need me for?"

Jed scratched his chin with the tail of a wooden whale.

"You tell her," he drawled, after considering for a minute or two,
"that I need you to help carry lumber."

Even a child could not swallow this ridiculous excuse. Barbara
burst out laughing.

"Why, Mr. Winslow!" she cried. "You don't, either. You know I
couldn't carry lumber; I'm too little. I couldn't carry any but
the littlest, tiny bit."

Jed nodded, gravely. "Yes, sartin," he agreed; "that's what I need
you to carry. You run along and tell her so, that's a good girl."

But she shook her head vigorously. "No," she declared. "She would
say it was silly, and it would be. Besides, you don't really need
me at all. You just want Petunia and me for company, same as we
want you. Isn't that it, truly?"

"Um-m. Well, I shouldn't wonder. You can tell her that, if you
want to; I'd just as soon."

The young lady still hesitated. "No-o," she said, "because she'd
think perhaps you didn't really want me, but was too polite to say
so. If you asked her yourself, though, I think she'd let me come."

At first Jed's bashfulness was up in arms at the very idea, but at
length he considered to ask Mrs. Armstrong for the permission. It
was granted, as soon as the lady was convinced that the desire for
more of her daughter's society was a genuine one, and thereafter
Barbara visited the windmill shop afternoons as well as mornings.
She sat, her doll in her arms, upon a box which she soon came to
consider her own particular and private seat, watching her long-
legged friend as he sawed or glued or jointed or painted. He had
little waiting on customers to do now, for most of the summer
people had gone. His small visitor and he had many long and, to
them, interesting conversations.

Other visitors to the shop, those who knew him well, were surprised
and amused to find him on such confidential and intimate terms with
a child. Gabe Bearse, after one short call, reported about town
that crazy Shavin's Winslow had taken up with a young-one just
about as crazy as he was.

"There she set," declared Gabriel, "on a box, hugging a broken-
nosed doll baby up to her and starin' at me and Shavin's as if we
was some kind of curiosities, as you might say. Well, one of us
was; eh? Haw, haw! She didn't say a word and Shavin's he never
said nothin' and I felt as if I was preaching in a deef and dumb
asylum. Finally, I happened to look at her and I see he