g by the side of the wall.

It was a hard job for a little lad to get a heavy tin filled--a harder
still to unlock the door and creep away across the square of gravel.
"You have no idea" (so he said afterwards) "how badly gravel hurts your
knees when they are bare."

Luckily it was a hot night, and not a breath of air was stirring, so the
little white-clad figure moved slowly across the front of the house to
the green gate of the garden. Jaikie could only reach out as far as his
arms would go with the tin of water. Then painfully he pulled himself
forward towards the tankard. But in spite of all he made headway, and
soon he was creeping up the middle walk, past the great central sundial,
which seemed high as a church-steeple above him. The ghostly moths
fluttered about him, attracted by the waving white of his garments. In
their corner he found the flowers, and, as he had thought, they were
withered and drooping.

He lifted the water upon them with his palms, taking care that none
dripped through, for it was very precious, and he seemed to have carried
it many miles.

And as soon as they felt the water upon them the flowers paid him back
in perfume. The musk lifted up its head, and mingled with the late
velvety wallflower and frilled carnation in releasing a wonder of
expressed sweetness upon the night air.

"I wish I had some for you, dear dimpled buttercups," said Jaikie to the
golden chalices which grew in the hollows by the burnside, where in
other years there was much moisture; "can you wait another day?"

"We have waited long," they seemed to reply; "we can surely wait another
day."

Then the honeysuckle reached down a single tendril to touch Jaikie on
the cheek.

"Some for me, please," it said; "there are so many of us at our house,
and so little to get. Our roots are such a long way off, and the big
fellows farther down get most of the juice before it comes our way. If
you cannot water us all, you might pour a little on our heads." So
Jaikie lifted up his tankard and poured the few drops that were in the
bottom upon the nodding heads of the honeysuckle blooms.

"Bide a little while," said he, "and you shall have plenty for root and
flower, for branch and vine-stem."

There were not many more loving little boys than Jaikie in all the
world; and with all his work and his helping and talking, he had quite
forgotten about the pain in his foot.

Now, if I were telling a story--making it up, that is--it