Trafton’s fine roadster, “Billy,” was pretty well trained, the combined effect was a little too much for his nerves. He gave a sidelong leap and started to run. His master checked him sharply, and veering from the road, he ran the wheels into a deep rut, and over went the buggy with a crash!

Linda screamed, as she was pitched headlong into a thicket of sweet-fern which grew along the roadside; but the bushes broke her fall, and, beyond the fright and a scratched hand, she received no injury.

Her father was equally fortunate, and, as Billy had recovered from his momentary panic and did not run, the accident appeared, at the first glance, to be nothing serious.

The boy who had caused it came forward, with a look of trepidation upon his countenance, exclaiming:

“I’m awfully sorry, sir; I didn’t mean to frighten your horse. I was down behind the wall and didn’t see you coming, or I wouldn’t have thrown my hat so. I was only scaring a squirrel.”

“He must have been pretty thoroughly scared,” said Mr. Trafton, drily.

However, the boy’s bright face wore an expression of such honest regret that he added, with a good-humored accent:

“Well, well, I was a boy myself once. You must be more careful another time, my lad.”

“That I will, sir.”

And as Mr. Trafton began to raise the overturned buggy, the boy took hold and helped him.

On getting the vehicle righted, they found that one wheel was broken so badly as to need repairs before the journey could be continued, and Mr. Trafton surveyed the damage with grave concern.

The boy gave a low whistle, and murmured:

“Here’s a state of things!”

“I don’t see what I’m going to do,” remarked the gentleman. “There’s nobody in this region who could mend that wheel, I suppose?”

“Oh yes there is!” cried the boy, brightening up. “Doran’s blacksmith shop is only a little ways down the road; you can get the wheel fixed there. I’ll go along and hold up this side of the buggy; and I’ll pay the bill, sir, as I caused the damage.”

Mr. Trafton looked at him approvingly, but answered:

“You need not do that, my boy. The bill won’t amount to much; but the job may take some time—and where can I leave my little girl? I suppose you would not care to wait in the blacksmith shop, Linda?”

Before Linda could reply, the boy said, looking at her frankly, and not at all abashed:

“She can stay with my grandma while you’re having the wheel fixed. Mrs. Deacon Burbank is my grandma; she lives right here, sir,” pointing out the house.

“And where do you live?” asked Mr. Trafton, who took a liking to Mrs. Deacon Burbank’s grandson, for all his annoyance at the trouble which that lively youth had caused him.

“I’m staying with grandma this summer,” said the boy; “but I live in Boston when I’m at home. My name is John Burbank.”

“Well, John, you will have to take Linda to your grandma, for I cannot leave Billy standing here with this broken buggy.”

“All right, sir; I’ll be back in a minute, and help you down to Doran’s.”

So saying, John Burbank led the way, and Linda followed, to the nearest of the brown old houses—a big, broad-roofed domicile, with wide, double doors and narrow windows, and with two great cherry trees in the front yard, looking like two great drifts of snow, they were so thickly covered with white blossoms.

A border of red and yellow tulips, gay daffodils, and “crown imperials,” edged the narrow walk which led from the front gate around to the side door, where they were received by a surprised old lady in gold-bowed spectacles, to whom John presented his companion, with the following concise account of the accident which occasioned her unexpected appearance:

“Grandma, here’s a girl, and her father is out there with his team, and they’ve just had a break-down, and it was all my doing; but I didn’t mean to! I scared the horse, hollering at a squirrel. I’ve got to go and help her father get the buggy down to Doran’s, and she’s going to stay here till it’s fixed, and her name’s Linda. I don’t know what her other name is.”

“Linda Trafton,” supplemented Linda, as the boy paused to catch his breath.

“Johnny,” said the old lady, speaking as severely as a stout old lady with dimples in her cheeks and a twinkle in her eyes could be expected to speak, when addressing her only grandson—“Johnny, I do declare for ’t, you air the worst boy! What under the canopy will you go to cuttin’ up next? Come right in, my dear,” she said to Linda, “and make yourself to home. Johnny, you run along and help the gentleman; and tell Mr. Doran your gran’ther will pay the bill.”

“Oh, I’m going to pay it myself, grandma, with my own pocket-money, if the gentleman will let me; but he says he won’t.”

And Johnny was off before he had done speaking.

“I declare for ’t,” said his grandmother, “that boy is a regular Burbank; jest exactly what the deacon used to be at his age—always into suthin’. I knew the deacon when he wa’n’t any older than Johnny, an’ I remember jest how he used to act. Take off your things, my dear, and make yourself to home.”

She took Linda’s hat and sacque, and

carried them into the spare bed-room, where there was a great “four-poster” bedstead, with blue-and-white chintz hangings and a blue-and-white spread; and then she came and sat down by Linda, and asked her a great many questions about the break-down, and about her father and mother and herself, but she was such a nice old lady that Linda did not mind her being a little inquisitive.

In return, she gave Linda quite a complete history of her own family, and told her a number of entertaining stories about Johnny and Johnny’s father, and about the deacon when he was a boy. Finally, she looked at the queer old clock on the kitchen mantle-shelf, and remarked:

“It’s time I was gittin’ my dinner over to cook, and I guess I shall have to leave you to amuse yourself a little while, my dear. You might go out an’ look ’round the garden, if you want; or maybe you’d ruther go up in the garret, an’ look at Johnny’s picture-books an’ things. He likes to stay up there, when it rains so’t he can’t go out.”

“Oh, I should like that, of all things!” cried Linda, delighted. “I do love a real old-fashioned garret, with all sorts of old things in it!”

“Do you now? Well,” said Mrs. Burbank, beaming over the gold-bowed spectacles, “our garret is full of old truck, an’ you can go up there an’ rummage ’round all you’ve a min’ to.”

She opened the door of a narrow staircase, with steep and well-worn stairs, and told Linda that was the way to the back chamber over the kitchen, and when she got up there she would see the garret stairs; and she guessed Linda could find the way up alone. She was pretty hefty herself, and she didn’t travel up and down stairs any more than she could help.

Linda very quickly found her way to the garret, which proved to be indeed a veritable treasury of “old truck;” and her brown eyes opened wide with ecstasy as she caught sight of a real, genuine spinning-wheel, stowed away under the low, sloping roof.

Then she discovered a smaller wheel, with a motto carved around its rim in quaint lettering, which Linda studied over a long time before she made it out—“Eat not the Bread of Idleness.” She learned afterward that this was a flax-wheel, on which Deacon Burbank’s mother used to spin the thread to weave her linen sheets.

Beside the flax-wheel stood a superannuated chest of drawers, with dingy brass handles, which had once, no doubt, been a fine piece of furniture.

Then there were broken-down chairs,