Jed stopped in the middle of the first note of a hymn.
"What in the world sent you autoin' way over to Wapatomac and back this day?" he asked.
His friend bit the end from a cigar. "Oh, diggin' up the root of all evil," he said. "I had to collect a note that was due over there."
"Humph! I don't know much about such things, but I never mistrusted 'twas necessary for you to go cruisin' like that to collect notes. Seems consider'ble like sendin' the skipper up town to buy onions for the cook. Couldn't the—the feller that owed the money send you a check?"
Captain Sam chuckled. "He could, I cal'late, but he wouldn't," he observed. "'Twas old Sylvester Sage, up to South Wapatomac, the 'cranberry king' they call him up there. He owns cranberry bogs from one end of the Cape to the other. You've heard of him, of course."
Jed rubbed his chin. "Maybe so," he drawled, "but if I have I've forgot him. The only sage I recollect is the sage tea Mother used to make me take when I had a cold sometimes. I COULDN'T forget that."
"Well, everybody but you has heard of old Sylvester. He's the biggest crank on earth."
"Hum-m. Seems 's if he and I ought to know each other. . . . But maybe he's a different kind of crank; eh?"
"He's all kinds. One of his notions is that he won't pay bills by check, if he can possibly help it. He'll travel fifty miles to pay money for a thing sooner than send a check for it. He had this note—fourteen hundred dollars 'twas—comin' due at our bank to-day and he'd sent word if we wanted the cash we must send for it 'cause his lumbago was too bad for him to travel. I wanted to see him anyhow, about a little matter of a political appointment up his way, so I decided to take the car and go myself. Well, I've just got back and I had a windy v'yage, too. And cold, don't talk!"
"Um . . . yes. . . . Get your money, did you?"