raid you
ain't been to the post office much mail times. If you'd just drop
in there some evenin' and hear Gabe Bearse and Bluey Batcheldor
raise hob with the Kaiser you'd understand why the confidence of
the Allies is unshaken, as the Herald gave out this mornin'."

A little later he said, reflectively:

"You know, ma'am, it's an astonishin' thing to me, I can't get over
it, my sittin' here in this house, eatin' with you folks and
talkin' with you like this."

Mrs. Armstrong smiled. "I can't see anything so very astonishing
about it," she said.

"Can't you?"

"Certainly not. Why shouldn't you do it--often? We are landlord
and tenant, you and I, but that is no reason, so far as I can see,
why we shouldn't be good neighbors."

He shook his head.

"I don't know's you quite understand, ma'am," he said. "It's your
thinkin' of doin' it, your askin' me and--and WANTIN' to ask me
that seems so kind of odd. Do you know," he added, in a burst of
confidence, "I don't suppose that, leavin' Sam Hunniwell out,
another soul has asked me to eat at their house for ten year.
Course I'm far from blamin' 'em for that, you understand, but--"

"Wait. Mr. Winslow, you had tenants in this house before?"

"Yes'm. Davidson, their names was."

"And did THEY never invite you here?"

Jed looked at her, then away, out of the window. It was a moment
or two before he answered. Then--

"Mrs. Armstrong," he said, "you knew, I cal'late, that I was--er--
kind of prejudiced against rentin' anybody this house after the
Davidsons left?"

The lady, trying not to smile, nodded.

"Yes," she replied, "I--well, I guessed as much."

"Yes'm, I was. They would have took it again, I'm pretty sartin,
if I'd let 'em, but--but somehow I couldn't do it. No, I couldn't,
and I never meant anybody else should be here. Seems funny to you,
I don't doubt."

"Why, no, it was your property to do what you pleased with, and I
am sure you had a reason for refusing."

"Yes'm. But I ain't ever told anybody what that reason was. I've
told Sam a reason, but 'twan't the real one. I--I guess likely
I'll tell it to you. I imagine 'twill sound foolish enough. 'Twas
just somethin' I heard Colonel Davidson say, that's all."

He paused. Mrs. Armstrong did not speak. After an interval he
continued:

"'Twas one day along the last of the season. The Davidsons had
company and they'd been in to see the shop and the mills and vanes
and one thing or '