ressing him.
"Your ma's goin' to call me Jed," he told her; "that is to say, I
hope she is, and you might just as well. I always answer fairly
prompt whenever anybody says 'Jed,' 'cause I'm used to it. When
they say 'Mr. Winslow' I have to stop and think a week afore I
remember who they mean."

But Barbara, having consulted her mother, refused to address her
friend as "Jed." "Mamma says it wouldn't be respect--respectaful,"
she said. "And I don't think it would myself. You see, you're
older than I am," she added.

Jed nodded gravely. "I don't know but I am, a little, now you
remind me of it," he admitted. "Well, I tell you--call me 'Uncle
Jed.' That's got a handle to it but it ain't so much like the
handle to an ice pitcher as Mister is. 'Uncle Jed' 'll do, won't
it?"

Barbara pondered. "Why," she said, doubtfully, "you aren't my
uncle, really. If you were you'd be Mamma's brother, like--like
Uncle Charlie, you know."

It was the second time she had mentioned "Uncle Charlie." Jed had
never heard Mrs. Armstrong speak of having a brother, and he
wondered vaguely why. However, he did not wonder long on this
particular occasion.

"Humph!" he grunted. "Well, let's see. I tell you: I'll be your
step-uncle. That'll do, won't it? You've heard of step-fathers?
Um-hm. Well, they ain't real fathers, and a step-uncle ain't a
real uncle. Now you think that over and see if that won't fix it
first-rate."

The child thought it over. "And shall I call you 'Step-Uncle
Jed'?" she asked.

"Eh? . . . Um. . . . No-o, I guess I wouldn't. I'm only a back
step-uncle, anyway--I always come to the back steps of your house,
you know--so I wouldn't say anything about the step part. You ask
your ma and see what she says."

So Barbara asked and reported as follows:

"She says I may call you 'Uncle Jed' when it's just you and I
together," she said. "But when other people are around she thinks
'Mr. Winslow' would be more respectaful."

It was settled on that basis.

"Can't you take me to the aviation place sometime, Uncle Jed?"
asked Barbara.

Jed thought he could, if he could borrow a boat somewhere and Mrs.
Armstrong was willing that Barbara should go with him. Both
permission and the boat were obtained, the former with little
difficulty, after Mrs. Armstrong had made inquiries concerning Mr.
Winslow's skill in handling a boat, the latter with more. At last
Captain Perez Ryder, being diplomatically appro