chain would hang directly over the pit. I don't know that she saw the full utility of this move, but I did. Holding my breath, I stood in the doorway until I could dimly see the prostrate figure on the floor, then I darted inside, looped the chain about him and dragged him to the entrance. He was a heavily built, sharp-featured man, past middle age, and although he lay on the ground and gasped for breath there was a slight contortion of his features that suggested repressed mirth. Marion wanted me to go for help, but I told her that he was recovering and only needed to be moved from the entrance where he lay to the level ground where the air was fresher. She said I would never be able to get him up the incline, so I hastened to complete my task, my only fear being that help would arrive too soon. I tenderly arranged a pad of potato bags across his chest and back, then shortening the chain I passed it under his arms and again looped it around his body. All being ready, I climbed up on the weighted end of the well-sweep, but finding there was not enough weight I persuaded Marion to take my place, then I sprang up beside her. The effect was amazing to us, unaccustomed as we were to this primitive contrivance, for our end descended to the ground with a bump, and, like a hooked fish, high in the air dangled the man whom I had gone to so much trouble to save. He emerged from unconsciousness more rapidly than a butterfly from its chrysalis, and his remarks as he gyrated at the end of the chain were most abusive. The epithets were evidently intended for me, and my anger was aroused to such an extent that I felt inclined to let him stay where he was. "Keep cool," I shouted, "and I'll see about getting you down. Remember," I admonished him, "that—that there are ladies in the room. If you behave yourself and tell me where to find a ladder, I'll try to help you."

His face grew crimson and he struggled for speech. "A ladder!" he burst forth, at last. "Get off this darn' see-saw."

I got off, so did Marion; but I don't think we understood the proper way to get off, for there was a surprising thud, and I saw that my patient was sprawling on the ground under the beam. I hastened to his relief, reminding him as I unwound the chain that he should have taken my advice and waited for the ladder. He stood up unsteadily, wiping the dirt off his face with his sleeve, then he took off his coat, folded it with ceremony, laid it on the ground and squared up to me.

"Now," he said, with vicious determination, "I'm going to settle with you."

He was such a disreputable and absurd figure that I couldn't help smiling at his demonstrations. "Come, sir," I said persuasively; "you shouldn't give way to your temper. I know that from your stand-point, it seems annoying to enter a root-house and then discover that you are suspended at the end of a well-sweep, but I am not to blame. It would have been far less trouble to me to leave you to be smothered among your potatoes than to drag you out."

I spoke with effect; his expression changed, though he studied my face with suspicion. "What's your name?" he demanded.

"Henry Carton," I responded, with a certain hesitation, born of a diffidence that always seizes me when I try to make this announcement appear unimportant. "And yours?" I asked, genially.

"Waydean," he replied, gruffly.

"Peter Waydean!" I exclaimed, with sudden enthusiasm, as I grasped his hand. "The very man we were looking for! Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Carton: Marion, Mr. Waydean."

He bowed awkwardly, putting on his coat. "Well sir," he ejaculated, with an explosive laugh, "you do beat the Dutch!"

If our host had been a little remiss on the score of politeness at first, he made up for it by profuse expressions of gratitude and by showing us every attention during the time we spent with him in looking over the place. I saw that he had taken a fancy to us, and that he liked the idea of having such desirable tenants, for his clear blue eyes, unusually limpid for an elderly man, beamed with kindly intention as he talked; at the same time, his truthfulness compelled him to say that he couldn't quite forgive me for having hoisted him so high with the well-sweep. "I tell you, Mr. Carton," he said, with a chuckle, "I'm mighty thankful to you for hauling me out of that pit, but all the same, I give you fair warning that I'm bound to get back on you for the way you done it."

After we had viewed the barn and stables we all went into the house to talk over the business. He was a man of strong family affection, so he would never part with the homestead, but we were just the sort of people to take care of what was dear to him, and he would be willing to rent the place to us. He could not live in such a large house himself, on account of his wife being an invalid, but he had often refused to rent it to other people, usually because—well, he didn't mind telling us, in confidence, it wasn't every family he would care to have as neighbors—and then, there was such a difference in children! Now that dear little lad of ours, he could swear, had never in his life thrown a stone at a window-pane or pencil-marked wall-paper—a little peaked, wasn't he?—but just wait till he had been six months at Waydean, and had bunnies and guinea-pigs, and chickens, turkeys, lambs and calves, and a pony of his own—just wait!

It was indeed a delicate matter for me to mention pecuniary compensation. Perhaps if I had been alone I would have ignored that point altogether, but Marion's significant glances I could not ignore, so, though it sounded positively brutal in the face of his disinterested appreciation of our worth, I asked him the rent.

He made a gesture implying utter indifference. The fact was that, though most of the people in the neighborhood were grasping and mean-minded, he was a man who was built straight-up-and-down-and-square-all-round, and what he considered above everything was that he would have congenial neighbors. The farm was worth—well, he wouldn't say what it was worth, but I might have it at three hundred dollars a year. There were fifty acres of land that would grow enough produce to pay the rent of the whole place and something over, and as I would need a good many implements he would sell me his for a fraction of their cost, and if I wanted a good team of horses and a few cows all I had to do was to make my choice among his.

I had been fascinated by the frankly ingenuous assurance of his manner; in fact, I was mentally exulting in my good fortune in finding such a generous landlord, when the sound of Marion's voice aroused me.

"Fifty acres, Mr. Waydean!" she exclaimed. "That would never do. My husband is quite opposed to the idea of trying to make money by farming, and——"

"Oh, quite," I interjected, shaking my head with emphasis.

"We want to live in the country," she continued, "but we can't afford to actually farm."

"Between ourselves, Mr. Waydean," I hastened to say, "I've seen so much of city people fooling away money in farming that I've made up my mind not to work any more land than I can attend to with a spade, a rake and a hoe."

He stared at us in turn, incredulity giving place to gloom as he realized that I was serious; then he turned to Marion in a burst of candor. "I tell you what, ma'am," he said, with warm approval, "I ain't met many men with so much downright common-sense as your husband. I'll own that I'm a bit sorry that he don't want to work the farm, for I'm getting old and I'd like a rest, but the truth is that running a farm costs a lot of money, and farmers come out at the wrong