“My pretty boy was to our house brought, aber no one could him know—he was in the wasser—de water—so long—_oh das Kalte, Kalte Wasser!_ so many, many days. I took more of the fever—und go out of my head—und so I never my Liebling seen again.” The cry that was heard in Ramah, “_Oh, that cold, cold water!_” Then, later on, there came a little box of tin-iron, “mit a hole cut in the on-top side.” But let _Mother Treegood_ tell it in her own way: “One day there came by the express company a little bundle. When it was opened—it was an oyster can—a box of tin-iron, mit a hole cut in the on-top side. The letter was from de other boy—und it say—that his brudder, who vas ver-drownded, did begin his business life in a hotel in Cincinnetty, as a bellboy, und he safe his money und put it in the oyster can. Und in dat oyster box was the shin-plasters, the five centses, und de ten centses—yoost as he take them in for noospapers and shoe-blacking—und it was yoost enough, ach mein lieber Gott!—yoost enough to pay for his grave at Brookfill.” Surely this is very effective. It probably happened just that way. To know that it could, and perhaps _did_, is just the right impression for the author of a novel to make on the reader. Another splendid episode is that wherein a “run on the bank” begins, as the funeral of Colonel Quillmore is in progress. The chapters which relate the tragedy, the fire in the Colonel’s laboratory, the wild ride of _Father Lessing_ and _Uncle I’_; the dramatic climax where _Mrs. Quillmore_ lashes herself into raving madness; the funeral procession whose mourners get caught up in the growing excitement of the “run on the bank,” and leave the hearse to fly to the bank for their money; the nerve and resource of _Doc. Gus_ in saving the bank, and in saving the cashier from the would-be lynchers—are chapters which bear convincing testimony to the power and creativeness of the author. The book is so finely conceived and written that one is tempted to scold the author for a few glaring faults which are well-nigh inexcusable. Why paint _L’Oiseau_ so black when he was to be white-washed at the end? There was no need to have him behave so brutally to the boy, _Lanny Quillmore_. It was a blunder to make him insult the boy, incur the hatred of the boy, assault the boy, and drive the boy from his own home. The lad is allowed to think and believe that _L’Oiseau_ is on terms of criminal intimacy with _Mrs. Quillmore, Lanny’s_ mother. There was no necessity for this. If _L’Oiseau_ was brother-in-law to _Mrs. Quillmore_, and was prompted by paternal interest in paying her such suspicious attention, and in being out in the woods with her at unseasonable hours in the night, why permit the lady’s son to torture himself under a misapprehension?