load in time to do much
more. Hurry up and cock up as much of the rest as you can. If it had
only held up another hour!"

The man slid down from the load and made for the field.

"Well how, it begins to look as though it might hold up," soliloquised
the farmer. "I 'most wish I had let him stay. Halloo, Sam!"

But Sam was out of hearing by this time, though he was not making the
greatest possible haste to the field.

"Perhaps I might help you to unload," said John from the dimness of the
barn floor. The farmer did not hesitate a second.

"I don't know who you be, but I expect you are to be trusted to pitch
the hay back as fast as I pitch it down. Go ahead."

John could be trusted, it seemed. The farmer did not succeed in
embarrassing him with the abundance of the great forkfuls which he threw
down into the mow, and the team was backed out into the yard in what the
farmer called "pretty considerable quick time." And then he saw William
Bain sitting with John's plaid about him, on a bundle of hay in the
corner.

"Well! it seems to me that we're goin' to have company," said he.

"We have been enjoying the fresh air up among your trees yonder. But I
was afraid of the rain for the lad, who has been ill of late, so we
ventured to take possession of your barn."

"All right. It's nothing catching he's had, is it? He'd better go
right into the house, hadn't he?"

But Bain preferred to stay where he was, among the hay. John took his
place on the hay-cart, and set out with the farmer to the field.

"Well, I shouldn't wonder if we saved most of it now. It's just
possible--with your help," added he, nodding in a friendly way to John.
As they passed the door of the farmhouse he called out:

"See here, Myra; there's company out there in the south barn. You tell
grandma she'd better have him in, and see to him. There's nothing
catching, you say? Well, the old lady will fix him up, and make him
comfortable; and she'll like nothing better."

The rain "held up" for a while, and the farmer and his two men, with the
help of John, wrought wonders. When, at last, the rain came down in
torrents, the fragrant hay was all safe under cover, and the farmer was
triumphant.

Of course John came to the house with him, and there he found Willie
Bain sitting in a rocking-chair, content and smiling, under the
guardianship of a lovely old woman, whose face told that her pleasure
all her life had been found in pleasing and