"Wal, now," said Mirandy, "that one was gold; you couldn't expect that
man to send you no gold."

Mirandy, having a precious gilded trinket, was better posted on the
colour and value of metals than Steve, though she made a slight error
in her next statement.

"This hern is silver; that's the next thing to gold," and the bright
nickel of the Waterbury twinkled in the spring sunshine as though
trying to measure up to its admirers' estimate.

"A silver watch," said the stranger after he had heard the story of
that autumn day with its promise of a watch which was just now
fulfilled--"wal, you air a lucky boy, shore."

Mrs. Langly called feebly from within, and Steve went and laid it on
the bed beside her. Her "stomick had never seemed to get on the
hooks," as she expressed it, all winter; her spinning-wheel and loom
had been long silent, and for a few days she had not left her bed.

Her eyes gleamed with strange, new fire as they fell upon the shining
thing which belonged to another world from theirs, and when Steve had
laboriously wound it, which he had not forgotten how to do, setting
the wonderful machinery running, she whispered to him:

"Remember you air goin' whar you kin larn to make things lack that."

Steve's shining eyes answered hers, though the boy failed to catch the
light of prophecy and final benediction which they held. Hugging his
treasure, with no hint of oncoming change he went out to feed the
stranger's horse while Mirandy prepared the dinner.

It was not until the visitor had gone and Steve was in the solitude of
the woods with Tige that he found fullest joy in his new possession.
It seemed to him he could never in all his life take his eyes from it
again. He watched the hands go round and round, the little flying
second hand, the more leisurely minute marker and the creeping hand
which told the hours as they passed. Then again and again the back
was opened and the busy little wheels held his breathless interest. He
took no notice of Tige, but the old dog knew that his mate was happy
and lay content beside him. Although for the first time in possession
of a noter of the hours, he lost all account of time and did not move
from the mossy bed where he had thrown himself until it was too late
to see either hands or wheels. Then he called Tige to come and hurried
back to his home to sit by the cabin firelight till Mirandy made him
go to bed. The family all slept in the same room, three beds occupy