the floor—­what wasn’t in my coat pocket and stuck to my clothes and so on.  I fetched the water bucket and started to salvage what I could of the cargo.  Pretty soon I had, as nigh as I could reckon it, about fourteen pound out of the five scooped up and in the bucket.  I begun to think the miracle of loaves and fishes was comin’ to pass again.  I was some shy on fish, but I was makin’ up on loaves.  Then I sort of looked matters over and found what I had in the bucket was about one pound of meal to seven of sawdust.  Then I gave it up.  Seemed to me the stuff might be more fillin’ than nourishin’.”

Ruth smiled faintly.  Then she shook her head.

“Oh, Jed,” she said, “you’re as transparent as a windowpane.  Thank you, though.  If anything could cheer me up and help me to forget I think you could.”

Jed looked repentant.  “I’d no business to tell you all that rigamarole,” he said.  “I’m sorry.  I’m always doin’ the wrong thing, seems so.  But,” he added, earnestly, “I don’t want you to worry too much about your brother—­er—­Ruth.  It’s goin’ to come out all right, I know it.  God won’t let it come out any other way.”

She had never heard him speak in just that way before and she looked at him in surprise.

“And yet God permits many things that seem entirely wrong to us humans,” she said.

“I know.  Things like the Kaiser, for instance.  Well, never mind; this one’s goin’ to come out all right.  I feel it in my bones.  And,” with a return of his whimsical drawl, “I may be short on brains, but a blind man could see they never skimped me when they passed out the bones.”

She looked at him a moment.  Then, suddenly leaning forward, she put her hand upon his big red one as it lay upon the bench.

“Jed,” she said, earnestly, “what should I do without you?  You are my one present help in time of trouble.  I wonder if you know what you have come to mean to me.”

It was an impulsive speech, made from the heart, and without thought of phrasing or that any meaning other than that intended could be read into it.  A moment later, and without waiting for an answer, she hurried from the shop.

“I must go,” she said.  “I shall think over your advice, Jed, and I will let you know what I decide to do.  Thank you ever and ever so much.”

Jed scarcely heard her.  After she had gone, he sat perfectly still by the bench for a long period, gazing absently at the bare wall of the shop and thinking strange thoughts.  After a time he rose and, walking into the little sitting-room, sat down beside the ugly little oak writing table he had bought at a second-hand sale and opened the upper drawer.

Weeks before, Ruth, yielding to Babbie’s urgent appeal, had accompanied the latter to the studio of the local photographer and there they had been photographed, together, and separately.  The results, although not artistic triumphs, being most inexpensive, had been rather successful as likenesses.  Babbie had come trotting in to show Jed the proofs.  A day or so later he found one of the said proofs on the shop floor where the little girl had dropped it.  It happened to be a photograph of Ruth, sitting alone.