also lying awake and that his thoughts were of her and her
trouble. For Jed, although he had heard but the barest fragment of
the story of "Uncle Charlie," a mere hint dropped from the lips of
a child who did not understand the meaning of what she said, had
heard enough to make plain to him that the secret which the young
widow was hiding from the world was a secret involving sorrow and
heartbreak for herself and shame and disgrace for others. The
details he did not know, nor did he wish to know them; he was
entirely devoid of that sort of curiosity. Possession of the
little knowledge which had been given him, or, rather, had been
thrust upon him, and which Gabe Bearse would have considered a
gossip treasure trove, a promise of greater treasures to be
diligently mined, to Jed was a miserable, culpable thing, like the
custody of stolen property. He felt wicked and mean, as if he had
been caught peeping under a window shade.

CHAPTER X

That night came a sudden shift in the weather and when morning
broke the sky was gray and overcast and the wind blew raw and
penetrating from the northeast. Jed, at work in his stock room
sorting a variegated shipment of mills and vanes which were to go
to a winter resort on the west coast of Florida, was, as he might
have expressed it, down at the mouth. He still felt the sense of
guilt of the night before, but with it he felt a redoubled
realization of his own incompetence. When he had surmised his
neighbor and tenant to be in trouble he had felt a strong desire to
help her; now that surmise had changed to certainty his desire to
help was stronger than ever. He pitied her from the bottom of his
heart; she seemed so alone in the world and so young. She needed a
sympathetic counselor and advisor. But he could not advise or help
because neither he nor any one else in Orham was supposed to know
of her trouble and its nature. Even if she knew that he knew,
would she accept the counsel of Shavings Winslow? Hardly! No
sensible person would. How the townsfolk would laugh if they knew
he had even so much as dreamed of offering it.

He was too downcast even to sing one of his lugubrious hymns or to
whistle. Instead he looked at the letter pinned on a beam beside
him and dragged from the various piles one half-dozen crow vanes,
one half-dozen gull vanes, one dozen medium-sized mills, one dozen
small mills, three sailors, etc., etc., as set forth upon that
order. One of the