w it up, bucket by bucket, and throw it away. Then I
suppose it would fill with clean water, wouldn't it?"

"If we did, 'twould break all our backs an' there's more to do than
empty old wells. Master Hal, what's _your_ say?"

"Hmm, we might rig up some sort of machinery and stir it all up, and
with chemicals we could clear it and--"

"Troth we could, if we'd a month o' Sundays to do it in an' slathers o'
time an' money spoilin' to be spent."

Hallam was disgusted. Already he had blamed himself for his haughty
refusal of Mr. Wingate's offer, on the previous day, to send a practical
man to look over the premises and "set them going," as any landlord
would.

But the lad had replied, as one in authority to decide for his absent
parents: "We won't trouble you, sir. What happens to us, after we leave
Fairacres, is our own affair. If you get your rent, that should be
sufficient for you."

After that the offer was not renewed; for Mr. Wingate was not the man to
waste either money or service, and the lad's tone angered him.

Regrets were now, as always, useless, and Cleena's open disdain of
Hallam's suggestion sent him limping angrily away; though Amy laughed
over her own "valuable contribution to the solution of the dilemma," and
by her intentional use of the longest words at hand caused Fayette to
regard her with a wonderment that was ludicrous in itself.

"Well, Goodsoul, we've helped a lot. Ask our 'Rep-Dem-Prob' what his
'boys' would do."

"What for no? Sure, he's more sense nor the whole of us. Say, me
gineral, what's the way out?"

Fayette colored with pride. He had an inordinate vanity, and, like most
of his sort, he possessed an almost startling keenness of intelligence
in some respects, as contrasted with his foolishness in others.
Moreover, he had been disciplined by poverty, and had always lived among
working people and, for a long time, about the carpet mills.

"Well, the 'Supe's' force-pump."

"Hmm, I know, I know. But what's the 'Supe' an' his pump? Is he fish,
flesh, or fowl, eh?"

"He's the 'Supe' to the mill. Ain't ye any sense?"

"No. None left after botherin' with you. What's it, Miss Amy?"

"I know. You mean Mr. Metcalf, don't you?"

"Yes."

"What would he do? How could he help us?"

"Lend me the donkey. I'll ride and tell him. All them houses--see them
mill cottages, down yonder?"

"Certainly. They look very pretty from here, with all the trees about
them."

"They've got wells. On