“That woman will get her death of cold,” grumbled Uncle Joe, starting off at a round pace. “Don’t know enough to go in out o’ the cold.” But Amanda Parlow did not notice the cold. She was thinking of a time, oh, so long ago! when Joe Stagg had seated her on his bright red sled and given her a ride. How her heart had beat when he had turned to gaze at her! And now—Slowly her eyes filled with tears, and again: “Oh, Joe! Joe! How could you?” CHAPTER XVI—A SALT-SEA FLAVOUR Swiftly Joseph Stagg trudged towards home, dragging Carolyn May behind him. “Oh, dear me!” exclaimed the little girl with exultation, “we’re all so excited, Uncle Joe!” “I can see you’re all of a-twitter,” he returned absent-mindedly. “What’s the matter?” “Oh, you never could guess!” was Carolyn May’s introduction, and forthwith, in breathless sentences, went on to tell of her discovery in the snow and about the old sailor now lying asleep on the Parlow couch. “I vum!” ejaculated Uncle Joe, when he had listened to it all. “Who ever heard the beat of that! And Jed Parlow really helped take him in, did he? The day of miracles isn’t past, then, that’s sure.” Of course, when Carolyn May arrived at home, the story had to be told all over again to Aunty Rose Kennedy—all the details, even to Prince’s feast of chicken bones. If the housekeeper was surprised—as Joseph Stagg had been—that the carpenter should take the injured man into his house, she did not say so. “A mighty plucky youngster, this Car’lyn May of ours,” Uncle Joe remarked. “What do you say, Aunty Rose?” “She is, indeed, Joseph Stagg,” agreed the woman. Carolyn May was very much excited over the adventure, and, although it snowed some that night and the paths were drifted full in places, she wanted greatly to go down to the Parlow house the next day to see her “sailor man,” as she called the unfortunate she had assisted. Naturally, she could not expect Uncle Joe to stop and ask how the sailor was, he not being on speaking terms with the Parlows; but the hardware dealer did pick up a morsel of news about the stranger and brought it home at noon time to detail to Aunty Rose and the little girl at the dinner table. “I tell you,” Mr. Stagg maintained, “Jed Parlow’s had a change of heart, or something. Know what he’s done?” “I could not guess, Joseph Stagg,” said Aunty Rose austerely. “Why, he’s letting that old tramp Car’lyn May picked up stay there till he gets well enough to work, so they tell me. Who ever heard the like? And Jed hasn’t a blessed thing for a man like that tramp to do at this time of year.” “It’s Miss Amanda that lets him stay, I guess,” said Carolyn May with a wise little nod of her sunny head. “Hum!” grunted her uncle. “Time was when Jed Parlow wouldn’t have played the part of a good Samaritan to the Angel Gabriel himself.”