Jed shut off the motor and turned away from the lathe.  He sank down into his little chair, drew his knee up under his chin, and thought, long and seriously.  When the knee slid down to its normal position once more his mind was made up.  Mrs. Armstrong might remain in the little house—­for a few months more, at any rate.  Even if she insisted upon a year’s lease it wouldn’t do any great harm.  He would wait until she spoke to him about it and then he would give his consent.  And—­and it would please Captain Sam, at any rate.

He rose and, going to the window, looked out once more across the yard.  What he saw astonished him.  The back door of the house was partially open and a man was just coming out.  The man, in dripping oil-skins and a sou’wester, was Philander Hardy, the local expressman.  Philander turned and spoke to some one in the house behind him.  Jed opened the shop door a crack and listened.

“Yes, ma’am,” he heard Hardy say.  “I’ll be back for ’em about four o’clock this afternoon.  Rain may let up a little mite by that time, and anyhow, I’ll have the covered wagon.  Your trunks won’t get wet, ma’am; I’ll see to that.”

A minute later Jed, an old sweater thrown over his head and shoulders, darted out of the front door of his shop.  The express wagon with Hardy on the driver’s seat was just moving off.  Jed called after it.

“Hi, Philander!” he called, raising his voice only a little, for fear of being overheard at the Armstrong house.  “Hi, Philander, come here a minute.  I want to see you.”

Mr. Hardy looked over his shoulder and then backed his equipage opposite the Winslow gate.

“Hello, Jedidah Shavin’s,” he observed, with a grin.  “Didn’t know you for a minute, with that shawl over your front crimps.  What you got on your mind; anything except sawdust?”

Jed was too much perturbed even to resent the loathed name “Jedidah.”

“Philander,” he whispered, anxiously; “say, Philander, what does she want?  Mrs. Armstrong, I mean?  What is it you’re comin’ back for at four o’clock?”

Philander looked down at the earnest face under the ancient sweater.  Then he winked, solemnly.

“Well, I tell you, Shavin’s,” he said.  “You see, I don’t know how ’tis, but woman folks always seem to take a terrible shine to me.  Now this Mrs. Armstrong here—­ Say, she’s some peach, ain’t she!—­ she ain’t seen me more’n half a dozen times, but here she is beggin’ me to fetch her my photograph.  ‘It’s rainin’ pretty hard, to-day,’ I says.  ‘Won’t it do if I fetch it to-morrow?’ But no, she—­”

Jed held up a protesting hand.  “I don’t doubt she wants your photograph, Philander,” he drawled.  “Your kind of face is rare.  But I heard you say somethin’ about comin’ for trunks.  Whose trunks?”

“Whose?  Why, hers and the young-one’s, I presume likely.  ’Twas them I fetched from Luretta Smalley’s.  Now she wants me to take ’em back there.”