So the committee investigated and when Miss Thompson’s year was up and the question arose as to her re-engagement, there was considerable hesitancy.  But the situation was relieved in a most unexpected fashion.  Thaddeus Winslow, first mate on the clipper ship, “Owner’s Favorite,” at home from a voyage to the Dutch East Indies, fell in love with Miss Floretta, proposed, was accepted and married her.

It was an odd match:  Floretta, pale, polite, impractical and intensely romantic; Thad, florid, rough and to the point.  Yet the married pair seemed to be happy together.  Winslow went to sea on several voyages and, four years after the marriage, remained at home for what, for him, was a long time.  During that time a child, a boy, was born.

The story of the christening of that child is one of Orham’s pet yarns even to this day.  It seems that there was a marked disagreement concerning the name to be given him.  Captain Thad had had an Uncle Edgar, who had been very kind to him when a boy.  The captain wished to name his own youngster after this uncle.  But Floretta’s heart was set upon “Wilfred,” her favorite hero of romance being Wilfred of Ivanhoe.  The story is that the parents being no nearer an agreement on the great question, Floretta made a proposal of compromise.  She proposed that her husband take up his stand by the bedroom window and the first male person he saw passing on the sidewalk below, the name of that person should be given to their offspring; a sporting proposition certainly.  But the story goes on to detract a bit from the sporting element by explaining that Mrs. Winslow was expecting a call at that hour from the Baptist minister, and the Baptist minister’s Christian name was “Clarence,” which, if not quite as romantic as Wilfred, is by no means common and prosaic.  Captain Thad, who had not been informed of the expected ministerial call and was something of a sport himself, assented to the arrangement.  It was solemnly agreed that the name of the first male passer-by should be the name of the new Winslow.  The captain took up his post of observation at the window and waited.

He did not have to wait long.  Unfortunately for romance, the Reverend Clarence was detained at the home of another parishioner a trifle longer than he had planned and the first masculine to pass the Winslow home was old Jedidah Wingate, the fish peddler.  Mrs. Diadama Busteed, who was acting as nurse in the family and had been sworn in as witness to the agreement between husband and wife, declared to the day of her death that that death was hastened by the shock to her nervous and moral system caused by Captain Thad’s language when old Jedidah hove in sight.  He vowed over and over again that he would be everlastingly condemned if he would label a young-one of his with such a crashety-blank-blanked outrage of a name as “Jedidah.”  “Jedidiah” was bad enough, but there were a few Jedidiahs in Ostable County, whereas there was but one Jedidah.