st as his toddling legs
could carry him. Forbidden, punished, guarded, the child lost no
opportunity to climb to the top of the square enclosure and wonderingly
peer down into the depths of the well. To prevent his falling headlong
to his death--a calamity frequently predicted--was the principal concern
of all the family.

As the women folks were more often in the big kitchen than elsewhere,
it became, as a matter of convenience, the daily prison of the First
Born. The board, across the open doorway, and the eternal vigilance
of his guards, did not prevent his starting several times daily on a
pilgrimage towards the old well. The turning of a head, the absence
of the guards from the kitchen for a moment, were the looked-for
opportunities--crawling under or over the wooden bar, and starting
in childish glee for the old well.

Previous to the time of this narrative, the race invariably resulted in
the capture of "young hopeful" ere the well was reached. The shrill cry:
"Al-f-u-r-d!" "Al-f-u-r-d!" always closely followed by the young woman
who did the scouting for the other guards, brought him to a halt. He was
lifted bodily, thrown high into the air, caught in strong, loving arms
as he came down, roughly hugged and good-naturedly spanked, and carried
triumphantly back to his prison--the kitchen. Here, seated upon the
floor, he was roundly lectured by three women, who in turn charged one
another with his escape. It was never _his_ fault. Someone had turned a
head to look at the clock, or the browning bread in the oven, turning to
look at the cause of the controversy, not infrequently he was found
astride the prison bar, or scampering down the path.

That old well, or its counterpart, was surely the inspiration of "_The
Old Oaken Bucket_." However, their author was never imbued with
fascination as alluring as that which influenced the First Born in his
desire to solve the, to him, mystery of the old well.

The more his elders coaxed, bribed and threatened, the more vividly they
depicted its dangers, the more determined he became to explore its
darkened depths. The old well became a part of the child's life. He
talked of it by day and dreamed of it by night. The big windlass, with
its coil of seemingly never-ending chain, winding and unwinding,
lowering and raising the old, oaken bucket green with age, full and
flowing; the cooling water oozing between the age-warped staves,
nurturing the green grasses growing about the