e--held them from escaping upstream. There were three
smaller cascades which a lusty trout could ascend by a fine series of
rushes and leapings. The upper water-fall was too steep to be scaled.
When the water in the brook was high there was an outlet in the dam for
it to pass through, to which a gate opened, and protected at all times
by heavy wire netting.

Farmer Ellison's house was situated on a hill overlooking this part of
the brook, less than a half mile away.

Some way up the brook, if one followed a path through mowing-fields from
Farmer Ellison's, and crossed a little foot-bridge over the brook, he
would come eventually upon a house, weather-beaten and unpainted, small
and showing every sign of neglect. The grass grew long in the dooryard.
A few hens scratched the weeds in what once might have been flower-beds.
The roof was sagging, and the chimney threatened to topple in the first
high wind.

The sun was shining in at the windows of this house, at the close of an
afternoon, a few days following the adventure of Henry Burns and Harvey
in the mill. It revealed a girl, little, sturdy and of well-knit
figure, though in whose childish face there was an underlying trace of
shrewdness unusual in one so young; like a little wild creature, or a
kitten that has found itself more often chased than petted.

The girl was busily engaged, over a kitchen fire, stirring some sort of
porridge in a dish. Clearly, hers were spirits not easily depressed by
her surroundings, for she whistled at her task,--as good as any boy
could have whistled,--and now and again, from sheer excess of animation,
she whisked away from the stove and danced about the old kitchen, all
alone by herself.

"Isn't that oatmeal most ready, Bess?" came a querulous voice presently,
from an adjoining room. "What makes you so long?"

"Coming, gran', right away now," replied the child. "The coffee's hot,
too. Don't it smell go-o-od? But there's only one--"

"What?" queried the voice.

"Nothing," said the child.

She took a single piece of bread from a box, toasted it for a moment,
put it on a plate, poured a cup of coffee, dished out a mess of the
porridge, and carried it all into the next room. There, an elderly
woman, muttering and scolding to herself as she lay on a couch, received
it.

"Too bad the rheumatics bother so, gran'," said the child, consolingly.
"If they last to-morrow, I'm going to tell old Witham and make him send
you something good