h little to recommend him save money, is head over heels in
love with the loveliest, dearest girl the Lord ever made, a girl a
thousand times too good for the man, and who doesn't care any more for
him than she does for the family cat or the family doctor. What's the
answer?

Wade gave it up--the problem, not the girl. He wasn't good at problems.
Out West it had been Ed Craig who had figured out the problems on paper,
and Wade who had reached the same conclusions with pick and shovel and
dynamite. Their methods differed, but the results attained were similar.
So, as I have said, Wade abandoned the problem on paper and set to work,
metaphorically, with steel and explosives.

XII.

There was a bench outside the kitchen door at The Cedars, a
slant-legged, unpainted bench which at one time had been used to hold
milk-cans. Wade settled himself on this in company with several dozen
glasses of currant jelly. From his position he could look in at the
kitchen door upon Eve and Miss Mullett, who, draped from chin to toes in
blue-checked aprons, were busy over the summer preserving. A sweet,
spicy fragrance was wafted out to him from the bubbling kettles, and now
and then Eve, bearing a long agate-ware spoon and adorned on one cheek
with a brilliant streak of currant juice, came to the threshold and
smiled down upon him in a preoccupied manner, glancing at the jelly
tumblers anxiously.

"If you spill them," she said, "Carrie will never forgive you, Mr.
Herrick."

"Nonsense," declared Miss Mullett from the kitchen. "I'd just send you
for more, Mr. Herrick, and make you help me put them up."

"I think I'd like that," answered Wade.

"It must be rather good fun messing about with sugar and currants and
things."

"Messing about!" exclaimed Eve, indignantly. "It's quite evident that
you've never done any of it!"

"Well, I stewed some dried apricots once," said Wade, "and they weren't
half bad. I suppose you're going to be busy all the morning, aren't
you?" he asked, forlornly.

"I'm afraid so."

"Indeed you're not," said Miss Mullett, decisively. "You're going to
stop as soon as we get this kettleful off. I can do the rest much better
without you, dear."

"Did you ever hear such ingratitude?" laughed Eve. "Here I've been hard
at work since goodness only knows what hour of the morning, and now I'm
informed that my services are valueless! I shall stay and help just to
spite you, Carrie."

"I wanted you to take