“I guess so—yes—maybe,” murmured Janet, who did not want to be too sure on this point. “Now you play here, Trouble, and don’t go away, will you?” she asked, as she prepared to follow Ted.
“Trouble stay here and shift sand,” gravely promised the little fellow. “But where you goin’, Jan?” he asked suspiciously.
“Oh, just over here a little way,” she answered. “I’ll soon be back. Now sift a lot of sand, Trouble, and pick out all the stones.”
“Aw right—I shift sand.”
He was having fun now, being “’mused” as his mother had told him he would be, and he did not much care what Ted or Janet did—at least for a while.
“Is he all right?” asked Ted, as his sister joined him under an apple tree where an old well had been dug.
“Yes, I guess he’ll stay there until we play diamond mine a while,” said Janet. “But are you sure it will be all right, Ted?”
“Sure I am. I’ll just step on the bucket and hold to the rope, and all you’ll have to do is to keep hold of the handle and let it unwind slowly. Then I’ll go down in the well and we’ll play it’s a diamond mine.”
“But how you going to get up again, Ted?” his sister asked.
“Why, you can wind up the handle just as you unwound it, can’t you? It’ll be like pulling up a bucket of water when there used to be water in the well. That’s how I’ll get up.”