Hard pondered a moment, and then departed for the shed. He returned with several pieces of trellis lumber, a spade, some tools, a small roll of chicken wire, and a step-ladder, all on a wheelbarrow. At his direction, I dug a post-hole at the extreme east end of the lawn, another two feet away, a third four feet beyond that, and a fourth again two feet to the west. Hard then mounted the 3 x 3 chestnut joists, levelled them as I set them, and connected the tops, leaving a space for the next connection on the final post to the west. "But where is the arch?" I cried. Hard climbed down from the wheelbarrow in silence, cut off something over four feet from the three-foot wide chicken wire, and then cut a circumference into this wire which, in the centre, came within a foot of the top. He twisted the loose ends back and tacked the flat arch thus made to the top and inner posts of the trellis. Then he connected the two posts on each side with stripping. Thus I had the first arch of my aqueduct, nine feet high, with two-foot piers of trellis work and a four-foot arch with eight feet clear space under the centre. [Illustration:] "It ain't pretty," said Hard, "but when it's painted green and covered with vines it won't show. Guess most of your roses will bloom on the south side of it, though, away from the house." My face fell. "Golly, I hadn't thought of that!" said I. "Oh, they'll peep over and all around it," said Miss Goodwin cheerfully. "What could I have done else?" said I. "Nothin', 'cept turned your house around," Hard replied. "You can buy wire arches so's you could plant your roses east and west, but that wouldn't give you no level top like a bridge. You could set those boughten arches on the south side of this trellis, though, so's you'd get the effect of something solid, lookin' through, without losin' your top." "Guess I'll get you paid first," I laughed, as Hard went back to his work. "And now," I added to the girl at my side, "shall we see if _we_ can build the next arch?" Again she clapped her hands delightedly, and ran with me around the house for the tools and lumber. I let her dig the first post-hole, though it was evident that the effort tired her, and then I took the spade away, while she marked off the trellis strips into the proper lengths, and sawed them up, placing each strip across the wheelbarrow and holding it in place first with a hand which looked quite inadequate even for that small task, and, when the hand failed, with her foot. She laughed as she put her foot on the wheelbarrow, hitching her skirt up where it bound her knee. "The new skirts weren't made for carpenters," she said, as she jabbed away with the saw. I darted a glance at the display of trim ankles, and resumed my digging in the post-holes. This was a new and disturbing distraction in agricultural toil!