"Yes, I got it. It's in my overcoat pocket now. I thought one
spell I wasn't goin' to get it, for the old feller was mad about
some one of his cranberry buyers failin' up on him and he was as
cross-grained as a scrub oak root. He and I had a regular row over
the matter of politics I went there to see him about 'special. I
told him what he was and he told me where I could go. That's how
we parted. Then I came home."

"Hum. . . . You'd have had a warmer trip if you'd gone where he
sent you, I presume likely. . . . Um. . . . Yes, yes. . . .

'There's a place in this chorus
For you and for me,
And the theme of it ever
And always shall be:
Hallelujah, 'tis do-ne!
I believe. . . .'

Hum! . . . I thought that paint can was full and there ain't
more'n a half pint in it. I must have drunk it in my sleep, I
guess. Do I look green around the mouth, Sam?"

It was just before Captain Sam's departure that he spoke of his
daughter and young Phillips. He mentioned them in a most casual
fashion, as he was putting on his coat to go, but Jed had a feeling
that his friend had stopped at the windmill shop on purpose to
discuss that very subject and that all the detail of his Wapatomac
trip had been in the nature of a subterfuge to conceal this fact.

"Oh," said the captain, with somewhat elaborate carelessness, as he
struggled into the heavy coat, "I don't know as I told you that the
directors voted to raise Charlie's salary. Um-hm, at last
Saturday's meetin' they did it. 'Twas unanimous, too. He's as
smart as a whip, that young chap. We all think a heap of him."

Jed nodded, but made no comment. The captain fidgeted with a
button of his coat. He turned toward the door, stopped, cleared
his throat, hesitated, and then turned back again.

"Jed," he said, "has--has it seemed to you that--that he--that
Charlie was--maybe--comin' to think consider'ble of--of my
daughter--of Maud?"

Jed looked up, caught his eye, and looked down again. Captain Sam
sighed.

"I see," he said. "You don't need to answer. I presume likely the
whole town has been talkin' about it for land knows how long. It's
generally the folks at home that don't notice till the last gun
fires. Of course I knew he was comin' to the house a good deal and
that he and Maud seemed to like each other's society, and all that.
But it never struck me that--that it meant anything serious, you
know--anything--