Shavings Part 34

"Gracious king! Who is he? Where is he?"

"That I can't tell you just yet. But maybe I can by and by."

"Tell me now."

"No-o. No, I just heard about him and it was told to me in secret.

All I can say is don't get anybody to fill Lute Small's place till you and I have another talk."

Captain Sam stared keenly into his friend's face. Jed bore the scrutiny calmly; in fact he didn't seem to be aware of it. The captain gave it up.

"All right," he said. "No use tryin' to pump you, I know that.

When you make up your mind to keep your mouth shut a feller couldn't open it with a cold chisel. I presume likely you'll tell in your own good time. Now if you'll scratch around and find those checks and things you want me to deposit for you I'll take 'em and be goin'. I'm in a little bit of a hurry this mornin'."

Jed "scratched around," finally locating the checks and bills in the coffee pot on the shelf in his little kitchen.

"There!" he exclaimed, with satisfaction, "I knew I put 'em somewheres where they'd be safe and where I couldn't forget 'em."

"Where you couldn't forget 'em! Why, you did forget 'em, didn't you?"

"Um . . . yes . . . I cal'late I did this mornin', but that's because I didn't make any coffee for breakfast. If I'd made coffee same as I usually do I'd have found 'em."

"Why didn't you make coffee this mornin'?"

Jed's eye twinkled.

"W-e-e-ll," he drawled, "to be honest with you, Sam, 'twas because I couldn't find the coffee pot. After I took it down to put this money in it I put it back on a different shelf. I just found it now by accident."

As the captain was leaving Jed asked one more question. "Sam," he asked, "about this bank job now? If you had a chance to get a bright, smart young man with experience in bank work, you'd hire him, wouldn't you?"

Captain Hunniwell's answer was emphatic.

"You bet I would!" he declared. "If I liked his looks and his references were good I'd hire him in two minutes. And salary, any reasonable salary, wouldn't part us, either. . . . Eh? What makes you look like that?"

For Jed's expression had changed; his hand moved across his chin.

"Eh--er--references?" he repeated.

"Why, why, of course. I'd want references from the folks he'd worked for, statin' that he was honest and capable and all that.

With those I'd hire him in two minutes, as I said. You fetch him along and see. So long, Jed. See you later."

He hustled out, stopping to tear from the outer door the placard directing callers to call at Abijah Thompson's. Jed returned to his box and sat down once more to ponder. In his innocence it had not occurred to him that references would be required.

That evening, about nine, he crossed the yard and knocked at the back door of the little house. Mrs. Armstrong answered the knock; Barbara, of course, was in bed and asleep. Ruth was surprised to see her landlord at that, for him, late hour. Also, remembering the unceremonious way in which he had permitted her to depart at the end of their interview that forenoon, she was not as cordial as usual. She had made him her confidant, why she scarcely knew; then, after expressing great interest and sympathy, he had suddenly seemed to lose interest in the whole matter. She was acquainted with his eccentricities and fits of absent-mindedness, but nevertheless she had been hurt and offended. She told herself that she should have expected nothing more from "Shavings" Winslow, the person about whom two-thirds of Orham joked and told stories, but the fact remained that she was disappointed. And she was angry, not so much with him perhaps, as with herself. WHY had she been so foolish as to tell any one of their humiliation?

So when Jed appeared at the back door she received him rather coldly. He was quite conscious of the change in temperature, but he made no comment and offered no explanation. Instead he told his story, the story of his interview with Captain Hunniwell. As he told it her face showed at first interest, then hope, and at the last radiant excitement. She clasped her hands and leaned toward him, her eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"Oh, Mr. Winslow," she cried, breathlessly, "do you mean it? Do you really believe Captain Hunniwell will give my brother a position in his bank?"

Jed nodded slowly. "Yes," he said, "I think likely he might.

Course 'twouldn't be any great of a place, not at first--nor ever, I cal'late, so far as that goes. 'Tain't a very big bank and wages ain't--"

But she interrupted. "But that doesn't make any difference," she cried. "Don't you see it doesn't! The salary and all that won't count--now. It will be a start for Charles, an opportunity for him to feel that he is a man again, doing a man's work, an honest man's work. And he will be here where I can be with him, where we can be together, where it won't be so hard for us to be poor and where there will be no one who knows us, who knows our story. Oh, Mr.

Winslow, is it really true? If it is, how--how can we ever thank you? How can I ever show you how grateful I feel?"

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted and joy shone in her eager eyes. Her voice broke a little as she uttered the words. Jed looked at her and then quickly looked away.

"I--I--don't talk so, Mrs. Armstrong," he pleaded, hastily. "It-- it ain't anything, it ain't really. It just--"

"Not anything? Not anything to find my brother the opportunity he and I have been praying for? To give me the opportunity of having him with me? Isn't that anything? It is everything. Oh, Mr.

Winslow, if you can do this for us--"

"Shs.h.!.+ Sshh! Now, Mrs. Armstrong, please. You mustn't say I'm doin' it for you. I'm the one that just happened to think of it, that's all. You could have done it just as well, if you'd thought of it."

"Perhaps," with a doubtful smile, "but I should never have thought of it. You did because you were thinking for me--for my brother and me. And--and I thought you didn't care."

"Eh? . . . Didn't care?"

"Yes. When I left you at the shop this morning after our talk.

You were so--so odd. You didn't speak, or offer to advise me as I had asked you to; you didn't even say good-by. You just sat there and let me go. And I didn't understand and--"

Jed put up a hand. His face was a picture of distress.

"Dear, dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "Did I do that? I don't remember it, but of course I did if you say so. Now what on earth possessed me to? . . . Eh?" as the idea occurred to him. "Tell me, was I singin'?"

"Why, yes, you were. That is, you were--were--"

"Makin' a noise as if I'd swallowed a hymn book and one of the tunes was chokin' me to death? Um-hm, that's the way I sing. And I was singin' when you left me, eh? That means I was thinkin'

about somethin'. I told Babbie once, and it's the truth, that thinkin' was a big job with me and when I did it I had to drop everything else, come up into the wind like a schooner, you know, and just lay to and think. . . . Oh, I remember now! You said somethin' about your brother's workin' in a bank and that set me thinkin' that Sam must be needin' somebody by this time in Lute Small's place."

"You didn't know he needed any one?"

"No-o, not exactly; but I knew Lute, and that amounted to the same thing. Mrs. Armstrong, I do hope you'll forgive me for--for singin' and--and all the rest of my foolish actions."

"Forgive you! Will you forgive me for misjudging you?"

"Land sakes, don't talk that way. But there's one thing I haven't said yet and you may not like it. I guess you and your brother'll have to go to Sam and tell him the whole story."

Her expression changed. "The whole story?" she repeated. "Why, what do you mean? Tell him that Charles has been in--in prison?

You don't mean THAT?"

"Um-hm," gravely; "I'm afraid I do. It looks to me as if it was the only way."

"But we can't! Oh, Mr. Winslow, we can't do that."

"I know 'twill be awful hard for you. But, when I talked to Sam about my havin' a possible candidate for the bank place, the very last thing he said was that he'd be glad to see him providin' his references was all right. I give you my word I'd never thought of references, not till then."

"But if we tell him--tell him everything, we shall only make matters worse, shan't we? Of course he won't give him the position then."

"There's a chance he won't, that's true. But Sam Hunniwell's a fine feller, there ain't any better, and he likes you and--well, he and I have been cruisin' in company for a long spell. Maybe he'll give your brother a chance to make good. I hope he will."