Uncle Jed?" she demanded. "Did
you forget to unlock it?"

Jed, without looking at her, muttered something to the effect that
he cal'lated he must have.

"Um-hm," she observed, with a nod of comprehension. "I thought
that was it. You did it once before, you know. It was a ex-eccen-
trick, leaving it locked was, I guess. Don't you think it was a--
a--one of those kind of tricks, Uncle Jed?"

Silence, except for the hum and rasp of the lathe.

"Don't you, Uncle Jed?" repeated Barbara.

"Eh? . . . Oh, yes, I presume likely so."

Babbie, sitting on the lumber pile, kicked her small heels together
and regarded him with speculative interest.

"Uncle Jed," she said, after a few moments of silent consideration,
"what do you suppose Petunia told me just now?"

No answer.

"What do you suppose Petunia told me?" repeated Babbie. "Something
about you 'twas, Uncle Jed."

Still Jed did not reply. His silence was not deliberate; he had
been so absorbed in his own pessimistic musings that he had not
heard the question, that was all. Barbara tried again.

"She told me she guessed you had been thinking AWF'LY hard about
something this time, else you wouldn't have so many eccen-tricks
to-day."

Silence yet. Babbie swallowed hard:

"I--I don't think I like eccen-tricks, Uncle Jed," she faltered.

Not a word. Then Jed, stooping to pick up a piece of wood from the
pile of cut stock beside the lathe, was conscious of a little
sniff. He looked up. His small visitor's lip was quivering and
two big tears were just ready to overflow her lower lashes.

"Eh? . . . Mercy sakes alive!" he exclaimed. "Why, what's the
matter?"

The lip quivered still more. "I--I don't like to have you not
speak to me," sobbed Babbie. "You--you never did it so--so long
before."

That appeal was sufficient. Away, for the time, went Jed's
pessimism and his hopeless musings. He forgot that he was a fool,
the "town crank," and of no use in the world. He forgot his own
heartbreak, chagrin and disappointment. A moment later Babbie was
on his knee, hiding her emotion in the front of his jacket, and he
was trying his best to soothe her with characteristic Winslow
nonsense.

"You mustn't mind me, Babbie," he declared. "My--my head ain't
workin' just right to-day, seems so. I shouldn't wonder if--if I
wound it too tight, or somethin' like that."

Babbie's tear-stained face emerged from the jacket front.

"Wound your HEAD too tig