Shavings Part 14

She looked as if she did understand, and Jed, the seldom understood, experienced an unusual pleasure. The sensation produced an unusual result.

"It's a kind of cute and old-fas.h.i.+oned house inside," he observed.

"Maybe you'd like to go in and look around; would you?"

She looked very much pleased. "Oh, I should, indeed!" she exclaimed. "May I?"

Now, the moment after he issued the invitation he was sorry. It had been quite unpremeditated and had been given he could not have told why. His visitor had seemed so genuinely interested, and, above all, had treated him like a rational human being instead of a freak. Under this unaccustomed treatment Jed Winslow had been caught off his guard--hypnotized, so to speak. And now, when it was too late, he realized the possible danger. Only a few hours ago he had told Mr. and Mrs. George Powless that the key to that house had been lost.

He paused and hesitated. Mrs. Armstrong noticed his hesitation.

"Please don't think any more about it," she said. "It is delightful here in the yard. Babbie and I will stay here a few minutes, if we may, and you must go back to your work, Mr.

Winslow."

But Jed, having put his foot in it, was ashamed to withdraw. He hastened to disclaim any intention of withdrawal.

"No, no," he protested. "I don't need to go to work, not yet anyhow. I should be real pleased to show you the house, ma'am.

You wait now and I'll fetch the key."

Some five minutes later he reappeared with triumph in his eye and the "lost" key in his hand.

"Sorry to keep you waitin', ma'am," he explained. "The key had-- er--stole its nest, as you might say. Got it now, though."

His visitors looked at the key, which was attached by a cord to a slab of wood about the size of half a s.h.i.+ngle. Upon one side of the slab were lettered in black paint the words HERE IT IS.

Barbara's curiosity was aroused.

"What have you got those letters on there for, Mr. Winslow?" she asked. "What does it say?"

Jed solemnly read the inscription. "I printed that on there," he explained, "so I'd be able to find the key when I wanted it."

Mrs. Armstrong smiled. "I should think it might help," she observed, evidently much amused.

Mr. Winslow nodded. "You would think so," he said, "wouldn't you?

Maybe 'twould, too, only 'twas such a plaguey nuisance, towin' that half a cord of wood around, that I left it to home last time.

Untied the string, you know, and just took the key. The wood and the string was hangin' up in the right place, but the key wan't among those present, as they say in the newspapers."

"Where was it?" demanded Barbara.

"Hush, dear," cautioned her mother. "You mustn't ask so many questions."

"That's all right, ma'am; I don't mind a mite. Where was it?

We-ll, 'twas in my pants pocket here, just where I put it last time I used it. Naturally enough I shouldn't have thought of lookin' there and I don't know's I'd have found it yet, but I happened to shove my hands in my pockets to help me think, and there 'twas."

This explanation should have been satisfying, doubtless, but Barbara did not seem to find it wholly so.

"Please may I ask one more question, Mamma?" she pleaded. "Just only one?"

She asked it before her mother could reply.

"How does putting your hands in your pockets help you think, Mr.

Winslow?" she asked. "I don't see how it would help a bit?"

Jed's eye twinkled, but his reply was solemnly given.

"Why, you see," he drawled, "I'm built a good deal like the old steam launch Tobias Wixon used to own. Every time Tobias blew the whistle it used up all the steam and the engine stopped. I've got a head about like that engine; when I want to use it I have to give all the rest of me a layoff. . . . Here we are, ma'am. Walk right in, won't you."

He showed them through room after room of the little house, opening the closed shutters so that the afternoon sunlight might stream in and brighten their progress. The rooms were small, but they were attractive and cosy. The furniture was almost all old mahogany and in remarkably good condition. The rugs were home-made; even the coverlets of the beds were of the old-fas.h.i.+oned blue and white, woven on the hand looms of our great-grandmothers. Mrs. Armstrong was enthusiastic.

"It is like a miniature museum of antiques," she declared. "And such wonderful antiques, too. You must have been besieged by people who wanted to buy them."

Jed nodded. "Ye-es," he admitted, "I cal'late there's been no less'n a million antiquers here in the last four or five year. I don't mean here in the house--I never let 'em in the house--but 'round the premises. Got so they kind of swarmed first of every summer, like June bugs. I got rid of 'em, though, for a spell."

"Did you; how?"

He rubbed his chin. "Put up a sign by the front door that said: 'Beware of Leprosy.' That kept 'em away while it lasted."

Mrs. Armstrong laughed merrily. "I should think so," she said.

"But why leprosy, pray?"

"Oh, I was goin' to make it smallpox, but I asked Doctor Parker if there was anything worse than smallpox and he said he cal'lated leprosy was about as bad as any disease goin'. It worked fine while it lasted, but the Board of Health made me take it down; said there wan't any leprosy on the premises. I told 'em no, but 'twas a good idea to beware of it anyhow, and I'd put up the sign just on general principles. No use; they hadn't much use for principles, general or otherwise, seemed so."

The lady commented on the neatness and order in the little rooms.

They were in marked contrast to the workshop. "I suppose you have a woman come here to clean and sweep," she said.

Jed shook his head.

"No-o," he answered. "I generally cal'late to come in every little while and clean up. Mother was always a great one for keepin'

things slicked up," he added, apologetically, "and I--I kind of like to think 'twould please her. Foolish, I presume likely, but-- well, foolish things seem to come natural to me. Got a kind of a gift for 'em, as you might say. I . . ."

He lapsed into silence, his sentence only begun. Mrs. Armstrong, looking up, found him gazing at her with the absent, far-off look that his closest a.s.sociates knew so well. She had not met it before and found it rather embarra.s.sing, especially as it kept on and on.

"Well?" she asked, after a time. He started and awoke to realities.

"I was just thinkin'," he explained, "that you was the only woman that has been in this house since the summer I let it to the Davidson folks. And Mrs. Davidson wan't a mite like you."

That was true enough. Mrs. Davidson had been a plump elderly matron with gray hair, a rather rasping voice and a somewhat aggressive manner. Mrs. Armstrong was young and slim, her hair and eyes were dark, her manner refined and her voice low and gentle.

And, if Jed had been in the habit of noticing such things, he might have noticed that she was pleasant to look at. Perhaps he was conscious of this fact, but, if so, it was only in a vague, general way.

His gaze wandered to Barbara, who, with Petunia, was curled up in a big old-fas.h.i.+oned rocker.

"And a child, too," he mused. "I don't know when there's been a child in here. Not since I was one, I guess likely, and that's too long ago for anybody to remember single-handed."

But Mrs. Armstrong was interested in his previous remark.

"You have let others occupy this house then?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am, one summer I did. Let it furnished to some folks name of Davidson, from Chicago."

"And you haven't rented it since?"