Part 26 (1/2)

But Barbara, having consulted her mother, refused to address her friend as ”Jed.” ”Mamma says it wouldn't be respect--respectaful,”

she said. ”And I don't think it would myself. You see, you're older than I am,” she added.

Jed nodded gravely. ”I don't know but I am, a little, now you remind me of it,” he admitted. ”Well, I tell you--call me 'Uncle Jed.' That's got a handle to it but it ain't so much like the handle to an ice pitcher as Mister is. 'Uncle Jed' 'll do, won't it?”

Barbara pondered. ”Why,” she said, doubtfully, ”you aren't my uncle, really. If you were you'd be Mamma's brother, like--like Uncle Charlie, you know.”

It was the second time she had mentioned ”Uncle Charlie.” Jed had never heard Mrs. Armstrong speak of having a brother, and he wondered vaguely why. However, he did not wonder long on this particular occasion.

”Humph!” he grunted. ”Well, let's see. I tell you: I'll be your step-uncle. That'll do, won't it? You've heard of step-fathers?

Um-hm. Well, they ain't real fathers, and a step-uncle ain't a real uncle. Now you think that over and see if that won't fix it first-rate.”

The child thought it over. ”And shall I call you 'Step-Uncle Jed'?” she asked.

”Eh? . . . Um. . . . No-o, I guess I wouldn't. I'm only a back step-uncle, anyway--I always come to the back steps of your house, you know--so I wouldn't say anything about the step part. You ask your ma and see what she says.”

So Barbara asked and reported as follows:

”She says I may call you 'Uncle Jed' when it's just you and I together,” she said. ”But when other people are around she thinks 'Mr. Winslow' would be more respectaful.”

It was settled on that basis.

”Can't you take me to the aviation place sometime, Uncle Jed?”

asked Barbara.

Jed thought he could, if he could borrow a boat somewhere and Mrs.

Armstrong was willing that Barbara should go with him. Both permission and the boat were obtained, the former with little difficulty, after Mrs. Armstrong had made inquiries concerning Mr.

Winslow's skill in handling a boat, the latter with more. At last Captain Perez Ryder, being diplomatically approached, told Jed he might use his eighteen foot power dory for a day, the only cost being that entailed by purchase of the necessary oil and gasoline.

It was a beautiful morning when they started on their six mile sail, or ”chug,” as Jed called it. Mrs. Armstrong had put up a lunch for them, and Jed had a bucket of clams, a kettle, a pail of milk, some crackers, onions and salt pork, the ingredients of a possible chowder.

”Little mite late for 'longsh.o.r.e chowder picnics, ma'am,” he said, ”but it's a westerly wind and I cal'late 'twill be pretty balmy in the lee of the pines. Soon's it gets any ways chilly we'll be startin' home. Wish you were goin' along, too.”

Mrs. Armstrong smiled and said she wished it had been possible for her to go, but it was not. She looked pale that morning, so it seemed to Jed, and when she smiled it was with an obvious effort.

”You're not going without locking your kitchen door, are you, Mr.

Jed?” she asked.

Jed looked at her and at the door.

”Why,” he observed, ”I ain't locked that door, have I! I locked the front one, the one to the shop, though. Did you see the sign I tacked on the outside of it?”

”No, I didn't.”

”I didn't know but you might have. I put on it: 'Closed for the day. Inquire at Abijah Thompson's.' You see,” he added, his eye twinkling ever so little, ”'Bije Thompson lives in the last house in the village, two mile or more over to the west'ard.”

”He does! Then why in the world did you tell people to inquire there?”

”Oh, if I didn't they'd be botherin' you, probably, and I didn't want 'em doin' that. If they want me enough to travel way over to 'Bije's they'll come back here to-morrow, I shouldn't wonder. I guess likely they'd have to; 'Bije don't know anything about me.”