Chapter 4

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_ CHAPTER IV

Thankful opened her eyes. The sunlight was streaming in at the window. Beneath that window hens were clucking noisily. Also in the room adjoining someone was talking, protesting.

"I don't know, Hannah," said Mr. Parker's voice. "I tell you I don't know where it is. If I knew I'd tell you, wouldn't I? I don't seem to remember what I done with it."

"Well, then, you've got to set down and not stir till you do remember, that's all. When you went out of this house last evenin' to go to the postoffice--Oh, yes! To the postoffice--that's where you said you was goin'--you had the lantern and that umbrella. When you came back, hollerin' about the light you see in the Cap'n Abner house, you had the lantern. But the umbrella you didn't have. Now where is it?"

"I don't know, Hannah. I--I--do seem to remember havin' had it, but--"

"Well, I'm glad you remember that much. You lost one of your mittens, too, but 'twas an old one, so I don't mind that so much. But that umbrella was your Christmas present and 'twas good gloria silk with a real gilt-plated handle. I paid two dollars and a quarter for that umbrella, and I told you never to take it out in a storm because you were likely to turn it inside out and spile it. If I'd seen you take it last night I'd have stopped you, but you was gone afore I missed it."

"But--but, consarn it all, Hannah--"

"Don't swear, Kenelm. Profanity won't help you none."

"I wa'n't swearin'. All I say is what's the use of an umbrella if you can't hist it in a storm? I wouldn't give a darn for a schooner load of 'em when 'twas fair weather. I--I cal'late I--I left it somewheres."

"I cal'late you did. I'm goin' over to the village this mornin' and I'll stop in at that clubhouse, myself."

"I--I don't believe it's at the clubhouse, Hannah."

"You don't? Why don't you?"

"I--I don't know. I just guess it ain't, that's all. Somethin' seems to tell me 'tain't."

"Oh, it does, hey? I want to know! Hum! Was you anywheres else last night? Answer me the truth now, Kenelm Parker. Was you anywheres else last night?"

"Anywheres else. What do you mean by that?"

"I mean what I say. You know what I mean well enough. Was you--well, was you callin' on anybody?"

"Callin' on anybody? CALLIN' on 'em?"

"Yes, callin' on 'em. Oh, you needn't look so innocent and buttery! You ain't above it. Ain't I had experience? Haven't I been through it? Didn't you use to say that I, your sister that's been a mother to you, was the only woman in this world for you, and then, the minute I was out of sight and hardly out of hearin', you--"

"My soul! You've got Abbie Larkin in your head again, ain't you? It--it--I swear it's a reg'lar disease with you, seems so. Ain't I told you I ain't seen Abbie Larkin, nor her me, for the land knows how long? And I don't want to see her. My time! Do you suppose I waded and paddled a mile and a quarter down to call on Abbie Larkin a night like last night? What do you think I am--a bull frog? I wouldn't do it to see the--the Queen of Rooshy."

This vehement outburst seemed to have some effect. Miss Parker's tone was more conciliatory.

"Well, all right," she said. "I s'pose likely you didn't call on her, if you say so, Kenelm. I suppose I am a foolish, lone woman. But, O Kenelm, I do think such a sight of you. And you know you've got money and that Abbie Larkin is so worldly she'd marry you for it in a minute. I didn't know but you might have met her."

"Met her! Tut--tut--tut! If that ain't--and in a typhoon like last night! Oh, sartin, I met her! I was up here on top of Meetin'-house Hill, larnin' her to swim in the mud puddles. You do talk so silly sometimes, Hannah."

"Maybe I do," with a sniff. "Maybe I do, Kenelm, but you mean so much to me. I just can't let you go."

"Go! I ain't goin' nowheres, am I? What kind of talk's that?"

"And to think you'd heave away that umbrella--the umbrella I gave you! That's what makes me feel so bad. A nice, new, gilt-plated umbrella--"

"I never hove it away. I--I--well, I left it somewheres, I--I cal'late. I'll go look for it after breakfast. Say, when are we goin' to have breakfast, anyhow? It's almost eight o'clock now. Ain't them women-folks EVER goin' to turn out?"

Thankful had heard enough. She was out of bed the next instant.

"Emily! Emily!" she cried. "It's late. We must get up now."

The voices in the sitting-room died to whispers.

"I--I can't help it," pleaded Kenelm. "I never meant nothin'. I thought they was asleep. And 'TIS most eight. By time, Hannah, you do pick on me--"

A vigorous "Sshh!" interrupted him. The door between the sitting-room and dining-room closed with a slam. Mrs. Barnes and Emily dressed hurriedly.

They gathered about the breakfast table, the Parkers, Captain Obed and the guests. Miss Parker's "company manner" was again much in evidence and she seemed to feel it her duty to lead the conversation. She professed to have discovered a striking resemblance between Miss Howes and a deceased relative of her own named Melinda Ellis.

"The more I see of you, Miss Howes," she declared, "the more I can't help thinkin' of poor Melindy. She was pretty and had dark eyes and hair same's you've got, and that same sort of--of consumptic look to her. Not that you've got consumption, I don't mean that. Only you look the way she done, that's all. She did have consumption, poor thing. Everybody thought she'd die of it, but she didn't. She got up in the night to take some medicine and she took the wrong kind--toothache lotion it was and awful powerful--and it ate right through to her diagram. She didn't live long afterwards, poor soul."

No one said anything for a moment after this tragic recital. Then Captain Bangs observed cheerfully:

"Well, I guess Miss Howes ain't likely to drink any toothache lotion."

Hannah nodded sedately. "I trust not," she said. "But accidents do happen. And Melindy and Miss Howes look awful like each other. You're real well, I hope, Miss Howes. After bein' exposed the way you was last night I HOPE you haven't caught cold. You never can tell what'll follow a cold--with some people."

Thankful was glad when the meal was over. She, too, was fearful that her cousin might have taken cold during the wet chill of the previous night. But Emily declared she was very well indeed; that the very sight of the sunlit sea through the dining-room windows had acted like a tonic.

"Good enough!" exclaimed Captain Obed, heartily. "Then we ought to be gettin' a bigger dose of that tonic. Mrs. Barnes, if you and Miss Howes would like to walk over and have a look at that property of yours, now's as good a time as any to be doin' it. I'll go along with you if I won't be in the way."

Thankful looked down rather doubtfully at the borrowed gown she was wearing, but Miss Parker came to the rescue by announcing that her guests' own garments must be dry by this time, they had been hanging by the stove all night. So, after the change had been made, the two left the Parker residence and took the foot-path at the top of the bluff. Captain Obed seemed at first rather uneasy.

"Hope I ain't hurryin' you too much," he said. "I thought maybe it would be just as well to get out of sight of Hannah as quick as possible. She might take a notion to come with us. I thought sure Kenelm would, but he's gone on a cruise of his own somewheres. He hustled outdoor soon as breakfast was over."

Emily burst out laughing. "Excuse me, please," she said, "but I've been dying to do this for so long. That--that Miss Parker is the oddest person!"

The captain grinned. "Thinkin' about that 'diagram' yarn?" he asked. "'Tis funny when you hear it the first four or five times. Hannah Parker can get more wrong words in the right places than anybody I ever run across. She must have swallowed a dictionary some time or 'nother, but it ain't digested well, I'm afraid."

Thankful laughed, too. "You must find her pretty amusin', Cap'n Bangs," she said.

The captain shook his head. "She's a reg'lar dime show," he observed. Then he added: "Only trouble with that kind of a show is it gets kind of tiresome when you have to set through it all winter. There! now you can see your property, Mrs. Barnes, and ten mile either side of it. Look's some more lifelike and cheerful than it did last night, don't it?"

It most assuredly did. They had reached the summit of a little hill and before and behind and beneath them was a view of shore and sea that caused Emily to utter an exclamation of delight.

"Oh!" she cried. "WHAT a view! What a wonderful view!"

Behind them, beyond the knoll upon which stood the little Parker house which they had just left, at the further side of the stretch of salt meadow with the creek and bridge, was East Wellmouth village. Along the white sand of the beach, now garlanded with lines of fresh seaweed torn up and washed ashore by the gale, were scattered a half dozen fishhouses, with dories and lobster pots before them, and at the rear of these began the gray and white huddle of houses and stores, with two white church spires and the belfry of the schoolhouse rising above their roofs.

At their right, only a few yards from the foot-path where they stood, the high sand bluff broke sharply down to the beach and the sea. The great waves, tossing their white plumes on high, came marching majestically in, to trip, topple and fall, one after the other, in roaring, hissing Niagaras upon the shore. Over their raveled crests the gulls dipped and soared. The air was clear, the breeze keen and refreshing and the salty smell of the torn seaweed rose to the nostrils of the watchers.

To the left were barren hills, dotted with scrub, and farther on the pine groves, with the road from Wellmouth Centre winding out from their midst.

All these things Thankful and Emily noticed, but it was on the prospect directly ahead that their interest centered. For there, upon the slope of the next knoll stood the "property" they had come to see and to which they had been introduced in such an odd fashion.

Seen by daylight and in the glorious sunshine the old Barnes house did look, as their guide said, more "lifelike and cheerful." A big, rambling, gray-gabled affair, of colonial pattern, a large yard before it and a larger one behind, the tumble-down shed in which General Jackson had been tethered, a large barn, also rather tumble-down, with henhouses and corncribs beside it and attached to it in haphazard fashion. In the front yard were overgrown clusters of lilac and rose bushes and, behind the barn, was the stubble of a departed garden. Thankful looked at all these.

"So that's it," she said.

"That's it," said Captain Obed. "What do you think of it?"

"Humph! Well, there's enough of it, anyhow, as the little boy said about the spring medicine. What do you think, Emily?"

Emily's answer was prompt and emphatic.

"I like it," she declared. "It looks so different this morning. Last night it seemed lonesome and pokey and horrid, but now it is almost inviting. Think what it must be in the spring and summer. Think of opening those upper windows on a summer morning and looking out and away for miles and miles. It would be splendid!"

"Um--yes. But spring and summer don't last all the time. There's December and January and February to think of. Even March ain't all joy; we've got last night to prove it by. However, it doesn't look quite so desperate as I thought it might; I'll give in to that. Last night I was about ready to sell it for the price of a return ticket to South Middleboro. Now I guess likely I ought to get a few tradin' stamps along with the ticket. Humph! This sartin isn't ALL Poverty Lane, is it? THAT place wa'n't built with tradin' stamps. Who lives there?"

She was pointing to the estate adjoining the Barnes house and fronting the sea further on. "Estate" is a much abused term and is sometimes applied to rather insignificant holdings, but this one deserved the name. Great stretches of lawns and shrubbery, ornamental windmill, greenhouses, stables, drives and a towered and turreted mansion dominating all.

"I seem to have aristocratic neighbors, anyhow," observed Mrs. Barnes. "Whose tintype belongs in THAT gilt frame?"

Captain Obed chuckled at the question.

"Why, nobody's just now," he said. "There was one up to last fall, though I shouldn't have called him a tintype. More of a panorama, if you asked me--or him, either. That place belonged to our leadin' summer resident, Mr. Hamilton Colfax, of New York. There's a good view from there, too, but not as fine as this one of yours, Mrs. Barnes. When your uncle, Cap'n Abner, bought this old house it used to set over on a part of that land there. The cap'n didn't like the outlook so well as the one from here, so he bought this strip and moved the house down. Quite a job movin' a house as old as this one.

"Mr. Colfax died last October," he added, "and the place is for sale. Good deal of a shock, his death was, to East Wellmouth. Kind of like takin' away the doughnut and leavin' nothin' but the hole. The Wellmouth Weekly Advocate pretty nigh gave up the ghost when Mr. Colfax did. It always cal'lated on fillin' at least three columns with the doin's of the Colfaxes and their 'house parties' and such. All summer it told what they did do and all winter it guessed what they was goin' to do. It ain't been much more than a patent medicine advertisin' circular since the blow struck. Well, have you looked enough? Shall we heave ahead and go aboard your craft, Mrs. Barnes?"

They walked on, down the little hill and up the next, and entered the front yard of the Barnes house. There were the marks in the mud and sand where the depot-wagon had overturned, but the wagon itself was gone. "Cal'late Winnie S. and his dad come around early and towed it home," surmised Captain Obed. "Seemed to me I smelled sulphur when I opened my bedroom window this mornin'. Guess 'twas a sort of floatin' memory of old man Holt's remarks when he went by. That depot-wagon was an antique and antiques are valuable these days. Want to go inside, do you?"

Thankful hesitated. "I haven't got the key," she said. "I suppose it's at that Badger man's in the village. You know who I mean, Cap'n Bangs."

The captain nodded.

"Christopher S. H. Badger, tinware, groceries, real estate, boots and shoes, and insurance," he said. "Likewise justice of the peace and first mate of all creation. Yes, I know Chris."

"Well, he's been in charge of this property of mine. He collected the rent from that Mr. Eldredge who used to live here. I had a good many letters from him, mainly about paintin' and repairs."

"Um--hum; I ain't surprised. Chris sells paint as well as tea and tinware. He's got the key, has he?"

"I suppose he has. I ought to have gone up and got it from him."

"Well, I wouldn't fret about it. Of course we can't go in the front door like the minister and weddin' company, but the kitchen door was unfastened last night and I presume likely it's that way now. You haven't any objection to the kitchen door, have you? When old Laban lived here it's a safe bet he never used any other. Cur'ous old critter, he was."

They entered by the kitchen door. The inside of the house, like the outside, was transformed by day and sunshine. The rooms downstairs were large and well lighted, and, in spite of their emptiness, they seemed almost cheerful.

"Whose furniture is this?" asked Thankful, referring to the stove and chair and sofa in the dining-room.

"Laban's; that is, it used to be. When he died he didn't have chick nor child nor relation, so fur's anybody knew, and his stuff stayed right here. There wa'n't very much of it. That is--" He hesitated.

"But, there must have been more than this," said Thankful. "What, became of it?"

Captain Obed shook his head. "You might ask Chris Badger," he suggested. "Chris sells antiques on the side--the high side."

"Did old Mr. Eldredge live here ALL alone?" asked Emily.

"Yup. And died all alone, too. Course I don't mean he was alone all the time he was sick. Most of that time he was out of his head and folks could stay with him, but he came to himself occasional and when he did he'd fire 'em out because feedin' 'em cost money. He wa'n't what you'd call generous, Laban wa'n't."

"Where did he die?" asked Thankful, who was looking out of the window.

"Upstairs in the little back bedroom. Smallest room in the house 'tis, and folks used to say he slept there 'cause he could heat it by his cussin' instead of a stove. 'Most always cussin', he was--cussin' and groanin'."

Thankful was silent. Emily said: "Groaning? You mean he groaned when he was ill?"

"Yes, and when he was well, too. A habit of his, groanin' was. I don't know why he done it--see himself in the lookin'-glass, maybe; that was enough to make anybody groan. He'd groan in his sleep--or snore--or both. He was the noisiest sleeper ever I set up with. Shall we go upstairs?"

The narrow front stairs creaked as loudly in the daytime as they had on the previous night, but the long hall on the upper floor was neither dark nor terrifying. Nevertheless it was with just a suspicion of dread that Mrs. Barnes approached the large room at the end of the hall and the small one adjoining it. Her common-sense had returned and she was naturally brave, but an experience such as hers had been is not forgotten in a few hours. However, she was determined that no one should know her feelings; therefore she was the first to enter the little room.

"Here's where Laban bunked," said the captain. "You'd think with all the big comf'table bedrooms to choose from he wouldn't pick out this two-by-four, would you? But he did, probably because nobody else would. He was a contrary old rooster, and odd as Dick's hat-band."

Thankful was listening, although not to their guide's remarks. She was listening for sounds such as she had heard--or thought she had heard--on the occasion of her previous visit to that room. But there were no such sounds. There was the bed, the patchwork comforter, the chair and the pictures on the walls, but when she approached that bed there came no disturbing groans. And, by day, the memory of her fright seemed absolutely ridiculous. For at least the tenth time she solemnly resolved that no one should ever know how foolish she had been.

Emily uttered an exclamation and pointed.

"Why, Auntie!" she cried. "Isn't that--where did that lantern come from?"

Captain Obed looked where she was pointing. He stepped forward and picked up the overturned lantern.

"That's Darius Holt's lantern, I do believe," he declared. "The one Winnie S. was makin' such a fuss about last night. How in the nation did it get up here?"

Thankful laughed. "I brought it up," she said. "I come on a little explorin' cruise when Emily dropped asleep on that sittin'-room lounge, but I hadn't much more'n got in here when the pesky thing went out. You ought to have seen me hurryin' along that hall to get down before you woke up, Emily. No, come to think of it, you couldn't have seen me--'twas too dark to see anything. . . . Well," she added, quickly, in order to head off troublesome questioning, "we've looked around here pretty well. What else is there to see?"

They visited the garret and the cellar; both were spacious and not too clean.

"If I ever come here to live," declared Thankful, with decision, "there'll be some dustin' and sweepin' done, I know that."

Emily looked at her in surprise.

"Come here to live!" she repeated. "Why, Auntie, are you thinking of coming here to live?"

Her cousin's answer was not very satisfactory. "I've been thinkin' a good many things lately," she said. "Some of 'em was even more crazy than that sounds."

The inside of the house having been thus thoroughly inspected they explored the yard and the outbuildings. The barn was a large one, with stalls for two horses and a cow and a carriage-room with the remnants of an old-fashioned carryall in it.

"This is about the way it used to be in Cap'n Abner's day," said Captain Obed. "That carryall belonged to your uncle, the cap'n, Mrs. Barnes. The boys have had it out for two or three Fourth of July Antiques and Horribles' parades; 'twon't last for many more by the looks of it."

"And what," asked Thankful, "is that? It looks like a pigsty."

They were standing at the rear of the house, which was built upon a slope. Under the washshed, which adjoined the kitchen, was a rickety door. Beside that door was a boarded enclosure which extended both into the yard and beneath the washshed.

Captain Bangs laughed. "You've guessed it, first crack," he said. "It is a pigpen. Some of Laban's doin's, that is. He used to keep a pig and 'twas too much trouble to travel way out back of the barn to feed it, so Labe rigged up this contraption. That door leads into the potato cellar. Labe fenced off half the cellar to make a stateroom for the pig. He thought as much of that hog as if 'twas his own brother, and there WAS a sort of family likeness."

Thankful snorted. "A pigsty under the house!" she said. "Well, that's all I want to know about THAT man!"

As they were returning along the foot-path by the bluff Captain Obed, who had been looking over his shoulder, suddenly stopped.

"That's kind of funny," he said.

"What?" asked Emily.

"Oh, nothin', I guess. I thought I caught a sight of somebody peekin' around the back of that henhouse. If 'twas somebody he dodged back so quick I couldn't be sure. Humph! I guess I was mistaken, or 'twas just one of Solon Taylor's young ones. Solon's a sort of--sort of stevedore at the Colfax place. Lives there and takes care of it while the owners are away. No-o; no, I don't see nobody now."

Thankful was silent during the homeward walk. When she and Miss Howes were alone in their room, she said:

"Emily, are you real set on gettin' back to South Middleboro tonight?"

"No, Auntie. Why?"

"Well, if you ain't I think I'd like to stay over another day. I've got an idea in my head and, such a thing bein' kind of unusual, I'd like to keep company with it for a spell. I'll tell you about it by and by; probably 'twon't come to anything, anyway."

"But do you think we ought to stay here, as Miss Parker's guests? Wouldn't it be--"

"Of course it would. We'll go over to that hotel, the one we started for in the first place. Judgin' from what I hear of that tavern it'll be wuth experiencin'; and--and somethin' may come of that, too."

She would not explain further, and Emily, knowing her well, did not press the point.

Hannah Parker protested volubly when her "company" declared its intention of going to the East Wellmouth Hotel.

"Of course you shan't do no such thing," she declared. "The idea! It's no trouble at all to have you, and that hotel really ain't fit for such folks as you to stay at. Mrs. Bacon, from Boston, stayed there one night in November and she pretty nigh famished with the cold, to say nothin' of havin' to eat huckleberry preserves for supper two nights runnin'. Course they had plenty of other things in the closet, but they'd opened a jar of huckleberries, so they had to be et up afore they spiled. That's the way they run THAT hotel. And Mrs. Bacon is eastern Massachusetts delegate from the State Grange. She's Grand Excited Matron. Just think of treatin' her that way! Well, where've you been all the forenoon?"

The question was addressed to her brother, who entered the house by the side door at that moment. Kenelm seemed a trifle confused.

"I--I been lookin' for that umbrella, Hannah," he explained. "I knew I must have left it somewheres 'cause--'cause, you see I--I took it out with me last night and--and--"

"And come home without it. It wouldn't take a King Solomon to know that. Did you find it?"

Kenelm's embarrassment appeared to increase.

"Well," he stammered, "I ain't exactly found it--but--"

"But what?"

"I--I'm cal'latin' to find it, Hannah."

"Yes, I know. You're cal'latin' to get to Heaven some time or other, I s'pose, but if the path is as narrow and crooked as they say 'tis I should be scared if I was you. You'll find a way to lose it, if there is one. Oh, dear me!" with a sudden change to a tone almost pleading. "Be you goin' to smoke again?"

Kenelm's reply was strange for him. He scratched a match and lit his pipe with calm deliberation.

"I'm cal'latin' to," he said, cheerfully. And his sister, to the surprise of Mrs. Barnes and Emily, did not utter another word of protest.

Captain Obed volunteered to accompany them to the hotel and to the store of Mr. Badger. On the way Thankful mentioned Mr. Parker's amazing independence in the matter of the pipe.

The captain chuckled. "Yes," he said, "Kenelm smokes when he wants to, and sometimes when he don't, I guess, just to keep his self-respect. Smokin' is one p'int where he beat out Hannah. It's quite a yarn, the way he done it is. Some time I'll tell it to you, maybe."

The hotel--it was kept by Darius Holt, father of Winnie S.--was no more inviting than Miss Parker's and Captain Bangs' hints had led them to expect. But Thankful insisted on engaging a room for the night and on returning there for dinner, supper and breakfast the following day.

"After that, we'll see," she said. "Now let's go and make a call on that rent collector of mine."

Mr. Badger was surprised to meet the owner of the Barnes house, surprised and a bit taken aback, so it seemed to Mrs. Barnes and her cousin. He was very polite, almost obsequiously so, and his explanations concerning the repairs which he had found it necessary to make and the painting which he had had done were lengthy if not convincing.

As they left him, smiling and bowing in the doorway of his store, Thankful shook her head. When they were out of earshot she said:

"Hum! The paint he says he put on that precious property of mine don't show as much as you'd expect, but he used enough butter and whitewash this morning to make up. He's a slick party, that Mr. Badger is, or I miss my guess. His business arithmetic don't go much further than addition. Everything in creation added to one makes one and he's the one. Mr. Chris Badger's got jobs enough, accordin' to his sign. He won't starve if he don't collect rents for me any more."

The hotel dinner was neither bountiful nor particularly well cooked. The Holts joined them at table and Winnie S. talked a good deal. He expressed much joy at the recovery of his lantern.

"But when I see you folks in that house last night," he said, "I thought to myself, 'Judas priest!' thinks I. 'Them women has got more spunk than I've got.' Gettin' into a house like that all alone in the dark--Whew! Judas priest! I wouldn't do it!"

"Why not?" asked Emily.

"Oh, just 'cause I wouldn't, I suppose. Now I don't believe in such things, of course, but old Laban he did die there. I never heard nothin', but they tell me--"

"Rubbish!" broke in Mr. Holt, Senior. "'Tain't nothin' but fool yarns, the whole of it. Take an old house, a hundred year old same as that is, and shut her up and 'tain't long afore folks do get to pretendin' they hear things. I never heard nothin'. Have some more pie, Miss Howes? Huh! There AIN'T no more, is there!"

After dinner Emily retired to her room for a nap. She did so under protest, declaring that she was not tired, but Thankful insisted.

"If you ain't tired now you will be when the excitement's over," she said. "My conscience is plaguin' me enough about fetchin' you on this cruise, as it is. Just take it as easy as you can, Emily. Lie down and rest, and please me."

So Emily obeyed orders and Mrs. Barnes, after drawing the curtains and asking over and over again if her cousin was sure she was comfortable, went out. It was late in the afternoon when she returned.

"I've been talkin' until my face aches," she declared. "And my mind is about made up to do--to do what may turn out to be the craziest thing I ever DID do. I'll tell you the whole thing after supper, Emily. Let's let my tongue have a vacation till then."

And, after supper, which, by the way, was no better than the dinner, she fulfilled her promise. They retired to the bedroom and Thankful, having carefully closed the windows and door and hung a towel over the keyhole, told of her half-formed plan.

"Emily," she began, "I presume likely you'll feel that you'd ought to go back home tomorrow? Yes, I knew you'd feel that way. Well, I ain't goin' with you. I've made up my mind to stay here for a few days longer. Now I'll tell you why.

"You see, Emily," she went on, "my comin' down here to East Wellmouth wa'n't altogether for the fun of lookin' at the heirloom Uncle Abner left me. The first thing I wanted to do was see it, but when I had seen it, and if it turned out to be what I hoped it might be, there was somethin' else. Emily, Mrs. Pearson's dyin' leaves me without a job. Oh, of course I know I could 'most likely get another chance at nursin' or keepin' house for somebody, but, to tell you the truth, I'm gettin' kind of tired of that sort of thing. Other folks' houses are like other folks' ailments; they don't interest you as much as your own do. I'm sick of askin' somebody else what they want for dinner; I'd like to get my own dinner, or, at least, if somebody else is to eat with me, I want to decide myself what they'll have to eat. I want to run my own house once more afore I die. And it seems--yes, it seems to me as if here was the chance; nothin' but a chance, and a risky one, but a chance just the same. Emily, I'm thinkin' of fixin' up Uncle Abner's old rattletrap and openin' a boardin'-house for summer folks in it.

"Yes, yes; I know," she continued, noticing the expression on her companion's face. "There's as much objection to the plan as there is slack managin' in this hotel, and that's some consider'ble. Fust off, it'll cost money. Well; I've saved a little money and those cranberry bog shares Mrs. Pearson left me will sell for two thousand at least. That would be enough, maybe, if I wanted to risk it all, but I don't. I've got another scheme. This property of mine down here is free and clear, but, on account of its location and the view, Cap'n Bangs tells me it's worth consider'ble more than I thought it was. I believe--yes, I do believe I could put a mortgage on it for enough to pay for the fixin' over, maybe more."

Emily interrupted.

"But, Auntie," she said, "a mortgage is a debt, isn't it? A debt that must be paid. And if you borrow from a stranger--"

"Just a minute, Emily. Course a mortgage is a debt, but it's a debt on the house and land and, if worse comes to worst, the house and land can go to pay for it. And I don't mean to borrow from a stranger, if I can help it. I've got a relation down here on the Cape, although he's a pretty fur-off, round-the-corner relation, third cousin, or somethin' like that. His name's Solomon Cobb and he lives over to Trumet, about nine mile from here, so Cap'n Bangs says. And he and Uncle Abner used to sail together for years. He was mate aboard the schooner when Uncle Abner died on a v'yage from Charleston home. This Cobb man is a tight-fisted old bachelor, they say, but his milk of human kindness may not be all skimmed. And, anyhow, he does take mortgages; that's the heft of his business--I got that from the cap'n without tellin' him what I wanted to know for."

Miss Howes smiled.

"You and Captain Bangs have been putting your heads together, I see," she said.

"Um--hm. And his head ain't all mush and seeds like a pumpkin, if I'm any judge. The cap'n tells me that east Wellmouth needs a good summer boardin'-house. This--this contraption we're in now is the nighest thing there is to it, and that's as far off as dirt is from soap; you can see that yourself. 'Cordin' to Cap'n Bangs, lots and lots of city people would come here summers if there was a respectable, decent place to go to. Now, Emily, why can't I give 'em such a place? Seems to me I can. Anyhow, if I can mortgage the place to Cousin Sol Cobb I think--yes, I'm pretty sure I shall try. Now what do you think? Is your Aunt Thankful Barnes losin' her sense--always providin' she's ever had any to lose--or is she gettin' to be a real business woman at last?"

Emily's reply was at first rather doubtful. She raised one objection after the other, but Mrs. Barnes was always ready with an answer. It was plain that she had looked at her plan from every angle. And, at last, Miss Howes, too, became almost enthusiastic.

"I do believe," she said, "it may turn out to be a splendid thing for you, Auntie. At least, I'm sure you will succeed if anyone can. Oh dear!" wistfully. "I only wish it were possible for me to stay here and help with it all. But I can't--I can't. Mother and the children need the money and I must go back to my school."

Thankful nodded. "Yes," she admitted, "I suppose likely you must, for the present. But--but if it SHOULD be a go and I SHOULD see plainer sailin' ahead, then I'd need somebody to help manage, somebody younger and more up-to-date than I am. And I know mighty well who I shall send for."

They talked for a long time, but at last, after they were in bed and the lamp was extinguished, Emily said:

"I hate to go back and leave you here, Auntie; indeed I do. I shall be so interested and excited I shall scarcely be able to wait for your letters. You will write just as soon as you have seen this Mr. Cobb, won't you?"

"Yes, sartin sure I will. I know it's goin' to be hard for you to go and leave me, Emily, but I shan't be havin' a Sunday-school picnic, exactly, myself. From what I used to hear about Cousin Solomon, unless he's changed a whole lot since, gettin' a dollar from him won't be as easy as pullin' a spoon out of a kittle of soft-soap. I'll have to do some persuadin', I guess. Wish my tongue was as soothin'-syrupy as that Mr. Badger's is. But I'm goin' to do my best. And if talkin' won't do it I'll--I swear I don't know as I shan't give him ether. Maybe he'd take THAT if he could get it for nothin'. Good night." _

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