vided you're fool enough to
decide they've got to go? Are you goin' to tell Mrs. Armstrong
right up and down and flat-footed that you can't stand any more of
her? I'd like to hear you say it. Let me know when the show's
goin' to come off. I want a seat in the front row."

Poor Jed looked aghast at the very idea. His friend laughed
derisively and walked off and left him. And the days passed and
the "trial month" drew closer and closer to its end until one
morning he awoke to realize that that end had come; the month was
up that very day.

He had not mentioned the subject to the widow, nor had she to him.
His reasons for not speaking were obvious enough; one was that he
did not know what to say, and the other that he was afraid to say
it. But, as the time approached when the decision must be made, he
had expected that she would speak. And she had not. He saw her
daily, sometimes several times a day. She often came into the shop
to find Barbara, who made the workroom a playhouse on rainy or
cloudy days, and she talked with him on other topics, but she did
not mention this one.

It was raining on this particular day, the last day in the "trial
month," and Jed, working at his lathe, momentarily expected Barbara
to appear, with Petunia under one arm and a bundle of dolls'
clothes under the other, to announce casually that, as it was such
bad weather, they had run in to keep him, Mr. Winslow, from getting
lonesome. There was precious little opportunity to be lonesome
where Babbie was.

But this morning the child did not come and Jed, wondering what the
reason for her absence might be, began to feel vaguely
uncomfortable. Just what was the matter he did not know, but that
there was something wrong with him, Jed Winslow, was plain. He
could not seem to keep his mind on his work; he found himself
wandering to the window and looking out into the yard, where the
lilac bushes whipped and thrashed in the gusts, the overflowing
spouts splashed and gurgled, and the sea beyond the edge of the
bluff was a troubled stretch of gray and white, seen through
diagonal streaks of wind-driven rain. And always when he looked
out of that window he glanced toward the little house next door,
hoping to see a small figure, bundled under a big rain coat and
sheltered by a big umbrella, dodge out of the door and race across
the yard toward the shop.

But the door remained shut, the little figure did not appear and,
except for the