"The important things of life, eh?" queried Major Grover.
"Um-hm. I don"t know"s there"s anything much more important than eatin". It"s a kind of expensive habit, but an awful hard one to swear off of. . . . Hum. . . . Speakin" of important things, was that plan of yours very important, Mr.--I mean Major?"
"Rather--yes."
"Sho! . . . And I stuck it on a stick and set it afloat on a shingle. I cal"late if Sam Hunniwell knew of that he"d say "twas characteristic. . . . Hum. . . . Sho! . . . I read once about a feller that found where the great seal of England was hid and he used it to crack nuts with. I guess likely that feller must have been my great, great, great granddad."
Major Grover looked surprised.
"I"ve read that story," he said, "but I can"t remember where."
Jed was stirring his chowder. "Eh?" he said, absently. "Where?
Oh, "twas in--the--er--"Prince and the Pauper," you know. Mark Twain wrote it."
"That"s so; I remember now. So you"ve read "The Prince and the Pauper"?"
"Um-hm. Read about everything Mark Twain ever wrote, I shouldn"t wonder."
"Do you read a good deal?"
"Some. . . . There! Now we"ll call that chowder done for the second time, I guess. Set down and pa.s.s your plate, Babbie.
You"ll set down and have a bite with us, won"t you, Mr.--Major--I snum I"ve forgot your name. You mustn"t mind; I forget my own sometimes."
"Grover. I am a major in the Engineers, stationed here for the present to look after this construction work. No, thank you, I should like to stay, but I must go back to my office."
"Dear, dear! That"s too bad. Babbie and I would like first-rate to have you stay. Wouldn"t we, Babbie?"
Barbara nodded.
"Yes, sir," she said. "And the chowder will be awf"ly good. Uncle Jed"s chowders always are."
"I"m sure of it." Major Grover"s look of surprise was more evident than ever as he gazed first at Barbara and then at Mr. Winslow.
His next question was addressed to the latter.
"So you are this young lady"s uncle?" he inquired. It was Barbara who answered.
"Not my really uncle," she announced. "He"s just my make-believe uncle. He says he"s my step-uncle "cause he comes to our back steps so much. But he"s almost better than a real uncle," she declared, emphatically.
The major laughed heartily and said he was sure of it. He seemed to find the pair hugely entertaining.
"Well, good-by," he said. "I hope you and your uncle will visit us again soon. And I hope next time no one will take him for a spy."
Jed looked mournfully at the fire. "I"ve been took for a fool often enough," he observed, "but a spy is a consider"ble worse guess."
Grover looked at him. "I"m not so sure," he said. "I imagine both guesses would be equally bad. Well, good-by. Don"t forget to come again."
"Thank you, thank you. And when you"re over to Orham drop in some day and see Babbie and me. Anybody--the constable or anybody--will tell you where I live."
Their visitor laughed, thanked him, and hurried away. Said Barbara between spoonfuls:
"He"s a real nice officer one, isn"t he, Uncle Jed? Petunia and I like him."
During the rest of the afternoon they walked along the beach, picked up sh.e.l.ls, inspected "horse-foot" crabs, jelly fish and "sand collars," and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that it was after four when they started for home. The early October dusk settled down as they entered the winding channel between the sand islands and the stretches of beaches. Barbara, wrapped in an old coat of Captain Perez"s, which, smelling strongly of fish, had been found in a locker, seemed to be thinking very hard and, for a wonder, saying little. At last she broke the silence.
"That Mr. Major officer man was "stonished when I called you "Uncle Jed,"" she observed. "Why, do you s"pose?"
Jed whistled a few bars and peered over the side at the seaweed marking the border of the narrow, shallow channel.
"I cal"late," he drawled, after a moment, "that he hadn"t noticed how much we look alike."
It was Barbara"s turn to be astonished.
"But we DON"T look alike, Uncle Jed," she declared. "Not a single bit."
Jed nodded. "No-o," he admitted. "I presume that"s why he didn"t notice it."
This explanation, which other people might have found somewhat unsatisfactory, appeared to satisfy Miss Armstrong; at any rate she accepted it without comment. There was another pause in the conversation. Then she said:
"I don"t know, after all, as I ought to call you "Uncle Jed," Uncle Jed."
"Eh? Why not, for the land sakes?"
""Cause uncles make people cry in our family. I heard Mamma crying last night, after she thought I was asleep. And I know she was crying about Uncle Charlie. She cried when they took him away, you know, and now she cries when he"s coming home again. She cried awf"ly when they took him away."
"Oh, she did, eh?"
"Yes. He used to live with Mamma and me at our house in Middleford. He"s awful nice, Uncle Charlie is, and Petunia and I were very fond of him. And then they took him away and we haven"t seen him since."
"He"s been sick, maybe."
"Perhaps so. But he must be well again now cause he"s coming home; Mamma said so."
"Um-hm. Well, I guess that was it. Probably he had to go to the-- the hospital or somewhere and your ma has been worried about him.
He"s had an operation maybe. Lots of folks have operations nowadays; it"s got to be the fashion, seems so."
The child reflected.
"Do they have to have policemen come to take you to the hospital?"
she asked.
"Eh? . . . Policemen?"
"Yes. "Twas two big policemen took Uncle Charlie away the first time. We were having supper, Mamma and he and I, and Nora went to the door when the bell rang and the big policemen came and Uncle Charlie went away with them. And Mamma cried so. And she wouldn"t tell me a bit about. . . . Oh! OH! I"ve told about the policemen!
Mamma said I mustn"t ever, EVER tell anybody that. And--and I did!
I DID!"
Aghast at her own depravity, she began to sob. Jed tried to comfort her and succeeded, after a fashion, at least she stopped crying, although she was silent most of the way home. And Jed himself was silent also. He shared her feeling of guilt. He felt that he had been told something which neither he nor any outsider should have heard, and his sensitive spirit found little consolation in the fact that the hearing of it had come through no fault of his. Besides, he was not so sure that he had been faultless. He had permitted the child"s disclosures to go on when, perhaps, he should have stopped them. By the time the "Araminta"s"
nose slid up on the sloping beach at the foot of the bluff before the Winslow place she held two conscience-stricken culprits instead of one.