"Loony yourself! I reckon they want to dig something." The old gentleman, as though divining Skeeter's thoughts, remarked: "Tom Tit and I have a little duty to attend to today, so we are taking our implements. There are several springs I have not been able to visit this summer and I am going to combine duty with pleasure and look after them today." "Look after springs! What for?" from Skeeter. "I thought I told you that I am a spring-keeper. Perhaps you don't know what a spring-keeper is." "N--o! Not exactly!" said Skeeter. "Well, every country child knows that in every spring there is or should be a spring-keeper to keep the water clear. It is a kind of crawfish. It may be a superstition that he really does purify water. At any rate, it is a pleasing idea that he can. Whether he can or not, I know I can help a great deal by digging out of the springs the old dead roots and vegetable matter that decays there, so my self-appointed job is to keep the springs of Albemarle county in condition. I am sure I have saved many families from typhoid in the last years. That is something. "I was born in the mountains, born in a cabin that stands just where the one I live in now stands, in fact the chimney is the same one that has always been there, but the house is new. When I was a mere lad, about twelve years old, there was a terrible epidemic of typhoid fever in the mountains. My whole family was wiped out by it, my father, mother and two sisters dying of it. I just did escape with my life and was nursed back to health by Tom Tit's granny, as good a woman as ever lived. Afterwards, having no home ties, I drifted to the city where I was successful financially. We of the mountains had not known in the old days what caused typhoid, but afterwards, when I learned it was the water we drank, I determined to come back to my county whenever I could and make some endeavor to better the conditions. Would God that I might have been sooner! My poor boy had an attack of the dread disease just the year before I got my affairs in condition to leave New York, and that is what caused his brain trouble." Tom Tit was ahead of the party, gazing up into the air as his old friend spoke. He had a rapt expression on his face that made him for the moment look like Guido Reni's Christ. "Sometimes," continued the old man, "in typhoid, the temperature is so high that certain brain tissue seems to be burned out. I am afraid that is what has happened to my boy." "All of us have been inoculated against typhoid," said Lucy. "Dr. Wright insisted on it--every member of the family. Helen kicked like a steer but she had to do it, too."