y get up a storm some night
after everybody's gone to bed. The people have seen the pond fine and full
when the sun went down. All that night the wind howls and the windows
rattle and the trees bend and switch around; and if those in the farmhouse,
instead of being in bed, were over there on the beach," the speaker waved
his hand toward the shining white sand, distant, but in plain sight, "they
might see countless billows working for dear life to dig a trench through
the hard sand. The wind sends one tremendous wave after another to help
them, and as a great roller breaks and recedes, all the little crested
waves scrabble with might and main, pulling at the softened sand, until,
after hours of this labor, the cut is made completely through from sea to
pond."

Mr. Evringham looked down and met the unwinking gaze fixed upon him. "Then
why--why," asked Jewel, "when the big rollers keep coming, doesn't the pond
get filled fuller than ever?"

The broker lifted his forefinger toward his face with a long drawn "Ah-h!
Nature is much too clever for _that_. She may not have gone to college, but
she understands engineering, all the same. All this is accomplished just at
the right moment for the outgoing tide to pull at the pond with a mighty
hand. Well,"--pausing dramatically,--"you can imagine what happens when the
deep cut is finished."

"Does the pond have to go, grandpa?"

"It just does, and in a hurry!"

"Is it sorry, do you think?" asked Jewel doubtfully.

"We-ell, I don't know that I ever thought of that side of it; but you can
imagine the feelings of the people in the farmhouse, who went to bed beside
the ripples of a smiling little lake, and woke to find themselves near a
great empty bog."

Jewel thought and sighed deeply. "Well," she said, at last, "I hope Nature
will wait till we're gone. I love this pond."

"Indeed I hope so, too. There wouldn't be any pleasant side to it."

Jewel's thoughtful face brightened. "Except for the little fishes and
water-creatures that would rush out to sea. It's fun for _them_. Mustn't
they be surprised when that happens, grandpa?"

"I should think so! Do you suppose the wind gives them any warning, or any
time to pack?"

Jewel laughed. "I don't know; but just think of rushing out into those
great breakers, when you don't expect it, right from living so quietly in
the pond!"

"H'm. A good deal like going straight from Bel-Air Park to Wall Street, I
should think."

Jewel gr