The half-wit? Pshaw, Miss. Don't look that frightened. He's all safe,
never fear. Nothing hurts him. The Lord looks after him. I'm afraid this
rope won't hold, it's so old. Wait, I'll go, too. Never mind the
children, they'll have to take care of themselves."

All the while she was talking the kindly woman had been rolling the
line, retying it where their haste broke its worn strands, and following
Amy up over the slope. Now she paused for one second to remonstrate:--

"You, Victoria, go back! There's William Gladstone trying to creep after
us. Beatrice, Belinda, go home. You mustn't follow mother every time she
turns her back! Go home, I tell you. Go--right--straight--back--home.
My! but this _is_ steep!"

A shriek, shrill and piercing as only infant lungs could utter, made
even Amy stop, eager though she was to reach the well where poor "Bony"
might already have breathed his last. The one backward glance she cast
showed the numerous children of the house of Jones toiling industriously
skyward, in their mother's footsteps. Victoria, who was "eight and
should have known better," had left William Gladstone to take care of
himself, with the result that, being less than two years old and rather
unsteady on his legs, he had toddled up to the biggest stone in the
path, tried to step over it, lost his balance, and fallen. The hill was
so steep that once the fat little fellow began to roll downwards he
could not stop, and the terrified outcry first showed the mother his
danger.

"He'll bump his head against a rock and--"

Mrs. Jones did not finish her sentence, but faced about and ran
frantically down the slope, catching up her baby and smothering it with
kisses, although she had assured the little fellow, at least a dozen
times that day, that "he was the very plague of her life." She had
dropped the rope, and Amy caught it, then turned and ran as fast upward
as her neighbor was going in the other direction. Behind Amy still
followed Victoria, Beatrice, and Belinda.

"You should go back. Your little brother's hurt," shouted she.

"Yes'm. He is often," coolly replied Victoria, who could have the minor
excitement of examining the baby's bruises any day, but who did not
intend to lose the greater one of "a man down the well" for any
commonplace home matter.

Just before she came to the crest of the knoll Amy hesitated, and stood
still. It seemed to her she could not go on and face the possible, even
probable, tragedy at