whose base measures fifty-six feet in diameter, and parallel

It was after eight o'clock. David had taken supper with Mr. Jack and Jill, and not for some hours had he been at the farmhouse. In the doorway now he stopped short; then instinctively he stepped back into the shadow. In the kitchen a kerosene light was burning. It showed Mrs.Holly crying at the table, and Mr. Holly, white-faced and stern-lipped, staring at nothing. Then Mrs. Holly raised her face, drawn and tear-stained, and asked a trembling question.

"Simeon, have you thought? We might go--to John--for--help."

David was frightened then, so angry was the look that came into Simeon Holly's face.

"Ellen, we'll have no more of this," said the man harshly. "Understand, I'd rather lose the whole thing and--and starve, than go to--John."

David fled then. Up the back stairs he crept to his room and left his violin. A moment later he stole down again and sought Perry Larson whom he had seen smoking in the barn doorway.

"Perry, what is it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "What has happened--in there?" He pointed toward the house.

The man puffed for a moment in silence before he took his pipe from his mouth.

"Well, sonny, I s'pose I may as well tell ye. You'll have ter know it sometime, seein' as 't won't be no secret long. They've had a stroke o' bad luck--Mr. an' Mis' Holly has."