nd of the line, providing she could manage to worry along
with a feller that went to sleep sittin' up, and in the daytime,
like an owl. After she had gone, however, he again relapsed into
slumber, and his dreams, judging by his expression, must have been
pleasant.

That afternoon he had an unexpected visit. He had just finished
washing his dinner dishes and he and Babbie were in the outer shop
together, when the visitor came. Jed was droning "Old Hundred"
with improvisations of his own, the said improvising having the
effect of slowing down the already extremely deliberate anthem
until the result compared to the original was for speed, as an
oyster scow compared to an electric launch. This musical crawl he
used as an accompaniment to the sorting and piling of various parts
of an order just received from a Southern resort. Barbara was
helping him, at least she called her activities "helping." When
Jed had finished counting a pile of vanes or mill parts she counted
them to make sure. Usually her count and his did not agree, so
both counted again, getting in each other's way and, as Mr. Winslow
expressed it, having a good time generally. And this remark,
intended to be facetious, was after all pretty close to the literal
truth. Certainly Babbie was enjoying herself, and Jed, where an
impatient man would have been frantic, was enjoying her enjoyment.
Petunia, perched in lopsided fashion on a heap of mill-sides was,
apparently, superintending.

"There!" declared Jed, stacking a dozen sailors beside a dozen of
what the order called "birdhouses medium knocked down." "There!
that's the livin' last one, I do believe. Hi hum! Now we've got
to box 'em, haven't we? . . . Ye-es, yes, yes, yes. . . .
Hum. . . .

"'Di--de--di--de--di--de. . . ."

"Where's that hammer? Oh, yes, here 'tis."

"'Di--de--di--de--'

"Now where on earth have I put that pencil, Babbie? Have I
swallowed it? DON'T tell me you've seen me swallow it, 'cause that
flavor of lead-pencil never did agree with me."

The child burst into a trill of laughter.

"Why, Uncle Jed," she exclaimed, "there it is, behind your ear."

"Is it? Sho, so 'tis! Now that proves the instinct of dumb
animals, don't it? That lead-pencil knew enough to realize that my
ear was so big that anything short of a cord-wood stick could hide
behind it. Tut, tut! Surprisin', surprisin'!"

"But, Uncle Jed, a pencil isn't an animal."

"Eh? Ain't