"He ISN'T glad," she declared, stoutly. "He doesn't act that way
when he is glad about things. You see," she added, with the air of
a Mrs. Methusaleh, "Petunia and I know him better than you do,
Mamma; we've had more chances to get--to get acquainted."
Perhaps an hour later there was another knock at the kitchen door.
Mrs. Armstrong, when she opened it, found her landlord standing
there, one of his largest windmills--a toy at least three feet
high--in his arms. He bore it into the kitchen and stood it in the
middle of the floor, holding the mammoth thing, its peaked roof
high above his head, and peering solemnly out between one of its
arms and its side.
"Why, Mr. Winslow!" exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong.
"Yes, ma'am," said Jed. "I--I fetched it for Babbie. I just kind
of thought maybe she'd like it."
Barbara clasped her hands.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, is it for me."
Jed answered.
"'Tis, if you want it," he said.
"Want it? Why, Mamma, it's one of the very best mills! It's a
five dollar one, Mamma!"
Mrs. Armstrong protested. "Oh, I couldn't let you do that, Mr.
Winslow," she declared. "It is much too expensive a present. And
besides--"
She checked herself just in time. It had been on the tip of her
tongue to say that she did not know what they could do with it.
Their rooms at Mrs. Smalley's were not large.
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