"Um, h'm," replied Jane. She walked along the top of the foundation, and
Bingham followed her.
Jane moved on until she found a practicable stone in a suitable angle.
"About here, I think," she said, tapping the stone with her toe.
"Do you want me to pry it out?"
"If you can. There's a sort of sharp stick over on that sand-pile."
Bingham removed the stone, and imbedded the horseshoe among the sharp-edged fragments which had been worked into the course beneath.
"I want it to stay, too," declared Jane, as her eye roamed towards the half-dried mortar-bed just beyond the foundation trench. "Wait a second." She skipped across the small chasm which intervened between the foundation-wall and solid ground. She scooped up some water from a hallow puddle with a battered tin can, and began the formation of an oozy little pocket in the middle of the mortar-bed. "Now if I only had a shingle," she said, after she had reduced the mortar to the consistency of slime.
"No shingle would hold that," said Bingham, jumping across after her.
"Here, give me that can."
He poured a quart or two of mortar on top of the horseshoe and reset the stone "There!" said Jane, bringing her whole weight upon it.
"Good-luck to this house and household!" said Bingham. He raised his hat; she could not tell whether he were in jest or in earnest.
"It needs all the luck it can have," said Jane. "It may be a nice house, but it will never be home."