The pail with the ball of twine lay close beside the well, where Rob’s papa had forgotten it that afternoon. Rob set the candle down on the floor and began to lower the pail into the well. Yard after yard after yard the hungry throat swallowed the cord. Finally he heard the pail splash as it reached the water. He waited a moment. The pail bobbed about and then grew heavy on the cord. Then the silver voice cried, “Draw up, draw up, kind boy!” Rob pulled on the cord eagerly,--pulled and pulled without looking down into the well, until the pail tinkled against the bricks of the cellar floor. In the flare of the candle-light Rob saw that it was full of water. But that was not all! Standing with feet braced across the top of the pail, clinging to the cord, was the strangest little figure about six inches high; a little figure dressed all in brown, with black hair and bright eyes. When the pail rested on the cellar floor he leaped off and stood before Rob, bowing, with one hand laid upon his head. And then Rob saw that it was a tiny Indian. His brown dress was soft like deerskin, and his leggings were fringed. His limp black hair fell over a face of red-bronze, with high cheek-bones and pouting lips. In his hair he wore a tiny blue feather, perhaps from a blue jay’s wing, and in his hands he carried the sweetest little toy bow, while a quiver of inch-long arrows hung on his shoulders. His feet were covered with moccasins, and he was the exact copy of a Wild West Indian; only he looked like one seen through the wrong end of an opera-glass. “Oh--you must be an Indian Fairy,” cried Rob, with his eyes bulging. “Yes, Friend,” said the tiny one. “I am an Indian Fairy, the Fairy of the Indian spring. And you have brought me up for the second time this day, though you did not see me the first time. This is the second time during fifty years that I have left the well. Ah, must I go back again?” Despite the warlike appearance of the little man his silvery voice began to tremble. “Tell me all about it,” said Rob soothingly. “I am the Fairy who lived by the spring years, and years, and years ago, before the White Men came to Shawmut,” said the Fairy. “What is Shawmut?” asked Rob, wondering. “Shawmut is the Indian name of this place,” said the Fairy. “It means the Place of Springs, and it was so named because of the many bubbling springs on the hillside above the river. Oh! there were many, many of us. I had dozens of brothers. But my spring was in the fairest spot. This water was the sweetest and clearest of any. Heigho! How often the great braves used to kneel here for a refreshing draught when they returned from the hunt or from war! They never saw me, for I hid in the moss about the spring. But I loved to look at them, they were so big and wonderful.” “Oh, what did they look like?” asked Rob eagerly, for Rob loved to hear about Indians.