, but he ought to have kept on being
"careful."

"Look out!" said Mr. Jellicombe, as Mart rapped hard on one of the
shingle pieces, to drive it in more firmly; but it was too late.

"Crack!" the hub was split from end to end.

"Got to go to work and make a new one," said Mart, ruefully.

"Guess I wouldn't. Just take a couple of two-inch screws, and screw that
together again. It'll be stronger'n it was before."

That was a capital idea, and it only took a few minutes; to carry it
into effect.

"Make your end pins of hard wood," said Mr. Jellicombe; "and shave 'em
smooth. Then they'll run easy."'

That was easy enough, but one of those "endpins" was made of an old
broom handle, and was more than a foot long.

"I see what you're up to," said the carpenter, with a grin. "You've made
a right down good job of it, too. Grease your journals before you let
'em get wet."

Mart's "journals" for his end pins to run in were two holes he bored in
a couple of boards. When these were stuck up on each side of the lower
end of his flume, and the water-wheel was set in its place, Mart took
off his hat and shouted,

"Hurrah! the brook's at work!"

So it was, for it was rushing fiercely through the two old raisin boxes,
and down upon the wide "paddles" of Mart's wheel, and this was spinning
around at a tremendous rate.

"You've done it!"

"Is that you, Mr. Jellicombe? I didn't know you'd come."

"You've done it. Now what?"

"Why, I'm going to put another wheel on this long end pin, and set
another one above it, and put a strap over both of them."

"Oh, that's it. Going to make a pulley and band. All right. It'll run.
There's plenty of water-power. But what then? Going to build a mill?"

"Guess not. All I care for is, I've set the brook to work."

"Why don't you make it do something, then, now you've found out how?"

"Don't know of anything small enough for a brook like that."

"I'll tell you, then. There's your mother's big churn, that goes with a
crank. You whittle out a wheel twice as large as that, and set it a
little stronger, and raise your dam a few inches, and you can run that
churn."

"Hurrah! I'll do it!"

There was a good deal of busy whittling before Mart finished that second
job, but before two weeks were over there was butter on Mrs. Benson's
dinner table which had actually been churned by the brook at the bottom
of the garden.

HOW THE SECRET WAS STOLEN.

Benjamin Huntsman, a native of L