d-fashioned wooden
shutters, so clumsy 't you can't see out to tell who's comin' along the
road without openin' the hull concern. And it has as good a system of
water as Squire Pettijohn's, only not so big. Sprigg, he bricked it all
up, hauled the bricks himself clean in from the county town, an' it's
got a manhole 'twill let ary man down it that wants to go. My house may
not be as big as the moon, but it's got as good a system of water as
Eunice's even."

Katharine's eyes twinkled. Until she came to Marsden she had never heard
of a cistern; all the water used in her city home had been piped into it
from a reservoir, which supplied all the other houses also; but she had
learned what Susanna meant by "system," because the Turners had had
theirs cleaned out only the week before.

"What's the 'manhole,' Susanna?"

"My suz! You do ask the ridicylousest questions. It's a hole left in the
top for folks to go down into it, if they want to."

"Well, I shouldn't think they'd ever want to. And the Turners' manhole
must be very small, smaller than yours, maybe; because they sent Bob
down to clean it, and he got stuck coming out. His mother was scared
almost into a fit, and the girls cried and Mr. Turner--said things. He
told Bob if he ever got him out alive he'd teach him to live on light
rations for awhile. Bob's so fat, you know. It was so funny, and yet I
was frightened, too. I suppose if he had stuck too tight they'd have had
to break the bricks away, but he squeezed through all right. He hasn't
spoken to me since, though. Just because I laughed."

"My suz, Kitty! if you ain't the greatest one for bein' everywhere 't
anything's goin' on. You hain't been here but a month, yet you know more
folks, been into more houses, seems if, than I have, who've lived here
all my life. An' the idee! Tearin' away good bricks just to get a
wuthless boy out, like that Bob. I cal'late his pa would ha' thought
twice 'fore it come to that. He'd have made the young one scrouge
himself up dreadful narrow an' wriggle himself free, somehow. But there.
No use worryin' about my system, 'cause I had the leader-pipe turned
t'other way so no rain could run into it. It's as dry as a floor now. My
suz! What a long walk it is, an' how warm it does keep. I never knowed
such a fall, no weather fit for killin' nor nothin', but just like
midsummer," bewailed Susanna, lagging on the long woodland path.

"I never knew such a fall, either. I never dreamed that