if I trusted him to restore it. So, sleepy, weary, I sat down at the
window from which Sophie and her sister Anna had watched the strange man
digging in the frosty earth,--sat down to my last watching, waiting to
see Mr. Axtell come up to ring the first bell.

I found I was an hour too early; so I went and talked to Chloe a little,
scattered crumbs for the first-come birds and corn for the chickens, and
looked down the deep, deep well, with its curb lichened over, into the
dark pupil of water, whose iris is never disturbed, unless by the bucket
that hung in such gibbety repose on the lofty extreme of the great
sweep, that creaked dismally, uttering a pitiful cry of complaint. If it
hadn't been Sunday, I would have coaxed Aaron to pour some oil on its
turbulence; but since Sunday it was, I was to be content to let it
screech on. It was not a "sheep fallen into a pit," only a disturbed
well-sweep. Do well-sweeps feel, I wonder? Why not? Mr. Axtell asked how
I knew that the dead cannot hear.

Aaron came out in search of me. He had been assiduously trying to make a
ministerial disposition of his cravat, until it was creased and wrinkled
beyond repair.

"I did not know that you put on the paraphernalia of pastorhood so
early," I said, "or I would have come in."

"I shall be very thankful, if you'll give me a respectable appearance,"
he said, which I faithfully tried to do.

I gave him the sermon and the proper handkerchief, then left him to his
hour of seclusion before service, when even Sophie never went nigh.