he pump.

The pump was a clear case of new wine in an old bottle. It was large and
very strong. The people who worked it were strong too. But the walls and
floor to which it was attached were not strong at all. And so, one night,
when Jonathan wanted a walk I was obliged instead to suggest the pump.

"What's the matter there?"

"Why, it seems to have pulled clear of its moorings. You look at it."

He looked, with that expression of meditative resourcefulness peculiar to
the true Yankee countenance. "H'm--needs new wood there,--and there; that
stuff'll never hold." And so the old bottle was patched with new skin at
the points of strain, and in the zest of reconstruction Jonathan almost
forgot to regret the walk. "We'll have it to-morrow night," he said: "the
moon will be better."

The next evening I met him below the turn of the road. "Wonderful night
it's going to be," he said, as he pushed his wheel up the last hill.

"Yes--" I said, a little uneasily. I was thinking of the kitchen pump.
Finally I brought myself to face it.

"There seems to be some trouble--with the pump," I said apologetically. I
felt that it was my fault, though I knew it wasn't.

"More trouble? What sort of trouble?"

"Oh, it wheezes and makes funny sucking noises, and the water spits and
spits, and then bursts out, and then doesn't come at all. It sounds a
little like a cat with a bone in its throat."

"Probably just that," said Jonathan: "grain of sand in the valve, very
likely."

"Shall I get a plumber?"

"Plumber! I'll fix it myself in three shakes of a lamb's tail."

"Well," I said, relieved: "you can do that after supper while I see that
all the chickens are in, and those turkeys, and then we'll have our walk."

Accordingly I went off on my tour. When I returned the pale moon-shadows
were already beginning to show in the lingering dusk of the fading
daylight. Indoors seemed very dark, but on the kitchen floor a candle sat,
flaring and dipping.

"Jonathan," I called, "I'm ready."

"Well, I'm not," said a voice at my feet.

"Why, where are you? Oh, there!" I bent down and peered under the sink at
a shape crouched there. "Haven't you finished?"

"Finished! I've just got the thing apart."

"I should say you had!" I regarded the various pieces of iron and leather
and wood as they lay, mere dismembered shapes, about the dim kitchen.

"It doesn't seem as if it would ever come together again--to be a pump," I
said in some depre