"I guess they think we're gypsies," said Hattie, as one carriage rolled
past.

"Well, they needn't trouble themselves," returned her mother, rising
with difficulty to brush the crumbs from her capacious lap. "I guess
I've got as good an extension-table to home as any on 'em."

But Eli ate sparingly, and with a preoccupied and solemn look.

"Land, father!" exclaimed his wife, "you 'ain't eat no more'n a bird!

"I guess I'll go over to that well," said he, "an' git a drink o'
water. I drink more'n I eat, if I ain't workin'." But when he came
back, carefully bearing a tin pail brimming with cool, clear water, his
face expressed strong disapprobation, and he smacked his lips
scornfully.

"Terrible flat water!" he announced. "Tastes as if it come out o' the
cistern." But the others could find no fault with it, and Sereno
drained the pail.

"Pretty good, I call it," he said; and Mrs. Pike rejoined,--

"You always was pretty particular about water, father."

But Eli still shook his head, and ejaculated, "Brackish, brackish!" as
he began to put the bit in Doll's patient mouth. He was thinking, with
a passion of loyalty, of the clear, ice-cold water at home, which had
never been shut out, by a pump, from the purifying airs of heaven, but