ed home about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the old Squire
thought that, in view of my errand, I had been gone an unreasonably long
time.

Halstead's eye was so much inflamed that we had no little trouble in
getting the eyestone under the lid. Finally, however, the old Squire,
with Addison's help, slipped it in. Halstead cried out, but the old
Squire made him keep his eye closed; then the old gentleman bandaged it,
and made him lie down.

But after all, I am unable to report definitely as to the efficacy of
the eyestone, for shortly after five o'clock, when the stone had been in
Halstead's eye a little more than an hour, Doctor Green came. He had
returned on the afternoon train from Portland, and learning that we had
sent for him earlier in the day, hurried out to the farm. When he
examined Halstead's eye, he found the eyestone near the outer canthus,
and near it the irritating bit of wheat beard. He removed both together.
Whether or not the eyestone had started the piece of wheat beard moving
toward the outer corner of the eye was doubtful; but Doctor Green said,
laughingly, that we could give the good old panacea the benefit of the
doubt.

It was not until we were at the supper table that evening--with Halstead
sitting at his place, his eye still bandaged--that I found a chance to
explain fully why I had been gone so long on my errand.

Theodora and grandmother actually shed tears over my account of poor
little Ike. The old Squire was so indignant at the treatment the boy had
received that he set off early the next morning to interview the
selectmen. As a result, they took little Ike from the Doles and put him
into another family, the Winslows, who were very kind to him. Mrs.
Winslow, indeed, gave him a mother's care and affection.

The boy soon began to grow properly. Within a year you would hardly have
recognized him as the pinched and skinny little fellow that once had
lived at the Dole farm. He grew in mind as well as body, and before long
showed so much promise that the Winslows sent him first to the village
academy, and afterward to Westbrook Seminary, near Portland. When he was
about twenty-one he went West as a teacher; and from that day on his
career has been upward.

CHAPTER XXIV

BORROWED FOR A BEE HUNT

We were eating breakfast one morning late in August that summer when
through an open window a queer, cracked voice addressed the old Squire:

"Don't want to disturb ye at your meals,