"What are you going to do this afternoon?" he asked. "Let's go for a walk."
"I'm going back to Coniston."
"Let's go for a walk now," said he, springing to his feet. "Come on."
Cynthia looked at him and shook her head smilingly.
"Here's Uncle Jethro—"
"Uncle Jethro!" exclaimed Bob, "is he your uncle?"
"Oh, no, not really. But he's just the same. He's very good to me."
"I wonder whether he'd mind if I called him Uncle Jethro, too," said Bob, and Cynthia laughed at the notion. This young man was certainly very comical, and very frank. "Good-by," he said; "I'll come to see you some day in Coniston."
CHAPTER XII
That evening, after Cynthia had gone to bed, William Wetherell sat down at Jonah Winch's desk in the rear of the store to gaze at a blank sheet of paper until the Muses chose to send him subject matter for his weekly letter to the Guardian. The window was open, and the cool airs from the mountain spruces mingled with the odors of corn meal and kerosene and calico print. Jethro Bass, who had supped with the storekeeper, sat in the wooden armchair silent, with his head bent. Sometimes he would sit there by the hour while Wetherell wrote or read, and take his departure when he was so moved without saying good night. Presently Jethro lifted his chin, and dropped it again; there was a sound of wheels without, and, after an interval, a knock at the door.