Suddenly the latter spoke.

“Jed,” he said, “when you are undecided about doing or not doing a thing, how do you settle it?”

Jed looked up over his spectacles.

“Eh?” he asked.  “What’s that?”

“I say when you have a decision to make and your mind is about fifty-fifty on the subject, how do you decide?”

Jed’s answer was absently given.  “W-e-e-ll,” he drawled, “I generally—­er—­don’t.”

“But suppose the time comes when you have to, what then?”

“Eh? . . .  Oh, then, if ’tain’t very important I usually leave it to Isaiah.”

“Isaiah?  Isaiah who?”

“I don’t know his last name, but he’s got a whole lot of first ones.  That’s him, up on that shelf.”

He pointed to a much battered wooden figure attached to the edge of the shelf upon the wall.  The figure was that of a little man holding a set of mill arms in front of him.  The said mill arms were painted a robin’s-egg blue, and one was tipped with black.

“That’s Isaiah,” continued Jed.  “Hum . . . yes . . . that’s him.  He was the first one of his kind of contraption that I ever made and, bein’ as he seemed to bring me luck, I’ve kept him.  He’s settled a good many questions for me, Isaiah has.”

“Why do you call him Isaiah?”

“Eh?  Oh, that’s just his to-day’s name.  I called him Isaiah just now ’cause that was the first of the prophet names I could think of.  Next time he’s just as liable to be Hosea or Ezekiel or Samuel or Jeremiah.  He prophesies just as well under any one of ’em, don’t seem to be particular.”

Charles smiled slightly—­he did not appear to be in a laughing mood—­and then asked:  “You say he settles questions for you?  How?”

“How? . . .  Oh. . .  Well, you notice one end of that whirligig arm he’s got is smudged with black?”

“Yes.”

“That’s Hosea’s indicator.  Suppose I’ve got somethin’ on—­on what complimentary folks like you would call my mind.  Suppose, same as ‘twas yesterday mornin’, I was tryin’ to decide whether or not I’d have a piece of steak for supper.  I gave—­er—­Elisha’s whirlagig here a spin and when the black end stopped ‘twas p’intin’ straight up.  That meant yes.  If it had p’inted down, ’twould have meant no.”

“Suppose it had pointed across—­half way between yes and no?”

“That would have meant that—­er—­what’s-his-name—­er—­Deuteronomy there didn’t know any more than I did about it.”

This time Phillips did laugh.  “So you had the steak,” he observed.

Jed’s lip twitched.  “I bought it,” he drawled.  “I got so far all accordin’ to prophecy.  And I put it on a plate out in the back room where ‘twas cold, intendin’ to cook it when supper time came.”

“Well, didn’t you?”

“No-o; you see, ‘twas otherwise provided.  That everlastin’ Cherub tomcat of Taylor’s must have sneaked in with the boy when he brought the order from the store.  When I shut the steak up in the back room I—­er—­er—­hum. . . .”