laid a nice fresh fire, too."

He opened the stove door and looked in.

"Hum . . ." he said, again. "Yes, yes . . . I laid it but, I--er--
hum . . . I forgot to light it, that's all. Well, that proves I'm
King Solomon for sartin. Probably he did things like that every
day or so. . . . Give me a match, will you, Sam?"

CHAPTER XXII

It had been a chill morning in early spring when Charlie Phillips
went to Boston to enlist. Now it was a balmy evening in August and
Jed sat upon a bench by his kitchen door looking out to sea. The
breeze was light, barely sufficient to turn the sails of the little
mills, again so thickly sprinkled about the front yard, or to cause
the wooden sailors to swing their paddles. The August moon was
rising gloriously behind the silver bar of the horizon. From the
beach below the bluff came the light laughter of a group of summer
young folk, strolling from the hotel to the post-office by the
shore route.

Babbie, who had received permission to sit up and see the moon
rise, was perched upon the other end of the bench, Petunia in her
arms. A distant drone, which had been audible for some time, was
gradually becoming a steady humming roar. A few moments later and
a belated hydro-aeroplane passed across the face of the moon, a
dragon-fly silhouette against the shining disk.

"That bumble-bee's gettin' home late," observed Jed. "The rest of
the hive up there at East Harniss have gone to roost two or three
hours ago. Wonder what kept him out this scandalous hour. Had
tire trouble, think?"

Barbara laughed.

"You're joking again, Uncle Jed," she said. "That kind of
aeroplane couldn't have any tire trouble, 'cause it hasn't got any
tires."

Mr. Winslow appeared to reflect. "That's so," he admitted, "but I
don't know as we'd ought to count too much on that. I remember
when Gabe Bearse had brain fever."

This was a little deep for Babbie, whose laugh was somewhat
uncertain. She changed the subject.

"Oh!" she cried, with a wiggle, "there's a caterpillar right here
on this bench with us, Uncle Jed. He's a fuzzy one, too; I can see
the fuzz; the moon makes it shiny."

Jed bent over to look. "That?" he said. "That little, tiny one?
Land sakes, he ain't big enough to be more than a kitten-pillar.
You ain't afraid of him, are you?"

"No-o. No, I guess I'm not. But I shouldn't like to have him walk
on me. He'd be so--so ticklesome."

Jed brushed the caterpillar off i