But Jed did worry, a little, although his worry concerning the young man’s need of money was so far overshadowed by the anxiety caused by his falling in love with Maud Hunniwell that it was almost forgotten.  That situation was still as tense as ever.  Two-thirds of Orham, so it seemed to Jed, was talking about it, wondering when the engagement would be announced and speculating, as Gabe Bearse had done, on Captain Sam’s reception of the news.  The principals, Maud and Charles, did not speak of it, of course—­ neither did the captain or Ruth Armstrong.  Jed expected Ruth to speak; he was certain she understood the situation and realized its danger; she appeared to him anxious and very nervous.  It was to him, and to him alone—­her brother excepted—­she could speak, but the days passed and she did not.  And it was Captain Hunniwell who spoke first.

CHAPTER XVI

Captain Sam entered the windmill shop about two o’clock one windy afternoon in the first week of March.  He was wearing a heavy fur overcoat and a motoring cap.  He pulled off the coat, threw it over a pile of boards and sat down.

“Whew!” he exclaimed.  “It’s blowing hard enough to start the bark on a log.”

Jed looked up.

“Did you say log or dog?” he asked, solemnly.

The captain grinned.  “I said log,” he answered.  “This gale of wind would blow a dog away, bark and all.  Whew!  I’m all out of breath.  It’s some consider’ble of a drive over from Wapatomac.  Comin’ across that stretch of marsh road by West Ostable I didn’t know but the little flivver would turn herself into a flyin’- machine and go up.”

Jed stopped in the middle of the first note of a hymn.

“What in the world sent you autoin’ way over to Wapatomac and back this day?” he asked.

His friend bit the end from a cigar.  “Oh, diggin’ up the root of all evil,” he said.  “I had to collect a note that was due over there.”

“Humph!  I don’t know much about such things, but I never mistrusted ‘twas necessary for you to go cruisin’ like that to collect notes.  Seems consider’ble like sendin’ the skipper up town to buy onions for the cook.  Couldn’t the—­the feller that owed the money send you a check?”

Captain Sam chuckled.  “He could, I cal’late, but he wouldn’t,” he observed. “’Twas old Sylvester Sage, up to South Wapatomac, the ‘cranberry king’ they call him up there.  He owns cranberry bogs from one end of the Cape to the other.  You’ve heard of him, of course.”

Jed rubbed his chin.  “Maybe so,” he drawled, “but if I have I’ve forgot him.  The only sage I recollect is the sage tea Mother used to make me take when I had a cold sometimes.  I couldn’t forget that.”

“Well, everybody but you has heard of old Sylvester.  He’s the biggest crank on earth.”

“Hum-m.  Seems ’s if he and I ought to know each other. . . .  But maybe he’s a different kind of crank; eh?”