Jed looked at him aghast. "Good land of love!" he cried. "You don't mean it?"
"Of course I mean it. Don't look so frightened, man. It's just what you've been doing ever since they came here, that's all. Ruth says she has been going to you for advice since the beginning. I just want her to keep on doing it."
"But—but, my soul, I—I ain't fit to be anybody's guardian. . . . I—I ought to have somebody guardin' me. Anybody'll tell you that. . . . Besides, I—I don't think—"
"Yes, you do; and you generally think right. Oh, come, don't talk any more about it. It's a bargain, of course. And if there's anything I can do for you on the other side, I'll be only too happy to oblige."
Jed rubbed his chin. "W-e-e-ll," he drawled, "there's one triflin' thing I've been hankerin' to do myself, but I can't, I'm afraid. Maybe you can do it for me."
"All right, what is the trifling thing?"
"Eh? . . . Oh, that—er—-Crown Prince thing. Do him brown, if you get a chance, will you?"
Of course, the guardianship was, in a sense, a joke, but in another it was not. Jed knew that Leonard Grover's leaving his wife and Babbie in his charge was, to a certain extent, a serious trust. And he accepted it as such.
"Has your mamma had any letters from the major the last day or so?" he inquired.
Babbie shook her head. "No," she said, "but she's expecting one every day. And Petunia and I expect one, too, and we're just as excited about it as we can be. A letter like that is most par- particklesome exciting. . . . No, I don't mean particklesome—it was the caterpillar made me think of that. I mean partickle-ar exciting. Don't you think it is, Uncle Jed?"