第31章

"Oh, the little girl is only the bait, Father," she declared."It is the pretty widow that Jed is fishing for.She'll be calling here soon, or he'll be calling there.Isn't that true, Jed? Own up, now.Oh, see him blush, Father! Just see him!"Jed, of course, denied that he was blushing.His fair tormentor had no mercy.

"You must be," she insisted."At any rate your face is very, very red.I'll leave it to Father.Isn't his face red, Father?""Red as a flannel lung-protector," declared Captain Sam, who was never known to contradict his only daughter, nor, so report affirmed, deny a request of hers.

"Of course it is," triumphantly."And it can't be the heat, because it isn't at all warm here."Poor Jed, the long-suffering, was goaded into a mild retort.

"There's consider'ble hot air in here some spells," he drawled, mournfully.Miss Hunniwell went away reaffirming her belief that Mr.Winslow's friendship for the daughter was merely a strategical advance with the mother as the ultimate objective.

"You'll see, Father," she prophesied, mischievously."We shall hear of his 'keeping company' with Mrs.Armstrong soon.Oh, he couldn't escape even if he wanted to.These young widows are perfectly irresistible."When they were a safe distance from the windmill shop the captain cautioned his daughter.

"Maud," he said, "you'd better not tease Jed too much about that good-lookin' tenant of his.He's so queer and so bashful that I'm afraid if you do he'll take a notion to turn the Armstrongs out when this month's up."Miss Hunniwell glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

"Suppose he does?" she asked."What of it? She isn't a GREATfriend of yours, is she, Father?"

It was the captain's turn to look embarrassed.

"No, no, course she ain't," he declared, hastily."All I've been thinkin' is that Jed ought to have a tenant in that house of his, because he needs the money.And from what I've been able to find out about this Mrs.Armstrong she's a real nice genteel sort of body, and--and--er--""And she's very sweet and very pretty and so, of course, naturally, all the men, especially the middle-aged men--"Captain Sam interrupted explosively."Don't be so foolish!" he ordered."If you don't stop talkin' such nonsense I'll--I don't know what I'll do to you.What do you suppose her bein' sweet and good-lookin' has got to do with me? Gracious king! I've got one good-lookin'--er--that is to say, I've got one young female to take care of now and that's enough, in all conscience."His daughter pinched his arm.

"Oh, ho!" she observed."You were going to say she was good-looking and then you changed your mind.Don't you think this young female--WHAT a word! you ought to be ashamed of it--DON'T you think she is good-looking, Daddy, dear?"She looked provokingly up into his face and he looked fondly down into hers.

"Don't you?" she repeated.

"We-ll, I--I don't know as I'd want to go so far as to say that.Ipresume likely her face might not stop a meetin'-house clock on a dark night, but--"As they were in a secluded spot where a high hedge screened them from observation Miss Maud playfully boxed her parent's ears, a proceeding which he seemed to enjoy hugely.

But there was reason in the captain's caution, nevertheless.Miss Maud's "teasing" concerning the widow had set Jed to thinking.The "trial" month was almost up.In a little while he would have to give his decision as to whether the little Winslow house was to continue to be occupied by Barbara and her mother, or whether it was to be, as it had been for years, closed and shuttered tight.

He had permitted them to occupy it for that month, on the spur of the moment, as the result of a promise made upon impulse, a characteristic Jed Winslow impulse.Now, however, he must decide in cold blood whether or not it should be theirs for another eleven months at least.

In his conversation with Captain Sam, the conversation which took place immediately after the Armstrongs came, he had stoutly maintained that the latter would not wish to stay longer than the month, that his own proximity as landlord and neighbor would be unbearable longer than that period.But if the widow found it so she had so far shown no evidence of her disgust.Apparently that means of breaking off the relationship could not be relied upon.

Of course he did not know whether or not she wished to remain, but, if she did, did he wish her to do so? There was nothing personal in the matter; it was merely the question as to whether his prejudice of years against renting that house to any one was to rule or be overthrown.If she asked him for his decision what should he say? At night, when he went to bed, his mind was made up.In the morning when he arose it was unmade.As he told Captain Hunniwell: "I'm like that old clock I used to have, Sam.

The pendulum of that thing used to work fine, but the hands wouldn't move.Same way with me.I tick, tick, tick all day over this pesky business, but I don't get anywheres.It's always half-past nothin'."

Captain Sam was hugely disgusted."It ain't more'n quarter past, if it is that," he declared, emphatically."It's just nothin', if you ask me.And say, speakin' of askin', I'd like to ask you this:

How are you goin' to get 'em out, provided you're fool enough to decide they've got to go? Are you goin' to tell Mrs.Armstrong right up and down and flat-footed that you can't stand any more of her? I'd like to hear you say it.Let me know when the show's goin' to come off.I want a seat in the front row."Poor Jed looked aghast at the very idea.His friend laughed derisively and walked off and left him.And the days passed and the "trial month" drew closer and closer to its end until one morning he awoke to realize that that end had come; the month was up that very day.

He had not mentioned the subject to the widow, nor had she to him.