Chapter 6

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_ CHAPTER VI

Of course Mrs. Armstrong still insisted that, knowing, as she did, Mr. Winslow's prejudice against occupying the position of landlord, she could not think of accepting his offer. "Of course I shall not," she declared. "I am flattered to know that you consider Barbara and me preferable to Mr. and Mrs. Powless; but even there you may be mistaken, and, beside, why should you feel you must endure the lesser evil. If I were in your place I shouldn't endure any evil at all. I should keep the house closed and empty, just as you have been doing."

Captain Sam shook his head impatiently. "If you was in his place," he observed, "you would have let it every year. Don't interfere with him, Mrs. Armstrong, for the land sakes. He's showed the first streak of common sense about that house that he's showed since the Davidsons went out. Don't ask him to take it back."

And Jed stubbornly refused to take it back. "I've let it to you for a month, ma'am," he insisted. "It's yours, furniture and all, for a month. You won't sell that Mrs. Powless any of it, will you?" he added, anxiously. "Any of the furniture, I mean."

Mrs. Armstrong scarcely knew whether to be amused or indignant.

"Of course I shouldn't sell it," she declared. "It wouldn't be mine to sell."

Jed looked frightened. "Yes, 'twould; yes, 'twould," he persisted. "That's why I'm lettin' it to you. Then I can't sell it to her; I CAN'T, don't you see?"

Captain Sam grinned. "Fur's that goes," he suggested, "I don't see's you've got to worry, Jed. You don't need to sell it, to her or anybody else, unless you want to."

But Jed looked dubious. "I suppose Jonah cal'lated he didn't need to be swallowed," he mused. "You take it, ma'am, for a month, as a favor to me."

"But how can I--like this? We haven't even settled the question of rent. And you know nothing whatever about me."

He seemed to reflect. Then he asked:

"Your daughter don't sing like a windmill, does she?"

Barbara's eyes and mouth opened. "Why, Mamma!" she exclaimed, indignantly.

"Hush, Babbie. Sing like a--what? I don't understand, Mr. Winslow."

The captain burst out laughing. "No wonder you don't, ma'am," he said. "It takes the seven wise men of Greece to understand him most of the time. You leave it to me, Mrs. Armstrong. He and I will talk it over together and then you and he can talk to-morrow. But I guess likely you'll have the house, if you want it; Jed doesn't go back on his word. I always say that for you, don't I, old sawdust?" turning to the gentleman thus nicknamed.

Jed, humming a mournful hymn, was apparently miles away in dreamland. Yet he returned to earth long enough to indulge in a mild bit of repartee. "You say 'most everything for me, Sam," he drawled, "except when I talk in my sleep."

Mrs. Armstrong and Barbara left a moment later, the lady saying that she and Mr. Winslow would have another interview next day. Barbara gravely shook hands with both men.

"I and Petunia hope awfully that we are going to live here, Mr. Winslow," she said, "'specially Petunia."

Jed regarded her gravely. "Oh, she wants to more'n you do, then, does she?" he asked.

The child looked doubtful. "No-o," she admitted, after a moment's reflection, "but she can't talk, you know, and so she has to hope twice as hard else I wouldn't know it. Good-by. Oh, I forgot; Captain Hedge liked his swordfish EVER so much. He said it was a-- a--oh, yes, humdinger."

She trotted off after her mother. Captain Hunniwell, after a chuckle of appreciation over the "humdinger," began to tell his friend what little he had learned concerning the Armstrongs. This was, of course, merely what Mrs. Armstrong herself had told him and amounted to this: She was a widow whose husband had been a physician in Middleford, Connecticut. His name was Seymour Armstrong and he had now been dead four years. Mrs. Armstrong and Barbara, the latter an only child, had continued to occupy the house at Middleford, but recently the lady had come to feel that she could not afford to live there longer, but must find some less expensive quarters.

"She didn't say so," volunteered Captain Sam, "but I judge she lost a good deal of her money, bad investments or somethin' like that. If there's any bad investment anywheres in the neighborhood you can 'most generally trust a widow to hunt it up and put her insurance money into it. Anyhow, 'twas somethin' like that, for after livin' there a spell, just as she did when her husband was alive, she all at once decides to up anchor and find some cheaper moorin's. First off, though, she decided to spend the summer in a cool place and some friend, somebody with good, sound judgment, suggests Orham. So she lets her own place in Middleford, comes to Orham, falls in love with the place--same as any sensible person would naturally, of course--and, havin' spent 'most three months here, decides she wants to spend nine more anyhow. She comes to the bank to cash a check, she and I get talkin', she tells me what she's lookin' for, I tell her I cal'late I've got a place in my eye that I think might be just the thing, and--"

He paused to bite the end from a cigar. His friend finished the sentence for him.

"And then," he said, "you, knowin' that I didn't want to let this house any time to anybody, naturally sent her down to look at it."

"No such thing. Course I knew that you'd OUGHT to let the house and, likin' the looks and ways of these Armstrong folks first rate, I give in that I had made up my mind TO send her down to look at it. But, afore I could do it, the Almighty sent her on His own hook. Which proves," he added, with a grin, "that my judgment has pretty good backin' sometimes."

Jed rubbed his chin. "Careful, Sam," he drawled, "careful. The Kaiser'll be gettin' jealous of you if you don't look out. But what," he inquired, "made her and the little girl move out of Middleford, or wherever 'twas they lived? They could have found cheaper quarters there, couldn't they? Course I ain't never been there, but seems as if they could."

"Sartin they could, but the fact of their movin' is what makes me pretty sure the widow's investments had turned sour. It's a plaguey sight easier to begin to cut down and live economical in a place where nobody knows you than 'tis in one where everybody has known you for years. See that, don't you?"

Jed whistled sadly, breaking off in the middle of a bar to reply that he didn't know as he did.

"I've never cut up, so cuttin' down don't worry me much," he observed. "But I presume likely you're right, Sam; you generally are." He whistled a moment longer, his gaze apparently fixed upon a point in the middle of the white plastered ceiling. Then he said, dreamily: "Well, anyhow, 'twon't be but a month. They'll go somewheres else in a month."

Captain Sam sniffed. "Bet you a dollar they won't," he retorted. "Not unless you turn 'em out. And I see you turnin' anybody out."

But Mr. Winslow looked hopeful. "They'll go when the month's up," he reiterated. "Nobody could stand me more than a month. Mother used to say so, and she'd known me longer than anybody."

And so, in this curious fashion, did tenants come to the old Winslow house. They moved in on the following Monday. Jed saw the wagon with the trunks backing up to the door and he sighed. Then he went over to help carry the trunks into the house.

For the first week he found the situation rather uncomfortable; not as uncomfortable as he had feared, but a trifle embarrassing, nevertheless. His new neighbors were not too neighborly; they did not do what he would have termed "pester" him by running in and out of the shop at all hours, nor did they continually ask favors. On the other hand they did not, like his former tenants, the Davidsons, treat him as if he were some sort of odd wooden image, like one of his own weather vanes, a creature without feelings, to be displayed and "shown off" when it pleased them and ignored when it did not. Mrs. Armstrong was always quietly cheerful and friendly when they met in the yard or about the premises, but she neither intruded nor patronized. Jed's first impression of her, a favorable one, was strengthened daily.

"I like her first-rate," he told Captain Sam. "She ain't too folksy and she ain't too standoffish. Why, honest truth, Sam," he added, ingenuously, "she treats me just the same as if I was like the common run of folks."

The captain snorted. "Gracious king! Do stop runnin' yourself down," he commanded. "Suppose you are a little mite--er--different from the--well, from the heft of mackerel in the keg, what of it? That's your own private business, ain't it?"

Jed's lip twitched. "I suppose 'tis," he drawled. "If it wan't there wouldn't be so many folks interested in it."

At first he missed the freedom to which he had accustomed himself during his years of solitude, the liberty of preparing for bed with the doors and windows toward the sea wide open and the shades not drawn; of strolling out to the well at unearthly hours of the early morning singing at the top of his lungs; of washing face and hands in a tin basin on a bench by that well curb instead of within doors. There were some necessary concessions to convention to which his attention was called by Captain Hunniwell, who took it upon himself to act as a sort of social mentor.

"Do you always wash outdoors there?" asked the captain, after watching one set of ablutions.

"Why--er--yes, I 'most generally do in good weather. It's sort of-- er--well, sort of cool and roomy, as you might say."

"Roomy, eh? Gracious king! Well, I should say you needed room. You splash into that basin like a kedge anchor goin' overboard and when you come out of it you puff like a grampus comin' up to blow. How do you cal'late Mrs. Armstrong enjoys seein' you do that?"

Jed looked startled and much disturbed. "Eh?" he exclaimed. "Why, I never thought about her, Sam. I declare I never did. I--I'll fetch the wash basin inside this very minute."

And he did. The inconvenience attached to the breaking off of a summer-time habit of years troubled him not half as much as the fear that he might have offended a fellow creature's sensibilities. Jed Winslow was far too sensitive himself and his own feelings had been hurt too many times to make hurting those of another a small offense in his eyes.

But these were minor inconveniences attached to his new position as landlord. There were recompenses. At work in his shop he could see through the window the white-clad, graceful figure of Mrs. Armstrong moving about the yard, sitting with Barbara on the bench by the edge of the bluff, or writing a letter at a table she had taken out under the shadow of the silver-leaf tree. Gradually Jed came to enjoy seeing her there, to see the windows of the old house open, to hear voices once more on that side of the shop, and to catch glimpses of Babbie dancing in and out over the shining mica slab at the door.

He liked the child when he first met her, but he had been a little fearful that, as a neighbor, she might trouble him by running in and out of the shop, interfering with his privacy and his work or making a small nuisance of herself when he was waiting on customers. But she did none of these things, in fact she did not come into the shop at all and, after the first week had passed, he began to wonder why. Late that afternoon, seeing her sitting on the bench by the bluff edge, her doll in her arms, he came out of the door of his little kitchen at the back of the shop and called her.

"Good evenin'," he hailed. "Takin' in the view, was you?"

She bobbed her head. "Yes, sir," she called in reply; "Petunia and I were looking at it."

"Sho! Well, what do you and-er--What's-her-name think of it?"

Barbara pondered. "We think it's very nice," she announced, after a moment. "Don't you like it, Mr. Winslow?"

"Eh? Oh, yes, I like it, I guess. I ain't really had time to look at it to-day; been too busy."

The child nodded, sympathetically. "That's too bad," she said. Jed had, for him, a curious impulse, and acted upon it.

"Maybe I might come and look at it now, if I was asked," he suggested. "Plenty of room on that bench, is there?"

"Oh, yes, sir, there's lots. I don't take much room and Petunia almost always sits on my lap. Please come."

So Jed came and, sitting down upon the bench, looked off at the inlet and the beach and the ocean beyond. It was the scene most familiar to him, one he had seen, under varying weather conditions, through many summers and winters. This very thought was in his mind as he looked at it now.

After a time he became aware that his companion was speaking.

"Eh?" he ejaculated, coming out of his reverie. "Did you say somethin'?"

"Yes, sir, three times. I guess you were thinking, weren't you?"

"Um-m--yes, I shouldn't be surprised. It's one of my bad habits, thinkin' is."

She looked hard to see if he was smiling, but he was not, and she accepted the statement as a serious one.

"Is thinking a bad habit?" she asked. "I didn't know it was."

"Cal'late it must be. If it wasn't, more folks would do it. Tell me, now," he added, changing the subject to avoid further cross- questioning, "do you and your ma like it here?"

The answer was enthusiastic. "Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, "we like it ever and ever so much. Mamma says it's--" Barbara hesitated, and then, after what was evidently a severe mental struggle, finished with, "she said once it was like paradise after category."

"After--which?"

The young lady frowned. "It doesn't seem to me," she observed, slowly, "as if 'category' was what she said. Does 'category' sound right to you, Mr. Winslow?"

Jed looked doubtful. "I shouldn't want to say that it did, right offhand like this," he drawled.

"No-o. I don't believe it was 'category.' But I'm almost sure it was something about a cat, something a cat eats--or does--or something. Mew--mouse--milk--" she was wrinkling her forehead and repeating the words to herself when Mr. Winslow had an inspiration.

"'Twan't purgatory, was it?" he suggested.

Miss Barbara's head bobbed enthusiastically. "Purr-gatory, that was it," she declared. "And it was something a cat does--purr, you know; I knew it was. Mamma said living here was paradise after purr-gatory."

Jed rubbed his chin.

"I cal'late your ma didn't care much for the board at Luretta Smalley's," he observed. He couldn't help thinking the remark an odd one to make to a child.

"Oh, I don't think she meant Mrs. Smalley's," explained Barbara. "She liked Mrs. Smalley's pretty well, well as any one can like boarding, you know," this last plainly another quotation. "I think she meant she liked living here so much better than she did living in Middleford, where we used to be."

"Hum," was the only comment Jed made. He was surprised, nevertheless. Judged by what Captain Sam had told him, the Armstrong home at Middleford should have been a pleasant one. Barbara rattled on.

"I guess that was it," she observed. "She was sort of talking to herself when she said it. She was writing a letter--to Uncle Charlie, I think it was--and I and Petunia asked her if she liked it here and she sort of looked at me without looking, same as you do sometimes, Mr. Winslow, when you're thinking of something else, and then she said that about the catty--no, the purr-gatory. And when I asked her what purr-gatory meant she said, 'Never mind,' and. . . . Oh, I forgot!" in consternation; "she told me I mustn't tell anybody she said it, either. Oh, dear me!"

Jed hastened to reassure her. "Never mind," he declared, "I'll forget you ever did say it. I'll start in forgettin' now. In five minutes or so I'll have forgot two words of it already. By to- morrow mornin' I wouldn't remember it for money."

"Truly?"

"Truly bluely, lay me down and cut me in twoly. But what's this you're sayin' about your ma lookin' at things without seein' 'em, same as I do? She don't do that, does she?"

The young lady nodded. "Yes," she said; "course not as bad--I mean not as often as you do, but sometimes, 'specially since--" She hastily clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh!" she exclaimed.

"What's the matter? Toothache?"

"No. Only I almost told another somethin' I mustn't."

"Sho! Well, I'm glad you put on the cover just in time."

"So am I. What else was I talking about? Oh, yes, Mamma's thinking so hard, same as you do, Mr. Winslow. You know," she added, earnestly, "she acts quite a lot like you sometimes."

Jed looked at her in horror. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed. Then, in his solemnest drawl, he added, "You tell her to take somethin' for it afore it's too late."

As he rose from the bench he observed: "Haven't seen you over to the shop since you moved in. I've been turnin' out another school of swordfish and whales, too. Why don't you run in and look 'em over?"

She clapped her hands. "Oh, may I?" she cried. "I've wanted to ever and ever so much, but Mamma said not to because it might annoy you. Wouldn't it annoy you, TRULY?"

"Not a bit."

"Oh, goody! And might Petunia come, too?"

"Um-hm. Only," gravely, "she'll have to promise not to talk too much. Think she'll promise that? All right; then fetch her along."

So, the very next morning, when Jed was busy at the bandsaw, he was not greatly surprised when the door opened and Miss Barbara appeared, with Petunia in her arms. He was surprised, however, and not a little embarrassed when Mrs. Armstrong followed.

"Good morning," said the lady, pleasantly. "I came over to make sure that there hadn't been a mistake. You really did ask Babby to come in and see you at work?"

"Yes, ma'am, I--I did. I did, sartin."

"And you don't mind having her here? She won't annoy you?"

"Not a mite. Real glad to have her."

"Very well, then she may stay--an hour, but no longer. Mind, Babby, dear, I am relying on you not to annoy Mr. Winslow."

So the juvenile visitor stayed her hour and then obediently went away, in spite of Jed's urgent invitation to stay longer. She had asked a good many questions and talked almost continuously, but Mr. Winslow, instead of being bored by her prattle, was surprised to find how empty and uninteresting the shop seemed after she had quitted it.

She came again the next day and the next. By the end of the week Jed had become sufficiently emboldened to ask her mother to permit her to come in the afternoon also. This request was the result of a conspiracy between Barbara and himself.

"You ask your ma," urged Jed. "Tell her I say I need you here afternoons."

Barbara looked troubled. "But that would be a wrong story, wouldn't it?" she asked. "You don't really need me, you know."

"Eh? Yes, I do; yes, I do."

"What for? What shall I tell her you need me for?"

Jed scratched his chin with the tail of a wooden whale.

"You tell her," he drawled, after considering for a minute or two, "that I need you to help carry lumber."

Even a child could not swallow this ridiculous excuse. Barbara burst out laughing.

"Why, Mr. Winslow!" she cried. "You don't, either. You know I couldn't carry lumber; I'm too little. I couldn't carry any but the littlest, tiny bit."

Jed nodded, gravely. "Yes, sartin," he agreed; "that's what I need you to carry. You run along and tell her so, that's a good girl."

But she shook her head vigorously. "No," she declared. "She would say it was silly, and it would be. Besides, you don't really need me at all. You just want Petunia and me for company, same as we want you. Isn't that it, truly?"

"Um-m. Well, I shouldn't wonder. You can tell her that, if you want to; I'd just as soon."

The young lady still hesitated. "No-o," she said, "because she'd think perhaps you didn't really want me, but was too polite to say so. If you asked her yourself, though, I think she'd let me come."

At first Jed's bashfulness was up in arms at the very idea, but at length he considered to ask Mrs. Armstrong for the permission. It was granted, as soon as the lady was convinced that the desire for more of her daughter's society was a genuine one, and thereafter Barbara visited the windmill shop afternoons as well as mornings. She sat, her doll in her arms, upon a box which she soon came to consider her own particular and private seat, watching her long- legged friend as he sawed or glued or jointed or painted. He had little waiting on customers to do now, for most of the summer people had gone. His small visitor and he had many long and, to them, interesting conversations.

Other visitors to the shop, those who knew him well, were surprised and amused to find him on such confidential and intimate terms with a child. Gabe Bearse, after one short call, reported about town that crazy Shavin's Winslow had taken up with a young-one just about as crazy as he was.

"There she set," declared Gabriel, "on a box, hugging a broken- nosed doll baby up to her and starin' at me and Shavin's as if we was some kind of curiosities, as you might say. Well, one of us was; eh? Haw, haw! She didn't say a word and Shavin's he never said nothin' and I felt as if I was preaching in a deef and dumb asylum. Finally, I happened to look at her and I see her lips movin'. 'Well,' says I, 'you CAN talk, can't you, sis, even if it's only to yourself. What was you talkin' to yourself about, eh?' She didn't seem to want to answer; just sort of reddened up, you know; but I kept right after her. Finally she owned up she was countin'. 'What was you countin'?' says I. Well, she didn't want to tell that, neither. Finally I dragged it out of her that she was countin' how many words I'd said since I started to tell about Melissy Busteed and what she said about Luther Small's wife's aunt, the one that's so wheezed up with asthma and Doctor Parker don't seem to be able to do nothin' to help. 'So you was countin' my words, was you?' says I. 'Well, that's good business, I must say! How many have I said?' She looked solemn and shook her head. 'I had to give it up,' says she. 'It makes my head ache to count fast very long. Doesn't it give you a headache to count fast, Mr. Winslow?' Jed, he mumbled some kind of foolishness about some things givin' him earache. I laughed at the two of 'em. 'Humph!' says I, 'the only kind of aches I have is them in my bones,' meanin' my rheumatiz, you understand. Shavin's he looked moony up at the roof for about a week and a half, same as he's liable to do, and then he drawled out: 'You see he DOES have headache, Babbie,' says he. Now did you ever hear such fool talk outside of an asylum? He and that Armstrong kid are well matched. No wonder she sits in there and gapes at him half the day."

Captain Sam Hunniwell and his daughter were hugely tickled.

"Jed's got a girl at last," crowed the captain. "I'd about given up hope, Jed. I was fearful that the bloom of your youth would pass away from you and you wouldn't keep company with anybody. You're so bashful that I know you'd never call on a young woman, but I never figured that one might begin callin' on you. Course she's kind of extra young, but she'll grow out of that, give her time."

Maud Hunniwell laughed merrily, enjoying Mr. Winslow's confusion. "Oh, the little girl is only the bait, Father," she declared. "It is the pretty widow that Jed is fishing for. She'll be calling here soon, or he'll be calling there. Isn't that true, Jed? Own up, now. Oh, see him blush, Father! Just see him!"

Jed, of course, denied that he was blushing. His fair tormentor had no mercy.

"You must be," she insisted. "At any rate your face is very, very red. I'll leave it to Father. Isn't his face red, Father?"

"Red as a flannel lung-protector," declared Captain Sam, who was never known to contradict his only daughter, nor, so report affirmed, deny a request of hers.

"Of course it is," triumphantly. "And it can't be the heat, because it isn't at all warm here."

Poor Jed, the long-suffering, was goaded into a mild retort.

"There's consider'ble hot air in here some spells," he drawled, mournfully. Miss Hunniwell went away reaffirming her belief that Mr. Winslow's friendship for the daughter was merely a strategical advance with the mother as the ultimate objective.

"You'll see, Father," she prophesied, mischievously. "We shall hear of his 'keeping company' with Mrs. Armstrong soon. Oh, he couldn't escape even if he wanted to. These young widows are perfectly irresistible."

When they were a safe distance from the windmill shop the captain cautioned his daughter.

"Maud," he said, "you'd better not tease Jed too much about that good-lookin' tenant of his. He's so queer and so bashful that I'm afraid if you do he'll take a notion to turn the Armstrongs out when this month's up."

Miss Hunniwell glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

"Suppose he does?" she asked. "What of it? She isn't a GREAT friend of yours, is she, Father?"

It was the captain's turn to look embarrassed.

"No, no, course she ain't," he declared, hastily. "All I've been thinkin' is that Jed ought to have a tenant in that house of his, because he needs the money. And from what I've been able to find out about this Mrs. Armstrong she's a real nice genteel sort of body, and--and--er--"

"And she's very sweet and very pretty and so, of course, naturally, all the men, especially the middle-aged men--"

Captain Sam interrupted explosively. "Don't be so foolish!" he ordered. "If you don't stop talkin' such nonsense I'll--I don't know what I'll do to you. What do you suppose her bein' sweet and good-lookin' has got to do with me? Gracious king! I've got one good-lookin'--er--that is to say, I've got one young female to take care of now and that's enough, in all conscience."

His daughter pinched his arm.

"Oh, ho!" she observed. "You were going to say she was good- looking and then you changed your mind. Don't you think this young female--WHAT a word! you ought to be ashamed of it--DON'T you think she is good-looking, Daddy, dear?"

She looked provokingly up into his face and he looked fondly down into hers.

"Don't you?" she repeated.

"We-ll, I--I don't know as I'd want to go so far as to say that. I presume likely her face might not stop a meetin'-house clock on a dark night, but--"

As they were in a secluded spot where a high hedge screened them from observation Miss Maud playfully boxed her parent's ears, a proceeding which he seemed to enjoy hugely.

But there was reason in the captain's caution, nevertheless. Miss Maud's "teasing" concerning the widow had set Jed to thinking. The "trial" month was almost up. In a little while he would have to give his decision as to whether the little Winslow house was to continue to be occupied by Barbara and her mother, or whether it was to be, as it had been for years, closed and shuttered tight. He had permitted them to occupy it for that month, on the spur of the moment, as the result of a promise made upon impulse, a characteristic Jed Winslow impulse. Now, however, he must decide in cold blood whether or not it should be theirs for another eleven months at least.

In his conversation with Captain Sam, the conversation which took place immediately after the Armstrongs came, he had stoutly maintained that the latter would not wish to stay longer than the month, that his own proximity as landlord and neighbor would be unbearable longer than that period. But if the widow found it so she had so far shown no evidence of her disgust. Apparently that means of breaking off the relationship could not be relied upon. Of course he did not know whether or not she wished to remain, but, if she did, did he wish her to do so? There was nothing personal in the matter; it was merely the question as to whether his prejudice of years against renting that house to any one was to rule or be overthrown. If she asked him for his decision what should he say? At night, when he went to bed, his mind was made up. In the morning when he arose it was unmade. As he told Captain Hunniwell: "I'm like that old clock I used to have, Sam. The pendulum of that thing used to work fine, but the hands wouldn't move. Same way with me. I tick, tick, tick all day over this pesky business, but I don't get anywheres. It's always half- past nothin'."

Captain Sam was hugely disgusted. "It ain't more'n quarter past, if it is that," he declared, emphatically. "It's just nothin', if you ask me. And say, speakin' of askin', I'd like to ask you this: How are you goin' to get 'em out, provided you're fool enough to decide they've got to go? Are you goin' to tell Mrs. Armstrong right up and down and flat-footed that you can't stand any more of her? I'd like to hear you say it. Let me know when the show's goin' to come off. I want a seat in the front row."

Poor Jed looked aghast at the very idea. His friend laughed derisively and walked off and left him. And the days passed and the "trial month" drew closer and closer to its end until one morning he awoke to realize that that end had come; the month was up that very day.

He had not mentioned the subject to the widow, nor had she to him. His reasons for not speaking were obvious enough; one was that he did not know what to say, and the other that he was afraid to say it. But, as the time approached when the decision must be made, he had expected that she would speak. And she had not. He saw her daily, sometimes several times a day. She often came into the shop to find Barbara, who made the workroom a playhouse on rainy or cloudy days, and she talked with him on other topics, but she did not mention this one.

It was raining on this particular day, the last day in the "trial month," and Jed, working at his lathe, momentarily expected Barbara to appear, with Petunia under one arm and a bundle of dolls' clothes under the other, to announce casually that, as it was such bad weather, they had run in to keep him, Mr. Winslow, from getting lonesome. There was precious little opportunity to be lonesome where Babbie was.

But this morning the child did not come and Jed, wondering what the reason for her absence might be, began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. Just what was the matter he did not know, but that there was something wrong with him, Jed Winslow, was plain. He could not seem to keep his mind on his work; he found himself wandering to the window and looking out into the yard, where the lilac bushes whipped and thrashed in the gusts, the overflowing spouts splashed and gurgled, and the sea beyond the edge of the bluff was a troubled stretch of gray and white, seen through diagonal streaks of wind-driven rain. And always when he looked out of that window he glanced toward the little house next door, hoping to see a small figure, bundled under a big rain coat and sheltered by a big umbrella, dodge out of the door and race across the yard toward the shop.

But the door remained shut, the little figure did not appear and, except for the fact that the blinds were not closed and that there was smoke issuing from the chimney of the kitchen, the little house might have been as empty as it had been the month before.

Or as it might be next month. The thought came to Jed with a meaning and emphasis which it had not brought before. A stronger gust than usual howled around the eaves of the shop, the sashes rattled, the panes were beaten by the flung raindrops which pounded down in watery sheets to the sills, and Jed suddenly diagnosed his own case, he knew what was the matter with him--he was lonesome; he, who had lived alone for five years and had hoped to live alone for the rest of his life, was lonesome.

He would not admit it, even to himself; it was ridiculous. He was not lonesome, he was just a little "blue," that was all. It was the weather; he might have caught a slight cold, perhaps his breakfast had not agreed with him. He tried to remember what that breakfast had been. It had been eaten in a hurry, he had been thinking of something else as usual, and, except that it consisted of various odds and ends which he had happened to have on hand, he could not itemize it with exactness. There had been some cold fried potatoes, and some warmed-over pop-overs which had "slumped" in the cooking, and a doughnut or two and--oh, yes, a saucer of canned peaches which had been sitting around for a week and which he had eaten to get out of the way. These, with a cup of warmed- over coffee, made up the meal. Jed couldn't see why a breakfast of that kind should make him "blue." And yet he was blue--yes, and there was no use disguising the fact, he was lonesome. If that child would only come, as she generally did, her nonsense might cheer him up a bit. But she did not come. And if he decided not to permit her mother to occupy the house, she would not come much more. Eh? Why, it was the last day of the month! She might never come again!

Jed shut off the motor and turned away from the lathe. He sank down into his little chair, drew his knee up under his chin, and thought, long and seriously. When the knee slid down to its normal position once more his mind was made up. Mrs. Armstrong might remain in the little house--for a few months more, at any rate. Even if she insisted upon a year's lease it wouldn't do any great harm. He would wait until she spoke to him about it and then he would give his consent. And--and it would please Captain Sam, at any rate.

He rose and, going to the window, looked out once more across the yard. What he saw astonished him. The back door of the house was partially open and a man was just coming out. The man, in dripping oil-skins and a sou'wester, was Philander Hardy, the local expressman. Philander turned and spoke to some one in the house behind him. Jed opened the shop door a crack and listened.

"Yes, ma'am," he heard Hardy say. "I'll be back for 'em about four o'clock this afternoon. Rain may let up a little mite by that time, and anyhow, I'll have the covered wagon. Your trunks won't get wet, ma'am; I'll see to that."

A minute later Jed, an old sweater thrown over his head and shoulders, darted out of the front door of his shop. The express wagon with Hardy on the driver's seat was just moving off. Jed called after it.

"Hi, Philander!" he called, raising his voice only a little, for fear of being overheard at the Armstrong house. "Hi, Philander, come here a minute. I want to see you."

Mr. Hardy looked over his shoulder and then backed his equipage opposite the Winslow gate.

"Hello, Jedidah Shavin's," he observed, with a grin. "Didn't know you for a minute, with that shawl over your front crimps. What you got on your mind; anything except sawdust?"

Jed was too much perturbed even to resent the loathed name "Jedidah."

"Philander," he whispered, anxiously; "say, Philander, what does she want? Mrs. Armstrong, I mean? What is it you're comin' back for at four o'clock?"

Philander looked down at the earnest face under the ancient sweater. Then he winked, solemnly.

"Well, I tell you, Shavin's," he said. "You see, I don't know how 'tis, but woman folks always seem to take a terrible shine to me. Now this Mrs. Armstrong here-- Say, she's some peach, ain't she!-- she ain't seen me more'n half a dozen times, but here she is beggin' me to fetch her my photograph. 'It's rainin' pretty hard, to-day,' I says. 'Won't it do if I fetch it to-morrow?' But no, she--"

Jed held up a protesting hand. "I don't doubt she wants your photograph, Philander," he drawled. "Your kind of face is rare. But I heard you say somethin' about comin' for trunks. Whose trunks?"

"Whose? Why, hers and the young-one's, I presume likely. 'Twas them I fetched from Luretta Smalley's. Now she wants me to take 'em back there."

A tremendous gust, driven in from the sea, tore the sweater from the Winslow head and shoulders and wrapped it lovingly about one of the posts in the yard. Jed did not offer to recover it; he scarcely seemed to know that it was gone. Instead he stood staring at the express driver, while the rain ran down his nose and dripped from its tip to his chin.

"She--she's goin' back to Luretta Smalley's?" he repeated. "She--"

He did not finish the sentence. Instead he turned on his heel and walked slowly back to the shop. The sweater, wrapped about the post where, in summer, a wooden sailor brandished his paddles, flapped soggily in the wind. Hardy gazed after him.

"What in time--?" he exclaimed. Then, raising his voice, he called: "Hi, Jed! Jed! You crazy critter! What--Jed, hold on a minute, didn't you know she was goin'? Didn't she tell you? Jed!"

But Jed had entered the shop and closed the door. Philander drove off, shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

A few minutes later Mrs. Armstrong, hearing a knock at the rear door of the Winslow house, opened it to find her landlord standing on the threshold. He was bareheaded and he had no umbrella.

"Why, Mr. Winslow!" she exclaimed. It was the first time that he had come to that house of his own accord since she had occupied it. Now he stood there, in the rain, looking at her without speaking.

"Why, Mr. Winslow," she said again. "What is it? Come in, won't you? You're soaking wet. Come in!"

Jed looked down at the sleeves of his jacket. "Eh?" he drawled, slowly. "Wet? Why, I don't know's I ain't--a little. It's--it's rainin'."

"Raining! It's pouring. Come in."

She took him by the arm and led him through the woodshed and into the kitchen. She would have led him further, into the sitting- room, but he hung back.

"No, ma'am, no," he said. "I--I guess I'll stay here, if you don't mind."

There was a patter of feet from the sitting-room and Barbara came running, Petunia in her arms. At the sight of their visitor's lanky form the child's face brightened.

"Oh, Mr. Winslow!" she cried. "Did you come to see where Petunia and I were? Did you?"

Jed looked down at her. "Why--why, I don't know's I didn't," he admitted. "I--I kind of missed you, I guess."

"Yes, and we missed you. You see, Mamma said we mustn't go to the shop to-day because-- Oh, Mamma, perhaps he has come to tell you we won't have to--"

Mrs. Armstrong interrupted. "Hush, Babbie," she said, quickly. "I told Barbara not to go to visit you to-day, Mr. Winslow. She has been helping me with the packing."

Jed swallowed hard. "Packin'?" he repeated. "You've been packin'? Then 'twas true, what Philander Hardy said about your goin' back to Luretta's?"

The lady nodded. "Yes," she replied. "Our month here ends to-day. Of course you knew that."

Jed sighed miserably. "Yes, ma'am," he said, "I knew it, but I only just realized it, as you might say. I . . . Hum! . . . Well . . ."

He turned away and walked slowly toward the kitchen door. Barbara would have followed but her mother laid a detaining hand upon her shoulder. On the threshold of the door between the dining-room and kitchen Jed paused.

"Ma'am," he said, hesitatingly, "you--you don't cal'late there's anything I can do to--to help, is there? Anything in the packin' or movin' or anything like that?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Winslow. The packing was very simple."

"Er--yes, ma'am. . . . Yes, ma'am."

He stopped, seemed about to speak again, but evidently changed his mind, for he opened the door and went out into the rain without another word. Barbara, very much surprised and hurt, looked up into her mother's face.

"Why, Mamma," she cried, "has--has he GONE? He didn't say good-by to us or--or anything. He didn't even say he was sorry we were going."

Mrs. Armstrong shook her head.

"I imagine that is because he isn't sorry, my dear," she replied. "You must remember that Mr. Winslow didn't really wish to let any one live in this house. We only came here by--well, by accident."

But Barbara was unconvinced.

"He ISN'T glad," she declared, stoutly. "He doesn't act that way when he is glad about things. You see," she added, with the air of a Mrs. Methusaleh, "Petunia and I know him better than you do, Mamma; we've had more chances to get--to get acquainted."

Perhaps an hour later there was another knock at the kitchen door. Mrs. Armstrong, when she opened it, found her landlord standing there, one of his largest windmills--a toy at least three feet high--in his arms. He bore it into the kitchen and stood it in the middle of the floor, holding the mammoth thing, its peaked roof high above his head, and peering solemnly out between one of its arms and its side.

"Why, Mr. Winslow!" exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong.

"Yes, ma'am," said Jed. "I--I fetched it for Babbie. I just kind of thought maybe she'd like it."

Barbara clasped her hands.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, is it for me."

Jed answered.

"'Tis, if you want it," he said.

"Want it? Why, Mamma, it's one of the very best mills! It's a five dollar one, Mamma!"

Mrs. Armstrong protested. "Oh, I couldn't let you do that, Mr. Winslow," she declared. "It is much too expensive a present. And besides--"

She checked herself just in time. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say that she did not know what they could do with it. Their rooms at Mrs. Smalley's were not large. It was as if a dweller in a Harlem flat had been presented with a hippopotamus.

The maker of the mill looked about him, plainly seeking a place to deposit his burden.

"'Tisn't anything much," he said, hastily. "I--I'm real glad for you to have it."

He was about to put it on top of the cookstove, in which there was a roaring fire, but Mrs. Armstrong, by a startled exclamation and a frantic rush, prevented his doing so. So he put it on the table instead. Barbara thanked him profusely. She was overjoyed; there were no comparisons with hippopotami in HER mind. Jed seemed pleased at her appreciation, but he did not smile. Instead he sighed.

"I--I just thought I wanted her to have it, ma'am," he said, turning to Mrs. Armstrong. "'Twould keep her from--from forgettin' me altogether, maybe. . . . Not that there's any real reason why she should remember me, of course," he added.

Barbara was hurt and indignant.

"Of COURSE I shan't forget you, Mr. Winslow," she declared. "Neither will Petunia. And neither will Mamma, I know. She feels awful bad because you don't want us to live here any longer, and--"

"Hush, Babbie, hush!" commanded her mother. Barbara hushed, but she had said enough. Jed turned a wondering face in their direction. He stared without speaking.

Mrs. Armstrong felt that some one must say something.

"You mustn't mind what the child says, Mr. Winslow," she explained, hurriedly. "Of course I realize perfectly that this house is yours and you certainly have the right to do what you please with your own. And I have known all the time that we were here merely on trial."

Jed lifted a big hand.

"Er--er--just a minute, ma'am, please," he begged. "I--I guess my wooden head is beginnin' to splinter or somethin'. Please answer me just this--if--if you'd just as soon: Why are you movin' back to Luretta's?"

It was her turn to look wonderingly at him. "Why, Mr. Winslow," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "isn't that rather an unnecessary question? When Babbie and I came here it was with the understanding that we were to be on trial for a month. We had gone into no details at all, except that the rent for this one month should be forty dollars. You were, as I understood it, to consider the question of our staying and, if you liked us and liked the idea of renting the house at all, you were to come to me and discuss the matter. The month is up and you haven't said a word on the subject. And, knowing what your feelings HAD been, I of course realized that you did not wish us to remain, and so, of course, we are going. I am sorry, very sorry. Babbie and I love this little house, and we wish you might have cared to have us stay in it, but--"

"Hold on! hold on!" Jed was, for him, almost energetic. "Mrs. Armstrong, ma'am, do you mean to tell me you're goin' back to Luretta Smalley's because you think I don't want you to stay? Is that it, honest truth?"

"Why, of course, it is. What else?"

"And--and 'tain't because you can't stand me any longer, same as Mother used to say?"

"Can't stand you? Your mother used to say? What DO you mean, Mr. Winslow?"

"I mean--I mean you ain't goin' because I used to wash my face out in the yard, and--and holler and sing mornin's and look so everlastin' homely--and--and be what everybody calls a town crank-- and--"

"Mr. Winslow! PLEASE!"

"And--and you and Babbie would stay right here if--if you thought I wanted you to?"

"Why, of course. But you don't, do you?"

Before Jed could answer the outside door was thrown open without knock or preliminary warning, and Captain Sam Hunniwell, dripping water like a long-haired dog after a bath, strode into the kitchen.

"Mornin', ma'am," he said, nodding to Mrs. Armstrong. Then, turning to the maker of windmills: "You're the feller I'm lookin' for," he declared. "Is what Philander Hardy told me just now true? Is it?"

Jed was dreamily staring out of the window. He was smiling, a seraphic smile. Receiving no reply, Captain Sam angrily repeated his question. "Is it true?" he demanded.

"No-o, no, I guess 'tisn't. I'd know better if I knew what he told you."

"He told me that Mrs. Armstrong here was movin' back to Luretta Smalley's to-day. Jed Winslow, have you been big enough fool--"

Jed held up the big hand.

"Yes," he said. "I always am."

"You always are--what?"

"A big enough fool. Sam, what is a lease?"

"What is a lease?"

"Yes. Never mind tellin' me; show me. Make out a lease of this house to Mrs. Armstrong here."

Mrs. Armstrong was, naturally, rather surprised.

"Why, Mr. Winslow," she cried; "what are you talking about? We haven't agreed upon rent or--"

"Yes, we have. We've agreed about everything. Er--Babbie, you get your things on and come on over to the shop. You and I mustn't be sittin' 'round here any longer. We've got to get to WORK." _

Read next: Chapter 7

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