“Stop!  Be still!”

Jed actually shouted it.  Babbitt stopped, principally because the suddenness of the interruption had startled him into doing so.  But the pause was only momentary.  He stared at the interrupter in enraged amazement for an instant and then demanded:  “Stop?  Who are you tellin’ to stop?”

“You.”

“I want to know!  Well, I’ll stop when I get good and ready and if you don’t like it, Shavin’s, you can lump it.  That Phillips kid has turned out to be a thief and, so far as anybody ’round here knows, his sister may be—­”

“Stop!” Again Jed shouted it; and this time he rose to his feet.  Phineas glared at him.

“Humph!” he grunted.  “You’ll make me stop, I presume likely.”

“Yes.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it’s got to be so.  Look here, Phin, I realize you’re mad and don’t care much what you say, but there’s a limit, you know.  It’s bad enough to hear you call poor Charlie names, but when you start in on Ruth—­on Mrs. Armstrong, I mean—­that’s too much.  You’ve got to stop.”

This speech was made quietly and with all the customary Winslow deliberation and apparent calm, but there was one little slip in it and that slip Babbitt was quick to notice.

“Oh, my!” he sneered.  “Ruth’s what we call her, eh?  Ruth!  Got so chummy we call each other by our first names.  Ruthie and Jeddie, I presume likely.  Aw, haw, haw!”

Jed’s pallor was, for the moment, succeeded by a vivid crimson.  He stammered.  Phineas burst into another scornful laugh.

“Haw, haw, haw!” he crowed.  “She lets him call her Ruth.  Oh, my Lord A’mighty!  Let’s Shavin’s Winslow call her that.  Well, I guess I sized her up all right.  She must be about on her brother’s level.  A thief and—­”

“Shut up, Phin!”

“Shut up?  You tell me to shut up!”

“Yes.”

“Well, I won’t.  Ruth Armstrong!  What do I care for—­”

The speech was not finished.  Jed had taken one long stride to where Babbitt was standing, seized the furious little creature by the right arm with one hand and with the other covered his open mouth, covered not only the mouth, but a large section of face as well.

“You keep quiet, Phin,” he drawled.  “I want to think.”

Phineas struggled frantically.  He managed to get one corner of his mouth from behind that mammoth hand.

“Ruth Armstrong!” he screamed.  “Ruth Armstrong is—­”

The yell died away to a gurgle, pinched short by the Winslow fingers.  Then the door leading to the kitchen, the door behind the pair, opened and Ruth Armstrong herself came in.  She was pale and she stared with frightened eyes at the little man struggling in the tall one’s clutch.

“Oh, Jed,” she breathed, “what is it?”

Jed did not reply.  Phineas could not.

“Oh, Jed, what is it?” repeated Ruth.  “I heard him shouting my name.  I was in the yard and I heard it. . . .  Oh, Jed, what is it?”