h in eyestones, I believe,
although, on account of the progress that has been made in methods of
treating the eye, they are not as much in use as formerly. Most
eyestones are a calcareous deposit, found in the shell of the common
European crawfish. They are frequently pale yellow or light gray in
color.

Usually you put the eyestone under the eyelid at the inner canthus of
the eye, and the automatic action of the eye moves it slowly over the
eyeball; thus it is likely to carry along with it any foreign body that
has accidentally lodged in the eye. When the stone has reached the outer
canthus you can remove it, along with any foreign substance it may have
collected on its journey over the eye.

Halstead's sufferings had aroused my sympathy, and I set off at top
speed; by running wherever the road was not uphill, I reached Lurvey's
Mills in considerably less than an hour. Several mill hands were piling
logs by the stream bank, and I stopped to inquire for Prudent Bedell.
Resting on their peavies, the men glanced at me curiously.

"D'ye mean the old sin-smeller?" one of them asked me. "What is it you
want?"

"I want to borrow his eyestone," I replied.

"Well," the man said, "he lives just across the bridge yonder, in that
little green house."

It was a veritable bandbox of a house, boarded, battened, and painted
bright green; the door was a vivid yellow. In response to my knock, a
short, elderly man opened the door. His hair came to his shoulders; he
wore a green coat and bright yellow trousers; and his arms were so long
that his large brown hands hung down almost to his knees.

It was his nose, however, that especially caught my attention, for it
was tipped back almost as if the end had been cut off. I am afraid I
stared at him.

"And what does this little gentleman want?" he said in a soft, silky
voice that filled me with fresh wonder.

I recalled my wits sufficiently to ask whether he had an eyestone, and
if he had, whether he would lend it to us. Whereupon in the same soft
voice he told me that he had the day before lent his eyestone to a man
who lived a mile or more from the mills.

"You can have it if you will go and get it," he said.

I paid him the usual fee of ten cents, and turned to hasten away; but he
called me back. "It must be refreshed," he said.

He gave me a little glass vial half full of some liquid and told me to
drop the eyestone into it when I should get it. Before using the
eyestone it