Babbie evidently did not think so. She went away on an exploring expedition. In a few minutes she returned, a sheet of paper in her hand.
"It was blowing around just where I found the shingle," she declared. "It's a real nice place to find things, up on that hill place, Uncle Jed."
Jed took the paper, looked at it absently—he had taken off his coat during the fire-building and his glasses were presumably in the coat pocket—and then hastily doubled it across, thrust the mast of the "shingle boat" through it at top and bottom, and handed the craft to his small companion.
"There!" he observed; "there she is, launched, rigged and all but christened. Call her the—the 'Geranium'—the 'Sunflower'—what's the name of that doll baby of yours? Oh, yes, the 'Petunia.' Call her that and set her afloat."
But Barbara shook her head.
"I think," she said, "if you don't mind, Uncle Jed, I shall call this one 'Ruth,' that's Mamma's name, you know. The other one you made me was named for Petunia, and we wouldn't want to name 'em ALL for her. It might make her too—too— Oh, what ARE those things you make, Uncle Jed? In the shop, I mean."
"Eh? Windmills?"
"No. The others—those you tell the wind with. I know—vanes. It might make Petunia too vain. That's what Mamma said I mustn't be when I had my new coat, the one with the fur, you know."
She trotted off. Jed busied himself with the chowder. A few minutes later a voice behind him said: "Hi, there!" He turned to see a broad-shouldered stranger, evidently a carpenter or workman of some sort, standing at the top of the sand dune and looking down at him with marked interest.
"Hi, there!" repeated the stranger.