xious about her since he left her there; but a glance showed him that
all had gone well.

"You have survived!" he said.

"Yes, indeed!" she replied. "I told you I would make things pleasant
here."

"The boys like you, I see."

"And I like them. They do all they can for me. Rufus even helped me
about the washing,--pounded and wrung out the clothes. You must stay to
dinner to-day."

"I think I may have to," said Jack; "for my horse hasn't come back from
Chicago yet, and I don't mean to go home without him."

When he went out he found the boys waiting, and accepted a seat with
Wad and Link on a board placed across two of the tubs. Rufe walked by
the cattle's horns; while in the third tub sat Chokie.

"You can't sit in that tub going back, you know," said Link.

"Yes, I can! I will!" And Chokie clung fast to the handles.

"O, well, you can if you want to, I suppose!" said Link; "but it will be
full of water."

They passed the potato-patch (Jack smiled to see that the potatoes had
been dug), crossed a strip of meadow-land below, and then rounded a bend
in the river, in the direction of a deep place the boys knew.

"I always hate to ride after oxen,--they go so tormented slow!" said
Link. "Why don't somebody invent a wagon to go by steam?"

"Did you ever see a wagon go by water?" Jack asked.

"No, nor anybody else!"

"I have," said Jack. "I know a man in this county who has one."

"What man? I'd go five miles to see one!"

"You can see one without going so far. The man is your father, and this
is the wagon. It is going by water now."

"By water--yes! By the river!" said Link, amused and vexed.

"Link," said Jack, "do you remember that little joke of yours about the
boys stopping the leak in the boat? Well, we are even now."

Rufe backed the hind-wheels of the wagon into the river, over the deep
place, and asked Wad which he would do,--dip the water and pass it up by
the pailful, or stay in the wagon and receive it.

"Whoever dips it up has to stand in the river above his knees," said
Wad; "and I don't mean to get wet to-day."

"Very well; stay in the wagon, then. You'll get as wet as I shall; for
I'm going to pull off my shoes and roll up my trousers. Chokie, you keep
in that tub, just where you are, till the tub is wanted. Link, you'd
better go into the river with me, and dip the pails, while I pass 'em up
to Wad."

"I never can keep my trousers-legs rolled up, and I ain't going to get
wet," said