whether it
+was moved one way or the other, a lot of Mrs. Carson's trees
+would have to be cut down to let it pass.
+    
+"Which shall never happen!" cried that good lady.  "If
+nothing else can be done, it must be taken apart and hauled off
+in carts.  But no matter how it is managed, it must be moved, and
+that immediately."  Miss Carson now prevailed upon her mother to
+go into the house, and I stayed and talked to the men and a few
+women who had gathered outside.
+    
+When they had said all they had to say, and seen all there
+was to see, these people went home to their breakfasts.  I
+entered my house, but not by the front door, for to do that I
+would have been obliged to trespass upon Mrs. Carson's back
+porch.  I got my hat, and was about to start for the town, when I
+heard my name called.  Turning into the hall, I saw Miss
+Carson, who was standing at my front door.
+    
+"Mr. Warren," said she, "you haven't any way of getting
+breakfast, have you?"
+    
+"Oh, no," said I.  "My servants are up there in their cabin,
+and I suppose they are too much scared to come down.  But I am
+going to town to see what can be done about my house, and will
+get my breakfast there."
+    
+"It's a long way to go without anything to eat," she said,
+"and we can give you some breakfast.  But I want to ask you
+something.  I am in a good deal of perplexity.  Our two servants
+are out at the front of the house, but they positively refuse to
+come in; they are afraid that your house may begin sliding again
+and crush them all, so, I shall have to get breakfast.  But what
+bothers me is trying to find our well.  I have been outside, and
+can see no signs of it."
+    
+"Where was your well?" I gasped.
+    
+"It ought to be somewhere near the back of your house," she
+said.  "May I go through your hall and look out?"
+    
+"Of course you may," I cried, and I preceded her to my back
+door.
+    
+"Now, it seems to me," she said, after surveying the scene of
+desolation immediately before, and looking from side to side
+toward objects which had remained untouched, "that your house has
+passed directly over our well, and must have carried away the
+little shed and the pump and everything above ground.  I should
+not wonder a bit," she continued slowly, "if it is under your
+porch."
+    
+I jumped to the ground, for the steps were shattered, and began
+to search for the well, and it was not long before I discovered
+its round dark opening, which was, as Miss Carson had imagined,
+under one end of my porch.
+    
+"What can we do?" she asked.  "We can't have breakfast or get
+along at all without water."  It was a terribly depressing thing
+to me to think that I, or rather my house, had given these people
+so much trouble.  But I speedily, assured Miss Carson that if she
+could find a bucket and a rope which I could lower into the well,
+I would provide her with water.
+    
+She went into her house to see what she could find, and I tore
+away the broken planks of the porch, so that I could get to the
+well.  And then, when she came with a tin pail and a clothes-
+line, I went to work to haul up water and carry it to her back
+door.
+      
+"I don't want mother to find out what has happened to the
+well," she said, "for she has enough on her mind already."
+    
+Mrs. Carson was a woman with some good points in her
+character.  After a time she called to me herself, and told me to
+come in to breakfast.  But during the meal she talked very
+earnestly to me about the amazing trespass I had committed, and
+about the means which should be taken to repair the damages my
+house had done to her property.  I was as optimistic as I could
+be, and the young lady spoke very cheerfully and hopefully about
+the affair, so that we were beginning to get along somewhat
+pleasantly, when, suddenly, Mrs. Carson sprang to her feet. 
+"Heavens and earth!" she cried, "this house is moving!"
+    
+She was not mistaken.  I had felt beneath my feet a sudden
+sharp shock--not severe, but unmistakable.  I remembered
+that both houses stood upon slightly sloping ground.  My blood
+turned cold, my heart stood still; even Miss Carson was pale.
+    
+When we had rushed out of doors to see what had happened, or
+what was going to happen, I soon found that we had been
+needlessly frightened.  Some of the broken timbers on which my
+house had been partially resting had given way, and the front
+part of the building had slightly descended, jarring as it did so
+the other house against which it rested.  I endeavored to prove
+to Mrs. Carson that the result was encouraging rather than
+otherwise, for my house was now more firmly settled than it had
+been.  But she did not value the opinion of a man who did not
+know enough to put his house in a place where it would be likely
+to stay, and she could eat no more breakfast, and was even afraid
+to stay under her own roof until experienced mechanics had been
+summoned to look into the state of affairs.
+    
+I hurried away to the town, and it was not long before
+several carpenters and masons were on the spot.  After a thorough
+examination, they assured Mrs. Carson that there was no danger,
+that my house would do no farther damage to her premises, but, to
+make things certain, they would bring some heavy beams and brace
+the front of my house against her cellar wall.  When that should
+be done it would be impossible for it to move any farther.
+    
+"But I don't want it braced!" cried Mrs. Carson.  "I want it
+taken away.  I want it out of my back yard!"
+    
+The master carpenter was a man of imagination and expedients. 
+"That is quite another thing, ma'am," said he.  "We'll fix this
+gentleman's house so that you needn't be afraid of it, and then,
+when the time comes to move it, there's several ways of doing
+that.  We might rig up a powerful windlass at the top of the
+hill, and perhaps get a steam-engine to turn it, and we could
+fasten cables to the house and haul her back to where she
+belongs."
+    
+"And can you take your oaths," cried Mrs. Carson, "that those
+ropes won't break, and when that house gets half-way up the hill
+it won't come sliding down ten times faster than it did, and
+crash into me and mine and everything I own on earth?  No, sir! 
+I'll have no house hauled up a hill back of me!"
+    
+"Of course," said the carpenter, "it would be a great deal
+easier to move it on this ground, which is almost level--"
+    
+"And cut down my trees to do it!  No, sir!"
+    
+"Well, then," said he, "there is no way to do but to take it
+apart and haul it off."
+    
+"Which would make an awful time at the back of my house while
+you were doing it!" exclaimed Mrs. Carson.
+    
+I now put in a word.  "There's only one thing to do that I
+can see!" I exclaimed.  "I will sell it to a match factory.  It
+is almost all wood, and it can be cut up in sections about two
+inches thick, and then split into matches."
+    
+Kitty smiled.  "I should like to see them," she said, "taking
+away the little sticks in wheelbarrows!"
+    
+"There is no need of trifling on the subject," said Mrs.
+Carson.  "I have had a great deal to bear, and I must bear it no
+longer than is necessary.  I have just found out that in order to
+get water out of my own well, I must go to the back porch of
+a stranger.  Such things cannot be endured.  If my son George
+were here, he would tell me what I ought to do.  I shall write to
+him, and see what he advises.  I do not mind waiting a little
+bit, now that I know that you can fix Mr. Warren's house so that
+it won't move any farther."
+    
+Thus the matter was left.  My house was braced that
+afternoon, and toward evening I started to go to a hotel in the
+town to spend the night.
+    
+"No, sir!" said Mrs. Carson.  "Do you suppose that I am going
+to stay here all night with a great empty house jammed up against
+me, and everybody knowing that it is empty?  It will be the same
+as having thieves in my own house to have them in yours.  You
+have come down here in your property, and you can stay in it and
+take care of it!"
+    
+"I don't object to that in the least," I said.  "My two women
+are here, and I can tell them to attend to my meals.  I haven't
+any chimney, but I suppose they can make a fire some way or
+other."
+    
+"No, sir!" said Mrs. Carson.  "I am not going to have any
+strange servants on my place.  I have just been able to prevail
+upon my own women to go into the house, and I don't want any more
+trouble.  I have had enough already!"
+    
+"But, my dear madam," said I, "you don't want me to go to the
+town, and you won't allow me to have any cooking done here.  What
+am I to do?"
+    
+"Well," she said, "you can eat with us.  It may be two or
+three days before I can hear from my son George, and in the
+meantime you can lodge in your own house and I will take you to
+board.  That is the best way I can see of managing the
+thing.  But I am very sure I am not going to be left here alone
+in the dreadful predicament in which you have put me."
+    
+We had scarcely finished supper when Jack Brandiger came to
+see me.  He laughed a good deal a about my sudden change of base,
+but thought, on the whole, my house had made a very successful
+move.  It must be more pleasant in the valley than up on that
+windy hill.  Jack was very much interested in everything, and
+when Mrs. Carson and her daughter appeared, as we were walking
+about viewing the scene, I felt myself obliged to introduce him.
+    
+"I like those ladies," said he to me, afterwards.  "I think
+you have chosen very agreeable neighbors."
+    
+"How do you know you like them?" said I.  "You had scarcely
+anything to say to Mrs. Carson."
+    
+"No, to be sure," said he.  "But I expect I should like her. 
+By the way, do you know how you used to talk to me about coming
+and living somewhere near you?  How would you like me to take one
+of your rooms now?  I might cheer you up."
+    
+"No," said I, firmly.  "That cannot be done.  As things are
+now, I have as much as I can do to get along here by myself."
+    
+Mrs. Carson did not hear from her son for nearly a week, and
+then he wrote that he found it almost impossible to give her any
+advice.  He thought it was a very queer state of affairs.  He had
+never heard of anything like it.  But he would try and arrange
+his business so that he could come home in a week or two and look
+into matters.
+    
+As I was thus compelled to force myself upon the close
+neighborhood of Mrs. Carson and her daughter,  I endeavored
+to make things as pleasant as possible.  I brought some of my men
+down out of the vineyard, and set them to repairing fences,
+putting the garden in order, and doing all that I could to remedy
+the doleful condition of things which I had unwillingly brought
+into the back yard of this quiet family.  I rigged up a pump on
+my back porch by which the water of the well could be
+conveniently obtained, and in every way endeavored to repair
+damages.
+    
+But Mrs. Carson never ceased to talk about the unparalleled
+disaster which had come upon her, and she must have had a great
+deal of correspondence with her son George, because she gave me
+frequent messages from him.  He could not come on to look into
+the state of affairs, but he seemed to be giving it a great deal
+of thought and attention.
+    
+Spring weather had come again, and it was very pleasant to
+help the Carson ladies get their flower-garden in order--at
+least, as much as was left of it, for my house was resting upon
+some of the most important beds.  As I was obliged to give up all
+present idea of doing anything in the way of getting my residence
+out of a place where it had no business to be, because Mrs.
+Carson would not consent to any plan which had been suggested, I
+felt that I was offering some little compensation in beautifying
+what seemed to be, at that time, my own grounds.
+    
+My labors in regard to vines, bushes, and all that sort of
+thing were generally carried on under direction of Mrs. Carson or
+her daughter, and as the elderly lady was a very busy housewife,
+the horticultural work was generally left to Miss Kitty and me.
+    
+I liked Miss Kitty.  She was a cheerful, whole-souled person, and
+I sometimes thought that she was not so unwilling to have me for
+a neighbor as the rest of the family seemed to be; for if I were
+to judge the disposition of her brother George from what her
+mother told me about his letters, both he and Mrs. Carson must be
+making a great many plans to get me off the premises.
+    
+Nearly a month had now passed since my house and I made that
+remarkable morning call upon Mrs. Carson.  I was becoming
+accustomed to my present mode of living, and, so far as I was
+concerned, it satisfied me very well.  I certainly lived a great
+deal better than when I was depending upon my old negro cook. 
+Miss Kitty seemed to be satisfied with things as they were, and
+so, in some respects, did her mother.  But the latter never
+ceased to give me extracts from some of her son George's letters,
+and this was always annoying and worrying to me.  Evidently he
+was not pleased with me as such a close neighbor to his mother,
+and it was astonishing how many expedients he proposed in order
+to rid her of my undesirable proximity.
+    
+"My son George," said Mrs. Carson, one morning, "has been
+writing to me about jack-screws.  He says that the greatest
+improvements have been made in jack-screws."
+    
+"What do you do with them, mother?" asked Miss Kitty.
+    
+"You lift houses with them," said she.  "He says that in
+large cities they lift whole blocks of houses with them and build
+stories underneath.  He thinks that we can get rid of our trouble
+here if we use jack-screws."
+    
+"But how does he propose to use them?" I asked.
+    
+"Oh, he has a good many plans," answered Mrs. Carson.  "He
+said that he should not wonder if jack-screws could be made large
+enough to lift your house entirely over mine and set it out in
+the road, where it could be carried away without interfering with
+anything, except, of course, vehicles which might be coming
+along.  But he has another plan--that is, to lift my house up and
+carry it out into the field on the other side of the road, and
+then your house might be carried along right over the cellar
+until it got to the road.  In that way, he says, the bushes and
+trees would not have to be interfered with."
+    
+"I think brother George is cracked!" said Kitty.
+    
+All this sort of thing worried me very much.  My mind was
+eminently disposed toward peace and tranquillity, but who could
+be peaceful and tranquil with a prospective jack-screw under the
+very base of his comfort and happiness?  In fact, my house had
+never been such a happy home as it was at that time.  The fact of
+its unwarranted position upon other people's grounds had ceased
+to trouble me.
+    
+But the coming son George, with his jack-screws, did trouble
+me very much, and that afternoon I deliberately went into Mrs.
+Carson's house to look for Kitty.  I knew her mother was not at
+home, for I had seen her go out.  When Kitty appeared I asked her
+to come out on her back porch.  "Have you thought of any new plan
+of moving it?" she said, with a smile, as we sat down.
+    
+"No," said I, earnestly.  "I have not, and I don't want to
+think of any plan of moving it.  I am tired of seeing it here, I
+am tired of thinking about moving it away, and I am tired of
+hearing people talk about moving it.  I have not any right
+to be here, and I am never allowed to forget it.  What I want to
+do is to go entirely away, and leave everything behind me--except
+one thing."
+    
+"And what is that?" asked Kitty.
+    
+"You," I answered.
+    
+She turned a little pale and did not reply.
+    
+"You understand me, Kitty," I said.  "There is nothing in the
+world that I care for but you.  What have you to say to me?"
+    
+Then came back to her her little smile.  "I think it would be
+very foolish for us to go away," she said.
+    
+It was about a quarter of an hour after this when Kitty
+proposed that we should go out to the front of the house; it
+would look queer if any of the servants should come by and see us
+sitting together like that.  I had forgotten that there were
+other people in the world, but I went with her.
+    
+We were standing on the front porch, close to each other, and
+I think we were holding each other's hands, when Mrs. Carson came
+back.  As she approached she looked at us inquiringly, plainly
+wishing to know why we were standing side by side before her door
+as if we had some special object in so doing.
+    
+"Well?" said she, as she came up the steps.  Of course it was
+right that I should speak, and, in as few words as possible, I
+told her what Kitty and I had been saying to each other.  I never
+saw Kitty's mother look so cheerful and so handsome as when she
+came forward and kissed her daughter and shook hands with me. 
+She seemed so perfectly satisfied that it amazed me.  After a
+little Kitty left us, and then Mrs. Carson asked me to sit by her
+on a rustic bench.
+    
+"Now," said she, "this will straighten out things in the very
+best way.  When you are married, you and Kitty can live in the
+back building,--for, of course, your house will now be the same
+thing as a back building,--and you can have the second floor.  We
+won't have any separate tables, because it will be a great deal
+nicer for you and Kitty to live with me, and it will simply be
+your paying board for two persons instead of one.  And you know
+you can manage your vineyard just as well from the bottom of the
+hill as from the top.  The lower rooms of what used to be your
+house can be made very pleasant and comfortable for all of us.  I
+have been thinking about the room on the right that you had
+planned for a parlor, and it will make a lovely sitting-room for
+us, which is a thing we have never had, and the room on the other
+side is just what will suit beautifully for a guest-chamber.  The
+two houses together, with the roof of my back porch properly
+joined to the front of your house, will make a beautiful and
+spacious dwelling.  It was fortunate, too, that you painted your
+house a light yellow.  I have often looked at the two together,
+and thought what a good thing it was that one was not one color
+and the other another.  As to the pump, it will be very easy now
+to put a pipe from what used to be your back porch to our
+kitchen, so that we can get water without being obliged to carry
+it.  Between us we can make all sorts of improvements, and some
+time I will tell you of a good many that I have thought of.
+    
+"What used to be your house, " she continued, "can be jack-
+screwed up a little bit and a good foundation put under it.  I
+have inquired about that.  Of course it would not have been
+proper to let you know that I was satisfied with the state of
+things, but I was satisfied, and there is no use of denying it. 
+As soon as I got over my first scare after that house came down
+the hill, and had seen how everything might be arranged to suit
+all parties, I said to myself, `What the Lord has joined
+together, let not man put asunder,' and so, according to my
+belief, the strongest kind of jack-screws could not put these two
+houses asunder, any more than they could put you and Kitty
+asunder, now that you have agreed to take each other for each
+other's own."
+    
+Jack Brandiger came to call that evening, and when he had
+heard what had happened he whistled a good deal.  "You are a
+funny kind of a fellow," said he.  "You go courting like a snail,
+with your house on your back!"
+    
+I think my friend was a little discomfited.  "Don't be
+discouraged, Jack," said I. "You will get a good wife some of
+these days--that is, if you don't try to slide uphill to find
+her!"
+
+
+
+                             OUR ARCHERY CLUB
+
+When an archery club was formed in our village, I was among the
+first to join it.  But I should not, on this account, claim any
+extraordinary enthusiasm on the subject of archery, for nearly
+all the ladies and gentlemen of the place were also among the
+first to join.
+    
+Few of us, I think, had a correct idea of the popularity of
+archery in our midst until the subject of a club was broached. 
+Then we all perceived what a strong interest we felt in the study
+and use of the bow and arrow.  The club was formed immediately,
+and our thirty members began to discuss the relative merits of
+lancewood, yew, and greenheart bows, and to survey yards and
+lawns for suitable spots for setting up targets for home
+practice.
+    
+Our weekly meetings, at which we came together to show in
+friendly contest how much our home practice had taught us, were
+held upon the village green, or rather upon what had been
+intended to be the village green.  This pretty piece of ground,
+partly in smooth lawn and partly shaded by fine trees, was the
+property of a gentleman of the place, who had presented it, under
+certain conditions, to the township.  But as the township had
+never fulfilled any of the conditions, and had done nothing
+toward the improvement of the spot, further than to make it a
+grazing-place for local cows and goats, the owner had withdrawn
+his gift, shut out the cows and goats by a picket fence, and,
+having locked the gate, had hung up the key in his barn.  When
+our club was formed, the green, as it was still called, was
+offered to us for our meetings, and, with proper gratitude, we
+elected its owner to be our president.
+    
+This gentleman was eminently qualified for the presidency of
+an archery club.  In the first place, he did not shoot: this gave
+him time and opportunity to attend to the shooting of others.  He
+was a tall and pleasant man, a little elderly.  This
+"elderliness," if I may so put it, seemed, in his case, to
+resemble some mild disorder, like a gentle rheumatism, which,
+while it prevented him from indulging in all the wild hilarities
+of youth, gave him, in compensation, a position, as one entitled
+to a certain consideration, which was very agreeable to him.  His
+little disease was chronic, it is true, and it was growing upon
+him; but it was, so far, a pleasant ailment.
+    
+And so, with as much interest in bows and arrows and targets
+and successful shots as any of us, he never fitted an arrow to a
+string, nor drew a bow.  But he attended every meeting, settling
+disputed points (for he studied all the books on archery),
+encouraging the disheartened, holding back the eager ones who
+would run to the targets as soon as they had shot, regardless of
+the fact that others were still shooting and that the human body
+is not arrow-proof, and shedding about him that general aid and
+comfort which emanates from a good fellow, no matter what he may
+say or do.
+    
+There were persons--outsiders--who said that archery clubs
+always selected ladies for their presiding officers, but we did
+not care to be too much bound down and trammelled by customs and
+traditions.  Another club might not have among its members such a
+genial elderly gentleman who owned a village green.
+    
+I soon found myself greatly interested in archery, especially
+when I succeeded in planting an arrow somewhere within the
+periphery of the target, but I never became such an enthusiast in
+bow-shooting as my friend Pepton.
+    
+If Pepton could have arranged matters to suit himself, he
+would have been born an archer.  But as this did not happen to
+have been the case, he employed every means in his power to
+rectify what he considered this serious error in his
+construction.  He gave his whole soul, and the greater part of
+his spare time, to archery, and as he was a young man of energy,
+this helped him along wonderfully.
+    
+His equipments were perfect.  No one could excel him in, this
+respect.  His bow was snakewood, backed with hickory.  He
+carefully rubbed it down every evening with oil and beeswax, and
+it took its repose in a green baize bag.  His arrows were Philip
+Highfield's best, his strings the finest Flanders hemp.  He had
+shooting-gloves, and little leather tips that could be screwed
+fast on the ends of what he called his string-fingers.  He had a
+quiver and a belt, and when equipped for the weekly meetings, he
+carried a fancy-colored wiping-tassel, and a little ebony grease-
+pot hanging from his belt.  He wore, when shooting, a polished
+arm-guard or bracer, and if he had heard of anything else that an
+archer should have, he straightway would have procured it.
+    
+Pepton was a single man, and he lived with two good old
+maiden ladies, who took as much care of him as if they had been
+his mothers.  And he was such a good, kind fellow that he
+deserved all the attention they gave him.  They felt a great
+interest in his archery pursuits, and shared his anxious
+solicitude in the selection of a suitable place to hang his bow.
+    
+"You see," said he, "a fine bow like this, when not in use,
+should always be in a perfectly dry place."
+    
+"And when in use, too," said Miss Martha, "for I am sure that
+you oughtn't to be standing and shooting in any damp spot. 
+There's no surer way of gettin' chilled."
+    
+To which sentiment Miss Maria agreed, and suggested wearing
+rubber shoes, or having a board to stand on, when the club met
+after a rain.
+    
+Pepton first hung his bow in the hall, but after he had
+arranged it symmetrically upon two long nails (bound with green
+worsted, lest they should scratch the bow through its woollen
+cover), he reflected that the front door would frequently be
+open, and that damp drafts must often go through the hall.  He
+was sorry to give up this place for his bow, for it was
+convenient and appropriate, and for an instant he thought that it
+might remain, if the front door could be kept shut, and visitors
+admitted through a little side door which the family generally
+used, and which was almost as convenient as the other--except,
+indeed, on wash-days, when a wet sheet or some article of wearing
+apparel was apt to be hung in front of it.  But although wash-day
+occurred but once a week, and although it was comparatively
+easy, after a little practice, to bob under a high-propped sheet,
+Pepton's heart was too kind to allow his mind to dwell upon this
+plan.  So he drew the nails from the wall of the hall, and put
+them up in various places about the house.  His own room had to
+be aired a great deal in all weathers, and so that would not do
+at all.  The wall above the kitchen fireplace would be a good
+location, for the chimney was nearly always warm.  But Pepton
+could not bring himself to keep his bow in the kitchen.  There
+would be nothing esthetic about such a disposition of it, and,
+besides, the girl might be tempted to string and bend it.  The
+old ladies really did not want it in the parlor, for its length
+and its green baize cover would make it an encroaching and
+unbecoming neighbor to the little engravings and the big
+samplers, the picture-frames of acorns and pine-cones, the
+fancifully patterned ornaments of clean wheat straw, and all the
+quaint adornments which had hung upon those walls for so many
+years.  But they did not say so.  If it had been necessary, to
+make room for the bow, they would have taken down the pencilled
+profiles of their grandfather, their grandmother, and their
+father when a little boy, which hung in a row over the
+mantelpiece.
+    
+However, Pepton did not ask this sacrifice.  In the summer
+evenings the parlor windows must be open.  The dining-room was
+really very little used in the evening, except when Miss Maria
+had stockings to darn, and then she always sat in that apartment,
+and of course she had the windows open.  But Miss Maria was very
+willing to bring her work into the parlor,--it was foolish,
+anyway, to have a feeling about darning stockings before
+chance company,--and then the dining-room could be kept shut up
+after tea.  So into the wall of that neat little room Pepton
+drove his worsted-covered nails, and on them carefully laid his
+bow.  All the next day Miss Martha and Miss Maria went about the
+house, covering the nail-holes he had made with bits of wall-
+paper, carefully snipped out to fit the patterns, and pasted on
+so neatly that no one would have suspected they were there.
+    
+One afternoon, as I was passing the old ladies' house, saw,
+or thought I saw, two men carrying in a coffin.  I was struck
+with alarm.
+    
+"What!" I thought.  "Can either of those good women--  Or can
+Pepton--"
+    
+Without a moment's hesitation, I rushed in behind the men. 
+There, at the foot of the stairs, directing them, stood Pepton. 
+Then it was not he!  I seized him sympathetically by the hand.
+    
+"Which?" I faltered.  "Which?  Who is that coffin for?"
+    
+"Coffin!" cried Pepton.  "Why, my dear fellow, that is not a
+coffin.  That is my ascham."
+    
+"Ascham?" I exclaimed.  "What is that?"
+    
+"Come and look at it," he said, when the men had set it on
+end against the wall.  "It is an upright closet or receptacle for
+an archer's armament.  Here is a place to stand the bow, here are
+supports for the arrows and quivers, here are shelves and hooks,
+on which to lay or hang everything the merry man can need.  You
+see, moreover, that it is lined with green plush, that the door
+fits tightly, so that it can stand anywhere, and there need be no
+fear of drafts or dampness affecting my bow.  Isn't it a
+perfect thing?  You ought to get one."
+    
+I admitted the perfection, but agreed no further.  I had not
+the income of my good Pepton.
+    
+Pepton was, indeed, most wonderfully well equipped; and yet,
+little did those dear old ladies think, when they carefully
+dusted and reverentially gazed at the bunches of arrows, the arm-
+bracers, the gloves, the grease-pots, and all the rest of the
+paraphernalia of archery, as it hung around Pepton's room, or
+when they afterwards allowed a particular friend to peep at it,
+all arranged so orderly within the ascham, or when they looked
+with sympathetic, loving admiration on the beautiful polished
+bow, when it was taken out of its bag--little did they think, I
+say, that Pepton was the very poorest shot in the club.  In all
+the surface of the much-perforated targets of the club, there was
+scarcely a hole that he could put his hand upon his heart and say
+he made.
+    
+Indeed, I think it was the truth that Pepton was born not to
+be an archer.  There were young fellows in the club who shot with
+bows that cost no more than Pepton's tassels, but who could stand
+up and whang arrows into the targets all the afternoon, if they
+could get a chance; and there were ladies who made hits five
+times out of six; and there were also all the grades of archers
+common to any club.  But there was no one but himself in Pepton's
+grade.  He stood alone, and it was never any trouble to add up
+his score.
+    
+Yet he was not discouraged.  He practised every day except
+Sundays, and indeed he was the only person in the club who
+practised at night.  When he told me about this, I was a little
+surprised.
+    
+"Why, it's easy enough," said he.  "You see, I hung a
+lantern, with a reflector, before the target, just a little to
+one side.  It lighted up the target beautifully, and I believe
+there was a better chance of hitting it than by daylight, for the
+only thing you could see was the target, and so your attention
+was not distracted.  To be sure," he said, in answer to a
+question, "it was a good deal of trouble to find the arrows, but
+that I always have.  When I get so expert that I can put all the
+arrows into the target, there will be no trouble of the kind,
+night or day.  However," he continued, "I don't practise any more
+by night.  The other evening I sent an arrow slam-bang into the
+lantern, and broke it all to flinders.  Borrowed lantern, too. 
+Besides, I found it made Miss Martha very nervous to have me
+shooting about the house after dark.  She had a friend who had a
+little boy who was hit in the leg by an arrow from a bow, which,
+she says, accidentally went off in the night, of its own accord. 
+She is certainly a little mixed in her mind in regard to this
+matter, but I wish to respect her feelings, and so shall not use
+another lantern."
+    
+As I have said, there were many good archers among the ladies
+of our club.  Some of them, after we had been organized for a
+month or two, made scores that few of the gentlemen could excel. 
+But the lady who attracted the greatest attention when she shot
+was Miss Rosa.
+    
+When this very pretty young lady stood up before the ladies'
+target--her left side well advanced, her bow firmly held out in
+her strong left arm, which never quivered, her head a little
+bent to the right, her arrow drawn back by three well-gloved
+fingers to the tip of her little ear, her dark eyes steadily
+fixed upon the gold, and her dress, well fitted over her fine and
+vigorous figure, falling in graceful folds about her feet, we all
+stopped shooting to look at her.
+    
+"There is something statuesque about her," said Pepton, who
+ardently admired her, "and yet there isn't.  A statue could never
+equal her unless we knew there was a probability of movement in
+it.  And the only statues which have that are the Jarley wax-
+works, which she does not resemble in the least.  There is only
+one thing that that girl needs to make her a perfect archer, and
+that is to be able to aim better."
+    
+This was true.  Miss Rosa did need to aim better.  Her arrows
+had a curious habit of going on all sides of the target, and it
+was very seldom that one chanced to stick into it.  For if she
+did make a hit, we all knew it was chance and that there was no
+probability of her doing it again.  Once she put an arrow right
+into the centre of the gold,--one of the finest shots ever made
+on the ground,--but she didn't hit the target again for two
+weeks.  She was almost as bad a shot as Pepton, and that is
+saying a good deal.
+    
+One evening I was sitting with Pepton on the little front
+porch of the old ladies' house, where we were taking our after-
+dinner smoke while Miss Martha and Miss Maria were washing, with
+their own white hands, the china and glass in which they took so
+much pride.  I often used to go over and spend an hour with
+Pepton.  He liked to have some one to whom he could talk on the
+subjects which filled his soul, and I liked to hear him talk.
+    
+"I tell you," said he, as he leaned back in his chair, with
+his feet carefully disposed on the railing so that they would not
+injure Miss Maria's Madeira-vine, "I tell you, sir, that there
+are two things I crave with all my power of craving--two goals I
+fain would reach, two diadems I would wear upon my brow.  One of
+these is to kill an eagle--or some large bird--with a shaft from
+my good bow.  I would then have it stuffed and mounted, with the
+very arrow that killed it still sticking in its breast.  This
+trophy of my skill I would have fastened against the wall of my
+room or my hall, and I would feel proud to think that my
+grandchildren could point to that bird--which I would carefully
+bequeath to my descendants--and say, `My grand'ther shot that
+bird, and with that very arrow.'  Would it not stir your pulses
+if you could do a thing like that?"
+    
+"I should have to stir them up a good deal before I could do
+it," I replied.  "It would be a hard thing to shoot an eagle with
+an arrow.  If you want a stuffed bird to bequeath, you'd better
+use a rifle."
+    
+"A rifle!" exclaimed Pepton.  "There would be no glory in
+that.  There are lots of birds shot with rifles--eagles, hawks,
+wild geese, tomtits--"
+    
+"Oh, no!" I interrupted, "not tomtits."
+    
+"Well, perhaps they are too little for a rifle," said he. "But
+what I mean to say is that I wouldn't care at all for an eagle I
+had shot with a rifle.  You couldn't show the ball that killed
+him.  If it were put in properly, it would be inside, where it
+couldn't be seen.  No, sir.  It is ever so much more honorable,
+and far more difficult, too, to hit an eagle than to hit a
+target."
+    
+"That is very true," I answered, "especially in these days, when
+there are so few eagles and so many targets.  But what is your
+other diadem?"
+    
+"That," said Pepton, "is to see Miss Rosa wear the badge."
+    
+"Indeed!" said I.  And from that moment I began to understand
+Pepton's hopes in regard to the grandmother of those children who
+should point to the eagle.
+    
+"Yes, sir," he continued, "I should be truly happy to see her
+win the badge.  And she ought to win it.  No one shoots more
+correctly, and with a better understanding of all the rules, than
+she does.  There must truly be something the matter with her
+aiming.  I've half a mind to coach her a little."
+    
+I turned aside to see who was coming down the road.  I would
+not have had him know I smiled.
+    
+The most objectionable person in our club was O. J.
+Hollingsworth.  He was a good enough fellow in himself, but it
+was as an archer that we objected to him.
+    
+There was, so far as I know, scarcely a rule of archery that
+he did not habitually violate.  Our president and nearly all of
+us remonstrated with him, and Pepton even went to see him on the
+subject, but it was all to no purpose.  With a quiet disregard of
+other people's ideas about bow-shooting and other people's
+opinions about himself, he persevered in a style of shooting
+which appeared absolutely absurd to any one who knew anything of
+the rules and methods of archery.
+    
+I used to like to look at him when his turn came around to
+shoot.  He was not such a pleasing object of vision as Miss Rosa,
+but his style was so entirely novel to me that it was
+interesting.  He held the bow horizontally, instead of
+perpendicularly, like other archers, and he held it well
+down--about opposite his waistband.  He did not draw his arrow
+back to his ear, but he drew it back to the lower button of his
+vest.  Instead of standing upright, with his left side to the
+target, he faced it full, and leaned forward over his arrow, in
+an attitude which reminded me of a Roman soldier about to fall
+upon his sword.  When he had seized the nock of his arrow between
+his finger and thumb, he languidly glanced at the target, raised
+his bow a little, and let fly.  The provoking thing about it was
+that he nearly always hit.  If he had only known how to stand,
+and hold his bow, and draw back his arrow, he would have been a
+very good archer.  But, as it was, we could not help laughing at
+him, although our president always discountenanced anything of
+the kind.
+    
+Our champion was a tall man, very cool and steady, who went
+to work at archery exactly as if he were paid a salary, and
+intended to earn his money honestly.  He did the best he could in
+every way.  He generally shot with one of the bows owned by the
+club, but if any one on the ground had a better one, he would
+borrow it.  He used to shoot sometimes with Pepton's bow, which
+he declared to be a most capital one.  But as Pepton was always
+very nervous when he saw his bow in the hands of another than
+himself, the champion soon ceased to borrow it.
+    
+There were two badges, one of green silk and gold for the
+ladies, and one of green and red for the gentlemen, and these
+were shot for at each weekly meeting.  With the exception of a
+few times when the club was first formed, the champion had always
+worn the gentlemen's badge.  Many of us tried hard to win it
+from him, but we never could succeed; he shot too well.
+    
+On the morning of one of our meeting days, the champion told
+me, as I was going to the city with him, that he would not be
+able to return at his usual hour that afternoon.  He would be
+very busy, and would have to wait for the six-fifteen train,
+which would bring him home too late for the archery meeting.  So
+he gave me the badge, asking me to hand it to the president, that
+he might bestow it on the successful competitor that afternoon.
+    
+We were all rather glad that the champion was obliged to be
+absent.  Here was a chance for some one of us to win the badge. 
+It was not, indeed, an opportunity for us to win a great deal of
+honor, for if the champion were to be there we should have no
+chance at all.  But we were satisfied with this much, having no
+reason--in the present, at least--to expect anything more.
+    
+So we went to the targets with a new zeal, and most of us
+shot better than we had ever shot before.  In this number was O.
+J. Hollingsworth.  He excelled himself, and, what was worse, he
+excelled all the rest of us.  He actually made a score of eighty-
+five in twenty-four shots, which at that time was remarkably good
+shooting, for our club.  This was dreadful!  To have a fellow who
+didn't know how to shoot beat us all was too bad.  If any visitor
+who knew anything at all of archery should see that the member
+who wore the champion's badge was a man who held his bow as if he
+had the stomach-ache, it would ruin our character as a club.  It
+was not to be borne.
+    
+Pepton in particular felt greatly outraged.  We had met
+very promptly that afternoon, and had finished our regular
+shooting much earlier than usual; and now a knot of us were
+gathered together, talking over this unfortunate occurrence.
+    
+"I don't intend to stand it," Pepton suddenly exclaimed.  "I
+feel it as a personal disgrace.  I'm going to have the champion
+here before dark.  By the rules, he has a right to shoot until
+the president declares it is too late.  Some of you fellows stay
+here, and I'll bring him."
+    
+And away he ran, first giving me charge of his precious bow. 
+There was no need of his asking us to stay.  We were bound to see
+the fun out, and to fill up the time our president offered a
+special prize of a handsome bouquet from his gardens, to be shot
+for by the ladies.
+    
+Pepton ran to the railroad station, and telegraphed to the
+champion.  This was his message:
+
+    
+"You are absolutely needed here.  If possible, take the five-
+thirty train for Ackford.  I will drive over for you.  Answer."
+
+    
+There was no train before the six-fifteen by which the
+champion could come directly to our village; but Ackford, a small
+town about three miles distant, was on another railroad, on which
+there were frequent afternoon trains.
+    
+The champion answered:
+
+    
+"All right.  Meet me."
+
+    
+Then Pepton rushed to our livery stable, hired a horse and
+buggy, and drove to Ackford.
+    
+A little after half-past six, when several of us were
+beginning to think that Pepton had failed in his plans, he
+drove rapidly into the grounds, making a very short turn at the
+gate, and pulled up his panting horse just in time to avoid
+running over three ladies, who were seated on the grass.  The
+champion was by his side!
+    
+The latter lost no time in talking or salutations.  He knew
+what he had been brought there to do, and he immediately set
+about trying to do it.  He took Pepton's bow, which the latter
+urged upon him.  He stood up, straight and firm on the line, at
+thirty-five yards from the gentlemen's target; he carefully
+selected his arrows, examining the feathers and wiping away any
+bit of soil that might be adhering to the points after some one
+had shot them into the turf; with vigorous arm he drew each arrow
+to its head; he fixed his eyes and his whole mind on the centre
+of the target; he shot his twenty-four arrows, handed to him, one
+by one, by Pepton, and he made a score of ninety-one.
+    
+The whole club had been scoring the shots, as they were made,
+and when the last arrow plumped into the red ring, a cheer arose
+from every member excepting three: the champion, the president,
+and O. J. Hollingsworth.  But Pepton cheered loudly enough to
+make up these deficiencies.
+    
+"What in the mischief did they cheer him for?" asked
+Hollingsworth of me.  "They didn't cheer me when I beat everybody
+on the grounds an hour ago.  And it's no new thing for him to win
+the badge; he does it every time."
+    
+"Well," said I, frankly, "I think the club, AS a club, objects to
+your wearing the badge, because you don't know how to shoot."
+    
+"Don't know how to shoot!" he cried.  "Why, I can hit the
+target better than any of you.  Isn't that what you try to do
+when you shoot?"
+    
+"Yes," said I, "of course that is what we try to do.  But we
+try to do it in the proper way."
+    
+"Proper grandmother!" he exclaimed.  "It doesn't seem to help
+you much.  The best thing you fellows can do is to learn to shoot
+my way, and then perhaps you may be able to hit oftener."
+    
+When the champion had finished shooting he went home to his
+dinner, but many of us stood about, talking over our great
+escape.
+    
+"I feel as if I had done that myself," said Pepton.  "I am
+almost as proud as if I had shot--well, not an eagle, but a
+soaring lark."
+    
+"Why, that ought to make you prouder than the other," said I,
+"for a lark, especially when it's soaring, must be a good deal
+harder to hit than an eagle."
+    
+"That's so," said Pepton, reflectively.  "But I'll stick to
+the lark.  I'm proud."
+    
+During the next month our style of archery improved very much, so
+much, indeed, that we increased our distance, for gentlemen, to
+forty yards, and that for ladies to thirty, and also had serious
+thoughts of challenging the Ackford club to a match.  But as this
+was generally understood to be a crack club, we finally
+determined to defer our challenge until the next season.
+    
+When I say we improved, I do not mean all of us.  I do not mean
+Miss Rosa.  Although her attitudes were as fine as ever, and
+every motion as true to rule as ever, she seldom made a hit. 
+Pepton actually did try to teach her how to aim, but the various
+methods of pointing the arrow which he suggested resulted in
+such wild shooting that the boys who picked up the arrows never
+dared to stick the points of their noses beyond their boarded
+barricade during Miss Rosa's turns at the target.  But she was
+not discouraged, and Pepton often assured her that if she would
+keep up a good heart, and practise regularly, she would get the
+badge yet.  As a rule, Pepton was so honest and truthful that a
+little statement of this kind, especially under the
+circumstances, might be forgiven him.
+    
+One day Pepton came to me and announced that he had made a
+discovery.
+    
+"It's about archery," he said, "and I don't mind telling you,
+because I know you will not go about telling everybody else, and
+also because I want to see you succeed as an archer."
+   
+ "I am very much obliged," I said, "and what is the discovery?"
+    
+"It's this," he answered.  "When you draw your bow, bring the
+nock of your arrow"--he was always very particular about
+technical terms--"well up to your ear.  Having done that, don't
+bother any more about your right hand.  It has nothing to do with
+the correct pointing of your arrow, for it must be kept close to
+your right ear, just as if it were screwed there.  Then with your
+left hand bring around the bow so that your fist--with the arrow-
+head, which is resting on top of it--shall point, as nearly as
+you can make it, directly at the centre of the target.  Then let
+fly, and ten to one you'll make a hit.  Now, what do you think of
+that for a discovery?  I've thoroughly tested the plan, and it
+works splendidly."
+    
+"I think," said I, "that you have discovered the way in
+which good archers shoot.  You have stated the correct method of
+managing a bow and arrow."
+    
+"Then you don't think it's an original method with me?"
+    
+"Certainly not," I answered.
+    
+"But it's the correct way?"
+    
+"There's no doubt of that," said I.
+    
+"Well," said Pepton, "then I shall make it my way."
+    
+He did so, and the consequence was that one day, when the
+champion happened to be away, Pepton won the badge.  When the
+result was announced, we were all surprised, but none so much so
+as Pepton himself.  He had been steadily improving since he had
+adopted a good style of shooting, but he had had no idea that
+he would that day be able to win the badge.
+    
+When our president pinned the emblem of success upon the
+lapel of his coat, Pepton turned pale, and then he flushed.  He
+thanked the president, and was about to thank the ladies and
+gentlemen; but probably recollecting that we had had nothing to
+do with it,--unless, indeed, we had shot badly on his behalf,--he
+refrained.  He said little, but I could see that he was very
+proud and very happy.  There was but one drawback to his triumph:
+
+Miss Rosa was not there.  She was a very regular attendant, but
+for some reason she was absent on this momentous afternoon.  I
+did not say anything to him on the subject, but I knew he felt
+this absence deeply.
+    
+But this cloud could not wholly overshadow his happiness.  He
+walked home alone, his face beaming, his eyes sparkling, and his
+good bow under his arm.
+    
+That evening I called on him, for I thought that when he had
+cooled down a little he would like to talk over the affair. 
+But he was not in.  Miss Maria said that he had gone out as soon
+as he had finished his dinner, which he had hurried through in a
+way which would certainly injure his digestion if he kept up the
+practice; and dinner was late, too, for they waited for him, and
+the archery meeting lasted a long time today; and it really was
+not right for him to stay out after the dew began to fall with
+only ordinary shoes on, for what's the good of knowing how to
+shoot a bow and arrow, if you're laid up in your bed with
+rheumatism or disease of the lungs?  Good old lady!  She would
+have kept Pepton in a green baize bag, had such a thing been
+possible.
+    
+The next morning, full two hours before church-time, Pepton
+called on me.  His face was still beaming.  I could not help
+smiling.
+    
+"Your happiness lasts well," I said.
+    
+"Lasts!" he exclaimed.  "Why shouldn't it last!"
+    
+"There's no reason why it should not--at least, for a week,"
+I said, "and even longer, if you repeat your success."
+    
+I did not feel so much like congratulating Pepton as I had on
+the previous evening.  I thought he was making too much of his
+badge-winning.
+    
+"Look here!" said Pepton, seating himself, and drawing his
+chair close to me, "you are shooting wild--very wild indeed.  You
+don't even see the target.  Let me tell you something.  Last
+evening I went to see Miss Rosa.  She was delighted at my
+success.  I had not expected this.  I thought she would be
+pleased, but not to such a degree.  Her congratulations were so
+warm that they set me on fire."
+    
+"They must have been very warm indeed," I remarked.
+    
+"`Miss Rosa,' said I," continued Pepton, without regarding my
+interruption, "`it has been my fondest hope to see you wear the
+badge.'  `But I never could get it, you know,' she said.  `You
+have got it,' I exclaimed.  `Take this.  I won it for you.  Make
+me happy by wearing it.'  `I can't do that,' she said.  `That is
+a gentleman's badge.'  `Take it,' I cried, `gentleman and all!'
+   
+ "I can't tell you all that happened after that," continued
+Pepton.  "You know, it wouldn't do.  It is enough to say that she
+wears the badge.  And we are both her own--the badge and I!"
+    
+Now I congratulated him in good earnest.  There was a reason
+for it.
+    
+"I don't owe a snap now for shooting an eagle," said Pepton,
+springing to his feet and striding up and down the floor.  "Let
+'em all fly free for me.  I have made the most glorious shot that
+man could make.  I have hit the gold--hit it fair in the very
+centre!  And what's more, I've knocked it clean out of the
+target!  Nobody else can ever make such a shot.  The rest of you
+fellows will have to be content to hit the red, the blue, the
+black, or the white.  The gold is mine!"
+    
+I called on the old ladies, some time after this, and found
+them alone.  They were generally alone in the evenings now.  We
+talked about Pepton's engagement, and I found them resigned. 
+They were sorry to lose him, but they wanted him to be happy.
+    
+"We have always known," said Miss Martha, with a little sigh,
+"that we must die, and that he must get married.  But we don't
+intend to repine.  These things will come to people."  And her
+little sigh was followed by a smile, still smaller.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Magic Egg and Other Stories
+by Frank Stockton, author of "The Lady or the Tiger"
+
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