It was such detours from the path of duty that had helped to win for Celestina her pseudonym of "easy goin'." Perhaps this very vagrant quality in her nature was what had aided her in so thoroughly sympathizing with Willie in his sporadic outbursts of industry. For Willie was not a methodical worker any more than was Celestina. There were intervals, it is true, when he toiled steadily, feverishly, all day long and far into the night, forgetting either to eat or sleep; then would follow days together when he simply pottered about, or did even worse and remained idle in the sunny shelter of the grape arbor. Here on a rude bench constructed from a discarded four-poster he would often sit for hours, smoking his corncob pipe and softly humming to himself; but when genius went awry and his courage was at a low ebb, strings, wires, and pulleys having failed to work, he would neither smoke nor sing, but with eyes on the distance would sit immovable as if carved from stone. To-day, however, was not one of his "settin' days." He had been up since dawn, had eaten no breakfast, and had even been too deeply preoccupied to fill and light the blackened pipe that dangled limply from his lips. Yet despite all his coaxings and cajolings, the iron pump opposite the shed door still refused to do anything but emit from its throat a few dry, profitless gurgles that seemed forced upward from the very caverns of the earth. Both Willie and Jan Eldredge looked tired and disheartened, and when Zenas Henry approached stood at bay, surrounded by a litter of wrenches, hammers, and scattered fragments of metal. "What's the matter with your pump?" called Zenas Henry as he strolled toward them. Willie turned on the intruder, a smile half humorous, half contemptuous, flitting across his face. "If I could answer that question, Zenas Henry, I wouldn't be standin' here gapin' at the darn thing," was his laconic response. "It's just took a spell, that's all there is to it. It was right enough last night." "There's no accountin' fur machinery," Zenas Henry remarked. The observation struck a note of pessimism that rasped Willie's patience. "There's got to be some accountin' fur this claptraption," retorted he, a suggestion of crispness in his tone. "I shan't stir foot from this spot 'til I find out what's set it to actin' up this way." Zenas Henry laughed at the declaration of war echoing in the words. "I've given up flyin' all to flinders over everything that gets out of gear," he drawled. "If I was to be goin' up higher'n a kite every time, fur instance, that the seaweed ketches round the propeller of my motor-boat, I'd be in mid-air most of the time." Willie raised his head with the alertness of a hunter on the scent. "Seaweed?" he repeated vaguely. Zenas Henry nodded. "Ain't there no scheme fur doin' away with a nuisance like that?"