, too,
seemed to go from the air.

Suddenly, as we rattled along, Addison jumped up from his seat and
turned to us. "I know now what this is!" he cried. "Why didn't I think
of it before?"

"What is it--if you know?" cried Catherine and Theodora at once.

"The eclipse! The total eclipse of the sun!" exclaimed Addison. "I
remember now reading something about it in the _Maine Farmer_ a
fortnight ago. It was to be on the 7th--and this is it!"

At that time advance notices of such phenomena were not so widely
published as they are now; at the old farm, too, we did not take a daily
newspaper. So one of the great astronomical events of the last century
had come and gone, and we had not known what it was until it was over.

Except for the dun canopy of smoke and clouds over the sun we should
have guessed at once, of course, the cause of the darkness; but as it
was, the eclipse had given us an anxious afternoon; and although the
rainbow in the morning had probably not the slightest connection with
the eclipse,--indeed, could not have had,--it had greatly heightened the
feeling of awe and superstitious dread with which we had beheld night
fall in the middle of the afternoon!

By the time we got home it was light again. As we drove into the yard,
the old Squire came out, smiling. "Was it a little dark up where you
were blackberrying a while ago?" he asked.

"Well, _just_ a little dark, sir," Addison replied, with a smile as
droll as his own. "But I suppose it was all because of that rainbow in
the morning that you told us to look out for."

CHAPTER XXIII

WHEN I WENT AFTER THE EYESTONE

A few evenings ago, I read in a Boston newspaper that, as the result of
a close contest, Isaac Kane Woodbridge had been elected mayor of one of
the largest and most progressive cities of the Northwest.

Little Ike Woodbridge! Yes, it was surely he. How strangely events work
round in this world of ours! Memories of a strange adventure that befell
him years ago when he was a little fellow came to my mind, and I thought
of the slender thread by which his life hung that afternoon.

The selectmen of our town had taken Ike Woodbridge from the poor-house
and "bound him out" to a farmer named Darius Dole. He was to have food,
such as Dole and his wife ate, ten weeks' schooling a year, and if he
did well and remained with the Doles until he was of legal age, a
"liberty suit" of new clothes and fifty dollars.

That was the written agr