"Well, it amounts to the same thing. The gate's standin' up alongside the fence. What did you do it for?"
Jed sighed. "It squeaked like time," he drawled, "and I had to stop it."
"So you took the hinges off? Gracious king! Why didn't you ile 'em so they wouldn't squeak?"
"Eh? . . . Oh, I did set out to, but I couldn't find the ile can. The only thing I could find was the screwdriver and at last I came to the conclusion the Almighty must have meant me to use it; so I did. Anyhow, it stopped the squeakin'."
Captain Sam roared delightedly. "That's fine," he declared. "It does me good to have you act that way. You haven't done anything so crazy as that for the last six months. I believe the old Jed Winslow's come back again. That's fine."
Jed smiled his slow smile. "I'm stickin' to my job, Sam," he said.
"And grinnin'. Don't forget to grin, Jed."
"W-e-e-ll, when I stick to MY job, Sam, 'most everybody grins."
Babbie accompanied the captain to the place where the gate had been. Jed, left alone, hummed a hymn. The door of the little house next door opened and Ruth came out into the yard.
"Where is Babbie?" she asked.