And if Ruth Armstrong slept but little that night, as her daughter said had been the case the night before, she was not the only wakeful person in that part of Orham.  She would have been surprised if she had known that her eccentric neighbor and landlord was also lying awake and that his thoughts were of her and her trouble.  For Jed, although he had heard but the barest fragment of the story of “Uncle Charlie,” a mere hint dropped from the lips of a child who did not understand the meaning of what she said, had heard enough to make plain to him that the secret which the young widow was hiding from the world was a secret involving sorrow and heartbreak for herself and shame and disgrace for others.  The details he did not know, nor did he wish to know them; he was entirely devoid of that sort of curiosity.  Possession of the little knowledge which had been given him, or, rather, had been thrust upon him, and which Gabe Bearse would have considered a gossip treasure trove, a promise of greater treasures to be diligently mined, to Jed was a miserable, culpable thing, like the custody of stolen property.  He felt wicked and mean, as if he had been caught peeping under a window shade.

CHAPTER X

That night came a sudden shift in the weather and when morning broke the sky was gray and overcast and the wind blew raw and penetrating from the northeast.  Jed, at work in his stock room sorting a variegated shipment of mills and vanes which were to go to a winter resort on the west coast of Florida, was, as he might have expressed it, down at the mouth.  He still felt the sense of guilt of the night before, but with it he felt a redoubled realization of his own incompetence.  When he had surmised his neighbor and tenant to be in trouble he had felt a strong desire to help her; now that surmise had changed to certainty his desire to help was stronger than ever.  He pitied her from the bottom of his heart; she seemed so alone in the world and so young.  She needed a sympathetic counselor and advisor.  But he could not advise or help because neither he nor any one else in Orham was supposed to know of her trouble and its nature.  Even if she knew that he knew, would she accept the counsel of Shavings Winslow?  Hardly!  No sensible person would.  How the townsfolk would laugh if they knew he had even so much as dreamed of offering it.

He was too downcast even to sing one of his lugubrious hymns or to whistle.  Instead he looked at the letter pinned on a beam beside him and dragged from the various piles one half-dozen crow vanes, one half-dozen gull vanes, one dozen medium-sized mills, one dozen small mills, three sailors, etc., etc., as set forth upon that order.  One of the crows fell to the floor and he accidently stepped upon it and snapped its head off.  He was gazing solemnly down at the wreck when the door behind him opened and a strong blast of damp, cold wind blew in.  He turned and found that Mrs. Armstrong had opened the door.  She entered and closed it behind her.