Chapter 13

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_ CHAPTER XIII

October passed and November came. The very last of the summer cottages were closed. Orham settled down for its regular winter hibernation. This year it was a bit less of a nap than usual because of the activity at the aviation camp at East Harniss. The swarm of carpenters, plumbers and mechanics was larger than ever there now and the buildings were hastening toward completion, for the first allotment of aviators, soldiers and recruits was due to arrive in March. Major Grover was a busy and a worried man, but he usually found time to drop in at the windmill shop for a moment or two on each of his brief motor trips to Orham. Sometimes he found Jed alone, more often Barbara was there also, and, semi- occasionally, Ruth. The major and Charles Phillips met and appeared to like each other. Charles was still on the rising tide of local popularity. Even Gabe Bearse had a good word to say for him among the many which he said concerning him. Phineas Babbitt, however, continued to express dislike, or, at the most, indifference.

"I'm too old a bird," declared the vindictive little hardware dealer, "to bow down afore a slick tongue and a good-lookin' figgerhead. He's one of Sam Hunniwell's pets and that's enough for me. Anybody that ties up to Sam Hunniwell must have a rotten plank in 'em somewheres; give it time and 'twill come out."

Charles and Jed Winslow were by this time good friends. The young man usually spent at least a few minutes of each day chatting with his eccentric neighbor. They were becoming more intimate, at times almost confidential, although Phillips, like every other friend or acquaintance of "Shavings" Winslow, was inclined to patronize or condescend a bit in his relations with the latter. No one took the windmill maker altogether seriously, not even Ruth Armstrong, although she perhaps came nearest to doing so. Charles would drop in at the shop of a morning, in the interval between breakfast and bank opening, and, perching on a pile of stock, or the workbench, would discuss various things. He and Jed were alike in one characteristic--each had the habit of absent-mindedness and lapsing into silence in the middle of a conversation. Jed's lapses, of course, were likely to occur in the middle of a sentence, even in the middle of a word; with the younger man the symptoms were not so acute.

"Well, Charlie," observed Mr. Winslow, on one occasion, a raw November morning of the week before Thanksgiving, "how's the bank gettin' along?"

Charles was a bit more silent that morning than he had been of late. He appeared to be somewhat reflective, even somber. Jed, on the lookout for just such symptoms, was trying to cheer him up.

"Oh, all right enough, I guess," was the reply.

"Like your work as well as ever, don't you?"

"Yes--oh, yes, I like it, what there is of it. It isn't what you'd call strenuous."

"No, I presume likely not, but I shouldn't wonder if they gave you somethin' more responsible some of these days. They know you're up to doin' it; Cap'n Sam's told me so more'n once."

Here occurred one of the lapses just mentioned. Phillips said nothing for a minute or more. Then he asked: "What sort of a man is Captain Hunniwell?"

"Eh? What sort of a man? You ought to know him yourself pretty well by this time. You see more of him every day than I do."

"I don't mean as a business man or anything like that. I mean what sort of man is he--er--inside? Is he always as good-natured as he seems? How is he around his own house? With his daughter--or--or things like that? You've known him all your life, you know, and I haven't."

"Um--ye-es--yes, I've known Sam for a good many years. He's square all through, Sam is. Honest as the day is long and--"

Charles stirred uneasily. "I know that, of course," he interrupted. "I wasn't questioning his honesty."

Jed's tender conscience registered a pang. The reference to honesty had not been made with any ulterior motive.

"Sartin, sartin," he said; "I know you wasn't, Charlie, course I know that. You wanted to know what sort of a man Sam was in his family and such, I judge. Well, he's a mighty good father--almost too good, I suppose likely some folks would say. He just bows down and worships that daughter of his. Anything Maud wants that he can give her she can have. And she wants a good deal, I will give in," he added, with his quiet drawl.

His caller did not speak. Jed whistled a few mournful bars and sharpened a chisel on an oilstone.

"If John D. Vanderbilt should come around courtin' Maud," he went on, after a moment, "I don't know as Sam would cal'late he was good enough for her. Anyhow he'd feel that 'twas her that was doin' the favor, not John D. . . . And I guess he'd be right; I don't know any Vanderbilts, but I've known Maud since she was a baby. She's a--"

He paused, inspecting a nick in the chisel edge. Again Phillips shifted in his seat on the edge of the workbench.

"Well?" he asked.

"Eh?" Jed looked up in mild inquiry. "What is it?" he said.

"That's what I want to know--what is it? You were talking about Maud Hunniwell. You said you had known her since she was a baby and that she was--something or other; that was as far as you got."

"Sho! . . . Hum. . . . Oh, yes, yes; I was goin' to say she was a mighty nice girl, as nice as she is good-lookin' and lively. There's a dozen young chaps in this county crazy about her this minute, but there ain't any one of 'em good enough for her. . . . Hello, you goin' so soon? 'Tisn't half-past nine yet, is it?"

Phillips did not answer. His somber expression was still in evidence. Jed would have liked to cheer him up, but he did not know how. However he made an attempt by changing the subject.

"How is Babbie this mornin'?" he asked.

"She's as lively as a cricket, of course. And full of excitement. She's going to school next Monday, you know. You'll rather miss her about the shop here, won't you?"

"Miss her! My land of Goshen! I shouldn't be surprised if I follered her to school myself, like Mary's little lamb. Miss her! Don't talk!"

"Well, so long. . . . What is it?"

"Eh?"

"What is it you want to say? You look as if you wanted to say something."

"Do I? . . . Hum. . . . Oh, 'twasn't anything special. . . . How's--er--how's your sister this mornin'?"

"Oh, she's well. I haven't seen her so well since--that is, for a long time. You've made a great hit with Sis, Jed," he added, with a laugh. "She can't say enough good things about you. Says you are her one dependable in Orham, or something like that."

Jed's face turned a bright red. "Oh, sho, sho!" he protested, "she mustn't talk that way. I haven't done anything."

"She says you have. Well, by-by."

He went away. It was some time before Jed resumed his chisel- sharpening.

Later, when he came to reflect upon his conversation with young Phillips there were one or two things about it which puzzled him. They were still puzzling him when Maud Hunniwell came into the shop. Maud, in a new fall suit, hat and fur, was a picture, a fact of which she was as well aware as the next person. Jed, as always, was very glad to see her.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "Talk about angels and--and they fly in, so to speak. Real glad to see you, Maud. Sit down, sit down. There's a chair 'round here somewheres. Now where--? Oh, yes, I'm sittin' in it. Hum! That's one of the reasons why I didn't see it, I presume likely. You take it and I'll fetch another from the kitchen. No, I won't, I'll sit on the bench. . . . Hum . . . has your pa got any money left in that bank of his?"

Miss Hunniwell was, naturally, surprised at the question.

"Why, I hope so," she said. "Did you think he hadn't?"

"W-e-e-ll, I didn't know. That dress of yours, and that new bonnet, must have used up consider'ble, to say nothin' of that woodchuck you've got 'round your neck. 'Tis a woodchuck, ain't it?" he added, solemnly.

"Woodchuck! Well, I like that! If you knew what a silver fox costs and how long I had to coax before I got this one you would be more careful in your language," she declared, with a toss of her head.

Jed sighed. "That's the trouble with me," he observed. "I never know enough to pick out the right things--or folks--to be careful with. If I set out to be real toady and humble to what I think is a peacock it generally turns out to be a Shanghai rooster. And the same when it's t'other way about. It's a great gift to be able to tell the real--er--what is it?--gold foxes from the woodchucks in this life. I ain't got it and that's one of the two hundred thousand reasons why I ain't rich."

He began to hum one of his doleful melodies. Maud laughed.

"Mercy, what a long sermon!" she exclaimed. "No wonder you sing a hymn after it."

Jed sniffed. "Um . . . ye-es," he drawled. "If I was more worldly-minded I'd take up a collection, probably. Well, how's all the United States Army; the gold lace part of it, I mean?"

His visitor laughed again. "Those that I know seem to be very well and happy," she replied.

"Um . . . yes . . . sartin. They'd be happy, naturally. How could they help it, under the circumstances?"

He began picking over an assortment of small hardware, varying his musical accompaniment by whistling instead of singing. His visitor looked at him rather oddly.

"Jed," she observed, "you're changed."

Changed? I ain't changed my clothes, if that's what you mean. Course if I'd know I was goin' to have bankers' daughters with gold--er--muskrats 'round their necks come to see me I'd have dressed up."

"Oh, I don't mean your clothes. I mean you--yourself--you've changed."

"I've changed! How, for mercy sakes?"

"Oh, lots of ways. You pay the ladies compliments now. You wouldn't have done that a year ago."

"Eh? Pay compliments? I'm afraid you're mistaken. Your pa says I'm so absent-minded and forgetful that I don't pay some of my bills till the folks I owe 'em to make proclamations they're goin' to sue me; and other bills I pay two or three times over."

"Don't try to escape by dodging the subject. You HAVE changed in the last few months. I think," holding the tail of the silver fox before her face and regarding him over it, "I think you must be in love."

"Eh?" Jed looked positively frightened. "In love!"

"Yes. You're blushing now."

"Now, now, Maud, that ain't--that's sunburn."

"No, it's not sunburn. Who is it, Jed?" mischievously. "Is it the pretty widow? Is it Mrs. Armstrong?"

A good handful of the hardware fell to the floor. Jed thankfully scrambled down to pick it up. Miss Hunniwell, expressing contrition at being indirectly responsible for the mishap, offered to help him. He declined, of course, but in the little argument which followed the dangerous and embarrassing topic was forgotten. It was not until she was about to leave the shop that Maud again mentioned the Armstrong name. And then, oddly enough, it was she, not Mr. Winslow, who showed embarrassment.

"Jed," she said, "what do you suppose I came here for this morning?"

Jed's reply was surprisingly prompt.

"To show your new rig-out, of course," he said. "'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' There, NOW I can take up a collection, can't I?"

His visitor pouted. "If you do I shan't put anything in the box," she declared. "The idea of thinking that I came here just to show off my new things. I've a good mind not to invite you at all now."

She doubtless expected apologies and questions as to what invitation was meant. They might have been forthcoming had not the windmill maker been engaged just at that moment in gazing abstractedly at the door of the little stove which heated, or was intended to heat, the workshop. He did not appear to have heard her remark, so the young lady repeated it. Still he paid no attention. Miss Maud, having inherited a goodly share of the Hunniwell disposition, demanded an explanation.

"What in the world is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are you staring at that stove?"

Jed started and came to life. "Eh?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I was thinkin' what an everlastin' nuisance 'twas--the stove, I mean. It needs more wood about every five minutes in the day, seems to-- needs it now, that's what made me think of it. I was just wonderin' if 'twouldn't be a good notion to set it up out in the yard."

"Out in the yard? Put the stove out in the yard? For goodness' sake, what for?"

Jed clasped his knee in his hand and swung his foot back and forth.

"Oh" he drawled, "if 'twas out in the yard I shouldn't know whether it needed wood or not, so 'twouldn't be all the time botherin' me."

However, he rose and replenished the stove. Miss Hunniwell laughed. Then she said: "Jed, you don't deserve it, because you didn't hear me when I first dropped the hint, but I came here with an invitation for you. Pa and I expect you to eat your Thanksgiving dinner with us."

If she had asked him to eat it in jail Jed could not have been more disturbed.

"Now--now, Maud," he stammered, "I--I'm ever so much obliged to you, but I--I don't see how--"

"Nonsense! I see how perfectly well. You always act just this way whenever I invite you to anything. You're not afraid of Pa or me, are you?"

"W-e-e-ll, well, I ain't afraid of your Pa 's I know of, but of course, when such a fascinatin' young woman as you comes along, all rigged up to kill, why, it's natural that an old single relic like me should get kind of nervous."

Maud clasped her hands. "Oh," she cried, "there's another compliment! You HAVE changed, Jed. I'm going to ask Father what it means."

This time Jed was really alarmed. "Now, now, now," he protested, "don't go tell your Pa yarns about me. He'll come in here and pester me to death. You know what a tease he is when he gets started. Don't, Maud, don't."

She looked hugely delighted at the prospect. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "I certainly shall tell him," she declared, "unless you promise to eat with us on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, come along, don't be so silly. You've eaten at our house hundreds of times."

This was a slight exaggeration. Jed had eaten there possibly five times in the last five years. He hesitated.

"Ain't goin' to be any other company, is there?" he asked, after a moment. It was now that Maud showed her first symptoms of embarrassment.

"Why," she said, twirling the fox tail and looking at the floor, "there may be one or two more. I thought--I mean Pa and I thought perhaps we might invite Mrs. Armstrong and Babbie. You know them, Jed, so they won't be like strangers. And Pa thinks Mrs. Armstrong is a very nice lady, a real addition to the town; I've heard him say so often," she added, earnestly.

Jed was silent. She looked up at him from under the brim of the new hat.

"You wouldn't mind them, Jed, would you?" she asked. "They wouldn't be like strangers, you know."

Jed rubbed his chin. "I--I don't know's I would," he mused, "always providin' they didn't mind me. But I don't cal'late Mrs. Ruth--Mrs. Armstrong, I mean--would want to leave Charlie to home alone on Thanksgivin' Day. If she took Babbie, you know, there wouldn't be anybody left to keep him company."

Miss Hunniwell twirled the fox tail in an opposite direction. "Oh, of course," she said, with elaborate carelessness, "we should invite Mrs. Armstrong's brother if we invited her. Of course we should HAVE to do that."

Jed nodded, but he made no comment. His visitor watched him from beneath the hat brim.

"You--you haven't any objection to Mr. Phillips, have you?" she queried.

"Eh? Objections? To Charlie? Oh, no, no."

"You like him, don't you? Father likes him very much."

"Yes, indeed; like him fust-rate. All hands like Charlie, the women-folks especially."

There was a perceptible interval before Miss Hunniwell spoke again. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"Eh? Oh, nothin', except that, accordin' to your dad, he's a 'specially good hand at waitin' on the women and girls up at the bank, polite and nice to 'em, you know. He's even made a hit with old Melissy Busteed, and it takes a regular feller to do that."

He would not promise to appear at the Hunniwell home on Thanksgiving, but he did agree to think it over. Maud had to be content with that. However, she declared that she should take his acceptance for granted.

"We shall set a place for you," she said. "Of course you'll come. It will be such a nice party, you and Pa and Mrs. Armstrong and I and little Babbie. Oh, we'll have great fun, see if we don't."

"And Charlie; you're leavin' out Charlie," Jed reminded her.

"Oh, yes, so I was. Well, I suppose he'll come, too. Good-by."

She skipped away, waving him a farewell with the tail of the silver fox. Jed, gazing after her, rubbed his chin reflectively.

His indecision concerning the acceptance of the Hunniwell invitation lasted until the day before Thanksgiving. Then Barbara added her persuasions to those of Captain Sam and his daughter and he gave in.

"If you don't go, Uncle Jed," asserted Babbie, "we're all goin' to be awfully disappointed, 'specially me and Petunia--and Mamma--and Uncle Charlie."

"Oh, then the rest of you folks won't care, I presume likely?"

Babbie thought it over. "Why, there aren't any more of us," she said. "Oh, I see! You're joking again, aren't you, Uncle Jed? 'Most everybody I know laughs when they make jokes, but you don't, you look as if you were going to cry. That's why I don't laugh sometimes right off," she explained, politely. "If you was really feeling so bad it wouldn't be nice to laugh, you know."

Jed laughed then, himself. "So Petunia would feel bad if I didn't go to Sam's, would she?" he inquired.

"Yes," solemnly. "She told me she shouldn't eat one single thing if you didn't go. She's a very high-strung child."

That settled it. Jed argued that Petunia must on no account be strung higher than she was and consented to dine at the Hunniwells'.

The day before Thanksgiving brought another visitor to the windmill shop, one as welcome as he was unexpected. Jed, hearing the door to the stock room open, shouted "Come in" from his seat at the workbench in the inner room. When his summons was obeyed he looked up to see a khaki-clad figure advancing with extended hand.

"Why, hello, Major!" he exclaimed. "I'm real glad to-- Eh, 'tain't Major Grover, is it? Who-- Why, Leander Babbitt! Well, well, well!"

Young Babbitt was straight and square-shouldered and brown. Military training and life at Camp Devens had wrought the miracle in his case which it works in so many. Jed found it hard to recognize the stoop-shouldered son of the hardware dealer in the spruce young soldier before him. When he complimented Leander upon the improvement the latter disclaimed any credit.

"Thank the drill master second and yourself first, Jed," he said. "They'll make a man of a fellow up there at Ayer if he'll give 'em half a chance. Probably I shouldn't have had the chance if it hadn't been for you. You were the one who really put me up to enlisting."

Jed refused to listen. "Can't make a man out of a punkinhead," he asserted. "If you hadn't had the right stuff in you, Leander, drill masters nor nobody else could have fetched it out. How do you like belongin' to Uncle Sam?"

Young Babbitt liked it and said so. "I feel as if I were doing something at last," he said; "as if I was part of the biggest thing in the world. Course I'm only a mighty little part, but, after all, it's something."

Jed nodded, gravely. "You bet it's somethin'," he argued. "It's a lot, a whole lot. I only wish I was standin' alongside of you in the ranks, Leander. . . . I'd be a sight, though, wouldn't I?" he added, his lip twitching in the fleeting smile. "What do you think the Commodore, or General, or whoever 'tis bosses things at the camp, would say when he saw me? He'd think the flagpole had grown feet, and was walkin' round, I cal'late."

He asked his young friend what reception he met with upon his return home. Leander smiled ruefully.

"My step-mother seemed glad enough to see me," he said. "She and I had some long talks on the subject and I think she doesn't blame me much for going into the service. I told her the whole story and, down in her heart, I believe she thinks I did right."

Jed nodded. "Don't see how she could help it," he said. "How does your dad take it?"

Leander hesitated. "Well," he said, "you know Father. He doesn't change his mind easily. He and I didn't get as close together as I wish we could. And it wasn't my fault that we didn't," he added, earnestly.

Jed understood. He had known Phineas Babbitt for many years and he knew the little man's hard, implacable disposition and the violence of his prejudices.

"Um-hm," he said. "All the same, Leander, I believe your father thinks more of you than he does of anything else on earth."

"I shouldn't wonder if you was right, Jed. But on the other hand I'm afraid he and I will never be the same after I come back from the war--always providing I do come back, of course."

"Sshh, sshh! Don't talk that way. Course you'll come back."

"You never can tell. However, if I knew I wasn't going to, it wouldn't make any difference in my feelings about going. I'm glad I enlisted and I'm mighty thankful to you for backing me up in it. I shan't forget it, Jed."

"Sho, sho! It's easy to tell other folks what to do. That's how the Kaiser earns his salary; only he gives advice to the Almighty, and I ain't got as far along as that yet."

They discussed the war in general and by sections. Just before he left, young Babbitt said:

"Jed, there is one thing that worries me a little in connection with Father. He was bitter against the war before we went into it and before he and Cap'n Sam Hunniwell had their string of rows. Since then and since I enlisted he has been worse than ever. The things he says against the government and against the country make ME want to lick him--and I'm his own son. I am really scared for fear he'll get himself jailed for being a traitor or something of that sort."

Mr. Winslow asked if Phineas' feeling against Captain Hunniwell had softened at all. Leander's reply was a vigorous negative.

"Not a bit," he declared. "He hates the cap'n worse than ever, if that's possible, and he'll do him some bad turn some day, if he can, I'm afraid. You must think it's queer my speaking this way of my own father," he added. "Well, I don't to any one else. Somehow a fellow always feels as if he could say just what he thinks to you, Jed Winslow. I feel that way, anyhow."

He and Jed shook hands at the door in the early November twilight. Leander was to eat his Thanksgiving dinner at home and then leave for camp on the afternoon train.

"Well, good-by," he said.

Jed seemed loath to relinquish the handclasp.

"Oh, don't say good-by; it's just 'See you later,'" he replied.

Leander smiled. "Of course. Well, then, see you later, Jed. We'll write once in a while; eh?"

Jed promised. The young fellow strode off into the dusk. Somehow, with his square shoulders and his tanned, resolute country face, he seemed to typify Young America setting cheerfully forth to face-- anything--that Honor and Decency may still be more than empty words in this world of ours. _

Read next: Chapter 14

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