“Would you if you had one?” persisted the young lady.

“Eh? . . .  Oh, yes, sartin, I guess so.”

“All right.  Here is one.  I picked it up on top of that little hill.  I guess it blew there.  It’s blowing ever so much harder up there than it is here on the beach.”

The shingle boat being hurriedly made, its owner begged for a paper sail.  “The other one you made me had a paper sail, Uncle Jed.”

Jed pleaded that he had no paper.  “There’s some wrapped ’round the lunch,” he said, “but it’s all butter and such.  ’Twouldn’t be any good for a sail.  Er—­er—­don’t you think we’d better put off makin’ the sail till we get home or—­or somewheres?  This chowder is sort of on my conscience this minute.”

Babbie evidently did not think so.  She went away on an exploring expedition.  In a few minutes she returned, a sheet of paper in her hand.

“It was blowing around just where I found the shingle,” she declared.  “It’s a real nice place to find things, up on that hill place, Uncle Jed.”

Jed took the paper, looked at it absently—­he had taken off his coat during the fire-building and his glasses were presumably in the coat pocket—­and then hastily doubled it across, thrust the mast of the “shingle boat” through it at top and bottom, and handed the craft to his small companion.

“There!” he observed; “there she is, launched, rigged and all but christened.  Call her the—­the ’Geranium’—­the ’Sunflower’—­what’s the name of that doll baby of yours?  Oh, yes, the ‘Petunia.’  Call her that and set her afloat.”

But Barbara shook her head.

“I think,” she said, “if you don’t mind, Uncle Jed, I shall call this one ‘Ruth,’ that’s Mamma’s name, you know.  The other one you made me was named for Petunia, and we wouldn’t want to name ’em all for her.  It might make her too—­too—­ Oh, what are those things you make, Uncle Jed?  In the shop, I mean.”

“Eh?  Windmills?”

“No.  The others—­those you tell the wind with.  I know—­vanes.  It might make Petunia too vain.  That’s what Mamma said I mustn’t be when I had my new coat, the one with the fur, you know.”

She trotted off.  Jed busied himself with the chowder.  A few minutes later a voice behind him said:  “Hi, there!” He turned to see a broad-shouldered stranger, evidently a carpenter or workman of some sort, standing at the top of the sand dune and looking down at him with marked interest.

“Hi, there!” repeated the stranger.

Jed nodded; his attention was centered on the chowder.  “How d’ye do?” he observed, politely.  “Nice day, ain’t it? . . .  Hum. . . .  About five minutes more.”

The workman strode down the bank.

“Say,” he demanded, “have you seen anything of a plan?”

“Eh? . . .  Hum. . . .  Two plates and two spoons . . . and two tumblers. . . .”

“Hey!  Wake up!  Have you seen anything of a plan, I ask you?”