“Guess you’ve been havin’ a pretty good time, haven’t you?” he inquired.

The small visitor’s answer was given with dignity.

“Yes,” she said.  “Will you please tell me if you are the windmill man?”

Jed accepted the snub with outward humility and inward appreciation.

“Why, yes,” he admitted; “I presume likely I’m the windmill man.  Is there anything I can do for you this evenin’?”

Apparently there was, for the child, untucking the doll from beneath her right arm and tucking it under the left, pointed her right hand at a wooden weather-vane in the shape of a sperm whale and asked: 

“Please, does that fish go ’round?”

“Go ’round?  Go ’round where?”

“I mean does it go ’round and ’round on a stick?”

“Cal’late it does when it has a chance.”

“And does it make the wind blow no’theast by no’th and—­and like that?”

“Eh?  Make the wind blow—­how?”

“I mean does it make the wind blow different ways, no’theast by no’th and cantin’ ’round to the sou-east and—­and those ways?  Captain Hedge has got a fish up on his barn that used to do that, but now it won’t ’cause he cal’lates it’s rusted fast.  He said he guessed he would have to be getting a new one.  When I saw the fishes out in your yard I thought about it and I thought I would come in and see if you had the right kind.  Is this one a—­a gunfish?”

“A which fish?”

“A gunfish.  No, that isn’t it.  A—­a swordfish, that’s it.  Captain Hedge’s is a swordfish.”

“We-ll, that particular one got a wrong start and ended up by bein’ a whale, but I shouldn’t wonder if we could find a swordfish if we looked.  Yes, here’s one.  Think that would do?”

The child looked it over very carefully.

“Yes,” she said, “I think it would.  If you’re sure it would make the wind go right.”

“We-ll, I guess likely I could guarantee that fish would go ’most any way the wind did, unless it should take a notion to blow straight up and down, which don’t happen often.  So you know Cap’n Hedge, do you?  Relation of his, are you?  Visitin’ there?”

“No.  Mamma and I are boarding at Mrs. Smalley’s, but I go over to call on Captain Hedge ’most every day.”

“Sho!  Want to know!  Well, that’s nice and sociable.  So you’re boardin’ at Luretta Smalley’s.  My! you’re consider’ble ways from home, ain’t you?  Is your mamma with you?”

For the first time the youthful caller’s poise seemed a trifle shaken.

“No-o . . . no,” she stammered, and added, hastily:  “How much is this fish, please?”

“I generally sell that sort of fish for about two dollars.”  He looked out of the window, hummed a tune, and then added:  “Let’s see, what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Barbara Armstrong.  How much did you say the fish was?”

“Eh? . . .  Oh, two dollars.”