id Jack. "My line will cut through; and you can _scoop_
down to it, at your leisure. I must get you to remove these iron
wedges, Mr. Wiggett; the needle won't work with so much iron near."

The wedges removed, the needle settled; and Jack, adjusting the sights
of his compass to a north-and-south line, got Mr. Wiggett to mark its
bearings for him, with a chalk pencil, on the floor of the open doorway.

"All creation!" shrieked the woman, suddenly making a pounce at the
kneeling old man; "we don't want a noon-mark thar, cl'ar away from the
jamb, ye fool! We want it whur the shadder o' the jamb 'll hit it plumb
at noon."

The old man looked up from his position on "all-fours," and parried her
attack with his lifted hand.

"Ye mout wait a minute!" he said; "then you'll see if me an' this yer
youngster's both fools. I had a lesson that larnt me onct that he knows
better 'n I dew what he's about; an' I 'lowed, this time, I'd go by
faith, an' make the marks 'thout no _re_marks o' my own."

"The line will come just where you want it, Mrs. Wiggett," Jack assured
her, hiding a laugh behind his compass.

Having got the old man to mark two points on his north-and-south line,
one at the threshold and the other a little beyond, Jack put his rule to
them and drew a pencil-line; Mrs. Wiggett watching with a jealous scowl,
not seeing that her mark was coming where she wanted it,--"right ag'in
the jamb,"--after all.

Then, by a simple operation, which even she understood, Jack surprised
her.

He first measured the distance of his line from the jamb. Then he set
off two points, on the same side, at the same distance from the line,
farther along on the floor. Then through these points he drew a second
line, parallel to the first, and touching the corner of the jamb, by
which the noon shadow was to be cast. Into this new line Jack sank his
noon-mark with a knife.

"There," said he, "is a true noon-mark, which will last as long as your
house does,"--a prediction which, by a very astonishing occurrence, was
to be proved false that very afternoon.

"I reckon the woman is satisfied," said the old man; "anyhow, I be; an'
now what's the tax for this yer little scratch on the floor?"

"Not anything, Mr. Wiggett."

"Hey? ye make noon-marks for folks 'thout pay?"

"That depends. Sometimes, when off surveying, I'm hailed at the door of
a house, and asked for a noon-mark. I never refuse it. Then, if
convenient, I take my pay by stoppin