Jed regarded her solemnly. "It's emery paper," he said; "like fine sandpaper, you know. And the cloth's got ile in it. I'm cleanin' the rust off this screwdriver. I hadn't used it for more'n a fortni't and it got pretty rusty this damp weather."
The child looked at him wonderingly.
"But, Uncle Jed," she said, "there isn't any screwdriver. Anyhow I don't see any. You were just rubbing the sandpaper and the cloth together and singing. That's why it looked so funny."
Jed inspected first one hand and then the other.
"Hum!" he drawled. "Hu-um! . . . Well, I declare! . . . Now you mention it, there don't seem to be any screwdriver, does there? . . . Here 'tis on the bench. . . . And I was rubbin' the sandpaper with ile, or ilin' the sandpaper with the rag, whichever you like. . . . Hum, ye-es, I should think it might have looked funny. . . . Babbie, if you see me walkin' around without any head some mornin' don't be scared. You'll know that that part of me ain't got out of bed yet, that's all."
Barbara leaned her chin on both small fists and gazed at him. "Uncle Jed," she said, "you've been thinking about something, haven't you?"
"Eh? . . . Why, yes, I—I guess likely maybe I have. How did you know?"
"Oh, 'cause I did. Petunia and I know you ever and ever so well now and we're used to—to the way you do. Mamma says things like forgetting the screwdriver are your ex-eccen-tricks. Is this what you've been thinking about a nice eccen-trick or the other kind?"
Jed slowly shook his head. "I—I don't know," he groaned. "I dasn't believe— There, there! That's enough of my tricks. How's Petunia's hair curlin' this mornin'?"
After the child left him he tried to prepare his dinner, but it was as unsatisfactory a meal as breakfast had been. He couldn't eat, he couldn't work. He could only think, and thinking meant alternate periods of delirious hope and black depression. He sat down before the little table in his living-room and, opening the drawer, saw Ruth Armstrong's pictured face looking up at him.