mprisonment in the well and when
washed up was as good as ever. Nan took charge of it, and promised to
give it to Nellie just as soon as she could go over to see her.

Another bucket of stuff had been brought up by that time, and the first
thing pulled out was a big long pipe, the kind Germans generally use.

"That's old Hans Bruen's," declared Tom "I remember the night he
dropped it."

"Foolish Hans--to try to drink with a pipe like that in his mouth!"
laughed the well cleaner.

As the pipe had a wooden bowl and a hard porcelain stem it was not
broken, so Tom took care of it, knowing how glad Hans would be to get
his old friend "Johnnie Smoker" back again.

Besides all kinds of tin cups, pails, and saucepans, the well was found
to contain a good number of boys' caps and some girls' too, that had
slipped off in attempts made to get a good cool drink out of the bucket.

Finally the man gave a signal that he was ready to come up, and soon
the windlass was adjusted again and the man in very muddy boots came to
the top.

"Look at this!" he said to the boys' holding a beautiful gold watch.
"Ever hear of anyone losing a watch in the well?"

No one had heard of such a loss, and as there was no name anywhere on
the watch that might lead to its identification, the well cleaner put
it away in his vest pocket under the rubber coat.

"And what do you think of this?" the man continued, and drew from his
pocket a beautiful string of pearl beads set in gold.

"My beads! My lost beads!" screamed Nan. "Oh, how glad I am that you
found them!"

She took the beads and looked at them carefully. They were a bit dirty,
but otherwise as good as ever.

"I thought I should never see these again," said Nan. "I must tell
mamma of this!" And she started for the house with flying feet. Mrs.
Bobbsey was glad indeed to learn that the strings of pearls had been
found, and everybody declared that Nan was certainly lucky.

"I am going to fasten them on good and tight after this," said Nan, and
she did.

Down by the well the man was not yet through handing over the things he
had found.

"And there's a wedding ring!" he said next, while he turned out in his
hand a thin gold band.

"Oh, Mrs. Burns lost that!" chorused a number of the boys. "She felt
dreadful over it too. She'll be tickled to get that back all right."

"Well, here," said the man, turning to Harry. "I guess you're the
biggest boy; I'll let you take that back to Mrs. Burn