"Now where on earth have I put that pencil, Babbie? Have I swallowed it? DON'T tell me you've seen me swallow it, 'cause that flavor of lead-pencil never did agree with me."
The child burst into a trill of laughter.
"Why, Uncle Jed," she exclaimed, "there it is, behind your ear."
"Is it? Sho, so 'tis! Now that proves the instinct of dumb animals, don't it? That lead-pencil knew enough to realize that my ear was so big that anything short of a cord-wood stick could hide behind it. Tut, tut! Surprisin', surprisin'!"
"But, Uncle Jed, a pencil isn't an animal."
"Eh? Ain't it? Seemed to me I'd read somethin' about the ragin' lead-pencil seekin' whom it might devour. But maybe that was a— er—lion or a clam or somethin'."
Babbie looked at him in puzzled fashion for a moment. Then she sagely shook her head and declared: "Uncle Jed, I think you are perfectly scru-she-aking. Petunia and I are convulshed. We—" she stopped, listened, and then announced: "Uncle Jed, I THINK somebody came up the walk."
The thought received confirmation immediately in the form of a knock at the door. Jed looked over his spectacles.
"Hum," he mused, sadly, "there's no peace for the wicked, Babbie. No sooner get one order all fixed and out of the way than along comes a customer and you have to get another one ready. If I'd known 'twas goin' to be like this I'd never have gone into business, would you? But maybe 'tain't a customer, maybe it's Cap'n Sam or Gabe Bearse or somebody. . . . They wouldn't knock, though, 'tain't likely; anyhow Gabe wouldn't. . . . Come in," he called, as the knock was repeated.
The person who entered the shop was a tall man in uniform. The afternoon was cloudy and the outer shop, piled high with stock and lumber, was shadowy. The man in uniform looked at Jed and Barbara and they looked at him. He spoke first.