Mrs. Winslow, who did not fancy Jedidah any more than her husband did, wept; Captain Thad’s profanity impregnated the air with brimstone.  But they had solemnly sworn to the agreement and Mrs. Busteed had witnessed it, and an oath is an oath.  Besides, Mrs. Winslow was inclined to think the whole matter guided by Fate, and, being superstitious as well as romantic, feared dire calamity if Fate was interfered with.  It ended in a compromise and, a fortnight later, the Reverend Clarence, keeping his countenance with difficulty, christened a red-faced and protesting infant “Jedidah Edgar Wilfred Winslow.”

Jedidah Edgar Wilfred grew up.  At first he was called “Edgar” by his father and “Wilfred” by his mother.  His teachers, day school and Sunday school, called him one or the other as suited their individual fancies.  But his schoolmates and playfellows, knowing that he hated the name above all else on earth, gleefully hailed him as “Jedidah.”  By the time he was ten he was “Jed” Winslow beyond hope of recovery.  Also it was settled locally that he was “queer”—­not “cracked” or “lacking,” which would have implied that his brain was affected—­but just “queer,” which meant that his ways of thinking and acting were different from those of Orham in general.

His father, Captain Thaddeus, died when Jed was fifteen, just through the grammar school and ready to enter the high.  He did not enter; instead, the need of money being pressing, he went to work in one of the local stores, selling behind the counter.  If his father had lived he would, probably, have gone away after finishing high school and perhaps, if by that time the mechanical ability which he possessed had shown itself, he might even have gone to some technical school or college.  In that case Jed Winslow’s career might have been very, very different.  But instead he went to selling groceries, boots, shoes, dry goods and notions for Mr. Seth Wingate, old Jedidah’s younger brother.

As a grocery clerk Jed was not a success, neither did he shine as a clerk in the post office, nor as an assistant to the local expressman.  In desperation he began to learn the carpenter’s trade and, because he liked to handle tools, did pretty well at it.  But he continued to be “queer” and his absent-minded dreaminess was in evidence even then.

“I snum I don’t know what to make of him,” declared Mr. Abijah Mullett, who was the youth’s “boss.”  “Never know just what he’s goin’ to do or just what he’s goin’ to say.  I says to him yesterday:  ‘Jed,’ says I, ’you do pretty well with tools and wood, considerin’ what little experience you’ve had.  Did Cap’n Thad teach you some or did you pick it up yourself?’ He never answered for a minute or so, seemed to be way off dreamin’ in the next county somewheres.  Then he looked at me with them big eyes of his and he drawled out:  ‘Comes natural to me, Mr. Mullett, I guess,’ he says.  ‘There seems to be a sort of family feelin’ between my head and a chunk of wood.’  Now what kind of an answer was that, I want to know!”