“Something exciting has happened at last!  The Leverings brought a friend to call this afternoon, who has just arrived in Lone-Rock to spend the rest of vacation with them; a grumpy, middle-aged, absent-minded, old professor from the East, who seemed rather bored with us at first.  But when he was taken out to the side-show in the ‘Zoo,’ he waked up in a hurry.  His very spectacles gleamed and his gray whiskers bristled with interest when he saw my assortment of pressed wild-flowers from the desert, and the collection of butterflies and trap-door spiders and other insects in my ‘Buggery,’ as Norman calls it.  When I showed him all the data I had collected from text-books and encyclopaedias about the insect and plant life of the desert, and all the notes I had made myself from my own observations, he actually whistled with surprise.  He sat and fired questions at me like a Gatling gun for nearly an hour, winding up by asking me if I had any idea what a valuable collection I had made, and if I would be willing to part with it.

“Then it came out that he is a noted naturalist who is preparing a set of books on insects and their relation to plant life, and is spending a year in the West on purpose to study the varieties here.  Some of my specimens are so rare he has not come across them before, and he said my notes would save him weeks of time—­in fact, would be like a blazed trail through a wilderness, showing him where to go to verify my observations without loss of time.

“Of course, when it comes to the pinch, I don’t want to part with my beautiful collection of specimens.  It means a great deal to me; I was over four years making it.  But it is too great an opportunity to let pass.  He is to name the price to-morrow after he has made a careful estimate, so I don’t know how much he will offer, but Mrs. Levering says it is sure to be far more than an inexperienced teacher or stenographer could earn in a whole summer.

“How I have worried and fretted and fumed because I had no way to make money here!  Now besides what I get for my specimens I am to have a chance to earn a little more.  Professor Carnes will be here till cold weather, and since I can give him ‘intelligent assistance,’ as he calls it, he will have work for me in connection with his notes, copying and indexing them, and gathering new material.

“Now you can go back to saving up for your year abroad, and give the family the honour of claiming one member with a career.  Jack is really going back to the office the first of September for a part of every day, at quite a respectable salary considering the length of time he will work.  He’s too valuable a man to the company for them to part with.  As for me, I’m sure something else will turn up as soon as my work for Professor Carnes comes to an end.  We Wares can look back over so many Eben-Ezers raised to mark some special time when Providence came to our rescue, that we have no right ever to be discouraged