"Where was it?" demanded Barbara.
"Hush, dear," cautioned her mother. "You mustn't ask so many questions."
"That's all right, ma'am; I don't mind a mite. Where was it? We-ll, 'twas in my pants pocket here, just where I put it last time I used it. Naturally enough I shouldn't have thought of lookin' there and I don't know's I'd have found it yet, but I happened to shove my hands in my pockets to help me think, and there 'twas."
This explanation should have been satisfying, doubtless, but Barbara did not seem to find it wholly so.
"Please may I ask one more question, Mamma?" she pleaded. "Just only one?"
She asked it before her mother could reply.
"How does putting your hands in your pockets help you think, Mr. Winslow?" she asked. "I don't see how it would help a bit?"
Jed's eye twinkled, but his reply was solemnly given.
"Why, you see," he drawled, "I'm built a good deal like the old steam launch Tobias Wixon used to own. Every time Tobias blew the whistle it used up all the steam and the engine stopped. I've got a head about like that engine; when I want to use it I have to give all the rest of me a layoff. . . . Here we are, ma'am. Walk right in, won't you."
He showed them through room after room of the little house, opening the closed shutters so that the afternoon sunlight might stream in and brighten their progress. The rooms were small, but they were attractive and cosy. The furniture was almost all old mahogany and in remarkably good condition. The rugs were home-made; even the coverlets of the beds were of the old-fashioned blue and white, woven on the hand looms of our great-grandmothers. Mrs. Armstrong was enthusiastic.