“You did what?”

“Eh? . . .  Oh, I shut the cat up with it.  I guess likely that’s the end of the yarn, ain’t it?”

“Pretty nearly, I should say.  What did you do to the cat?”

“Hum. . . .  Why, I let him go.  He’s a good enough cat, ‘cordin’ to his lights, I guess.  It must have been a treat to him; I doubt if he gets much steak at home. . . .  Well, do you want to give Isaiah a whirl on that decision you say you’ve got to make?”

Charles gave him a quick glance.  “I didn’t say I had one to make,” he replied.  “I asked how you settled such a question, that’s all.”

“Um. . . .  I see. . . .  I see.  Well, the prophet’s at your disposal.  Help yourself.”

The young fellow shook his head.  “I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very satisfactory,” he said.  “He might say no when I wanted him to say yes, you see.”

“Um-hm. . . .  He’s liable to do that.  When he does it to me I keep on spinnin’ him till we agree, that’s all.”

Phillips made no comment on this illuminating statement and there was another interval of silence, broken only by the hum and rasp of the turning lathe.  Then he spoke again.

“Jed,” he said, “seriously now, when a big question comes up to you, and you’ve got to answer it one way or the other, how do you settle with yourself which way to answer?”

Jed sighed.  “That’s easy, Charlie,” he declared.  “There don’t any big questions ever come up to me.  I ain’t the kind of feller the big things come to.”

Charles grunted, impatiently.  “Oh, well, admitting all that,” he said, “you must have to face questions that are big to you, that seem big, anyhow.”

Jed could not help wincing, just a little.  The matter-of-fact way in which his companion accepted the estimate of his insignificance was humiliating.  Jed did not blame him, it was true, of course, but the truth hurt—­a little.  He was ashamed of himself for feeling the hurt.

“Oh,” he drawled, “I do have some things—­little no-account things—­ to decide every once in a while.  Sometimes they bother me, too—­ although they probably wouldn’t anybody with a head instead of a Hubbard squash on his shoulders.  The only way I can decide ’em is to set down and open court, put ’em on trial, as you might say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, I call in witnesses for both sides, seems so.  Here’s the reasons why I ought to tell; here’s the reasons why I shouldn’t.  I—­”

“Tell?  Ought to tell?  What makes you say that?  What have you got to tell?”

He was glaring at the windmill maker with frightened eyes.  Jed knew as well as if it had been painted on the shop wall before him the question in the boy’s mind, the momentous decision he was trying to make.  And he pitied him from the bottom of his heart.

“Tell?” he repeated.  “Did I say tell?  Well, if I did ’twas just a—­er—­figger of speech, as the book fellers talk about.  But the only way to decide a thing, as it seems to me, is to try and figger out what’s the right of it, and then do that.”