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."

CHAPTER VII

And so, in as sudden a fashion as he had granted the "month's trial," did Jed grant the permanent tenure of his property. The question of rent, which might easily have been, with the ordinary sort of landlord, a rock in the channel, turned out to be not even a pebble. Captain Hunniwell, who was handling the business details, including the making out of the lease, was somewhat troubled.

"But, Jed," he protested, "you've GOT to listen to me. She won't pay forty a month, although she agrees with me that for a furnished house in a location like this it's dirt cheap. Of course she's takin' it for all the year, which does make consider'ble difference, although from May to October, when the summer folks are here, I could get a hundred and forty a month just as easy as . . .

Eh? I believe you ain't heard a word I've been sayin'. Gracious king! If you ain't enough to drive the mate of a cattle boat into gettin' religion! Do you hear me? I say she won't pay--"

Jed, who was sitting before the battered old desk in the corner of his workshop, did not look around, but he waved his right hand, the fingers of which held the stump of a pencil, over his shoulder.

"Ssh-h, sh-h, Sam!" he observed, mildly. "Don't bother me now; please don't, there's a good feller. I'm tryin' to work out somethin' important."

"Well, this is important. Or, if it ain't, there's plenty that is important waitin' for me up at the bank. I'm handlin' this house business as a favor to you. If you think I've got nothin' else to do you're mistaken."

Jed nodded, contritely, and turned to face his friend. "I know it, Sam," he said, "I know it. I haven't got the least mite of excuse for troublin' you."

"You ain't troublin' me--not that way. All I want of you is to say yes or no. I tell you Mrs. Armstrong thinks she can't afford to pay forty a month."

"Yes."

"And perhaps she can't. But you've got your own interests to think about. What shall I do?"

"Yes."

"YES! What in time are you sayin' yes for?"

"Hum? Eh? Oh, excuse me, Sam; I didn't mean yes, I mean no."

"Gracious king!"

"Well--er--er--," desperately, "you told me to say yes or no, so I--"

"See here, Jed Winslow, HAVE you heard what I've been sayin'?"

"Why, no, Sam; honest I ain't. I've run across an idea about makin' a different kind of mill--one like a gull, you know, that'll flap its wings up and down when the wind blows--and--er--I'm afraid my head is solid full of that and nothin' else. There generally ain't more'n room for one idea in my head," he added, apologetically.

"Sometimes that one gets kind of cramped."

The captain snorted in disgust. Jed looked repentant and distressed.

"I'm awful sorry, Sam," he declared. "But if it's about that house of mine--rent or anything, you just do whatever Mrs. Armstrong says."

"Whatever SHE says? Haven't you got anything to say?"

"No, no-o, I don't know's I have. You see, I've settled that she and Babbie are to have the house for as long as they want it, so it's only fair to let them settle the rest, seems to me. Whatever Mrs. Armstrong wants to pay'll be all right. You just leave it to her."

Captain Sam rose to his feet.

"I've a dum good mind to," he declared "'Twould serve you right if she paid you ten cents a year." Then, with a glance of disgust at the mountain of old letters and papers piled upon the top of the desk where his friend was at work, he added: "What do you clean that desk of yours with--a shovel?"

The slow smile drifted across the Winslow face. "I cal'late that's what I should have to use, Sam," he drawled, "if I ever cleaned it."

The captain and the widow agreed upon thirty-five dollars a month.

It developed that she owned their former house in Middleford and that the latter had been rented for a very much higher rent. "My furniture," she added, "that which I did not sell when we gave up housekeeping, is stored with a friend there. I know it is extravagant, my hiring a furnished house, but I'm sure Mr. Winslow wouldn't let this one unfurnished and, besides, it would be a crime to disturb furniture and rooms which fit each other as these do.

And, after all, at the end of a year I may wish to leave Orham. Of course I hope I shall not, but I may."

Captain Sam would have asked questions concerning her life in Middleford, in fact he did ask a few, but the answers he received were unsatisfactory. Mrs. Armstrong evidently did not care to talk on the subject. The captain thought her att.i.tude a little odd, but decided that the tragedy of her husband's death must be the cause of her reticence. Her parting remarks on this occasion furnished an explanation.

"If you please, Captain Hunniwell," she said, "I would rather you did not tell any one about my having lived in Middleford and my affairs there. I have told very few people in Orham and I think on the whole it is better not to. What is the use of having one's personal history discussed by strangers?"

She was evidently a trifle embarra.s.sed and confused as she said this, for she blushed just a little. Captain Sam decided that the blush was becoming. Also, as he walked back to the bank, he reflected that Jed Winslow's tenant was likely to have her personal history and affairs discussed whether she wished it or not. Young women as attractive as she were bound to be discussed, especially in a community the size of Orham. And, besides, whoever else she may have told, she certainly had told him that Middleford had formerly been her home and he had told Maud and Jed. Of course they would say nothing if he asked them, but perhaps they had told it already. And why should Mrs. Armstrong care, anyway?

"Let folks talk," he said that evening, in conversation with his daughter. "Let 'em talk, that's my motto. When they're lyin'

about me I know they ain't lyin' about anybody else, that's some comfort. But women folks, I cal'late, feel different."

Maud was interested and a little suspicious.

"You don't suppose, Pa," she said, "that this Mrs. Armstrong has a past, do you?"

"A past? What kind of a thing is a past, for thunder sakes?"

"Why, I mean a--a--well, has she done something she doesn't want other people to know; is she trying to hide something, like--well, as people do in stories?"

"Eh? Oh, in the books! I see. Well, young woman, I cal'late the first thing for your dad to do is to find out what sort of books you read. A past! Ho, ho! I guess likely Mrs. Armstrong is a plaguey sight more worried about the future than she is about the past. She has lived the past already, but she's got to live the future and pay the bills belongin' to it, and that's no triflin'

job in futures like these days."

Needless to say Jed Winslow did no speculating concerning his tenant's "past." Having settled the question of that tenancy definitely and, as he figured it, forever, he put the matter entirely out of his mind and centered all his energies upon the new variety of mill, the gull which was to flap its wings when the wind blew. Barbara was, of course, much interested in the working out of this invention, and her questions were many. Occasionally Mrs.

Armstrong came into the shop. She and Jed became better acquainted.

The acquaintanceship developed. Jed formed a daily habit of stopping at the Armstrong door to ask if there were any errands to be done downtown. "Goin' right along down on my own account, ma'am," was his invariable excuse. "Might just as well run your errands at the same time." Also, whenever he chopped a supply of kindling wood for his own use he chopped as much more and filled the oilcloth-covered box which stood by the stove in the Armstrong kitchen. He would not come in and sit down, however, in spite of Barbara's and her mother's urgent invitation; he was always too "busy" for that.

But the time came when he did come in, actually come in and sit down to a meal. Barbara, of course, was partially responsible for this amazing invitation, but it was Heman Taylor's old brindle tomcat which really brought it to pa.s.s. The cat in question was a disreputable old scalawag, with tattered ears and a scarred hide, souvenirs of fights innumerable, with no beauty and less morals, and named, with appropriate fitness, "Cherub."

It was a quarter to twelve on a Sunday morning and Jed was preparing his dinner. The piece de resistance of the dinner was, in this instance, to be a mackerel. Jed had bought the mackerel of the fish peddler the previous afternoon and it had been reposing on a plate in the little ancient ice-chest which stood by the back door of the Winslow kitchen. Barbara, just back from Sunday school and arrayed in her best, saw that back door open and decided to call. Jed, as always, was glad to see her.

"You're getting dinner, aren't you, Mr. Winslow?" she observed.

Jed looked at her over his spectacles. "Yes," he answered.

"Unless somethin' happens I'm gettin' dinner."

His visitor looked puzzled.

"Why, whatever happened you would be getting dinner just the same, wouldn't you?" she said. "You might not have it, but you'd be getting it, you know."