"You mean Grandville, don't you, uncle?" suggested Jerry.
"I generally say what I mean, young man!" was the curt reply.
"Well, it's Grandville, anyway!" persisted Jerry, feeling in his pockets. "Jack Spencer is out there now. I got a letter from him yesterday begging me to go out there to him. Oh, here it is! Look at the postmark. It is Grandville! I knew I was right about it."
Nettled by the tone and his own mistake, Mr. Speed finished his supper in moody silence. The boy had no idea how his habit had grown, or how sensitive his uncle had become in regard to it. "Why, Aunt Lucy," he insisted, when she remonstrated with him, "I never contradict people unless I know positively that they are wrong!"
"Maybe," she answered. "But what real difference does it make whether the weasels killed five chickens or six, or that it was the black pig and not the spotted one that rooted up the garden? Those are such little things to bicker about, just for the satisfaction of saying, 'I told you so!'"
She imitated Jerry's tone and manner so well that he laughed a little sheepishly.
"Well, I'll turn over a new leaf," he promised, "just to please you."
Caleb Speed's farm was in southern Maine, near the coast. Jerry had grown up with the sound of the sea in his ears. It had long sung only a meaningless monotone to the boy, but it had begun to fill him with something of its own restless spirit. And about this time the Spencer boys were urging him to go West.
"No," he answered; "I owe it to Uncle Caleb to stay here. He was too good to me when I was a little shaver for me to leave him now when he needs me. He shall have the best service I can give him until I am twenty-one; then I'll be free to follow you."