HOW THE DAY WENT.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

"It was your work, Put, all of us fellows getting down here this morning. Now what'll we do?"

"Well, now, Dan, it's the last day of vacation, and school begins to-morrow, and we've just got to do something!"

"I don't care a cent for ball," remarked Charley Farrington at that moment, as he listlessly pitched a flat stone into the shallow river. "You don't catch me on the green to-day, anyhow. It's too near the 'cademy."

"Might go a-fishing," said Abe Larrabee, with a look of sadness on his sunburned face. "Jim Chandler, does your scow leak as bad as it did?"

"Worse and worse, and there isn't a fish left. I tried 'em yesterday all the way down to the mill."

"Nothing to shoot," said Dan Martin, "and no powder nor shot either. Boys, this 'ere vacation of ours is windin' up."

That was about it, or else it was very nearly run down, and there they all were on the bank, just above the old bridge, and not a boy of them could think of anything he cared three buttons to go and do. It was a trying time, and they all broke down under it, for in less than an hour there were five listless boys sauntering along up the hill toward Beecher's Woods, across lots, without any earthly reason to give for doing it. They could not travel straight, somehow, even then, for they went around through Deacon Chittenden's pasture lot. There was a level stretch in the middle of that pasture, and in the middle of that level there was a hole about five feet across. It had been a round hole once, Put Boswell remarked, but he may have been wrong in adding:

"You see, boys, he had two old wells at the house, and this was the meanest; so he carted it up here, and drove it into the middle of his cow lot."

"Didn't drive it in very deep," said Charley Farrington. "Not more'n ten feet. If I should tumble in there, I could climb out again up that broken side."

"Water's pretty deep."

"Guess not. The Deacon isn't the kind of man to throw away anything. That's why he saved up his old well."

Put Boswell must have had his reasons for disliking Deacon Chittenden, from the way he talked about him; but the whole party was too full of that end of their vacation, and of talk about all they had done since they got hold of it by its July end, and they began to walk on. They walked as far as Beecher's fence, but they were unwise to trust themselves on the rotten top rail all at one time, for Abe Larrabee was just saying, "If there ain't Beecher's prize ram! look at his horns!" when there was a cracking sound under them, and down they came, in a tangle, with a length of the rickety fence criss-crossed beneath them.

Worse than that: Abe had pointed straight at the ram, and the insulted animal was coming in a hurry to see why there had been such a gap made in his boundaries.

"Run, boys, run!" shouted Put Boswell. "He's the all-killingest butter in the county!"

They had found something to do, and so had the ram, and he seemed, in a minute more, to have decided that his duties included the care of Deacon Chittenden's cow lot.

It was odd, but every one of those five boys had the same idea in his head: "If I can only put that well between him and me."

They ran straight for it, and the ram was so close on Charley Farrington's heels when he reached it that there was nothing left for Charley but a long jump. Well for him that he was a good jumper on a run, and he landed three feet beyond the well, while the other four were dodging around it.

Where was the ram?

"Ba-a-a-a-a! ba-a!"

Either he had begun his leap too soon, or he had not made it long enough, for it had carried him with great accuracy to the very middle of the old well, and his piteous voice was now coming up from just above the surface of the water at the bottom.

"Beecher's lost his prize mutton."

"Hear him! Oh, but doesn't he feel bad!"

"He isn't drowning, anyhow."

"Not exactly drowning, but it's an awful cold bath."

"Boys," said Put Boswell, "we must get him out. Old Chittenden'll be sure to find out that we fellows were up here, and they'd lay it all to us."

"They lay pretty much everything to us now," remarked Dan Martin. "But how'll we ever work it? Put, you go down and lift him up, while we get hold of him. You ain't afraid of a sheep, are you?"

"Not where there's any chance to run, if he wanted to bite me. You go down. The water's real nice and cool."

Not one of them wanted to go down, and the council they held around the mouth of that well used up a good deal of what was left of that morning.

"Tell you what," said Jim Chandler at last, "I'm getting hungry. Let's go for dinner, and not say a word to anybody about it, and come back with a rope. We can rope him out."

There was a unanimous vote in favor of that, for Jim was not the only member of the council who had been thinking about his dinner. There was not an ounce of listlessness among them all the way back to the village, and there was plenty of rope at the side of the old well early in the afternoon.

"Is he there yet?" said Charley, eagerly, as he came up.

"Ba-a-a-a-a! ba-a!" arose in response from the dismal depths, where the ram was awaiting his deliverance.

"Ain't his feet wet by this time? Let's get some fence rails," said Put. "Good ones, too."

"Or we may join the ram," remarked Dan Martin. "That's it, Put, make a slip-noose."

"I'm going for his horns, soon as the rails get here."

That was quickly enough, and there was no special difficulty in dropping a wide noose over the horns of that ram, and in drawing it tight.

"We've got him now, unless his horns come off," shouted Abe Larrabee. "He's safe."

In the bottom of a well, and fastened by his horns to five boys and a fence rail, there was not a particle of danger that Beecher's prize ram would get away. The problem yet to be solved was at least as deep as the old well, nevertheless, and there was no telling how soon Mr. Beecher or Deacon Chittenden might put in an appearance.

"It's got to be done," said Put. "We can't leave an unfortunate fellow-creature in such a fix as that. Let's haul on the rope over the rail, and see how far we can draw him."

There were a good many experiments tried, hand running, and every boy had had his turn, sitting on the fence rails in the middle, and studying the ram after he had been let down again. It was beginning to look a little dark for him, when something put it into the head of Charley Farrington to grasp the rope tight at the rail where it was hitched, and swing down a little, with his feet on the projecting stones of the rude siding.

It was too bad for Dan Martin and Jim Chandler to get up from the rails to come and see what he was doing, for the one with the rope wound around it began to turn, with Charley's weight to turn it, and in five seconds more he was standing at the bottom of the well, by the side of what Put had called his "unfortunate fellow-creature."

"Boys! boys! pull me up."

"You're the man for me," responded Put Boswell, for it was plain no harm had been done. "That's just the thing. Now we'll haul on the ram, at the broken side, and we'll get him up. There's just slant enough, if you'll boost him behind and get him started. Is the water very warm?"

"Hurry up, then. It's cold as ice. I'll shove him."

"Ba-a-a-a-a! ba-a!"

"Don't those two feel bad?" unfeelingly remarked Abe Larrabee. "Let's hurry, boys. Charley's all right. He's a brick, too."

So he was, and when the moment of trial came he lifted and helped with a will. All the ram really needed was to be helped to put his fore-feet on the tumbling stones, and then to be hauled and shoved until his hind-feet were compelled to follow.

Ten minutes more, and then, with a big pull and a great shout, out came the unlucky sheep. It had been an unsettled question in the minds of the boys, until that instant, whether his horns, or his neck, or the rope might not give way, and as for themselves, a redder-faced lot had not been seen in the whole valley since school closed.

"Now, boys," shouted Charley, "the rope. Hitch it strong."

Charley's weakness was for climbing, and he would have scorned the idea of not being able to master so simple a situation as that.

"Here comes the other sheep," shouted Put. "Charley, are your feet wet? Look at your friend."

He was worth looking at, for he was himself looking at the well mouth as if he was studying, under his much-pulled horns, how on earth he ever got out of that thing.

"Ba-a-a-a-a! ba-a!"

"I'll take the rope off, and then we'll cut."

Abe was saying that in the very act of loosening the rope with his jackknife; but he should not have stood right in front of the ram to do it, for the very second the prize brute felt himself free, Abe felt something bump against him just above his waist. It was not very vigorous butting, and was only done from force of habit, but Abe went down.

"Run, boys, run! He'll go for you next."

"Deserves to have been left in the well," exclaimed Jim Chandler, "the ungrateful beast!"

There was no need of any running, however, for the ram had no heart, perhaps no very serviceable legs, to follow them. Abe Larrabee was the only fellow who really hurried much.

It was just as they all got to the other side of the old bridge on the road to the village that Put Boswell suddenly broke out with:

"Look a-here, boys, wasn't we a-wondering this morning what we'd do with this here last day of vacation?"

"That was just the trouble," said Charley Farrington, "and we've put it in a-helping an old sheep out of Chittenden's well."

"Don't care for that," stoutly responded Put. "Didn't I say last night I'd find something to do? I say it's the best day we've had. We know just what to do with an old well now. It's been real interesting."

"Yes," drawled Abe Larrabee, "so it has. Interesting to the old ram too. Worst of it is, we daren't tell anybody."

That was too bad, but they could all go back to school more cheerfully for it the next day.