"you didn't tell me, but
some one did. Now, who--"

"I think I told you, Major," put in Ruth Armstrong. "Last evening,
when you called to--to return Charlie's umbrella. I told you we
were to dine here to-day and that Jed--Mr. Winslow--was to dine
with us. Don't you remember?"

Grover remembered perfectly then, of course. He hastened to
explain that, having borrowed the umbrella of Charles Phillips the
previous week, he had dropped in on his next visit to Orham to
return it.

Jed grunted.

"Humph!" he said, "you never came to see me last night. When you
was as close aboard as next door seems's if you might."

The major laughed. "Well, you'll have to admit that I came to-
day," he said.

"Yes," put in Captain Sam, "and, now you are here, you're goin' to
stay a spell. Oh, yes, you are, too. Uncle Sam don't need you so
hard that he can't let you have an hour or so off on Thanksgiving
Day. Maud, why in time didn't we think to have Major Grover here
for dinner along with the rest of the folks? Say, couldn't you eat
a plate of frozen puddin' right this minute? We've got some on
hand that tastes of my grandfather, and we want to get rid of it."

Their caller laughingly declined the frozen pudding, but he was
prevailed upon to remain and hear Miss Hunniwell play. So Maud
played and Charles turned the music for her, and Major Grover
listened and talked with Ruth Armstrong in the intervals between
selections. And Jed and Barbara chatted and Captain Sam beamed
good humor upon every one. It was a very pleasant, happy
afternoon. War and suffering and heartache and trouble seemed a
long, long way off.

On the way back to the shop in the chill November dusk Grover told
Jed a little of what he had called to discuss with him. If Jed's
mind had been of the super-critical type it might have deemed the
subject of scarcely sufficient importance to warrant the major's
pursuing him to the Hunniwells'. It was simply the subject of
Phineas Babbitt and the latter's anti-war utterances and surmised
disloyalty.

"You see," explained Grover, "some one evidently has reported the
old chap to the authorities as a suspicious person. The
government, I imagine, isn't keen on sending a special investigator
down here, so they have asked me to look into the matter. I don't
know much about Babbitt, but I thought you might. Is he disloyal,
do you think?"

Jed hesitated. Things the hardware dealer had said had been
reporte