I need not dwell upon my return to Waydean that evening. It is still painful to recall my sensations as I stepped from the train, on finding that Joe Wrigley had so completely disregarded my instructions to tell no one of the discovery that the usually quiet country road between the station and Waydean swarmed with pedestrians returning from an inspection of William Wedder's handiwork. Had I been permitted, as I had hoped, to publicly expose the fraud, I could have risen to the occasion and perhaps found a certain solace in doing so; but to find that in my absence the prying eyes of my neighbors had found the ingenious mechanism by which William had manufactured a flowing well of refined petroleum, and had attributed it to me, was crushing. I could bear up under the facetious remarks of the people who complimented me on my success in taking such an excellent rise out of Peter, but when Andy Taylor rushed out of his house and clapped me on the back, I could only look at him in sorrowful reproach, at which his merriment increased. "Mr. Carton," he gasped, "it beats the way you done up that Griggs all hollow. I knew you'd get back on Peter, but I didn't know it'd be so—gosh—darn—rich. Oh Lordy, to see him when the loose dirt shifted and showed the blue end of the coal-oil barrel!"

"The coal-oil barrel?"

"Yes,—you'd ought to have laid a few boards of top of the heap, and it wouldn't have shifted with people trampin'. You must have let ten gallons run down that iron pipe—and how did you ever get it drove so far? I suppose that joke cost you as much as five dollars, but I'd say it was cheap at ten."

In vain I assured Andy that I was innocent; he only laughed the harder, reiterating his belief that I beat the Dutch and that I was a natural born play-actor; that the Griggs episode, charming as it had been, was discounted by my latest histrionic venture.

By the dim light of my lantern, Marion, Paul and I viewed the wreck of the Waydean Oil Well when I reached home. Our coal-oil barrel, exhumed from the loose earth that had covered it, had been rolled away from the edge of the hole, leaving the iron pipe exposed. The ground was packed hard with the trampling of many feet.

"I didn't think there could be such a crowd of people in the country, except at a funeral or an auction sale," said Marion indignantly. "I was just enraged to sit in the house and see them pass through the yard as if it were a common. I'll never forgive William Wedder—I wish I had never baked him a pie."

"I hope he'll have to live on hygienic wheat biscuits when he gets home," I responded. "I hope his wife has learned to cook them in two hundred ways, and whether they're mashed, stewed, fried, pied, creamed, puddinged or jellied, he'll have disappointment three times a day of finding that they are still the same old wheat biscuits. That'll be punishment enough for him, but it won't make Peter believe I didn't do this, and by this time he must have got Roper's letter cancelling the agreement."

"I suppose we'll have to give up the place in the end," said Marion, with a sigh.

"Don't let Paul hear," I said in a low tone, "or he'll make the dickens of a row."

At that moment Paul was leaning over the edge dangling a long string into the well; fishing, I supposed, in my ignorance. For days he had been going about with a dreamy look on his face that betokened a secret play of absorbing interest. I drew a breath of relief when I saw that he didn't look up at Marion's unguarded remark. All would have been well had I not been so misguided as to make a suggestion that aroused Marion's sense of duty and her persistent belief that I tried to shirk mine.

"Paul," said she, and even in that one word I detected the compassionate severity suitable to the extraction of a tooth—"do you know that we'll have to leave——"

"Marion," I implored, "wait till we get him into the house—he'll rouse the neighborhood."

I should have known better than to protest. Once started in the track of duty nothing short of a disastrous collision would stop her. She did pause, but merely to make a remark to me that led to a sharp altercation. We forgot our rule never to give way to our angry passions before Paul; indeed, he was so unusually silent that we didn't remember his presence until we were suddenly struck dumb by a shrill exclamation of impatient wrath that arose from the other side of the well.

"Dar-r-n it!" he ejaculated, with petrifying distinctness.

If he had turned into a quick-firing gun and dropped a shell at our feet the effect could not have been more paralyzing. Our boy had been carefully screened, not only from evil, but from vulgarity; he had never gone to Sunday school, nor been left to the care of a nursemaid. His companions were his toys and domestic pets; other children he had seen only from a distance, and he regarded them as curious, but not interesting, little animals. His face reflected the purity of his mind. I hesitate to say so, for obvious reasons, but his face at the age of seven was simply angelic; I mean, of course, normally, not when his mouth was wide open in the act of expressing bodily or mental anguish. And this is not merely his mother's opinion and mine; it is Aunt Sophy's also. Indeed, Aunt Sophy, who is never tired of drawing attention to his remarkable resemblance to a photograph of me as a boy, has gone much farther, and has given utterance to thoughts that we only think.

Therefore, we turned to each other in dumb amazement; then I raised the lantern to make sure that it really was Paul who had spoken. He was getting up from his crouching position and the light showed that his little mouth was tightly set and that his wide-open eyes sparkled like stars. Even as we stared at him his lips parted again, and again he said: "Dar-r-r-n it!"

I am thankful that the well was partially covered and that I was able to keep Marion from sliding into it. "Paul!" she cried in horror, "oh, Paul!"

I hastened to follow her lead. "Paul," I said, with fierce sternness, "what do you mean, sir?"

"I mean," he replied accusingly, "that it's all spoiled. They've taken fright at your squabbling and put out their lamps."

Again we stared at each other in questioning silence. What had taken fright we knew not, but we did know that we had squabbled.

"Where did you hear that dreadful word?" demanded Marion.

"Darn?" queried Paul, with innocent pride. "I heard William Wedder say something when the coal-oil barrel rolled on his foot, and when I asked him 'I beg your pardon?' he couldn't remember what he had said, then when I kept on asking him to try to remember he said it must have been an exclamation called darn. I think it's ever so much nicer than bother or good gracious."

"It's a vulgar word, and only vulgar people use it," I commented reprovingly.

"Why, father, William said that when Joe Wrigley's horse stood up on his hind legs you said——"

"Paul," I interrupted hurriedly, "you said something took fright, and——"

"Hush!" said he, in a mysterious whisper, coming close to me. "It was the fairies. William said if we made an oil well and didn't say anything about it, they'd be sure to come to fill their lamps, and they have. I saw three of them climbing up my rope ladder when you frightened them off."

"Then you knew that William made this?" I exclaimed.

"Of course. I helped him to bury the barrel so that the fairies wouldn't know it wasn't a real natural well. He said if we kept it a secret it would be a pleasant surprise to you when I showed you the fairies. Hush! They're climbing up the rope ladder again. Peep down through that crack and you'll see them—very—ve—ry—quietly. There now—stand back. I'm going to help them up over the edge."

The next morning Peter Waydean came over to see me, his face wreathed in smiles, his manner most cordial. "Mr. Carton," he said genially, "I ain't on the hunt for oil wells this morning, but I was on my way to thank you for the trouble you took in rigging up that one when I met your little boy coming over to see me."

"Paul!" I exclaimed—"to see you?"

Peter nodded. "Great head on that little chap," he said. "'I don't want you to be angry at father about the oil well,' he says to me, 'for William and I made it together, and father didn't know anything about it,' says he, standing up straight and stiff. Then he told me the whole business, and although it turned out a good thing for me, I'm glad to know it was that scoundrel Wedder that tried to play it off, and not you. Paul was so tickled at me pretending to believe he really seen fairies that when he wanted me to say that I'd sell the farm to you just the same, I hadn't the heart to tell him it was sold."

"Sold?"

"Yes,—you see, I thought you had played that trick on me and I was so mad yesterday that when along comes another agent twice as keen to buy as them other two I jumped at the chance of selling. 'Name your price,' says he, 'to sell on the spot.' 'Six thousand,' says I, at a bluff. 'Done,' says he; and in five minutes the agreement was signed."

"Well," I said, with a sigh, "I suppose we'll have to move."

"Oh, I don't know," said Peter encouragingly. "Perhaps the party don't want to live here; though, considering the price," he added, with a shrewd smile, "he didn't buy just for speculation. They say he's got a fine place in the city and heaps of money, and he's just got married again to a widow. I might as well have asked another thousand, I believe."

"What is his name?" I asked, with sudden interest.

"Fairman. He owns—what—Mr. Carton, what's the——"

I relaxed my tense grip of his arm. "His first name?" I demanded eagerly.

"Joseph, I think. What's the matter?"

I am afraid my explanation was not very clear to Peter. I could not tell him the cause of my excitement, nor mention the fact that I had saved Mr. Fairman's life several times in one day, for that would have savored of boastfulness; so I hinted that when we were boys together Mr. Fairman had saved my life and had ever since regarded me with the highest esteem. Thus I preserved the main fact of our connection, only disguising it enough to let Marion see incidentally afterwards how careful I was to avoid the appearance of vainglory.

Now when I rushed into the house to tell Marion that Mr. Fairman had bought Waydean, I did so with the innocent exuberance of expectant delight with which children, not too sophisticated, view brown paper parcels that are delivered at their homes during the Christmas season. Marion's first thought, I could swear, was similar to mine; I could not mistake the vivid flash of happy gratitude that illumined her face, nor the sudden exclamation that was checked at the parting of her lips, yet her tone, when she did speak, expressed the utmost mystification. "Why,—how strange!" said she.

For an instant I did not comprehend her mental attitude, but I am remarkably adaptable, not by nature, but by training, and by a swift turn I avoided plunging headlong into an awkward situation. It would show a want of delicacy, a sordid mind, a vulgar expectancy, were I not to ignore the thought that we had both almost uttered. Even though I saw an equine nose, a flowing tail and four legs protruding through the brown paper, I must not guess it was a rocking horse; above all, I must not hope it was to be mine.

"Yes," I remarked, with innocent bewilderment, "it is very strange. I wonder why he bought it."

Truly I have learned a thing or two. My wife regarded me with admiration that she scarcely tried to hide. I had saved Mr. Fairman's life without adding a cubit to my stature in her estimation, but by this trifling observance of the proprieties, this delicate expression of native refinement, I stood exalted upon a pedestal.

"I wonder," repeated Marion, after me, in deep conjecture, "why he—bought—it?"

Our eyes met. In hers I could see a faraway amused sparkle; in my own I permitted a faint twinkle, then we both looked in another direction.

"Perhaps," I ventured cautiously, "Aunt Sophy will write and tell us."

"Perhaps she will," said Marion.

The reward of unconscious virtue arrived by the next mail, in the guise of a long letter from Mrs. Fairman.

"......I can scarcely realize that it is only three days since we said good-by," she wrote, "it seems so long ago. Of course we have been travelling most of the time and this is really the first chance I have had to write and tell you about the trip, and how constantly I think of your kindness to me, and what good reason I have to be grateful for the advice that had so much to do with my present happiness. Indeed, I confessed to Joseph how I was influenced by Henry's opinion, and he was quite affected. He keeps saying to me: 'A fine young man—a noble young man!' He describes to me over and over again how admirably Henry acted in the presence of danger the morning of our wedding; he says he hasn't a doubt but that for Henry's coolness and resource we wouldn't be married now. The thought makes me shudder! I suppose that is why I feel so nervous about him when he is out of sight; I am so afraid of another accident.

"But really, Marion, he hasn't been away from me for more than half an hour at a time, he is so devoted. Of course, with such large interests he has business to look after, but he does it altogether by telegrams. It amazes me to see the number he sends off, and I'm getting quite used to the shoals that arrive, but at first the sight of them made me feel quite ill. He never looks to see if there are more than ten words, and yesterday's hotel bill had an item of $7.62 for telegrams!

"Somehow I have been thinking a great deal of your poor Uncle Philip lately. I think it must be the resemblance I see in Henry to him that has brought him so vividly before me—and I have come to the conclusion that I was too hard on him about the farming. Of course he spent a great deal of money on it, but the spending gave him pleasure, and if he had taken to horse-racing or gambling, or something worse, as so many men do, I would have had real cause to complain. I am older now, and I see that married men when they get to a certain age are inclined to fret and chafe, and perhaps bolt, if they are tethered with too short a rope. I see, too, that I didn't do Philip any good by trying to keep him from farming. Now, dear Marion, I have something to write that will not offend you, I hope. I tried to say it last week, but I couldn't quite get my courage up, for you have a little bit of a temper, dear, and I knew that if I saw your eyes flash I would get flustered and make a bungle of it. You know I always supposed it was Henry's own determination that kept him from buying any implements but a spade, a rake and a hoe, but from something Paul said I have surmised that it was because you made him promise not to. Perhaps, at the time, that was a wise precaution, but you are differently situated now, and you should modify your views. Of course Henry will do exactly as you say, and never let you see what it costs him, and although I admire his common sense about saving money, I admire him much more for his unselfish, uncomplaining devotion to your ideas. I believe if he thought it would give you any pleasure he would go and cut off his little finger on the chopping block in the woodshed. But I would advise you strongly, Marion (since you need have no fear for the future), to let him spend all the money he wishes on the farm, and to keep all sorts of fancy stock. Let him go ahead for a year at least and take all the pleasure he can out of it, and you'll find it will pay in the end. There's just one thing I would shut down on, if I were you (though I don't think it's likely he'd want to do it, but you never can tell how far they may go if they once get started), that is, underdraining. I don't know anything about overdrains, but I do know that underdrains are simply ruinous, and if you keep Henry from underdraining I don't believe he can waste much money. Now, dear Marion, write soon and let your poor old aunt know that you are not offended by this suggestion."

Marion stopped reading, covered her face with her hands and laughed hysterically, exclaiming, "Oh, how funny! You poor,—poor, down-trodden creature!"

I was dumb with astonishment at first,—there was much food for reflection in the letter,—but what surprised me most was the absence of any allusion to Mr. Fairman's buying the farm. "Is that all?" I asked, with breathless incredulity.

It wasn't. Marion found another sheet marked, "Later."

"Joseph came in a few minutes ago and handed me one of those telegrams to read. Imagine my astonishment at finding he has bought Waydean for Henry! It seems that on our wedding-day he made up his mind to do this, and never said a word to me about it. If he had I certainly would have said he was too late. How fortunate, after all, that your bargain with Peter fell through. I think Joseph is more pleased to be able to make Henry a present of Waydean than about anything that has happened since we saw you last, and I can't tell you how glad I am. You see, Marion, Henry can go ahead with perfect confidence."