One night Halstead twitted me about it at the supper table, and I recollect that the lack of proper sensibility that I had shown scandalized the entire family.
"Oh, Joseph!" grandmother often exclaimed to the old Squire.

"We must have some better way for these children to bathe.

They are getting older and larger, and I certainly cannot manage it much longer." Things went on in that way for the first two years of our sojourn at the old place--until after the old Squire had installed a hydraulic ram down at the brook, which forced plenty of water up to the house and the barns.

Then, in October of the third year, the old gentleman bestirred himself.
He had been as anxious as any one to improve our bathing facilities, but it is not an easy job to add a bathroom to a farmhouse.

He walked about at the back of the house for hours, and made several excursions to a hollow at a distance in the rear of the place, and also climbed to the attic, all the while whistling softly: "Roll on, Silver Moon, Guide the traveler on his way." That was always a sure sign that he was getting interested in some scheme.
Then things began to move in earnest.