“You’re joking again, Uncle Jed,” she said.  “That kind of aeroplane couldn’t have any tire trouble, ’cause it hasn’t got any tires.”

Mr. Winslow appeared to reflect.  “That’s so,” he admitted, “but I don’t know as we’d ought to count too much on that.  I remember when Gabe Bearse had brain fever.”

This was a little deep for Babbie, whose laugh was somewhat uncertain.  She changed the subject.

“Oh!” she cried, with a wiggle, “there’s a caterpillar right here on this bench with us, Uncle Jed.  He’s a fuzzy one, too; I can see the fuzz; the moon makes it shiny.”

Jed bent over to look.  “That?” he said.  “That little, tiny one?  Land sakes, he ain’t big enough to be more than a kitten-pillar.  You ain’t afraid of him, are you?”

“No-o.  No, I guess I’m not.  But I shouldn’t like to have him walk on me.  He’d be so—­so ticklesome.”

Jed brushed the caterpillar off into the grass.

“There he goes,” he said.  “I’ve got to live up to my job as guardian, I expect.  Last letter I had from your pa he said he counted on my lookin’ out for you and your mamma.  If he thought I let ticklesome kitten-pillars come walkin’ on you he wouldn’t cal’late I amounted to much.”

For this was the “trust” to which Major Grover had referred in his conversation with Jed.  Later he explained his meaning.  He was expecting soon to be called to active service “over there.”  Before he went he and Ruth were to be married.

“My wife and Barbara will stay here in the old house, Jed,” he said, “if you are willing.  And I shall leave them in your charge.  It’s a big trust, for they’re pretty precious articles, but they’ll be safe with you.”

Jed looked at him aghast.  “Good land of love!” he cried.  “You don’t mean it?”

“Of course I mean it.  Don’t look so frightened, man.  It’s just what you’ve been doing ever since they came here, that’s all.  Ruth says she has been going to you for advice since the beginning.  I just want her to keep on doing it.”

“But—­but, my soul, I—­I ain’t fit to be anybody’s guardian. . . .  I—­I ought to have somebody guardin’ me.  Anybody’ll tell you that. . . .  Besides, I—­I don’t think—­”

“Yes, you do; and you generally think right.  Oh, come, don’t talk any more about it.  It’s a bargain, of course.  And if there’s anything I can do for you on the other side, I’ll be only too happy to oblige.”

Jed rubbed his chin.  “W-e-e-ll,” he drawled, “there’s one triflin’ thing I’ve been hankerin’ to do myself, but I can’t, I’m afraid.  Maybe you can do it for me.”

“All right, what is the trifling thing?”

“Eh? . . .  Oh, that—­er—–­Crown Prince thing.  Do him brown, if you get a chance, will you?”

Of course, the guardianship was, in a sense, a joke, but in another it was not.  Jed knew that Leonard Grover’s leaving his wife and Babbie in his charge was, to a certain extent, a serious trust.  And he accepted it as such.