"Oh, nothing, nothing. I have had a feeling, a slight suspicion, recently, that-- But never mind that; I have no right to even hint at such a thing. What are you trying to get at, Jed?"

"Get at?"

"Yes. Why did you ask that question about Ruth and Barbara? You don't mean that you see a way out for me, do you?"

"W-e-e-ll, I . . . er . . . I don't cal'late I'd want to go so far as to say that, hardly. No-o, I don't know's it's a way out-- quite. But, as I've told you I've been thinkin' about you and Maud a pretty good deal lately and . . . er . . . hum . . ."

"For heaven's sake, hurry up! Don't go to sleep now, man, of all times. Tell me, what do you mean? What can I do?"

Jed's foot dropped to the floor. He sat erect and regarded his companion intently over his spectacles. His face was very grave.

"There's one thing you can do, Charlie," he said.

"What is it? Tell me, quick."

"Just a minute. Doin' it won't mean necessarily that you're out of your worries and troubles. It won't mean that you mustn't make a clean breast of everything to Maud and to Sam. That you must do and I know, from what you've said to me, that you feel you must.

And it won't mean that your doin' this thing will necessarily make either Maud or Sam say yes to the question you want to ask 'em.

That question they'll answer themselves, of course. But, as I see it, if you do this thing you'll be free and independent, a man doin' a man's job and ready to speak to Sam Hunniwell or anybody else LIKE a man. And that's somethin'."

"Something! By George, it's everything! What is this man's job?

Tell me, quick."

And Jed told him.

CHAPTER XX

Mr. Gabe Bea.r.s.e lost another opportunity the next morning. The late bird misses the early worm and, as Gabriel was still slumbering peacefully at six A. M., he missed seeing Ruth Armstrong and her brother emerge from the door of the Winslow house at that hour and walk to the gate together. Charles was carrying a small traveling bag. Ruth's face was white and her eyes were suspiciously damp, but she was evidently trying hard to appear calm and cheerful.

As they stood talking by the gate, Jed Winslow emerged from the windmill shop and, crossing the lawn, joined them.

The three talked for a moment and then Charles held out his hand.

"Well, so long, Jed," he said. "If all goes well I shall be back here to-morrow. Wish me luck."

"I'll be wishin' it for you, Charlie, all day and all night with double time after hours and no allowance for meals," replied Jed earnestly. "You think Sam'll get your note all right?"

"Yes, I shall tuck it under the bank door as I go by. If he should ask what the business was which called me to Boston so suddenly, just dodge the question as well as you can, won't you, Jed?"

"Sartin sure. He'll think he's dealin' with that colored man that sticks his head through the sheet over to the Ostable fair, the one the boys heave baseb.a.l.l.s at. No, he won't get anything out of me, Charlie. And the other letter; that'll get to--to her?"

The young man nodded gravely. "I shall mail it at the post-office now," he said. "Don't talk about it, please. Well, Sis, good-by-- until to-morrow."

Jed turned his head. When he looked again Phillips was walking rapidly away along the sidewalk. Ruth, leaning over the fence, watched him as long as he was in sight. And Jed watched her anxiously. When she turned he ventured to speak.

"Don't worry," he begged. "Don't. He's doin' the right thing. I know he is."

She wiped her eyes. "Oh, perhaps he is," she said sadly. "I hope he is."

"I know he is. I only wish I could do it, too. . . . I would," he drawled, solemnly, "only for nineteen or twenty reasons, the first one of 'em bein' that they wouldn't let me."

She made no comment on this observation. They walked together back toward the house.

"Jed," she said, after a moment, "it has come at last, hasn't it, the day we have foreseen and that I have dreaded so? Poor Charlie!

Think what this means to him."

Jed nodded. "He's puttin' it to the touch, to win or lose it all,"

he agreed, "same as was in the poem he and I talked about that time. Well, I honestly believe he feels better now that he's made up his mind to do it, better than he has for many a long day."

"Yes, I suppose he does. And he is doing, too, what he has wanted to do ever since he came here. He told me so when he came in from his long interview with you last night. He and I talked until it was almost day and we told each other--many things."

She paused. Jed, looking up, caught her eye. To his surprise she colored and seemed slightly confused.

"He had not said anything before," she went on rather hurriedly, "because he thought I would feel so terribly to have him do it. So I should, and so I do, of course--in one way, but in another I am glad. Glad, and very proud."

"Sartin. He'll make us all proud of him, or I miss my guess. And, as for the rest of it, the big question that counts most of all to him, I hope--yes, I think that's comin' out all right, too. Ruth,"

he added, "you remember what I told you about Sam's talk with me that afternoon when he came back from Wapatomac. If Maud cares for him as much as all that she ain't goin' to throw him over on account of what happened in Middleford."

"No--no, not if she really cares. But does she care--enough?"

"I hope so. I guess so. But if she doesn't it's better for him to know it, and know it now. . . . Dear, dear!" he added, "how I do fire off opinions, don't I? A body'd think I was loaded up with wisdom same as one of those machine guns is with cartridges. About all I'm loaded with is blanks, I cal'late."

She was not paying attention to this outburst, but, standing with one hand upon the latch of the kitchen door, she seemed to be thinking deeply.

"I think you are right," she said slowly. "Yes, I think you are right. It IS better to know. . . . Jed, suppose--suppose you cared for some one, would the fact that her brother had been in prison make any difference in--in your feeling?"

Jed actually staggered. She was not looking at him, nor did she look at him now.

"Eh?" he cried. "Why--why, Ruth, what--what--?"

She smiled faintly. "And that was a foolish question, too," she said. "Foolish to ask you, of all men. . . . Well, I must go on and get Babbie's breakfast. Poor child, she is going to miss her Uncle Charlie. We shall all miss him. . . . But there, I promised him I would be brave. Good morning, Jed."

"But--but, Ruth, what-what--?"

She had not heard him. The door closed. Jed stood staring at it for some minutes. Then he crossed the lawn to his own little kitchen. The performances he went through during the next hour would have confirmed the opinion of Mr. Bea.r.s.e and his coterie that "Shavings" Winslow was "next door to loony." He cooked a breakfast, but how he cooked it or of what it consisted he could not have told. The next day he found the stove-lid lifter on a plate in the ice chest. Whatever became of the left-over pork chop which should have been there he had no idea.

Babbie came dancing in at noon on her way home from school. She found her Uncle Jed in a curious mood, a mood which seemed to be a compound of absent-mindedness and silence broken by sudden fits of song and hilarity. He was sitting by the bench when she entered and was holding an oily rag in one hand and a piece of emery paper in the other. He was looking neither at paper nor rag, nor at anything else in particular so far as she could see, and he did not notice her presence at all. Suddenly he began to rub the paper and the rag together and to sing at the top of his voice:

"'He's my lily of the valley, My bright and mornin' star; He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul--Hallelujah!

He's my di-dum-du-dum-di-dum-- Di--'"

Barbara burst out laughing. Mr. Winslow's hallelujah chorus stopped in the middle and he turned.

"Eh?" he exclaimed, looking over his spectacles. "Oh, it's you!

Sakes alive, child, how do you get around so quiet? Haven't borrowed the cat's feet to walk, on, have you?"

Babbie laughed again and replied that she guessed the cat wouldn't lend her feet.