Shavings Part 5

"He HAS?"

"Why, sartin. Just the same as you would, or--or I hope I would, if I was young and--and," with a wistful smile, "different, and likely to be any good to Uncle Sam. Yes, Leander's been anxious to go to war, but his dad was so set against it all and kept hollerin'

so about the boy's bein' needed in the store, that Leander didn't hardly know what to do. But then when he was drawn on the draft list he came in here and he and I had a long talk. 'Twas yesterday, after you'd told me about bein' put on the Board, you know. I could see the trouble there'd be between you and Phineas and--and--well, you see, Sam, I just kind of wanted that boy to volunteer. I--I don't know why, but--" He looked up from his work and stared dreamily out of the window. "I guess maybe 'twas because I've been wishin' so that I could go myself--or--do SOMETHIN' that was some good. So Leander and I talked and finally he said, 'Well, by George, I WILL go.' And--and--well, I guess that's all; he went, you see."

The captain drew a long breath.

"He went," he repeated. "And you knew he'd gone?"

"No, I didn't know, but I kind of guessed."

"You guessed, and yet all the time I've been here you haven't said a word about it till this minute."

"Well, I didn't think 'twas much use sayin' until I knew."

"Well, my gracious king, Jed Winslow, you beat all my goin' to sea!

But you've helped Uncle Sam to a good soldier and you've helped me out of a nasty row. For my part I'm everlastin' obliged to you, I am so."

Jed looked pleased but very much embarra.s.sed.

"Sho, sho," he exclaimed, hastily, "'twan't anything. Oh, say,"

hastily changing the subject, "I've got some money 'round here somewheres I thought maybe you'd take to the bank and deposit for me next time you went, if 'twan't too much trouble."

"Trouble? Course 'tain't any trouble. Where is it?"

Winslow put down his work and began to hunt. From one drawer of his work bench, amid nails, tools and huddles of papers, he produced a small bundle of banknotes; from another drawer another bundle. These, however, did not seem to satisfy him entirely. At last, after a good deal of very deliberate search, he unearthed more paper currency from the pocket of a dirty pair of overalls hanging on a nail, and emptied a heap of silver and coppers from a battered can on the shelf. Captain Hunniwell, muttering to himself, watched the collecting process. When it was completed, he asked:

"Is this all?"

"Eh? Yes, I guess 'tis. I can't seem to find any more just now.

Maybe another batch'll turn up later. If it does I'll keep it till next time."

The captain, suppressing his emotions, hastily counted the money.

"Have you any idea how much there is here?" he asked.

"No, I don't know's I have. There's been quite consider'ble comin'

in last fortni't or so. Summer folks been payin' bills and one thing or 'nother. Might be forty or fifty dollars, I presume likely."

"Forty or fifty! Nearer a hundred and fifty! And you keep it stuffed around in every junk hole from the roof to the cellar.

Wonder to me you don't light your pipe with it. I shouldn't wonder if you did. How many times have I told you to deposit your money every three days anyhow? How many times?"

Mr. Winslow seemed to reflect.

"Don't know, Sam," he admitted. "Good many, I will give in. But-- but, you see, Sam, if--if I take it to the bank I'm liable to forget I've got it. Long's it's round here somewheres I--why, I know where 'tis and--and it's handy. See, don't you?"

The captain shook his head.

"Jed Winslow," he declared, "as I said to you just now you beat all my goin' to sea. I can't make you out. When I see how you act with money and business, and how you let folks take advantage of you, then I think you're a plain dum fool. And yet when you bob up and do somethin' like gettin' Leander Babbitt to volunteer and gettin' me out of that row with his father, then--well, then, I'm ready to swear you're as wise as King Solomon ever was. You're a puzzle to me, Jed. What are you, anyway--the dum fool or King Solomon?"

Jed looked meditatively over his spectacles. The slow smile twitched the corners of his lips.

"Well, Sam," he drawled, "if you put it to vote at town meetin' I cal'late the majority'd be all one way. But, I don't know"--; he paused, and then added, "I don't know, Sam, but it's just as well as 'tis. A King Solomon down here in Orham would be an awful lonesome cuss."

CHAPTER III

Upon a late September day forty-nine years and some months before that upon which Gabe Bea.r.s.e came to Jed Winslow's windmill shop in Orham with the news of Leander Babbitt's enlistment, Miss Floretta Thompson came to that village to teach the "downstairs" school.

Miss Thompson was an orphan. Her father had kept a small drug store in a town in western Ma.s.sachusetts. Her mother had been a clergyman's daughter. Both had died when she was in her 'teens.

Now, at twenty, she came to Cape Cod, pale, slim, with a wealth of light brown hair and a pair of large, dreamy brown eyes. Her taste in dress was peculiar, even eccentric, and Orham soon discovered that she, herself, was also somewhat eccentric.

As a schoolteacher she was not an unqualified success. The "downstairs" curriculum was not extensive nor very exacting, but it was supposed to impart to the boys and girls of from seven to twelve a rudimentary knowledge of the three R's and of geography.

In the first two R's, "readin' and 'ritin'," Miss Thompson was proficient. She wrote a flowery Spencerian, which was beautifully "shaded" and looked well on the blackboard, and reading was the dissipation of her spare moments. The third "R," 'rithmetic, she loathed.

Youth, even at the ages of from seven to twelve, is only too proficient in learning to evade hard work. The fact that Teacher took no delight in traveling the prosaic highways of addition, multiplication and division, but could be easily lured to wander the flowery lanes of romantic fiction, was soon grasped by the downstairs pupils. The hour set for recitation by the first cla.s.s in arithmetic was often and often monopolized by a hold-over of the first cla.s.s in reading, while Miss Floretta, artfully spurred by questions asked by the older scholars, rhapsodized on the beauties of James Fenimore Cooper's "Uncas," or d.i.c.kens' "Little Nell," or Scott's "Ellen." Some of us antiques, then tow-headed little shavers in the front seats, can still remember Miss Floretta's rendition of the lines:

"And Saxon--I am Roderick Dhu!"

The extremely genteel, not to say ladylike, elocution of the Highland chief and the indescribable rising inflection and emphasis on the "I."

These literary rambles had their inevitable effect, an effect noted, after a time, and called to the attention of the school committee by old Captain Lycurgus Batcheldor, whose two grandchildren were among the ramblers.

"Say," demanded Captain Lycurgus, "how old does a young-one have to be afore it's supposed to know how much four times eight is? My Sarah's Nathan is pretty nigh ten and HE don't know it. Gave me three answers he did; first that 'twas forty-eight, then that 'twas eighty-four and then that he'd forgot what 'twas. But I noticed he could tell me a whole string about some feller called Lockintar or Lochinvar or some such outlandish name, and not only his name but where he came from, which was out west somewheres. A poetry piece 'twas; Nate said the teacher'd been speakin' it to 'em. I ain't got no objection to speakin' pieces, but I do object to bein' told that four times eight is eighty-four, 'specially when I'm buyin'

codfish at eight cents a pound. I ain't on the school committee, but if I was--"

So the committee investigated and when Miss Thompson's year was up and the question arose as to her re-engagement, there was considerable hesitancy. But the situation was relieved in a most unexpected fashion. Thaddeus Winslow, first mate on the clipper ship, "Owner's Favorite," at home from a voyage to the Dutch East Indies, fell in love with Miss Floretta, proposed, was accepted and married her.

It was an odd match: Floretta, pale, polite, impractical and intensely romantic; Thad, florid, rough and to the point. Yet the married pair seemed to be happy together. Winslow went to sea on several voyages and, four years after the marriage, remained at home for what, for him, was a long time. During that time a child, a boy, was born.

The story of the christening of that child is one of Orham's pet yarns even to this day. It seems that there was a marked disagreement concerning the name to be given him. Captain Thad had had an Uncle Edgar, who had been very kind to him when a boy. The captain wished to name his own youngster after this uncle. But Floretta's heart was set upon "Wilfred," her favorite hero of romance being Wilfred of Ivanhoe. The story is that the parents being no nearer an agreement on the great question, Floretta made a proposal of compromise. She proposed that her husband take up his stand by the bedroom window and the first male person he saw pa.s.sing on the sidewalk below, the name of that person should be given to their offspring; a sporting proposition certainly. But the story goes on to detract a bit from the sporting element by explaining that Mrs. Winslow was expecting a call at that hour from the Baptist minister, and the Baptist minister's Christian name was "Clarence," which, if not quite as romantic as Wilfred, is by no means common and prosaic. Captain Thad, who had not been informed of the expected ministerial call and was something of a sport himself, a.s.sented to the arrangement. It was solemnly agreed that the name of the first male pa.s.ser-by should be the name of the new Winslow. The captain took up his post of observation at the window and waited.

He did not have to wait long. Unfortunately for romance, the Reverend Clarence was detained at the home of another parishioner a trifle longer than he had planned and the first masculine to pa.s.s the Winslow home was old Jedidah Wingate, the fish peddler. Mrs.

Diadama Busteed, who was acting as nurse in the family and had been sworn in as witness to the agreement between husband and wife, declared to the day of her death that that death was hastened by the shock to her nervous and moral system caused by Captain Thad's language when old Jedidah hove in sight. He vowed over and over again that he would be everlastingly condemned if he would label a young-one of his with such a crashety-blank-blanked outrage of a name as "Jedidah." "Jedidiah" was bad enough, but there WERE a few Jedidiahs in Ostable County, whereas there was but one Jedidah.

Mrs. Winslow, who did not fancy Jedidah any more than her husband did, wept; Captain Thad's profanity impregnated the air with brimstone. But they had solemnly sworn to the agreement and Mrs.

Busteed had witnessed it, and an oath is an oath. Besides, Mrs.

Winslow was inclined to think the whole matter guided by Fate, and, being superst.i.tious as well as romantic, feared dire calamity if Fate was interfered with. It ended in a compromise and, a fortnight later, the Reverend Clarence, keeping his countenance with difficulty, christened a red-faced and protesting infant "Jedidah Edgar Wilfred Winslow."

Jedidah Edgar Wilfred grew up. At first he was called "Edgar" by his father and "Wilfred" by his mother. His teachers, day school and Sunday school, called him one or the other as suited their individual fancies. But his schoolmates and playfellows, knowing that he hated the name above all else on earth, gleefully hailed him as "Jedidah." By the time he was ten he was "Jed" Winslow beyond hope of recovery. Also it was settled locally that he was "queer"--not "cracked" or "lacking," which would have implied that his brain was affected--but just "queer," which meant that his ways of thinking and acting were different from those of Orham in general.

His father, Captain Thaddeus, died when Jed was fifteen, just through the grammar school and ready to enter the high. He did not enter; instead, the need of money being pressing, he went to work in one of the local stores, selling behind the counter. If his father had lived he would, probably, have gone away after finishing high school and perhaps, if by that time the mechanical ability which he possessed had shown itself, he might even have gone to some technical school or college. In that case Jed Winslow's career might have been very, very different. But instead he went to selling groceries, boots, shoes, dry goods and notions for Mr.

Seth Wingate, old Jedidah's younger brother.

As a grocery clerk Jed was not a success, neither did he shine as a clerk in the post office, nor as an a.s.sistant to the local expressman. In desperation he began to learn the carpenter's trade and, because he liked to handle tools, did pretty well at it. But he continued to be "queer" and his absent-minded dreaminess was in evidence even then.

"I snum I don't know what to make of him," declared Mr. Abijah Mullett, who was the youth's "boss." "Never know just what he's goin' to do or just what he's goin' to say. I says to him yesterday: 'Jed,' says I, 'you do pretty well with tools and wood, considerin' what little experience you've had. Did Cap'n Thad teach you some or did you pick it up yourself?' He never answered for a minute or so, seemed to be way off dreamin' in the next county somewheres. Then he looked at me with them big eyes of his and he drawled out: 'Comes natural to me, Mr. Mullett, I guess,' he says. 'There seems to be a sort of family feelin' between my head and a chunk of wood.' Now what kind of an answer was that, I want to know!"

Jed worked at carpentering for a number of years, sometimes going as far away as Ostable to obtain employment. And then his mother was seized with the illness from which, so she said, she never recovered. It is true that Doctor Parker, the Orham physician, declared that she had recovered, or might recover if she cared to.

Which of the pair was right does not really matter. At all events Mrs. Winslow, whether she recovered or not, never walked abroad again. She was "up and about," as they say in Orham, and did some housework, after a fashion, but she never again set foot across the granite doorstep of the Winslow cottage. Probably the poor woman's mind was slightly affected; it is charitable to hope that it was.

It seems the only reasonable excuse for the oddity of her behavior during the last twenty years of her life, for her growing querulousness and selfishness and for the exacting slavery in which she kept her only son.