Part 6 (1/2)

During those twenty years whatever ambition Jedidah Edgar Wilfred may once have had was thoroughly crushed. His mother would not hear of his leaving her to find better work or to obtain promotion.

She needed him, she wailed; he was her life, her all; she should die if he left her. Some hard-hearted townspeople, Captain Hunniwell among them, disgustedly opined that, in view of such a result, Jed should be forcibly kidnaped forthwith for the general betterment of the community. But Jed himself never rebelled. He cheerfully gave up his youth and early middle age to his mother and waited upon her, ran her errands, sat beside her practically every evening and read romance after romance aloud for her benefit. And his ”queerness” developed, as under such circ.u.mstances it was bound to do.

Money had to be earned and, as the invalid would not permit him to leave her to earn it, it was necessary to find ways of earning it at home. Jed did odd jobs of carpentering and cabinet making, went fis.h.i.+ng sometimes, worked in gardens between times, did almost anything, in fact, to bring in the needed dollars. And when he was thirty-eight years old he made and sold his first ”Cape Cod Winslow windmill,” the forerunner of the thousands to follow. That mill, made in some of his rare idle moments and given to the child of a wealthy summer visitor, made a hit. The child liked it and other children wanted mills just like it. Then ”grown-ups” among the summer folk took up the craze. ”Winslow mills” became the fad.

Jed built his little shop, or the first installment of it.

Mrs. Floretta Winslow died when her son was forty. A merciful release, Captain Sam and the rest called it, but to Jed it was a stunning shock. He had no one to take care of now except himself and he did not know what to do. He moped about like a deserted cat. Finally he decided that he could not live in the old house where he was born and had lived all his life. He expressed his feelings concerning that house to his nearest friend, practically his sole confidant, Captain Sam.

”I can't somehow seem to stand it, Sam,” he said, solemnly. ”I can't stay in that house alone any longer, it's--it's too sociable.”

The captain, who had expected almost anything but that, stared at him.

”Sociable!” he repeated. ”You're sailin' stern first, Jed.

Lonesome's what you mean, of course.”

Jed shook his head.

”No-o,” he drawled, ”I mean sociable. There's too many boys in there, for one thing.”

”Boys!” Captain Sam was beginning to be really alarmed now.

”Boys! Say--say, Jed Winslow, you come along home to dinner with me. I bet you've forgot to eat anything for the last day or so-- been inventin' some new kind of whirlagig or other--and your empty stomach's gone to your head and made it dizzy. Boys! Gracious king! Come on home with me.”

Jed smiled his slow smile. ”I don't mean real boys, Sam,” he explained. ”I mean me--I'm the boys. Nights now when I'm walkin'

around in that house alone I meet myself comin' round every corner.

Me when I was five, comin' out of the b.u.t.tery with a cooky in each fist; and me when I was ten sittin' studyin' my lesson book in the corner; and me when I was fifteen, just afore Father died, sittin'

all alone thinkin' what I'd do when I went to Boston Tech same as he said he was cal'latin' to send me. Then--”

He paused and lapsed into one of his fits of musing. His friend drew a breath of relief.

”Oh!” he exclaimed. ”Well, I don't mind your meetin' yourself. I thought first you'd gone off your head, blessed if I didn't.

You're a queer critter, Jed. Get those funny notions from readin'

so many books, I guess likely. Meetin' yourself! What an idea that is! I suppose you mean that, bein' alone in that house where you've lived since you was born, you naturally get to thinkin'

about what used to be.”

Jed stared wistfully at the back of a chair.

”Um-hm,” he murmured, ”and what might have been--and--and ain't.”

The captain nodded. Of all the people in Orham he, he prided himself, was the only one who thoroughly understood Jed Winslow.

And sometimes he did partially understand him; this was one of the times.

”Now--now--now,” he said, hastily, ”don't you get to frettin'

yourself about your not amountin' to anything and all that. You've got a nice little trade of your own buildin' up here. What more do you want? We can't all be--er--Know-it-alls like Shakespeare, or-- or rich as Standard Oil Companies, can we? Look here, what do you waste your time goin' back twenty-five years and meetin' yourself for? Why don't you look ahead ten or fifteen and try to meet yourself then? You may be a millionaire, a--er--windmill trust or somethin' of that kind, by that time. Eh? Ha, ha!”

Jed rubbed his chin.

”When I meet myself lookin' like a millionaire,” he observed, gravely, ”I'll have to do the way you do at your bank, Sam--call in somebody to identify me.”