As they were in a secluded spot where a high hedge screened them from observation Miss Maud playfully boxed her parent’s ears, a proceeding which he seemed to enjoy hugely.

But there was reason in the captain’s caution, nevertheless.  Miss Maud’s “teasing” concerning the widow had set Jed to thinking.  The “trial” month was almost up.  In a little while he would have to give his decision as to whether the little Winslow house was to continue to be occupied by Barbara and her mother, or whether it was to be, as it had been for years, closed and shuttered tight.  He had permitted them to occupy it for that month, on the spur of the moment, as the result of a promise made upon impulse, a characteristic Jed Winslow impulse.  Now, however, he must decide in cold blood whether or not it should be theirs for another eleven months at least.

In his conversation with Captain Sam, the conversation which took place immediately after the Armstrongs came, he had stoutly maintained that the latter would not wish to stay longer than the month, that his own proximity as landlord and neighbor would be unbearable longer than that period.  But if the widow found it so she had so far shown no evidence of her disgust.  Apparently that means of breaking off the relationship could not be relied upon.  Of course he did not know whether or not she wished to remain, but, if she did, did he wish her to do so?  There was nothing personal in the matter; it was merely the question as to whether his prejudice of years against renting that house to any one was to rule or be overthrown.  If she asked him for his decision what should he say?  At night, when he went to bed, his mind was made up.  In the morning when he arose it was unmade.  As he told Captain Hunniwell:  “I’m like that old clock I used to have, Sam.  The pendulum of that thing used to work fine, but the hands wouldn’t move.  Same way with me.  I tick, tick, tick all day over this pesky business, but I don’t get anywheres.  It’s always half-past nothin’.”

Captain Sam was hugely disgusted.  “It ain’t more’n quarter past, if it is that,” he declared, emphatically.  “It’s just nothin’, if you ask me.  And say, speakin’ of askin’, I’d like to ask you this:  How are you goin’ to get ’em out, provided you’re fool enough to decide they’ve got to go?  Are you goin’ to tell Mrs. Armstrong right up and down and flat-footed that you can’t stand any more of her?  I’d like to hear you say it.  Let me know when the show’s goin’ to come off.  I want a seat in the front row.”

Poor Jed looked aghast at the very idea.  His friend laughed derisively and walked off and left him.  And the days passed and the “trial month” drew closer and closer to its end until one morning he awoke to realize that that end had come; the month was up that very day.

He had not mentioned the subject to the widow, nor had she to him.  His reasons for not speaking were obvious enough; one was that he did not know what to say, and the other that he was afraid to say it.  But, as the time approached when the decision must be made, he had expected that she would speak.  And she had not.  He saw her daily, sometimes several times a day.  She often came into the shop to find Barbara, who made the workroom a playhouse on rainy or cloudy days, and she talked with him on other topics, but she did not mention this one.