“Where in the world did you get those?” he demanded.  “The last I saw of you you were disappearing over that bank, apparently headed out to sea.  Do you dig those things up on the flats hereabouts, like clams?”

Jed rubbed his chin.  “Not’s I know of,” he replied.  “I borrowed these down at Joshua Rogers’ garage.”

“Rogers’ garage?” repeated Grover.  “That isn’t near here, is it?”

“It is an eighth of a mile from here,” declared Ruth.  “And not down by the beach, either.  What do you mean, Jed?”

Jed was standing by the front window, peeping out.  “Um-hm,” he said, musingly, “they’re still there, the whole lot of ’em, waitin’ for you to come out, Major. . . .  Hum . . . dear, dear!  And they’re all doubled up now laughin’ ahead of time. . . .  Dear, dear! this is a world of disappointment, sure enough.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Major Grover.

“Jed!” exclaimed Ruth.

Barbara said nothing.  She was accustomed to her Uncle Jed’s vagaries and knew that, in his own good time, an explanation would be forthcoming.  It came now.

“Why, you see,” said Jed, “Phin Babbitt and the rest sendin’ you over here to find a crank was their little joke.  They’re enjoyin’ it now.  The one thing needed to make ’em happy for life is to see you come out of here empty-handed and so b’ilin’ mad that you froth over.  If you come out smilin’ and with what you came after, why—­ why, then the cream of their joke has turned a little sour, as you might say.  See?”

Grover laughed.  “Yes, I see that plain enough,” he agreed.  “And I’m certainly obliged to you.  I owed those fellows one.  But what I don’t see is how you got those cranks by going down to the seashore.”

“W-e-e-ll, if I’d gone straight up the road to Rogers’s our jokin’ friends would have known that’s where the cranks came from.  I wanted ’em to think they came from right here.  So I went over the bank back of the shop, where they couldn’t see me, along the beach till I got abreast of Joshua’s and then up across lots.  I came back the way I went.  I hope those things ’ll fit, Major.  One of ’em will, I guess likely.”

The major laughed again.  “I certainly am obliged to you, Mr. Winslow,” he said.  “And I must say you took a lot of trouble on my account.”

Jed sighed, although there was a little twinkle in his eye.

“’Twan’t altogether on your account,” he drawled.  “I owed ’em one, same as you did.  I was the crank they sent you to.”

Their visitor bade Barbara and her mother good afternoon, gathered up his cranks and turned to the door.

“I’ll step over and start the car,” he said.  “Then I’ll come back and return these things.”

Jed shook his head.  “I wouldn’t,” he said.  “You may stop again before you get back to Bayport.  Rogers is in no hurry for ’em, he said so.  You take ’em along and fetch ’em in next time you’re over.  I want you to call again anyhow and these cranks ’ll make a good excuse for doin’ it,” he added.