"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 Bea.r.s.e, 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 pa.s.s 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 embarra.s.sed.
"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 pa.s.sed 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.