Miss Armstrong looked very much disappointed.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed.  “I didn’t know it would be as much as that.  I—­I’m ’fraid I can’t get it.”

“So?  That’s too bad.  What was you cal’latin’ to do with it, if you did get it?”

“I was going to give it to Captain Hedge.  He misses his, now that it’s rusted so fast that it won’t go.  But I can’t get it.  I haven’t got but fourteen cents, ten that Mamma gave me this morning for being a good girl and taking my medicine nice yesterday, and four that Mrs. Smalley gave me for getting the eggs last week.  And two dollars is ever so much more than fourteen cents, isn’t it?”

“Hum. . . .  ’Tis a little more, that’s right.  It’s considered more by the—­um—­er—­best authorities.  Hum . . . er . . . h-u-u-m.  Sometimes, though, I do take off a little somethin’ for spot cash.  You’d pay spot cash, I presume likely, wouldn’t you?”

“I—­I don’t know what spot cash is.  I’d pay fourteen cents.”

Jed rubbed his chin.  “We-e-ll,” he drawled, gravely, “I’m afraid I couldn’t hardly knock off all that that comes to.  But,” taking another and much smaller vane from a shelf, “there’s an article, not quite so big, that I usually get fifty cents for.  What do you think of that?”

The child took the miniature swordfish and inspected it carefully.

“It’s a baby one, isn’t it,” she observed.  “Will it tell wind just as good as the big one?”

“Tell wind?  Hum! . . .  Don’t know’s I ever heard it put just that way afore.  But a clock tells time, so I suppose there’s no reason why a vane shouldn’t tell wind.  Yes, I guess ’twill tell wind all right.”

“Then I think it might do.”  She seemed a little doubtful.  “Only,” she added, “fifty cents is lots more than fourteen, isn’t it?”

Mr. Winslow admitted that it was.  “But I tell you,” he said, after another period of reflection, “seein’ as it’s you I’ll make a proposal to you.  Cap’n Eri Hedge is a pretty good friend of mine, same as he is of yours.  Suppose you and I go in partners.  You put in your fourteen cents and I’ll put in the rest of the swordfish.  Then you can take it to Cap’n Eri and tell him that we’re givin’ it to him together.  You just consider that plan for a minute now, will you?”

Miss Armstrong looked doubtful.

“I—­I don’t know as I know what you mean,” she said.  “What did you want me to do?”

“Why, consider the plan.  You know what ‘consider’ means, don’t you?”

“I know a Mother Goose with it in.  That one about the piper and the cow: 

     ’He took up his pipes and he played her a tune,
          Consider, old cow, consider.’

But I don’t know as I surely know what he wanted the cow to do?  Does ‘consider’ mean see if you like it?”

“That’s the idea.  Think it over and see if you’d like to go halves with me givin’ the fish to Cap’n Hedge.”