The mild face beamed with satisfaction, and Celestina had not the heart to cloud its brightness by annoying him further.
"That's capital!" she declared. "Here's your bread an' butter, Willie. An' here's some apple turnovers fur you, an' Jan, an' Zenas Henry. They'll be nice fur you goin' along in the wagon." Then turning to Jan she whispered in a pleading undertone:
"Do watch, Jan, that Willie don't lay that bread down somewheres an' forget it. Mebbe if he sees the rest of you eatin' he'll remember to eat himself. If he don't, though, remind him, for he's just as liable to bring it back home again in his hand. Keep your eye on him!"
Jan nodded understandingly, and climbing into the dusty wagon, the three men rattled off over the sandy road. Willie dropped his tools into the bottom of the carriage but the slice of bread remained untouched in his fingers. Now that triumph had brought a respite in his labors he seemed silent and thoughtful. It was not until the Admiral turned in at the Brewster gate that he roused himself sufficiently to observe with irrelevance:
"Speakin' about that propeller of yours, Zenas Henry—it must be no end of a temper-rasper."
Zenas Henry slapped the reins over the horse's flank and waited breathlessly, hoping some further comment would come from the little inventor, but as Willie remained silent, he at length could restrain his impatience no longer and ventured with diffidence:
"S'pose you ain't got any notion what we could do about it, have you, Willie?"
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
"No, not the ghost," was his terse reply.
That night, however, Celestina was awakened from her dreams by the ring of a hammer. She rose, and lighting her candle, tip-toed into the hall. It was one o'clock, and she could see that Willie's bedroom door was ajar and the bed untouched.