ve us much
information which we wished about the country. Somebody mentioned
the little well, and the man turned to Ollie and said:

"How would you like to slip down such a well?"

"I'm afraid I'm too big," answered Ollie. "Well, perhaps you
are; but there was a child last summer over near where I live who
wasn't too big. He was a little fellow not much over two years
old. The well was a new one, and the curb was almost even with
the top of the ground. He slipped down feet first. It was a
hundred and twenty feet deep, with fifteen feet of water at the
bottom; but he fitted pretty snug, and only went down about fifty
feet at first. His mother missed him, saw that the cover was gone
from the well, and listened. She heard his voice, faint and
smothered. There was no one else at home. She called to him not
to stir, and went to the barn, where there was a two-year-old
colt. He had never been ridden before, but he was ridden that
afternoon, and I guess he hasn't forgotten the lesson. She came
to my place first, told me, and rode away to another neighbor's.
In half an hour there were twenty men there, and soon fifty, and
before morning two hundred.

"There was no way to fish the child out-the only thing was to
dig down beside the small shaft. We could hear him faintly, and
we began to dig. We started a shaft about four feet square. The
sandy soil caved badly, but men with horses running all the way
brought out lumber from Grand Rapids for curbing.

"The child's father came too. He listened a second at the
small shaft, and then went down the other. Two men could work at
the bottom of it. One of the men was relieved every few minutes
by a fresh worker, but the father worked on, and did more than
the others, not-withstanding the changes. All of the time the
mother sat on the ground beside the small shaft with her arms
about its top. At four o'clock in the morning we were down
opposite the prisoner. He was still crying faintly. We saw that
to avoid the danger of causing him to slip farther down we must
dig below him, bore a hole in the board, and push through a bar.
But a few shovelfuls more were needed. The work jarred the shaft,
and the child slipped twenty---five feet deeper. At seven o'clock
we were down to where he was again, though we could no longer
bear him. We dug a little below, bored a bole, and the father
slipped through a pickaxe handle, and fainted away as he felt the
little one slide