, were not allowed by the indignant
Mrs. Perch to resume possession of their offspring. The casual
observer might have supposed the number of these children to be very
great,--fifteen or perhaps even twenty,--for if he happened to see a
group of them on the door-step, he would see a lot more if he looked
into the little garden; and under some cedar-trees at the back of the
house there were always some of them on fine days. But perhaps they
sought to increase their apparent number, and ran from one place to
another to be ready to meet observation, like the famous clown
Grimaldi, who used to go through his performances at one London
theatre, and then dash off in his paint and motley to another, so that
perambulating theatre-going men might imagine that there were two
greatest clowns in the world.

When Mrs. Perch had time she sewed for the neighbors, and, whether she
had time or not, she was always ready to supply them with news. From
the moment she heard I was going to dig a well she took a vital
interest in it. Her own water-supply was unsatisfactory, as she
depended upon a little spring which sometimes dried up in summer, and
should my well turn out to be a good one, she knew I would not object
to her sending the children for pails of water on occasions.

"It will be fun for them," she said, "and if your water really is good
it will often come in very well for me. Mr. Colwell tells me," she
continued, "that you put your well in the wrong place. He is a
practical man and knows all about wells, and I do hope that for your
sake he may be wrong."

My neighbors were generally pessimists. Country people are
proverbially prudent, and pessimism is prudence. We feel safe when we
doubt the success of another, because if he should succeed we can say
we were glad we were mistaken, and so step from a position of good
judgment to one of generous disposition without feeling that we have
changed our plane of merit. But the optimist often gets himself into
terrible scrapes, for if he is wrong he cannot say he is glad of it.

But, whatever else he may be, a pessimist is depressing, and it was,
therefore, a great pleasure to me to have a friend who was an
out-and-out optimist. In fact, he might be called a working optimist.
He lived about six miles from my house, and had a hobby, which was
natural phenomena. He was always on the lookout for that sort of
thing, and when he found it he would study its nature and effect. He