"Tell him straight there ain't any, an' be done with it," was Dad's cheerful advice. Mother several times approached the door, but hesitated and returned again.

"What are you afraid of?" Dad would ask; "he won't eat y'." Finally she went in.

Then Dad tiptoed to the door and listened. He was listening eagerly when a lump of earth--a piece of the cultivation paddock--fell dangerously near his feet. It broke and scattered round him, and rattled inside against the papered wall. Dad jumped round. A row of jackasses on a tree near by laughed merrily. Dad looked up. They stopped. Another one laughed clearly from the edge of the tall corn. Dad turned his head. It was Dave. Dad joined him, and they watched the parson mount his horse and ride away.

Dad drew a deep and grateful breath. "Thank God!" he said.

It was the year we put the bottom paddock under potatoes. Dad was standing contemplating the tops, which were withering for want of rain. He shifted his gaze to the ten acres sown with corn. A dozen stalks or so were looking well; a few more, ten or twelve inches high, were coming in cob; the rest had n't made an appearance.

Dad sighed and turned away from the awful prospect. He went and looked into the water-cask. Two butterflies, a frog or two, and some charcoal were at the bottom. No water. He sighed again, took the yoke and two kerosene-tins, and went off to the springs.

About an hour and a half after he returned with two half-tins of muddy, milky-looking water--the balance had been splashed out as he got through the fences--and said to Mother (wiping the sweat off his face with his shirt-sleeve)--

"Don't know, I'm SURE, what things are going t' come t';...no use doing anything...there's no rain...no si----" he lifted his foot and with cool exactness took a place-kick at the dog, which was trying to fall into one of the kerosene-tins, head first, and sent it and the water flying. "Oh you ----!" The rest is omitted in the interests of Poetry.

(Editor：reading)