When supper was ended, Jonathan asked, “May I try to fix your pump, m’am?” Mother hesitated, glanced at Bill, and then replied with a smile, “Yes, you may try. At any rate you can’t make it any worse than it has been, since Bill fussed with it.” Jonathan went to work with his jackknife and such tools as were at hand. He had not more than started, however, when Bill came in with an armful of wood for the kitchen stove. Stopping at the pump he said in his dictatorial tones, “You can’t do nothin’ with that pump! I’ve tried it, an’ I tell you it’s past mending by any botch or boy. An’ I tell Miss Stark it will be cheaper to buy a new one, by gosh! For I put in a half a day tryin’ to fix it.” Jonathan, without reply, kept on with his mending and, to our surprise, after half an hour had the pump working. “Where did you learn to fix pumps?” mother inquired in a pleased manner. “Our pump got out of order once, and the man who fixed it explained its working to me, and I have learned about them otherwise since.” “That pump,” said the disgruntled Bill, “will be out of order again as quick as scat, or I miss my guess.” “You see,” said Jot, ignoring Bill, “that piece of leather is a valve and must fit quite tight. When the air is pumped out, the water comes up to fill the partial vacuum. All I have done is to limber and adjust the valve so that it fits tighter.” “My!” said mother trying the pump, “it works quite well, and it does not matter where you learned it; you have earned your supper and breakfast too, for we would have had to send to Chester for a man to repair it, besides the inconvenience of waiting.” The next morning mother asked Jot what pay he would want to do the chores and other light work about the place. “I will work a month,” he replied, “and you shall say how much I am worth.” The answer pleased mother since it seemed to insure faithful service. Thus it was that Jonathan Nickerson came to work on the Stark farm. My father, Captain David Stark, had been a soldier in the Civil War. He had enlisted when only sixteen years of age and, by military aptitude and bravery, had won a captain’s commission, before he was twenty-one. Over the mantel of our front room, secluded from light and flies except when we had company, hung a sword which had been presented to him, so its inscription read, by his admiring officers and men. He had married my mother some years younger than he, quite late in life, and I was their only child. He had died before I remembered much about him. One day Jot noticed the sword and read its inscription. He removed his hat reverently and said: “I would like to be a brave soldier like him. My mother’s only brother, Lieutenant Jedediah Hoskins, was killed while leading a charge, just before the surrender at Appomattox. She was but a little child when that occurred, but she had his back pay and other property to help us, and often called me Jed’s Boy, hoping that I would be like him.”