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 smilingly: "Indeed I will gladly let you saw for an hour or two if you'll come and sit by the fire on Saturday night, when we are going to play spelling games and have doughnuts and root beer."

The Widow Berry, who kept academy boarders, sent in a luscious mince pie now and then, and Mrs. Popham and Mrs. Harmon brought dried apples or pumpkins, winter beets and Baldwin apples. It was little enough, they thought, when the Yellow House, so long vacant, was like a beacon light to the dull village; sending out its beams on every side.

"She ain't no kind of a manager, I'm 'fraid!" said Bill Harmon. "I give her 'bout four quarts and a half of kerosene for a gallon every time she sends her can to be filled, but bless you, she ain't any the wiser! I try to give her as good measure in everything as she gives my children, but you can't keep up with her! She's like the sun, that shines on the just 'n' on the unjust. Hen Lord's young ones eat their lunch or their supper there once or twice a week, though the old skinflint's got fifty thousand dollars in the bank."

"Never mind, Bill," said Osh Popham; "there's goin' to be an everlastin' evenupness somewheres! Probably God A'mighty hez his eye on that woman, and He'll see her through.