le
to bring it back home again in his hand. Keep your eye on him!"

Jan nodded understandingly, and climbing into the dusty wagon, the
three men rattled off over the sandy road. Willie dropped his tools
into the bottom of the carriage but the slice of bread remained
untouched in his fingers. Now that triumph had brought a respite in
his labors he seemed silent and thoughtful. It was not until the
Admiral turned in at the Brewster gate that he roused himself
sufficiently to observe with irrelevance:

"Speakin' about that propeller of yours, Zenas Henry--it must be no end
of a temper-rasper."

Zenas Henry slapped the reins over the horse's flank and waited
breathlessly, hoping some further comment would come from the little
inventor, but as Willie remained silent, he at length could restrain
his impatience no longer and ventured with diffidence:

"S'pose you ain't got any notion what we could do about it, have you,
Willie?"

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"No, not the ghost," was his terse reply.

That night, however, Celestina was awakened from her dreams by the ring
of a hammer. She rose, and lighting her candle, tip-toed into the
hall. It was one o'clock, and she could see that Willie's bedroom door
was ajar and the bed untouched.

With a little sigh she blew out the flame in her hand and crept back
beneath the shelter of her calico comforter.

She knew the symptoms only too well.

Willie was once again "kitched by an idee!"

CHAPTER III

A NEW ARRIVAL

The new idea, whatever it was, was evidently not one to be hastily
perfected, for the next morning when Celestina went down stairs, she
found the jaded inventor seated moodily in a rocking-chair before the
kitchen stove, his head in his hands.

"Law, Willie, are you up already?" she asked, as if unconscious of his
nocturnal activities.

The reply was a wan smile.

"An' you've got the fire built, too," went on Celestina cheerily. "How
nice!"

"Eh?" repeated he, giving her a vague stare. "The fire?"

"Yes. I was sayin' how good it was of you to start it up." The man
gazed at her blankly.

"I ain't touched the fire," he answered. "I might have, though, as
well as not, Tiny, if I'd thought of it."

"That's all right," Celestina declared, making haste to repair her
blunder. "I've plenty of time to lay it myself. 'Twas only that when
I saw you settin' up before it I thought mebbe you'd built it 'cause
you were cold."

"I