第108章

A child spends time and thought and energy upon the building of a house of blocks.By the time it is nearing completion it has become to him a very real edifice.Therefore, when it collapses into an ungraceful heap upon the floor it is poor consolation to be reminded that, after all, it was merely a block house and couldn't be expected to stand.

Jed, in his own child-like fashion, had reared his moonshine castle beam by beam.At first he had regarded it as moonshine and had refused to consider the building of it anything but a dangerously pleasant pastime.And then, little by little, as his dreams changed to hopes, it had become more and more real, until, just before the end, it was the foundation upon which his future was to rest.And down it came, and there was his future buried in the ruins.

And it had been all moonshine from the very first.Jed, sitting there alone in his little living-room, could see now that it had been nothing but that.Ruth Armstrong, young, charming, cultured--could she have thought of linking her life with that of Jedidah Edgar Wilfred Winslow, forty-five, "town crank" and builder of windmills? Of course not--and again of course not.Obviously she never had thought of such a thing.She had been grateful, that was all; perhaps she had pitied him just a little and behind her expressions of kindliness and friendship was pity and little else.

Moonshine--moonshine--moonshine.And, oh, what a fool he had been!

What a poor, silly fool!

So the night passed and morning came and with it a certain degree of bitterly philosophic acceptance of the situation.He WAS a fool; so much was sure.He was of no use in the world, he never had been.People laughed at him and he deserved to be laughed at.

He rose from the bed upon which he had thrown himself some time during the early morning hours and, after eating a cold mouthful or two in lieu of breakfast, sat down at his turning lathe.He could make children's whirligigs, that was the measure of his capacity.

All the forenoon the lathe hummed.Several times steps sounded on the front walk and the latch of the shop door rattled, but Jed did not rise from his seat.He had not unlocked that door, he did not mean to for the present.He did not want to wait on customers; he did not want to see callers; he did not want to talk or be talked to.He did not want to think, either, but that he could not help.

And he could not shut out all the callers.One, who came a little after noon, refused to remain shut out.She pounded the door and shouted "Uncle Jed" for some few minutes; then, just as Jed had begun to think she had given up and gone away, he heard a thumping upon the window pane and, looking up, saw her laughing and nodding outside.

"I see you, Uncle Jed," she called."Let me in, please."So Jed was obliged to let her in and she entered with a skip and a jump, quite unconscious that her "back-step-uncle" was in any way different, either in feelings or desire for her society, than he had been for months.

"Why did you have the door locked, Uncle Jed?" she demanded."Did you forget to unlock it?"Jed, without looking at her, muttered something to the effect that he cal'lated he must have.

"Um-hm," she observed, with a nod of comprehension."I thought that was it.You did it once before, you know.It was a ex-eccen-trick, leaving it locked was, I guess.Don't you think it was a--a--one of those kind of tricks, Uncle Jed?"Silence, except for the hum and rasp of the lathe.

"Don't you, Uncle Jed?" repeated Barbara.

"Eh?...Oh, yes, I presume likely so."Babbie, sitting on the lumber pile, kicked her small heels together and regarded him with speculative interest.

"Uncle Jed," she said, after a few moments of silent consideration, "what do you suppose Petunia told me just now?"No answer.

"What do you suppose Petunia told me?" repeated Babbie."Something about you 'twas, Uncle Jed."Still Jed did not reply.His silence was not deliberate; he had been so absorbed in his own pessimistic musings that he had not heard the question, that was all.Barbara tried again.

"She told me she guessed you had been thinking AWF'LY hard about something this time, else you wouldn't have so many eccen-tricks to-day."Silence yet.Babbie swallowed hard:

"I--I don't think I like eccen-tricks, Uncle Jed," she faltered.

Not a word.Then Jed, stooping to pick up a piece of wood from the pile of cut stock beside the lathe, was conscious of a little sniff.He looked up.His small visitor's lip was quivering and two big tears were just ready to overflow her lower lashes.

"Eh?...Mercy sakes alive!" he exclaimed."Why, what's the matter?"The lip quivered still more."I--I don't like to have you not speak to me," sobbed Babbie."You--you never did it so--so long before."That appeal was sufficient.Away, for the time, went Jed's pessimism and his hopeless musings.He forgot that he was a fool, the "town crank," and of no use in the world.He forgot his own heartbreak, chagrin and disappointment.A moment later Babbie was on his knee, hiding her emotion in the front of his jacket, and he was trying his best to soothe her with characteristic Winslow nonsense.

"You mustn't mind me, Babbie," he declared."My--my head ain't workin' just right to-day, seems so.I shouldn't wonder if--if Iwound it too tight, or somethin' like that."Babbie's tear-stained face emerged from the jacket front.

"Wound your HEAD too tight, Uncle Jed?" she cried.

"Ye-es, yes.I was kind of extra absent-minded yesterday and Ithought I wound the clock, but I couldn't have done that 'cause the clock's stopped.Yet I know I wound somethin' and it's just as liable to have been my head as anything else.You listen just back of my starboard ear there and see if I'm tickin' reg'lar."The balance of the conversation between the two was of a distinctly personal nature.