Mrs. Montgomery laughed delightedly, and Peter, looking into her eyes, grinned. He liked this large, wholesome woman.
"You are the man!" said Mrs. Montgomery gaily. "And since Mrs. Vandyne won't introduce me, I'll introduce myself."
Peter was justified in his doubts regarding the capacity of his boat, and the farmer, after trying to feel comfortable inside, went out and sat on the edge of the deck. The shavings on the floor, the wooden-spoons (there were but three or four), the boat itself--when she learned Peter had built it himself--all delighted her. She asked innumerable questions that would have been impertinent but for her kindly smile, and she was delighted when she learned that Peter had but one blanket, which was his coat by day and his bed-clothing by night. But more than all else she liked Peter's kindly eyes. She explained, in detail, the object of their visit, and Peter listened politely.
"It's right kind of you to come down so far," he said when he had heard, "but I guess I'll have to refuse you, Mrs. Montgomery. I don't seem to have no desire to make no more funny toys. I guess I won't."
"I can understand the feeling perfectly," said Mrs. Montgomery, too wise to try coaxing. "You have an artist's reluctance to undertake for pay what you have done for pleasure only."
"It ain't that," said Peter. "I just whittled out them toys for a little feller I had here, because he used to laugh at them. That's all I done it for, and since he ain't here to laugh, it don't seem as if I could get the grin into them. I don't know as I can explain; I don't know as you could understand if I did--"
"But I _do_, I _do_," said Mrs. Montgomery eagerly. "You mean you lack the sympathetic audience."
"Maybe so," said Peter doubtfully. "What I do mean is, that I'd miss the look in his eyes and how he quirked up his mouth whilst I was cutting out a toy. Maybe it looks to you like this hand and this old whetted-down jack-knife was what made them toys, but that ain't so! No, ma'am! All I done was to take a piece of maple wood and start things going. 'This is going to be a cat, Buddy,' I'd say, maybe, and he'd sparkle up at me and say, 'A funny old cat, Uncle Peter!' and then it had got to be a funny old cat, like he said. And his eyes and his mouth would tell me just how funny to make that cat, and just how funny not to make it. He sort of seen each whittle before I seen it myself, and told me how to make it by the look of his eyes and the way his mouth sort of _felt_ for it until I got it just right. And then he would laugh. So you see, now that Buddy's gone, I couldn't--no, I guess I couldn't!"