"Good-morning!" and put the lilac branch
directly under his nose.

"Just smell 'em, Uncle! Smell 'em deep--before you say a word," she
commanded.

He had come down with a full-grown grouch upon him--that was plainly to
be seen. But when he had taken in a great draught of the sweet odor of
the flowers, and found his niece with her lips puckered, and standing on
tiptoe to kiss him on his unshaven cheek, he somehow forgot the grouch.

"Them's mighty purty! mighty purty!" he agreed, and while he pulled on
his congress gaiters, Janice arranged the blossoms in a jar of water and
set them in the middle of the breakfast table. Aunt 'Mira kept the table
set all the time. The red and white tablecloth was renewed only once a
week, and the jar of flowers served to hide the unsightly spot where
Marty had spilled the gravy the day before.

"Come on and let's see what the matter is with the pump," urged Janice,
in fear lest he should get away from her, for already Mr. Day's fingers
were searching along the ledge above the door for his pipe.

"Wa-al--ya-as--we might as well, I s'pose. I'll make 'Mira's fire later.
It's 'tarnal early, child."

"Sun's up," declared Janice. "Hurry, Uncle!"

He shuffled off to get his tools and the piece of oak he had laid aside
for a pump staff so long ago. Janice tried to untie the pump handle,
and, not succeeding, ran in for the carving knife and managed to saw the
rope in two.

"I got ter take off a piece of tin in the roof of the porch--see it up
yonder? Then I kin pull out the broken staff and put in a new one," said
her uncle, coming back rather promptly for him. "These here wooden pumps
is a nuisance; but the wimmen folks all like 'em 'cause they're easier
to _pump_. Now! I bet that ladder won't hold my weight."

He searched the old, rough, homemade ladder out of the weeds by the
boundary fence. It was built of two pieces of fence rail with rungs of
laths,--a rough and unsightly affair; and two or three of the rungs
_were_ cracked.

"It'll hold _me_," cried Janice. "You let me try, Uncle Jason. Let me
have the screwdriver. I can lift the tacks and pull off the tin. You
see."

She mounted the ladder in a hurry and crept upon the roof of the porch.
Uncle Jason started the nut at the handle, and soon removed that so that
the staff could be pulled out. The sheet of tin had covered a hole in
the shingles right above the pump. In a minute the cracked staff, with
the worn leather valve, was