Shavings Part 42

Phillips did not answer. His somber expression was still in evidence. Jed would have liked to cheer him up, but he did not know how. However he made an attempt by changing the subject.

"How is Babbie this mornin'?" he asked.

"She's as lively as a cricket, of course. And full of excitement.

She's going to school next Monday, you know. You'll rather miss her about the shop here, won't you?"

"Miss her! My land of Goshen! I shouldn't be surprised if I follered her to school myself, like Mary's little lamb. Miss her!

Don't talk!"

"Well, so long. . . . What is it?"

"Eh?"

"What is it you want to say? You look as if you wanted to say something."

"Do I? . . . Hum. . . . Oh, 'twasn't anything special. . . .

How's--er--how's your sister this mornin'?"

"Oh, she's well. I haven't seen her so well since--that is, for a long time. You've made a great hit with Sis, Jed," he added, with a laugh. "She can't say enough good things about you. Says you are her one dependable in Orham, or something like that."

Jed's face turned a bright red. "Oh, sho, sho!" he protested, "she mustn't talk that way. I haven't done anything."

"She says you have. Well, by-by."

He went away. It was some time before Jed resumed his chisel- sharpening.

Later, when he came to reflect upon his conversation with young Phillips there were one or two things about it which puzzled him.

They were still puzzling him when Maud Hunniwell came into the shop. Maud, in a new fall suit, hat and fur, was a picture, a fact of which she was as well aware as the next person. Jed, as always, was very glad to see her.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "Talk about angels and--and they fly in, so to speak. Real glad to see you, Maud. Sit down, sit down.

There's a chair 'round here somewheres. Now where--? Oh, yes, I'm sittin' in it. Hum! That's one of the reasons why I didn't see it, I presume likely. You take it and I'll fetch another from the kitchen. No, I won't, I'll sit on the bench. . . . Hum . . . has your pa got any money left in that bank of his?"

Miss Hunniwell was, naturally, surprised at the question.

"Why, I hope so," she said. "Did you think he hadn't?"

"W-e-e-ll, I didn't know. That dress of yours, and that new bonnet, must have used up consider'ble, to say nothin' of that woodchuck you've got 'round your neck. 'Tis a woodchuck, ain't it?" he added, solemnly.

"Woodchuck! Well, I like that! If you knew what a silver fox costs and how long I had to coax before I got this one you would be more careful in your language," she declared, with a toss of her head.

Jed sighed. "That's the trouble with me," he observed. "I never know enough to pick out the right things--or folks--to be careful with. If I set out to be real toady and humble to what I think is a peac.o.c.k it generally turns out to be a Shanghai rooster. And the same when it's t'other way about. It's a great gift to be able to tell the real--er--what is it?--gold foxes from the woodchucks in this life. I ain't got it and that's one of the two hundred thousand reasons why I ain't rich."

He began to hum one of his doleful melodies. Maud laughed.

"Mercy, what a long sermon!" she exclaimed. "No wonder you sing a hymn after it."

Jed sniffed. "Um . . . ye-es," he drawled. "If I was more worldly-minded I'd take up a collection, probably. Well, how's all the United States Army; the gold lace part of it, I mean?"

His visitor laughed again. "Those that I know seem to be very well and happy," she replied.

"Um . . . yes . . . sartin. They'd be happy, naturally. How could they help it, under the circ.u.mstances?"

He began picking over an a.s.sortment of small hardware, varying his musical accompaniment by whistling instead of singing. His visitor looked at him rather oddly.

"Jed," she observed, "you're changed."

Changed? I ain't changed my clothes, if that's what you mean.

Course if I'd know I was goin' to have bankers' daughters with gold--er--muskrats 'round their necks come to see me I'd have dressed up."

"Oh, I don't mean your clothes. I mean you--yourself--you've changed."

"I've changed! How, for mercy sakes?"

"Oh, lots of ways. You pay the ladies compliments now. You wouldn't have done that a year ago."

"Eh? Pay compliments? I'm afraid you're mistaken. Your pa says I'm so absent-minded and forgetful that I don't pay some of my bills till the folks I owe 'em to make proclamations they're goin'

to sue me; and other bills I pay two or three times over."

"Don't try to escape by dodging the subject. You HAVE changed in the last few months. I think," holding the tail of the silver fox before her face and regarding him over it, "I think you must be in love."

"Eh?" Jed looked positively frightened. "In love!"

"Yes. You're blushing now."

"Now, now, Maud, that ain't--that's sunburn."

"No, it's not sunburn. Who is it, Jed?" mischievously. "Is it the pretty widow? Is it Mrs. Armstrong?"

A good handful of the hardware fell to the floor. Jed thankfully scrambled down to pick it up. Miss Hunniwell, expressing contrition at being indirectly responsible for the mishap, offered to help him. He declined, of course, but in the little argument which followed the dangerous and embarra.s.sing topic was forgotten.

It was not until she was about to leave the shop that Maud again mentioned the Armstrong name. And then, oddly enough, it was she, not Mr. Winslow, who showed embarra.s.sment.

"Jed," she said, "what do you suppose I came here for this morning?"

Jed's reply was surprisingly prompt.

"To show your new rig-out, of course," he said. "'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' There, NOW I can take up a collection, can't I?"

His visitor pouted. "If you do I shan't put anything in the box,"

she declared. "The idea of thinking that I came here just to show off my new things. I've a good mind not to invite you at all now."

She doubtless expected apologies and questions as to what invitation was meant. They might have been forthcoming had not the windmill maker been engaged just at that moment in gazing abstractedly at the door of the little stove which heated, or was intended to heat, the workshop. He did not appear to have heard her remark, so the young lady repeated it. Still he paid no attention. Miss Maud, having inherited a goodly share of the Hunniwell disposition, demanded an explanation.

"What in the world is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are you staring at that stove?"

Jed started and came to life. "Eh?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I was thinkin' what an everlastin' nuisance 'twas--the stove, I mean. It needs more wood about every five minutes in the day, seems to-- needs it now, that's what made me think of it. I was just wonderin' if 'twouldn't be a good notion to set it up out in the yard."

"Out in the yard? Put the stove out in the yard? For goodness'

sake, what for?"