"I hope there wan't any bones in it."

"Bones in what? What do you mean, Mr. Winslow?" queried Mrs.
Armstrong, who was puzzled, to say the least.

"Eh? Oh, I hope there wan't any bones in that mackerel Heman's cat
got away with. If there was it might choke or somethin'."

"Good gracious! I shouldn't worry over that possibility, if I were
you. I should scarcely blame you for wishing it might choke, after
stealing your dinner."

Mr. Winslow shook his head. "That wouldn't do," solemnly. "If it
choked it couldn't ever steal another one."

"But you don't WANT it to steal another one, do you?"

"We-ll, if every one it stole meant my havin' as good an afternoon
as this one's been, I'd--"

He stopped. Barbara ventured to spur him on.

"You'd what?" she asked.

"I'd give up whittlin' weather vanes and go mackerel-seinin' for
the critter's benefit. Well--er--good day, ma'am."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Winslow. We shall expect you again soon. You
must be neighborly, for, remember, we are friends now."

Jed was half way across the yard, but he stopped and turned.

"My--my FRIENDS generally call me 'Jed,'" he said. Then, his face
a bright red, he hurried into the shop and closed the door.

CHAPTER VIII

After this, having broken the ice, Jed, as Captain Sam Hunniwell
might have expressed it, "kept the channel clear." When he stopped
at the kitchen door of his tenants' house he no longer invariably
refused to come in and sit down. When he inquired if Mrs.
Armstrong had any errands to be done he also asked if there were
any chores he might help out with. When the old clock--a genuine
Seth Willard--on the wall of the living-room refused to go, he came
in, sat down, took the refractory timepiece in his arms and, after
an hour of what he called "putterin' and jackleggin'," hung it up
again apparently in as good order as ever. During the process he
whistled a little, sang a hymn or two, and talked with Barbara, who
found the conversation a trifle unsatisfactory.

"He hardly EVER finished what he was going to say," she confided to
her mother afterward. "He'd start to tell me a story and just as
he got to the most interesting part something about the clock would
seem to--you know--trouble him and he'd stop and, when he began
again, he'd be singing instead of talking. I asked him what made
him do it and he said he cal'lated his works must be loose and
every once in a while his speaking trumpet fell do