"Don't you get tired of hearing the story of my life?" he asked.

"I--"

He stopped short and the smile faded from his lips. Jed knew why.

The story of his life was just what he had not told, what he could not tell.

As January slid icily into February Mr. Gabriel Bea.r.s.e became an unusually busy person. There were so many things to talk about.

Among these was one morsel which Gabe rolled succulently beneath his tongue. Charles Phillips, "'cordin' to everybody's tell," was keeping company with Maud Hunniwell.

"There ain't no doubt of it," declared Mr. Bea.r.s.e. "All hands is talkin' about it. Looks's if Cap'n Sam would have a son-in-law on his hands pretty soon. How do you cal'late he'd like the idea, Shavin's?"

Jed squinted along the edge of the board he was planing. He made no reply. Gabe tried again.

"How do you cal'late Cap'n Sam'll like the notion of his pet daughter takin' up with another man?" he queried. Jed was still mute. His caller lost patience.

"Say, what ails you?" he demanded. "Can't you say nothin'?"

Mr. Winslow put down the board and took up another.

"Ye-es," he drawled.

"Then why don't you, for thunder sakes?"

"Eh? . . . Um. . . Oh, I did."

"Did what?"

"Say nothin'."

"Oh, you divilish idiot! Stop tryin' to be funny. I asked you how you thought Cap'n Sam would take the notion of Maud's havin' a steady beau? She's had a good many after her, but looks as if she was stuck on this one for keeps."

Jed sighed and looked over his spectacles at Mr. Bea.r.s.e. The latter grew uneasy under the scrutiny.

"What in time are you lookin' at me like that for?" he asked, pettishly.

The windmill maker sighed again. "Why--er--Gab," he drawled, "I was just thinkin' likely YOU might be stuck for keeps."

"Eh? Stuck? What are you talkin' about?"

"Stuck on that box you're sittin' on. I had the glue pot standin'

on that box just afore you came in and . . . er . . . it leaks consider'ble."

Mr. Bea.r.s.e raspingly separated his nether garment from the top of the box and departed, expressing profane opinions. Jed's lips twitched for an instant, then he puckered them and began to whistle.

But, although he had refused to discuss the matter with Gabriel Bea.r.s.e, he realized that there was a strong element of probability in the latter's surmise. It certainly did look as if the spoiled daughter of Orham's bank president had lost her heart to her father's newest employee. Maud had had many admirers; some very earnest and lovelorn swains had hopefully climbed the Hunniwell front steps only to sorrowfully descend them again. Miss Melissa Busteed and other local scandal scavengers had tartly cla.s.sified the young lady as the "worst little flirt on the whole Cape," which was not true. But Maud was pretty and vivacious and she was not averse to the society and adoration of the male s.e.x in general, although she had never until now shown symptoms of preference for an individual. But Charlie Phillips had come and seen and, judging by appearances, conquered.

Since the Thanksgiving dinner the young man had been a frequent visitor at the Hunniwell home. Maud was musical, she played well and had a pleasing voice. Charles' baritone was unusually good.

So on many evenings Captain Sam's front parlor rang with melody, while the captain smoked in the big rocker and listened admiringly and gazed dotingly. At the moving-picture theater on Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day evenings Orham nudged and winked when two Hunniwells and a Phillips came down the aisle. Even at the Congregational church, where Maud sang in the choir, the young bank clerk was beginning to be a fairly constant attendant. Captain Eri Hedge declared that that settled it.

"When a young feller who ain't been to meetin' for land knows how long," observed Captain Eri, "all of a sudden begins showin' up every Sunday reg'lar as clockwork, you can make up your mind it's owin' to one of two reasons--either he's got religion or a girl.

In this case there ain't any revival in town, so--"

And the captain waved his hand.

Jed was not blind and he had seen, perhaps sooner than any one else, the possibilities in the case. And what he saw distressed him greatly. Captain Sam Hunniwell was his life-long friend. Maud had been his pet since her babyhood; she and he had had many confidential chats together, over troubles at school, over petty disagreements with her father, over all sorts of minor troubles and joys. Captain Sam had mentioned to him, more than once, the probability of his daughter's falling in love and marrying some time or other, but they both had treated the idea as vague and far off, almost as a joke.

And now it was no longer far off, the falling in love at least.

And as for its being a joke--Jed shuddered at the thought. He was very fond of Charlie Phillips; he had made up his mind at first to like him because he was Ruth's brother, but now he liked him for himself. And, had things been other than as they were, he could think of no one to whom he had rather see Maud Hunniwell married.

In fact, had Captain Hunniwell known the young man's record, of his slip and its punishment, Jed would have been quite content to see the latter become Maud's husband. A term in prison, especially when, as in this case, he believed it to be an unwarranted punishment, would have counted for nothing in the unworldly mind of the windmill maker. But Captain Sam did not know. He was tremendously proud of his daughter; in his estimation no man would have been quite good enough for her. What would he say when he learned? What would Maud say when she learned? for it was almost certain that Charles had not told her. These were some of the questions which weighed upon the simple soul of Jedidah Edgar Wilfred Winslow.

And heavier still there weighed the thought of Ruth Armstrong. He had given her his word not to mention her brother's secret to a soul, not even to him. And yet, some day or other, as sure and certain as the daily flowing and ebbing of the tides, that secret would become known. Some day Captain Sam Hunniwell would learn it; some day Maud would learn it. Better, far better, that they learned it before marriage, or even before the public announcement of their engagement--always provided there was to be such an engagement. In fact, were it not for Ruth herself, no consideration for Charles' feelings would have prevented Jed's taking the matter up with the young man and warning him that, unless he made a clean breast to the captain and Maud, he--Jed-- would do it for him. The happiness of two such friends should not be jeopardized if he could prevent it.

But there was Ruth. She, not her brother, was primarily responsible for obtaining for him the bank position and obtaining it under fake pretenses. And she, according to her own confession to Jed, had urged upon Charles the importance of telling no one.

Jed himself would have known nothing, would have had only a vague, indefinite suspicion, had she not taken him into her confidence.

And to him that confidence was precious, sacred. If Charlie's secret became known, it was not he alone who would suffer; Ruth, too, would be disgraced. She and Babbie might have to leave Orham, might have to go out of his life forever.

No wonder that, as the days pa.s.sed, and Gabe Bea.r.s.e's comments and those of Captain Eri Hedge were echoed and rea.s.serted by the majority of Orham tongues, Jed Winslow's worry and foreboding increased. He watched Charlie Phillips go whistling out of the yard after supper, and sighed as he saw him turn up the road in the direction of the Hunniwell home. He watched Maud's face when he met her and, although the young lady was in better spirits and prettier than he had ever seen her, these very facts made him miserable, because he accepted them as proofs that the situation was as he feared. He watched Ruth's face also and there, too, he saw, or fancied that he saw, a growing anxiety. She had been very well; her spirits, like Maud's, had been light; she had seemed younger and so much happier than when he and she first met. The little Winslow house was no longer so quiet, with no sound of voices except those of Barbara and her mother. There were Red Cross sewing meetings there occasionally, and callers came. Major Grover was one of the latter. The major's errands in Orham were more numerous than they had been, and his trips thither much more frequent, in consequence. And whenever he came he made it a point to drop in, usually at the windmill shop first, and then upon Babbie at the house. Sometimes he brought her home from school in his car. He told Jed that he had taken a great fancy to the little girl and could not bear to miss an opportunity of seeing her.

Which statement Jed, of course, accepted wholeheartedly.

But Jed was sure that Ruth had been anxious and troubled of late and he believed the reason to be that which troubled him. He hoped she might speak to him concerning her brother. He would have liked to broach the subject himself, but feared she might consider him interfering.

One day--it was in late February, the ground was covered with snow and a keen wind was blowing in over a sea gray-green and splashed thickly with white--Jed was busy at his turning lathe when Charlie came into the shop. Business at the bank was not heavy in mid- winter and, although it was but little after three, the young man was through work for the day. He hoisted himself to his accustomed seat on the edge of the workbench and sat there, swinging his feet and watching his companion turn out the heads and trunks of a batch of wooden sailors. He was unusually silent, for him, merely nodding in response to Jed's cheerful "h.e.l.lo!" and speaking but a few words in reply to a question concerning the weather. Jed, absorbed in his work and droning a hymn, apparently forgot all about his caller.

Suddenly the latter spoke.

"Jed," he said, "when you are undecided about doing or not doing a thing, how do you settle it?"

Jed looked up over his spectacles.

"Eh?" he asked. "What's that?"

"I say when you have a decision to make and your mind is about fifty-fifty on the subject, how do you decide?"

Jed's answer was absently given. "W-e-e-ll," he drawled, "I generally--er--don't."

"But suppose the time comes when you have to, what then?"

"Eh? . . . Oh, then, if 'tain't very important I usually leave it to Isaiah."

"Isaiah? Isaiah who?"

"I don't know his last name, but he's got a whole lot of first ones. That's him, up on that shelf."

He pointed to a much battered wooden figure attached to the edge of the shelf upon the wall. The figure was that of a little man holding a set of mill arms in front of him. The said mill arms were painted a robin's-egg blue, and one was tipped with black.

"That's Isaiah," continued Jed. "Hum . . . yes . . . that's him.

He was the first one of his kind of contraption that I ever made and, bein' as he seemed to bring me luck, I've kept him. He's settled a good many questions for me, Isaiah has."

"Why do you call him Isaiah?"