"I'm sure Nellie will be glad to get this back," said Nan, "for it's a good doll, and she probably never had one since she lost it."
The doll was not injured by its long imprisonment in the well and when washed up was as good as ever. Nan took charge of it, and promised to give it to Nellie just as soon as she could go over to see her.
Another bucket of stuff had been brought up by that time, and the first thing pulled out was a big long pipe, the kind Germans generally use.
"That's old Hans Bruen's," declared Tom "I remember the night he dropped it."
"Foolish Hans—to try to drink with a pipe like that in his mouth!" laughed the well cleaner.
As the pipe had a wooden bowl and a hard porcelain stem it was not broken, so Tom took care of it, knowing how glad Hans would be to get his old friend "Johnnie Smoker" back again.
Besides all kinds of tin cups, pails, and saucepans, the well was found to contain a good number of boys' caps and some girls' too, that had slipped off in attempts made to get a good cool drink out of the bucket.
Finally the man gave a signal that he was ready to come up, and soon the windlass was adjusted again and the man in very muddy boots came to the top.
"Look at this!" he said to the boys' holding a beautiful gold watch. "Ever hear of anyone losing a watch in the well?"
No one had heard of such a loss, and as there was no name anywhere on the watch that might lead to its identification, the well cleaner put it away in his vest pocket under the rubber coat.