What in time are you sayin' yes for?"

"Hum? Eh? Oh, excuse me, Sam; I didn't mean yes, I mean no."

"Gracious king!"

"Well--er--er--," desperately, "you told me to say yes or no, so I--"

"See here, Jed Winslow, HAVE you heard what I've been sayin'?"

"Why, no, Sam; honest I ain't. I've run across an idea about
makin' a different kind of mill--one like a gull, you know, that'll
flap its wings up and down when the wind blows--and--er--I'm afraid
my head is solid full of that and nothin' else. There generally
ain't more'n room for one idea in my head," he added, apologetically.
"Sometimes that one gets kind of cramped."

The captain snorted in disgust. Jed looked repentant and distressed.

"I'm awful sorry, Sam," he declared. "But if it's about that house
of mine--rent or anything, you just do whatever Mrs. Armstrong says."

"Whatever SHE says? Haven't you got anything to say?"

"No, no-o, I don't know's I have. You see, I've settled that she
and Babbie are to have the house for as long as they want it, so
it's only fair to let them settle the rest, seems to me. Whatever
Mrs. Armstrong wants to pay'll be all right. You just leave it to
her."

Captain Sam rose to his feet.

"I've a dum good mind to," he declared "'Twould serve you right if
she paid you ten cents a year." Then, with a glance of disgust at
the mountain of old letters and papers piled upon the top of the
desk where his friend was at work, he added: "What do you clean
that desk of yours with--a shovel?"

The slow smile drifted across the Winslow face. "I cal'late that's
what I should have to use, Sam," he drawled, "if I ever cleaned
it."

The captain and the widow agreed upon thirty-five dollars a month.
It developed that she owned their former house in Middleford and
that the latter had been rented for a very much higher rent. "My
furniture," she added, "that which I did not sell when we gave up
housekeeping, is stored with a friend there. I know it is
extravagant, my hiring a furnished house, but I'm sure Mr. Winslow
wouldn't let this one unfurnished and, besides, it would be a crime
to disturb furniture and rooms which fit each other as these do.
And, after all, at the end of a year I may wish to leave Orham. Of
course I hope I shall not, but I may."

Captain Sam would have asked questions concerning her life in
Middleford, in fact he did ask a few, but the answers he received
were unsatisfactory. Mrs. Armstrong evidently