of dollars in advertising that Hope Springs water cured rheumatism, and
then have father creaking like a rusty hinge every time he bent over to
fill a glass with it.

Father gave me one piece of advice the day he turned the spring-house
over to me.

"It's a difficult situation, my girl," he said. "Lots of people think
it's simply a matter of filling a glass with water and handing it over
the railing. Why, I tell you a barkeeper's a high-priced man mostly, and
his job's a snap to this. I'd like to know how a barkeeper would make
out if his customers came back only once a year and he had to remember
whether they wanted their drinks cold or hot or 'chill off'. And another
thing: if a chap comes in with a tale of woe, does the barkeeper have
to ask him what he's doing for it, and listen while he tells how much
weight he lost in a blanket sweat? No, sir; he pushes him a bottle and
lets it go at that."

Father passed away the following winter. He'd been a little bit
delirious, and his last words were: "Yes, sir; hot, with a pinch of
salt, sir?" Poor father! The spring had been his career, you may
say, and I like to think that perhaps even now he is sitting by some
everlasting spring measuring out water with a golden goblet instead of
the old tin dipper. I said that to Mr. Sam once, and he said he felt
quite sure that I was right, and that where father was the water would
be appreciated. He had heard of father.

Well, for the first year or so I nearly went crazy. Then I found things
were coming my way. I've got the kind of mind that never forgets a name
or face and can combine them properly, which isn't common. And when