moved back into
it. But this change did not take Lyddy away from the "castle," nor break
up Vinnie's school.

The "castle" now underwent some renovation. The long-neglected
plastering was done, and the rooms in daily use were made comfortable.

Meanwhile the boys were full of ambition regarding their water-works.
The project had cost them a good deal more trouble than they had
anticipated at first; but they were amply repaid for all on the day when
the water was finally let on, and they saw it actually run from the
spout in the back-room! Such a result had seemed to them almost too good
ever to come true; and their joy over it was increased ten-fold by the
doubts and difficulties overcome.

Jack had come over to be present when the water was brought in, and he
was almost as happy over it as they.

"No more trouble with the old well!" said Rufe.

"No more lugging water from the grove!" said Wad.

"Or going into the river head-first after it, as you and I did!" said
Link.

Vinnie was proud of her nephews, and Caroline and Lord were proud of
their sons.

[Illustration: THE WATER QUESTION SETTLED.]

"How fine it will be for your dairy, in summer,--this cold, running
water!" said Vinnie.

But Chokie seemed best pleased, because he would no longer be dependent
upon precarious rains filling the hogshead, but would have a whole
tankful of water--an ocean in the back-room--to sail his shingle boats
on.

The boys had also acted on another suggestion of Jack's, and taken the
farm to work. This plan also promised to succeed well. The prospect of
doing something for themselves, roused energies which might have lain
dormant all their lives, if they had been contented to sit still and
wait for others to help them.

As Vinnie's school became known, other pupils appeared from up and down
the river, and by the first snowfall she had more than a dozen scholars.
Among these were Sal Wiggett and two big boys belonging to the paternal
Wiggett's "third crap" of children, and Dud and Zeph Peakslow.

The Betterson boys also attended the school, Wad and Link as pupils, and
Rufe partly as a pupil and partly as an assistant. Vinnie could teach
him penmanship and grammar, but she was glad to turn over to him the
classes in arithmetic, for which study he had a natural aptitude.

The Peakslow children, both boys and girls, had a good deal in them that
was worth cultivating; and amid the genial associations of the little
school the