ng they were to stay with me,
Buck Gowdy came careering over the prairie, driving his own horse, just
as I was taking my nooning and was looking at the gun which Rowena had
used to drive back the Settlers' Club, and which we had brought along
with us. I thought I remembered where I had seen that gun, and when Buck
came up I handed it to him.

"Here's your shotgun," I said. "It's the one you shot the geese with
back toward the Mississippi."

"Good goose gun," said he. "Thank you for keeping it for me. I see you
have caught me out getting acquainted with Iowa customs. If you had
needed any help that night, you'd have got it."

"I came pretty near needing it," I said; "and I had help."

"I see you brought your help home with you," he said. "I think I
recognize that wagon, don't I?" I nodded. "I wonder if they could come
and help me on the farm. I'd like to see them. I need help, inside the
house and out."

I left him talking with the whole Fewkes family, except Rowena, who kept
herself out of sight somewhere, and went out to the stable to work.
Gowdy was talking to them in that low-voiced, smiling way of his, with
the little sympathetic tremor in his voice like that in the tone of an
organ. He had already told Surajah that his idea for a mouse-trap looked
like something the world had been waiting for, and that there might be a
fortune in the scheme. Ma Fewkes was looking up at him, as if what he
said must be the law and gospel. He had them all hypnotized, or as we
called it then, mesmerized--so I thought as I went out of sight of them.
After a while, Rowena came around the end of a haystack, and spoke
to me.

"Mr. Gowdy wants us all to go to work for him," she said. "He wants pa
and the boys to work around the place, and he says he thinks some of
Surrager's machines are worth money. He'll give me work in the house."

"It looks like a good chance," said I.

"You know I don't know much about housework," said she; "poor as we've
always been."

"You showed me how to make good bread," I replied.

"I could do well for a poor man," said Rowena, looking at me rather
sadly. Then she waited quite a while for me to say something.

"Shall I go, Jake?" she asked, looking up into my face.

"It looks like a good chance for all of you," I answered.

"I don't want to," said she, "I couldn't stay here, could I? ... No, of
course not!"

So away went the Fewkeses with Buck Gowdy. That is, Rowena went away
with him in his bug