Jed sighed. "That's easy, Charlie," he declared. "There don't any big questions ever come up to me. I ain't the kind of feller the big things come to."
Charles grunted, impatiently. "Oh, well, admitting all that," he said, "you must have to face questions that are big to you, that seem big, anyhow."
Jed could not help wincing, just a little. The matter-of-fact way in which his companion accepted the estimate of his insignificance was humiliating. Jed did not blame him, it was true, of course, but the truth hurt—a little. He was ashamed of himself for feeling the hurt.
"Oh," he drawled, "I do have some things—little no-account things— to decide every once in a while. Sometimes they bother me, too— although they probably wouldn't anybody with a head instead of a Hubbard squash on his shoulders. The only way I can decide 'em is to set down and open court, put 'em on trial, as you might say."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, I call in witnesses for both sides, seems so. Here's the reasons why I ought to tell; here's the reasons why I shouldn't. I—"
"Tell? Ought to TELL? What makes you say that? What have YOU got to tell?"
He was glaring at the windmill maker with frightened eyes. Jed knew as well as if it had been painted on the shop wall before him the question in the boy's mind, the momentous decision he was trying to make. And he pitied him from the bottom of his heart.
"Tell?" he repeated. "Did I say tell? Well, if I did 'twas just a—er—figger of speech, as the book fellers talk about. But the only way to decide a thing, as it seems to me, is to try and figger out what's the RIGHT of it, and then do that."
Phillips looked gloomily at the floor. "And that's such an easy job," he observed, with sarcasm.