e about that," cried Euphemia. "You can drive
me past Mr. Ball's,--it's not much out of the way,--and I'll ask him."

"In that wagon?" said I. "Will you stop at Mr. Ball's door in that?"

"Certainly," said she, as she arranged herself on the board which served
as a seat. "Now that our campaign has really commenced, we ought to
begin to rough it, and should not be too proud to ride even in a--in
a--"

She evidently couldn't think of any vehicle mean enough for her purpose.

"In a green-grocery cart," I suggested.

"Yes, or in a red one. Go ahead, John."

When Euphemia returned on foot, I had a fire in the camp-stove and the
kettle was on.

"Well," said Euphemia, "Mr. Ball says it's all right, if we keep the
fence up. He don't want his cows to get into the creek, and I'm sure we
don't want 'em walking over us. He couldn't understand, though, why
we wanted to live out here. I explained the whole thing to him very
carefully, but it didn't seem to make much impression on him. I believe
he thinks Pomona has something the matter with her, and that we have
come to stay out here in the fresh air so as not to take it."

"What an extremely stupid man Mr. Ball must be!" I said.

The fire did not burn very well, and while I was at work at it, Euphemia
spread a cloth upon the grass, and set forth bread and butter, cheese,
sardines, potted ham, preserves, biscuits, and a lot of other things.

We did not wait for the kettle to boil, but concluded to do without tea
or coffee, for this meal, and content ourselves with pure water. For
some reason or other, however, the creek water did not seem to be very
pure, and we did not like it a bit.

"After lunch," said I, "we will go and look for a spring; that will be a
good way of exploring the country."

"If we can't find one," said Euphemia, "we shall have to go to the house
for water, for I can never drink that stuff."

Soon after lunch we started out. We searched high and low, near and far,
for a spring, but could not find one.

At length, by merest accident, we found ourselves in the vicinity of old
John's little house. I knew he had a good well, and so we went in to get
a drink, for our ham and biscuits had made us very thirsty.

We told old John, who was digging potatoes, and was also very much
surprised to see us so soon, about our unexpected trouble in finding a
spring.

"No," said he, very slowly, "there is no spring very near to you. Didn't
you tell your gal to brin