one more jolt, and a
bad one, before she was gone.

"I haven't seen what this is," she said; and she broke off from Hart
and went to where the wheel was standing covered up in the corner. "I
s'pose I may look at it, Mr. Charles?" she said--and before either of
'em could get a-hold of her to stop her she had off the cloth. "For
the land's sake!" she said. "Whatever part of a kindergarten have you
got here?"

Hart said afterwards his heart went down into his boots, being sure
they'd got to a give-away of the worst sort. Santa Fe said he felt
that way for a minute himself; then he said he ciphered on it that
Hart's aunt likely wouldn't know what she'd struck--and he braced up
and went ahead on that chance.

"Ah," he said--speaking just as cool as if he was calling the deal
right among friends at his own table--"that is one of the new German
kindergarten appliances that even you, madam, may not have seen. We
received it as a present from a rich German merchant in Pueblo, who
was grieved by our pitiable plight and wanted to do what he could to
help us after the fire."

"But what in the name of common-sense," said Hart's aunt, "do you do
with it--with all those numbers around in circles, and that little
ball?"

[Illustration: "'ONE OF THE NEW GERMAN KINDERGARTEN APPLIANCES'"]

Charley had himself in good shape by that time, and he put down his
words as sure as if they was aces--with more, if needed, up his
sleeve. "It is used by our most advanced class in arithmetic, madam,"
he said. "The mechanism, you will observe, is arranged to revolve"--he
set it a-going--"in such a way that the small sphere also is put in
motion. And as the motion ceases"--it was slowing down to a stop--"the
sphere comes to rest on one of the numbers painted legibly on either a
black or a red ground. The children, seated around the table, are
provided with the numerating disks to which I have already called your
attention; and--with a varying rapidity, regulated by their individual
intelligence--they severally, as promptly as possible, arrange their
disks in piles corresponding with the number indicated by the purely
fortuitous resting-place of the sphere. The purpose of this ingenious
contrivance, as I scarcely need to point out to you, is to combine the
amusement of a species of game with the mental stimulus that the rapid
computation of figures imparts. I may add that we arouse a desirable
spirit of emulation among our little ones by providi