Shavings | Page 4

was a shingled building, whitewashed, and with a door, painted green,
and four windows on the side toward the road. A clamshell walk led
from the gate to the doors. Over the door was a sign, very neatly
lettered, as follows: "J. EDGAR W. WINSLOW. MILLS FOR SALE."
In the lot next to that, where the little shop stood, was a small,
old-fashioned story-and-a-half Cape Cod house, painted a speckless
white, with vivid green blinds. The blinds were shut now, for the house
was unoccupied. House and shop and both yards were neat and clean as
a New England kitchen.
Gabriel Bearse, after a moment's reflection, opened the gate in the
picket fence and walked along the clamshell walk to the shop door.
Opening the door, he entered, a bell attached to the top of the door
jingling as he did so. The room which Mr. Bearse entered was crowded
from floor to ceiling, save for a narrow passage, with hit- or-miss
stacks of the wooden toys evidently finished and ready for shipment.
Threading his way between the heaps of sailors, mills, vanes and boats,
Gabriel came to a door evidently leading to another room. There was a
sign tacked to this door, which read, "PRIVATE," but Mr. Bearse did
not let that trouble him. He pushed the door open.
The second room was evidently the work-shop. There were a circular
saw and a turning lathe, with the needful belts, and a small electric
motor to furnish power. Also there were piles of lumber, shelves of
paint pots and brushes, many shavings and much sawdust. And,
standing beside a dilapidated chair from which he had evidently risen at
the sound of the door bell, with a dripping paint brush in one hand and
a wooden sailor in the other, there was a man. When he saw who his
visitor was he sat down again.

He was a tall man and, as the chair he sat in was a low one and the
heels of his large shoes were hooked over its lower rounds, his knees
and shoulders were close together when he bent over his work. He was
a thin man and his trousers hung about his ankles like a loose sail on a
yard. His hair was thick and plentiful, a brown sprinkled with gray at
the temples. His face was smooth-shaven, with wrinkles at the corners
of the eyes and mouth. He wore spectacles perched at the very end of
his nose, and looked down over rather than through them as he dipped
the brush in the can of paint beside him on the floor.
"Hello, Shavin's," hailed Mr. Bearse, blithely.
The tall man applied the brush to the nude pine legs of the wooden
sailor. One side of those legs were modestly covered forthwith by a pair
of sky-blue breeches. The artist regarded the breeches dreamily. Then
he said:
"Hello, Gab."
His voice was a drawl, very deliberate, very quiet, rather soft and
pleasant. But Mr. Bearse was not pleased.
"Don't call me that," he snapped.
The brush was again dipped in the paint pot and the rear elevation of
the pine sailor became sky-blue like the other side of him. Then the tall
man asked:
"Call you what?"
"Gab. That's a divil of a name to call anybody. Last time I was in here
Cap'n Sam Hunniwell heard you call me that and I cal'lated he'd die
laughin'. Seemed to cal'late there was somethin' specially dum funny
about it. I don't call it funny. Say, speakin' of Cap'n Sam, have you
heard the news about him?"
He asked the question eagerly, because it was a part of what he came
there to ask. His eagerness was not contagious. The man on the chair

put down the blue brush, took up a fresh one, dipped it in another paint
pot and proceeded to garb another section of his sailor in a spotless
white shirt. Mr. Bearse grew impatient.
"Have you heard the news about Cap'n Sam?" he repeated. "Say,
Shavin's, have you?"
The painting went serenely on, but the painter answered.
"Well, Gab," he drawled, "I--"
"Don't call me Gab, I tell you. 'Tain't my name."
"Sho! Ain't it?"
"You know well enough 'tain't. My name's Gabriel. Call me that-- or
Gabe. I don't like to be called out of my name. But say, Shavin's--"
"Well, Gab, say it."
"Look here, Jed Winslow, do you hear me?"
"Yes, hear you fust rate, Gabe--now."
Mr. Bearse's understanding was not easily penetrated; a hint usually
glanced from it like a piece of soap from a slanting cellar door, but this
time the speaker's tone and the emphasis on the "now" made a slight
dent. Gabriel's eyes opened.
"Huh?" he grunted in astonishment, as if the possibility had never until
that moment