Tommy’s paper read:—“To fix the spring that used to come down Sugar Loaf Hill into a trough, before Bill Evans got mad with the Selectmen, and blocked it from coming through his pasture. There’s no water for drivers along the road above the Centre until you get to Beaver Brook, and that’s four miles, unless they get it from our well, which isn’t handy. My father could fix a big stone trough, ’cause he’s a mason, and birds and dogs and horses could drink. Birds need water to mix mud for their nests, too, especially Robins and Wood Thrushes. What is wanting, is to pipe the spring across Evans’ field,—his widow’d be pleased to have us; it’s her land. It’s two hundred feet, father says.” “That is a very good, practical idea, Tommy,” said Gray Lady, earnestly; “we must consider this.” Rose Wilde had now come to the last paper without discovering anything else of special novelty; this was written in little Clary’s stiff letters, and filled a whole sheet of paper. “It isn’t for birds, it’s a blanket for Joel Hanks, the mail-man’s horse. It’s blind in one eye, and it’s a kind horse, and knows where all the boxes are. It’s got a cough now. Mr. Hanks was going to buy a new one (a blanket), and get shingles on that end of the barn where the horse stands, so’s the snow won’t drift in, but his wife got sick last summer, and had doctors and nurses, and that costs more money than a new horse, and a whole barn, my mother says. Mother says it isn’t Joel’s fault he’s poor; he isn’t slack, only some folks are marked for trouble. Last summer, lightning struck his haystack, and burned it and only his cornstalks were left. His horse is thin, too. Cornstalks aren’t filling for uphill work, my father says, and the mail-route is all either up or down, and in winter downhill is slippery, and just as bad. A horse is a lovely animal, and useful; I would like us to help this horse. He isn’t a bird, to be sure, but birds have feathers, and don’t have to drag a wagon uphill, against the wind, with bent axles. It will take three bundles of shingles for that barn-end and three lights of window-glass.” There was silence for a moment, and Miss Wilde, looking at Gray Lady, while she waited for her to speak, saw tears in her eyes. “Tommy’s idea about the fountain is excellent, and I think we can build it before spring, but the blind old horse and his patient master cannot wait, and they both serve us, each and all, in fair weather and foul. “How is it, children? Shall we set aside ten dollars for the bird food for the winter, and then buy Mr. Hanks a ton of good hay, a horse-blanket, the three bundles of shingles, and the window-glass? And do you think that you big boys could put on the shingles if Jacob Hughes helped you?” “You can just bet we will!” cried Jack Todd, and the others nodded approval.