"It's true, that about the johnny cake. I came pretty nigh doin' that very thing. I bought a five-pound bag of corn meal yesterday and fetched it home from the store all done up in a nice neat bundle. Comin' through the shop here I had it under my arm, and— hum—er—well, to anybody else it couldn't have happened, but, bein' Jed Shavin's Winslow, I was luggin' the thing with the top of the bag underneath. I got about abreast of the lathe there when the string came off and in less'n two thirds of a shake all I had under my arm was the bag; the meal was on the floor—what wasn't in my coat pocket and stuck to my clothes and so on. I fetched the water bucket and started to salvage what I could of the cargo. Pretty soon I had, as nigh as I could reckon it, about fourteen pound out of the five scooped up and in the bucket. I begun to think the miracle of loaves and fishes was comin' to pass again. I was some shy on fish, but I was makin' up on loaves. Then I sort of looked matters over and found what I had in the bucket was about one pound of meal to seven of sawdust. Then I gave it up. Seemed to me the stuff might be more fillin' than nourishin'."
Ruth smiled faintly. Then she shook her head.
"Oh, Jed," she said, "you're as transparent as a windowpane. Thank you, though. If anything could cheer me up and help me to forget I think you could."
Jed looked repentant. "I'd no business to tell you all that rigamarole," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm always doin' the wrong thing, seems so. But," he added, earnestly, "I don't want you to worry too much about your brother—er—Ruth. It's goin' to come out all right, I know it. God won't let it come out any other way."
She had never heard him speak in just that way before and she looked at him in surprise.
"And yet God permits many things that seem entirely wrong to us humans," she said.
"I know. Things like the Kaiser, for instance. Well, never mind; this one's goin' to come out all right. I feel it in my bones. And," with a return of his whimsical drawl, "I may be short on brains, but a blind man could see they never skimped me when they passed out the bones."
She looked at him a moment. Then, suddenly leaning forward, she put her hand upon his big red one as it lay upon the bench.
"Jed," she said, earnestly, "what should I do without you? You are my one present help in time of trouble. I wonder if you know what you have come to mean to me."
It was an impulsive speech, made from the heart, and without thought of phrasing or that any meaning other than that intended could be read into it. A moment later, and without waiting for an answer, she hurried from the shop.