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Title: Silas Bradford's Boy (1928)
Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.:  0200231.txt
Language:   English
Date first posted: March 2002
Date most recently updated: March 2002

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Title: Silas Bradford's Boy (1928)
Author: Joseph C. Lincoln




CHAPTER I


Late on a late autumn afternoon in the year 1903 the Village of
Denboro, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was undergoing
inspection and appraisal.  It did not know that it was undergoing
anything of the kind, nor would it have been in the least troubled
if it had known.

Denboro was satisfied with itself.  "Not a city--no!  Not a crowded
metropolis, teeming with riches and poverty, its gilded palaces
rubbing elbows with its sin-soaked slums--not that indeed.  But a
community of homes, the homes of God-fearing men and noble women,
a town with churches and schools, of prosperous shops and a well-
patronized circulating library, whose sons have sailed the seven
seas, whose daughters have reared their children to be true
Americans--in short, my friends, perhaps as fine an example of what
a town should be as may be found between the surging billows of the
Atlantic upon the one hand and the blue bosom of the Pacific upon
the other."  (See the address of the Hon. Alonzo Pearson, delivered
at the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the
incorporation of the township of Denboro, and on file in the office
of Abel Snow, town clerk.)

No, Denboro would not have feared inspection, it would have
welcomed it; the more perfect the diamond the purer its glitter
beneath the magnifying glass.  If it had been aware that Banks
Bradford, as he strolled down Main Street toward home and supper
that afternoon, was looking it over with amused condescension it
would not have cared at all.  Several of its citizens looked young
Mr. Bradford over as he passed, and their comments were singularly
free from awe or uneasiness.

"Who did you say?" queried Ebenezer Tadgett, peering through the
panes of the window of his secondhand shop.  "Who did you say
'twas, Joe?"

Jotham Gott, the cards of the euchre hand which had just been dealt
him clutched in his huge fist, answered casually.  "Oh, it's that
boy of Margaret Bradford's," he said.  "Cap'n Silas Bradford's son.
He belongs here in town, but he's been away so much, up to college
and studyin' law and the like of that, that I guess you ain't seen
much of him since you come to Denboro to live, Ebenezer.  His first
name's Silas, same as his father's was, but they always call him by
his middle one--Banks.  Lord knows why!  If my old man was as smart
as Cap'n Silas was in his day and time I'd be proud to use his name
even if 'twas Judas; yes"--with a chuckle--"even if 'twas Eliab--
and that's stretchin' things up to the limit of eyesight, you'll
have to give in."

The third member of the euchre party was a tall, raw-boned, stoop-
shouldered individual with a long face, the most prominent feature
of which was nose.  His surname was Gibbons and his Christian name
Eliab.  He sniffed through the prominent feature just mentioned and
turned on his heel.

"Humph!" he growled.  "If my eyesight was so poor I played the king
thinkin' 'twas the right bower I'd keep still, seems to me.  Come
on, boys; come on!  You owe me seven cents so fur, Jotham, and I'm
cal'latin' to make it ten in a couple more hands, which is all
we've got time for."

The game of "cutthroat" euchre was resumed in the back shop, and
Banks Bradford was for the time forgotten.  Meanwhile Mr. Bradford
himself had turned the corner by the post office and was walking,
more rapidly now, along the Mill Road on his way to the house in
which he was born and where he knew his mother and his supper were
awaiting him.

The Bradford home was situated on the slope of Mill Hill, upon the
crest of which still stood the old windmill where, years before,
the dwellers in Denboro brought their corn and rye to be ground.
Capt. Silas Bradford had bought the land when he was a very young
man, unmarried and in command of his first ship.  He had bought it
because of the view, which was extensive.  From the Bradford porch
one looked out over the little harbor, with its wharf and fish
houses, the dories and catboats, across the bay to the lighthouse
and lifesaving station at Loon Point, and beyond to the waters of
the Sound.  The house was not large, nor architecturally beautiful,
judged by the standard of to-day.  When Captain Silas built it
there was a strong fancy for mansard roofs, and jig-sawed
ornamental work about the piazza pillars and edging the eaves.  It
was painted white, its window blinds were green, and surrounding
the property was a picket fence, also spotlessly white.

It was, in spite of the jig-sawing, an attractive house with a
homelike, comfortable look.  Not by any means, said Trumet, the
sort of house Silas Bradford would have built in his later days
when he was a member of the Boston shipping firm of Trent, Truman
& Bradford.  And distinctly not to be compared with the mansion on
the Old Ostable Road which his partner, Elijah Truman, also a
Denboro man, did build when, an old man, having made his pile, he
married, retired from business and came back to his native town,
bringing his bride, many years younger than he, with him.  Elijah
had been dead for some time; but his widow still occupied the big
house--that is, when she could forego European travel and
California winters long enough to settle down anywhere.

Elijah Truman was a smart man, so Denboro cheerfully admitted.  And
old Benjamin Trent, the senior partner of the firm, had been smart,
too, although he was foolish enough to choose Ostable rather than
Denboro as his abiding place.  But the community was practically
unanimous in agreeing that neither Trent nor Truman was ever, for
cleverness and acumen and general outstanding ability, a "patch"
upon Silas Bradford.  "If Captain Silas had lived he would have
made a name for himself, not only in Ostable County but in Boston
and all over.  Yes, he would!"  But he did not live.  In 1883, when
only thirty-five, he died in San Francisco, as the result of an
accident--careless handling of a gun or pistol or something.  And
Margaret Bradford--she that was Margaret Banks, one of the Bayport
Bankses--was left a widow, with a boy five years old.  Margaret was
a good enough woman, there was nothing to be said against her, but--
the older heads in Denboro had wagged over this many times--she
was not good enough to be the wife of a man like Captain Silas.  In
fact--more head-wagging here--his marriage was--you might as well
say it as think it--the one mistake of the captain's life.  "Only
twenty-five when he married," said Denboro.  "Too young, altogether
too young.  If he'd waited--"'

Silas Bradford had been dead twenty years and now his son was
twenty-five, the exact age of his father at the time when the
latter committed the "one mistake."  And during those twenty years,
seafaring and ship-owning had gone out of fashion as means of
livelihood for ambitious men.  Silas Banks Bradford had never
trodden a deck except as passenger.  Instead, he had attended
college, then law school; and now, after a summer's visit with a
college friend in the West, he was at home again, a freshly fledged
member of the Massachusetts bar.  He had no intention of remaining
at home, however; far from it.

He opened the side door of the house--side doors were in New
England, in those days, still the regulation family entrance--and
entered the sitting room.  Upon the wall above the mantel hung the
portrait of his father, a crayon enlargement of the latter's last
photograph, taken when he was thirty-three.  The crayon enlargement
was a gift from Abijah Bradford, Silas's younger brother.  Abijah
had two enlargements made.  One he gave to Margaret, the widow; the
other he kept.  It hung in his bachelor apartment in the Malabar
Hotel on Main Street.

Banks tossed his hat upon the sofa and went on into the adjoining
room, the dining room.  The supper table was laid and ready, and in
the Salem rocker by the plant-filled window sat his mother reading
the morning Advertiser.  She dropped the paper and rose as he
entered.

In her youth, when the handsome and dashing Silas Bradford came
a-courting and with his customary forceful domination pushed all
rivals from his path, Margaret Banks had been a pretty girl.  Now
her hair was white and her figure matronly, but as her face lighted
with a smile of welcome for her son she was good-looking still.

"Well, Banks," she said, "I had begun to wonder what had happened
to you.  Where have you been?  Sit right down.  Supper has been
ready a long time."

She brought the teapot and the plate of cream-o'-tartar biscuits
from the kitchen and they seated themselves at the table.

"Where have you been?" she asked again, as she poured the tea.

"Nowhere in particular, Mother.  Just walking around, looking
things over, that's all.  Sorry I'm late; I didn't mean to be."

"Oh, that's all right.  You weren't late--very.  Then"--she
hesitated an instant--"then you haven't been in to see your uncle?
I thought perhaps you had and that was what kept you so long."

"No, I haven't called on Uncle Bije yet.  I will to-morrow.  I've
been just tramping about, down by the wharf and up and down Main
Street.  Sort of sizing up Denboro, you know.  I've been away from
it so long that I thought I would see how it looked."

"Well," said his mother, handing him a brimming cup, "how did it
look?  Natural, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, natural enough.  Precious little change, so far as it is
concerned.  The change is in me, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know--yes, I do too.  Denboro is a nice old town, but
Lord, it is sleepy and dead and one-horse!  I like it--that is, I
like to come back to it once in a while and--well, shake hands with
people and places I used to know when I was a kid.  I suppose every
man feels that way about the town he was born in, if he has any
sentiment at all."  He spoke as if he were at least an octogenarian.

His mother smiled.  "Yes," she agreed.

"Yes.  But honestly, Mother, it is funny the way one's ideas
change.  I remember I used to think Mill Hill here was only a few
feet lower than Mont Blanc and the town hall about as huge as the
Capitol at Washington.  They've shrunk.  The whole place has
shrunk; I give you my word it has."

Margaret Bradford's smile was broader.  There was a twinkle in her
eye.  "Banks," she observed, "you speak as if you had been away
from Denboro for twenty years instead of three months."

"Do I?  Well, I feel as if I had.  And, of course, I really have
been away for a long time.  Four years at college and then the law
school.  Home for vacations, but I was too busy having a good time
then to notice much.  Now, when I'm through getting ready to earn
my living and am thinking of making a start at the regular job, I--
well, I've come to realize things as they are.  I've broadened, I
guess.  That's the answer."

"I see.  Then you don't like Denboro?"

"Like it?  Of course I like it.  I just said I did."

"I mean you wouldn't like it as a place to stay in--to live and
work in?"

The young man's laugh was answer sufficient.  "I should say not!"
he declared, with derisive emphasis.  "How does anybody live in
Denboro?"

"They manage somehow.  Your Uncle Abijah has lived here all his
life."

"Yes, and so has Cousin Nellie, for that matter.  Well, you won't
have to live here much longer, Mother.  I told you that the other
day.  Just as soon as Bill Davidson gets back to Boston, after he
finishes his trip around the world and arranges about my having a
chance with his father's firm.  It won't be much of a job, so far
as pay is concerned--not at first, but I'll attend to that end of
it in time.  I'll get ahead, if hard work will do it."

"I am sure of that, Banks."

"Yes; why not?  Other fellows get on, with less start than I'll
have.  Father didn't have a cent when he began.  He went to sea as
cabin boy when he was fourteen or so, and look what he was when he
died.  What?"

"I didn't speak.  At least, I didn't know that I did."

"Oh, I thought you did.  Well, what I'm trying to say is that you
and I will shut this house up.  Oh, not sell it--I wouldn't do that
any more than you would.  We could rent it, though, if we really
need the extra money.  You and I will go up to Boston.  You will
keep house for us both in some nice apartment, say.  I'll go in
with Davidson's father, and the rest of it is up to me.  Sounds
good enough, doesn't it?"

"Yes, yes, Banks, it sounds very good indeed."

"Well, then," a trifle impatiently, "why, every time I mention it,
do you look so queer?  Why, Mother, what in the world--you're not
crying, are you?"

"No.  No, Banks, I hope I'm not crying.  Why should I cry?"

"Lord knows, but I swear I believe you are!  Mother, don't you want
to go to Boston to live--with me?  You would be happy there, I know
you would."

"I should be happy anywhere with you, dear."

"Then, what--"

"Hush!  Don't get so excited.  Banks, I--I wish you had gone in to
see Uncle Abijah this afternoon.  He asked you to come.  I am
afraid he may have waited, expecting you."

"Really?  I'm sorry if he did, but I didn't think it made any
difference whether I went to-day or to-morrow.  I will go the first
thing in the morning.  But look here, you act as if my seeing him
was important.  It isn't, is it?  What does he want to see me
about?"

Mrs. Bradford hesitated.  Her look, as she regarded her son across
the supper table, was anxious and troubled.  "I think he wants to
talk with you about--about your plans for the future.  The sort of
thing you have just been talking about to me."

Banks was surprised.  "He does!" he exclaimed.  "Why?"

"He is interested.  He is fond of you, you know."

"I'm fond of him, so far as that goes.  Uncle Bije is a good old
sport.  Pretty stubborn and always ordering people about as if he
were their skipper and they were foremast hands, but all right,
just the same.  He's forever bragging about Denboro and the
Bradfords and all that, but I don't mind.  Probably I should talk
the same way if I had never been anywhere else and was as ancient
as he is."

"He is only three or four years more ancient than I am.  And as for
his never having been anywhere, well, he has made two round-the-
world voyages that I know of.  Before he gave up the sea I don't
suppose he had spent more than three months at a time in Denboro
since he was a boy."

"Now, Mother, you know what I mean.  And what is all this, anyway?
Is this--er--conference that I am to have with Uncle Abijah so
terribly serious?  You act as if it was."

"Why yes, dear, it is."

"The deuce you say!  And it is about me and my plans for the
future?"

"Yes.  That, and money matters."

"Money matters!  Our money matters--yours and mine?  Mother, what's
gone wrong?  What has happened?"

"Nothing has happened.  But you see--"

"Wait!  Have we--have you had losses or--or things like that?"

She shook her head.  "No, Banks," she said, "I haven't had any
losses.  You see, I never had a great deal to lose."

He leaned back in the chair, but before he could speak a step
sounded upon the walk outside.  His mother heard it and turned.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed.  "Some one is coming.  I do hope it
isn't Hettie."

Banks rose to his feet.  "Bother!" he growled.  "Mother, can't you
tell whoever it is that we're busy?"

She did not have time to answer, for the side door had opened.
Capt. Abijah Bradford stood on the threshold of the dining room.

"Hello, Banks!" he hailed.  "Evenin', Margaret.  Sorry to break in
on your supper, thought you'd be through by this time."

Captain Abijah was tall, broad and bulky; scarcely a gray hair;
blue eyes, with the sailor's pucker about their corners.  He rolled
when he walked, like a ship in a seaway.  He was by no means
handsome, as his older brother had been, but he had the Bradford
nose and chin--Banks had these--and the Bradford air of assurance
and command.  He was a bachelor, a member of the board of
selectmen, a director in the Denboro National Bank, a Past Grand
Master in the Masonic Lodge--altogether a person of importance in
Denboro, and aware of the fact.

Mrs. Bradford and her son had risen.  They bade him good evening.

"You haven't broken in on our supper," Margaret assured him.  "We
were practically through.  Sit down, Abijah."

Banks was already bringing forward a chair, but his uncle declined
it.  "Don't believe I'll sit, Margaret," he said.  "Well, young
fellow"--addressing his nephew--"you didn't get in to see me this
afternoon.  Too busy, eh?"

Banks fancied he detected a slight tinge of sarcasm in the
question.  He colored.  "No, Uncle Bije," he answered, "I wasn't
too busy."

"Then why didn't you come?  I gave up a committee meetin' waitin'
for you."

"I'm sorry.  I just--well, I--"

His mother helped him out.  "Banks didn't realize that it was a
definite appointment for to-day," she explained.  "He intended to
come to-morrow, didn't you, Banks?"

"Yes."

"All right, all right.  Only--well, I don't know how it is in the
law business, but aboard ship it's pretty generally a mistake to
put to-day off for to-morrow.  The men who sailed under your father
learned that in a hurry.  Margaret, have you talked with him about
what you and I have talked so much lately?"

His sister-in-law sighed.  "No," she confessed, "I haven't, Abijah--
not yet."

"Why not?  You and I agreed that it ought to be talked about,
didn't we?"

"Yes.  But--well, he has been at home only a day or two.  I wanted
us both to be happy as long as we could."

"Happy!  Humph!  I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be happy
if my scheme goes through.  A whole lot happier, accordin' to my
judgment, than you'd be likely to be any other way.  Look here,
Margaret, you're not backin' water, are you?  You're not lettin'
your soft-heartedness over this one chick of yours affect your
common sense?"

"No, Abijah."

"You mustn't.  And if this boy of yours has got his share of common
sense, which, bein' a Bradford, he ought to have, he'll--"

But Banks interrupted.  "Wait!  Hold on a minute, Uncle Bije," he
ordered, in a tone which although pleasant was crisp enough to
cause his uncle to turn and stare at him.  "Now that you are
speaking of common sense, don't you think it might be more sensible
to stop calling me a boy?  I'm twenty-five years old."

Margaret Bradford smiled.  She glanced from her son to her brother-
in-law and the smile broadened.

Captain Abijah rubbed his chin.  "Humph!  So you are, that's a
fact," he admitted grudgingly.  "I know it, too, but it's hard to
realize.  You've just got through goin' to school.  I belong to
another generation and I'm old-fashioned, I guess.  When I was
twenty-five I'd commanded a ship for two years.  When your father
was twenty-five he--"

And again his nephew interrupted.  "Oh, let's cut out the family
history," he suggested impatiently.  "Apparently you and mother
have been discussing me and my affairs and you haven't thought it
worth while to let me in on the matter at all.  What is all this
about, anyway?  Don't you think it is time I knew?  After all, it
might be as interesting to me as any one, I should imagine."

Abijah Bradford's red face turned redder.  People in Denboro were
not in the habit of using sarcasm when addressing him--young people
especially.  He had mid-Victorian convictions concerning the
respect due by youth to age.  He might have expressed those
convictions, but Margaret, catching her son's eye, shook her head
ever so slightly.

Banks' tone changed.  "I'm sorry, Uncle Bije," he went on quickly.
"I didn't mean to be fresh.  I only--  Wait, Mother, please; I know
what I'm doing.  I only want to make you both understand that I
think it high time you took me into your confidence.  Mother has
just told me that I made a mistake in not calling on you this
afternoon as I intended to do.  She says you and I were to have a
very serious talk about something or other.  If she had told me
that at first I should have been on hand, but she didn't.  However,
we can have it now, can't we?"

Uncle Abijah looked at Margaret.  Their eyes met.  She rose.

"I must clear the table and do the dishes," she said.  "Banks, if
you and your uncle will go into the sitting room I'll join you by
and by."

Banks turned toward the sitting-room door, but Captain Bije
hesitated.  He drew a heavy, old-fashioned gold watch from his
pocket and looked at the dial.

"It's pretty likely," he growled, "that a couple of the selectmen
may drop in on me to-night.  I ought to be on deck if they do.  You
come to my rooms to-morrow mornin' about nine, boy, and we'll have
our talk.  Meantime, Margaret, if you want to--well, break the ice
to him, which seems to me you ought to have done before--you can do
it. . . .  To-morrow mornin' at nine, then.  That won't be too
early to fit in with your college habits, will it?"  He grinned as
he asked the question.

Banks did not even smile.  "No, sir," he replied.  "It won't be too
early.  I think it will be a good deal too late.  I'd like to get
through with this to-night, Uncle Bije."

"Oh, you would, eh?  Well, I'm sorry, but I can't stay here any
longer to-night.  I've told you why."

"Yes, sir, I know.  But I can go with you to the hotel.  If your
friends do come our talk will have to be postponed, I suppose.  If
they don't we can get on with it.  Good night, Mother.  I'll be
home as soon as I can, but don't sit up for me."

He went into the sitting room and took his hat from the sofa.  His
uncle, after a moment's perplexed chin rubbing, followed Mrs.
Bradford to the kitchen.

"Humph!" he grunted.  "What set him out this way all at once?  What
have you said to him, Margaret?"

"Nothing much.  I did tell him that you wanted to talk seriously
with him about his plans for the future and about--money matters.
That is all I said.  The rest of it you said yourself.  You weren't
very diplomatic, Bije."

"Diplomatic!  What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, never mind! . . .  Yes, Banks, he is coming. . . .  Abijah, do
please be as careful as you can.  Make him understand just why you
think this will be best for him in the end!"

"Best for him!  How about somethin' bein' best for YOU, for a
change?"

"I don't really count, and I mustn't.  Oh, Abijah, do be
considerate with him.  He is going to be dreadfully disappointed."

"Bosh!  Some disappointments are good for young fellows his age.
All right.  Then we'll get it over with to-night, provided those
selectmen don't turn up.  Margaret, don't you worry.  I tell you
the day's coming when he's goin' to thank us all.  It's a great
chance for a young lawyer.  I'll do my level best to make him see
it.  You go to bed and to sleep.  You will, won't you?"

"I'll go to bed. . . .  There, there, Abijah; run along.  Good
night."

During the walk down Mill Road to the post office neither Banks nor
his uncle was conversational.  Captain Abijah perfunctorily
observed that it was a fine night and Banks agreed with him.  Other
than this, little was said.  The captain's dignity was still
slightly ruffled by what he considered freshness on the part of his
nephew, and the latter's mind was occupied with disquieting
guesses.  What was this secret business between his mother and his
uncle?  It concerned him, but how?  And what did his mother mean by
saying that money matters were involved?

The Malabar Hotel was an ancient hostelry on Main Street.  It was
built in the late sixties by Capt. Rinaldo Bassett when, having
made money in New Bedford whaling, he retired from the sea.  His
son, also named Rinaldo, was its present proprietor and manager.
In the dingy lobby, with its settees and armchairs and brass
cuspidors, a trio of loungers sprawled smoking and watching two
others who, in their shirt sleeves, were playing pool on the table
in the corner.  Behind the counter, where the register lay open,
its page for the day blank except for the date, Mr. Bassett was
dozing over a newspaper.

Captain Bradford halted momentarily at the foot of the stairs.
"Anybody been here to see me, Rinaldo?" he asked.

Mr. Bassett started, blinked and sat up in his chair.  "Eh?" he
queried.  "Oh!  No, Cap'n Bije, not a soul."

"All right.  If anybody does come I'll be up in my room.  Come on,
boy."

He led the way to the top of the first flight, then along the
corridor, feebly illumined by two kerosene bracket lamps, to the
second door from the end of the building.  This door he unlocked.

"Stay where you are, son," he ordered, "till I light up."  Banks,
blinking in the shadows of the musty-smelling corridor, heard the
sound of a striking match.  "Heave ahead!" called his uncle.  "Come
aboard."

Captain Abijah occupied the two corner rooms, perhaps the best
suite in the hotel.  The one on the corner was his bedroom.  The
other, that which his nephew now entered, was his sitting room.  It
was of good size, neat and comfortably furnished--a walnut center
table with a marble top, two comfortable armchairs, a big wooden
rocker, a walnut secretary desk, its lid open and heaped high with
letters and papers, a haircloth sofa.  On the wall between the
windows was a ship's barometer in gimbals.  Opposite, by the door,
hung a sextant and a silver-plated speaking trumpet.  On the third
wall were two oil paintings of square-rigged ships, and over the
mantel was a third, of a bark this time, and flanked by a
chronometer.  On the mantel itself were a pair of whale's teeth and
a pie-crust "crimper" made of whale ivory.  Standing in the corner
was a polished narwhal's horn.  Over the sofa, in the place of
honor, hung the crayon enlargement of Silas Bradford, a replica of
the one in the house occupied by Silas Bradford's widow.  The room
smelt strongly of tobacco, a pleasant contrast to the smells of the
rest of the Malabar.

Captain Abijah hung his hat upon the back of the rocker and pointed
to an armchair by the center table.  "Sit down, Banks," he said.
Banks took the armchair.  His uncle pulled open one of the drawers
of the secretary and took out a box of cigars.  "I'm goin' to
smoke," he observed.  "I generally talk easier when I'm under
steam.  You haven't taken up smokin' yet, I presume likely."

Banks smiled.  "Thank you, sir, I'll smoke," he said.  His uncle
was rather taken aback.  He himself had learned to smoke--and
chew--when he was fifteen, but he had forgotten that, just as he
persisted in forgetting that his nephew was twenty-five.

"Oh," he grunted, "I--  Humph!  Well, help yourself."

Banks took one of the cigars--big and black they were--from the box
and lighted it with an easy nonchalance which caused his relative
to stare at him.  Captain Abijah lighted his own and sat down in
the other armchair.  The pair looked at each other through the
smoke.

"Well," observed Abijah.

"Well, Uncle Bije?"

"I suppose likely we might as well get under way, hadn't we?"

"I should say so, sir, decidedly."

"Yes. . . .  Humph! . . .  All right.  You're through studyin' law;
you're a lawyer now, ain't you?"

"Yes, I suppose I am.  Ready to be one, anyhow."

"Um-hum.  Have you made any plans where you're goin' to begin to be
one?"

"Yes, sir.  Hasn't mother told you?"

"She's told me a little--nothin' very particular.  Suppose you tell
me over again."

Banks was quite willing to tell.  His great plan, involving the
desk in the office of the law firm in Boston, his opportunities
there, the closing of the house on Mill Hill, his mother's
accompanying him to Boston, their living together in some nice
apartment in the Back Bay or in that neighborhood--all these were
thoroughly mapped in his mind and had occupied his thoughts for
months.  He grew enthusiastic as he unfolded the prospect.  His
uncle listened, not speaking a word until he had finished.

"So," concluded Banks, "those are my plans.  They look good to me.
What do you think, Uncle Bije?"

Capt. Abijah Bradford knocked the ashes from his cigar into the
brass cuspidor which he had thoughtfully kicked into position on
the floor between them.  He did not say what he thought; he asked a
question of his own.

"Have you told Margaret--your mother all this, same as you're
tellin' it to me?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"And she didn't raise any objections?"

"No.  Why should she?"

"No objections at all?  Just sat up and gave three cheers when you
told her, eh?"

Banks flushed.  "Just what does that mean?" he asked hotly.  "Look
here; Uncle Bije, it's plain enough that you and mother have
something up your sleeve.  I wish you'd get it out where I can see
it.  I'm tired of hints--yes, and sneers.  Why not say what you
have to say and get it over with?"

Abijah crossed his knees.  Again this nephew of his was addressing
him in a tone to which he was unaccustomed; but this time he did
not appear to resent it.  To the young man's surprise, he chuckled
grimly.  "You've got more sand in your craw than I thought you
had," he observed.  "You ain't all Banks, I guess.  There, there!
Keep your hair on.  Now about this big scheme of yours.  It sounds
good enough; for another fellow it might BE good enough; but for
you it won't do."

Banks sat up in the armchair.  "Won't do!" he repeated in
amazement.  "What do you mean?  It's one chance in a hundred."

"There, there!  Let me talk a spell.  I mean what I say.  For you
it won't do, that's all."

"Why won't it do?  Don't you understand--"

"I understand, all right.  You're the one that doesn't.  There are
a half dozen reasons why, accordin' to my notion, this plan of
yours might not work out as well as some others but we won't bother
with but one just now.  That one is important enough.  It is that
you can't afford it."

Banks had expected almost anything, but this he had not expected.
To his mind again flashed that puzzling phrase of his mother's--
"money matters."  He caught his breath.

"Why--why, Uncle Bije," he gasped, "what is it?  What has happened?
Has--has mother lost money?"

Abijah shook his head.  "You can't very well lose what you haven't
got," he said.  "Your mother hasn't got any money to speak of,
and"--with emphasis--"she never has had much of any, not since
Silas died."

Banks was completely dumfounded.  His mother that very evening had
told him that she had little to lose, but he had not taken the
statement literally.  There had always been money forthcoming to
pay his bills at college and at law school.  His allowance was not
large, but it was sufficient.  He had taken for granted the
apparent fact that his mother was in comfortable circumstances--not
rich by any means, but free from financial worries.  And now--  Oh,
there was a joke in this somewhere, even if it was a poor one and
in bad taste.  His uncle was watching him intently, and now he
brushed his expostulations aside with a brusque wave of a big hand.

"Don't waste time, boy," he ordered.  "What I'm tellin' you is the
truth, and if you had been my son you'd have known it long ago.
I've told your mother so more times than a few--but no, you were
her baby and you must have this and that, do what young fellows
with ten times your money did, and have your opportunity with the
best of 'em.  That's what she was always preachin' to me,
opportunities and advantages--you must have 'em and you were goin'
to have 'em and Hettie and I must keep our mouths shut.  Well, I've
kept mine shut; you've had your 'advantages.'  Now even your mother
agrees that you must understand just how things are.  Maybe she'd
never have told you on her own hook.  Most likely she'd have gone
on scrimpin' and sacrificin', goin' without clothes and hired help,
starvin' herself and livin' on next to nothin', so that you could--"

But Banks had heard enough--for the moment, at least.  He broke in.
"Nonsense!" he cried in fierce resentment.  "You're talking
nonsense.  Of course you are.  Mother--why, mother would have told
me if there had been anything like this."

"No, she wouldn't.  I'd have told, if I'd had my way, but she
wouldn't.  She was too soft-headed over you to do anything of the
kind.  Your father, if he had been alive, would have told you.  He
was as sensible as he was smart.  But not your mother.  She was a
Banks and they're different.  There, there!  WILL you sit down in
that chair and listen to me?  Don't keep puttin' in your oar.  You
were all on edge to find out what I had up my sleeve.  It's out of
my sleeve now, part of it.  Listen and you'll hear the rest."

But Banks Bradford put in his oar once more; he could not help it.
"I'll listen, sir, of course," he said.  "But honestly, Uncle Bije,
I am sure you're exaggerating, trying to frighten me for some
reason or other.  Ever since I've been old enough to understand
anything I've heard what a brilliant man father was--brilliant as
captain, and in business and everything.  You just called him smart
yourself.  Well then, if he was so smart, is it likely he would
leave mother with nothing?  Hardly, I should say."

Captain Abijah's brow clouded.  "I didn't say he left her nothin',"
he explained.  "I said he didn't leave much.  He died just when his
firm was in some trouble and--well, we won't go into that.  It
wasn't Silas' fault, of course.  Now--"

"Wait!  Father's partners--Mr. Trent and Captain Truman--they were
rich men.  Mrs. Truman is very rich now.  How is it that they had
so much money and he had so little?  Oh, come, Uncle Bije--"

"Sh-h-h!  I tell you we haven't got time to waste on all that to-
night.  Trent and Truman made the bulk of their money afterwards,
in Chicago real estate, lucky speculation and the like of that.
But never mind them and never mind how much or how little Silas
left.  What we're talkin' about now is you, and this plan of yours.
As I understand it, your scheme is to shut up the house here, take
your mother to Boston with you, hire some expensive flat or
somethin', and she is to keep house for you in it while you sit
around in that Boston lawyer's office, waitin' till you're of
importance enough to earn a dollar.  And while you're waitin' her
money supports you both, same as it has so far.  That's it, isn't
it?"

His nephew squirmed in the armchair.  Although bluntly and brutally
put, and distorted and exaggerated, as he saw it, nevertheless this
was essentially his plan.  And it was a good plan.  Yes, it was.
If this stubborn, arrogant old sea dog would only use reason
instead of prejudice--

"You don't get it, sir," he protested vehemently.  "You don't get
it at all.  This Mr. Davidson, the head of the firm, is the father
of one of my best friends."

"Hold on! hold on!  Let's stick to the channel.  You won't be paid
much wages for the first year or so, will you?"

"Why no, not a great deal probably.  I haven't gone into that yet.
In fact, the whole thing is rather up in the air until Bill--that's
my friend--gets back from the other side."

"Yes, yes.  Well, in the air's a good place for it to be, accordin'
to my judgment.  It had better stay there.  Now, son, here are the
plain facts.  You and your mother can't hire any flat or house in
Boston.  You haven't got the wherewithal to pay Boston rents.  You
could, maybe, stick her into a room in a one-horse boardin' house
and she could keep on stintin' and doin' without and sacrificin'
herself for you.  She probably will, too, if you are that kind of a
fellow and will let her.  But you're not, I hope.  If you are your
father's son I know you're not. . . .  Wait again!  I tell you she
can't afford to live in the city as her kind ought to live.  She
can't, and pay your bills too.  I know, because I've been her
adviser in money matters since Silas died.  She's taken my advice
about everything--except you.  If she'd taken my advice in your
quarter things would be easier sailin' for all hands this minute."

Banks tried to protest further, to do more explaining, but words
were hard to find.  "Well--well," he faltered, "I--oh, I don't know
what to say.  Of course, if all this is true, and mother has been
doing these things for me, I--well, I didn't know it and I'm
sorry."

"That's the trouble.  You ought to have known it.  She ought to
have told you."

"And I wouldn't think of taking her to the city unless--  Hang it
all, Uncle Bije, this is a devil of a thing you're telling me!  I
can't give up a chance like this one.  I won't.  I could leave
mother at home and go up there by myself, couldn't I?  _I_ could
live in a one-horse boarding house if I had to."

"Yes, so you could.  Might not do you any harm either.  But she'd
be payin' your bills even then and sacrificin' herself for you same
as she always has.  Thunderation, boy, can't you see?  It's high
time you did somethin' for HER.  And"--leaning forward and speaking
with careful deliberation--"I think I've got the way for you to do
it."

His manner was impressive, so impressive that Banks' curiosity
overshadowed, for the instant, his fierce disappointment.

"How?" he blurted.

"That's mainly what I got you here to tell you.  I've got a chance
for you to practice law right here at home.  In your own town."

"In Denboro!  Me--practice law in Denboro?  Oh, for heaven's sake!"

"No, for your mother's sake.  And for your own sake, too, in the
end.  There have been good lawyers in Denboro.  One of the best of
'em, Judge Blodgett--you knew him; everybody in Ostable County knew
and respected him--has just died.  He didn't leave anybody to carry
on where he left off.  There's a chance there, and a good chance
for somebody.  My proposition is that you be that somebody.  Most
of the judge's clients won't, of course, care to trust their
important affairs to a green hand like you--not at first, anyhow.
But they may be willin' to throw the little ones your way.  Some of
'em, I know, will risk that much for the sake of your father's son
and my nephew. . . .  Now, now, lay to!  There's more.  I've been
doin' a good deal of thinkin' lately on your account, young man,
and I want you to hear the rest."

He went on to disclose the results of his thinking.  The late Judge
Blodgett's law offices in the post-office block opposite the hotel
were still vacant.  The Blodgett furniture and effects had been
removed, of course, but so far no one had taken over the rooms.

"You won't need any such layout as the judge had," he said.  "He
had three rooms; one'll do you, I guess.  Unless you're busier than
most beginners, you won't be crowded in that for a spell.  And I've
made some inquiries and I've got a halfway option on one of the
back rooms--the big room in front is too expensive--at a rent that
won't break anybody.  So far as that goes, I'll undertake to be
responsible for that rent myself, for the first year.  I'll hire
that room for you, buy you a desk and a couple of chairs, or
whatever's necessary, and get you started.  I'll do that much;
after that it's up to you.  You won't be lapped in luxury, as the
books tell about; you won't look as important and high-toned as you
might if those Boston lawyers gave you a desk in their office.  But
you'll be skipper of your own vessel, you'll be makin' a stab at
earnin' your own livin' and, if your mother and I do have to pay
your bills a while longer, they won't be city bills.  There, that's
my proposition to you.  It's a good one, I honestly believe.  I
want you to think it over--and think hard."

He stopped.  His cigar had gone out; he threw it into the cuspidor
and, taking another from the box on the table, lighted it.  Banks
Bradford's cigar was out also, but he was unaware of the fact.  He
was leaning forward in the armchair, staring at the carpet.  His
world was spinning in circles.

"Well?" queried Captain Abijah after a moment.

Banks looked up.  He smiled feebly.  "I--I--  By George, you've
knocked me over, Uncle Bije!" he blurted.  "Of course I realize
that you're trying to help me, and--and I'm much obliged to you,
but--but honestly, I--"

"Well?  What?"

"Honestly, I can't believe things are as bad as you say they are.
According to you, mother and I are paupers, we always have been
paupers."

"Bosh!  I never said you were paupers.  Your mother's got a little
money, although she could have consider'ble more if she'd used
common sense with you instead of spoilin' you.  You ain't in the
poorhouse, or anywhere nigh it.  What I'm tryin' to hammer into
your head is that it is high time for you to be a man and begin to
take the load off her shoulders."

"But you say she has been--been starving herself all these years."

"Sh-h-h!  If I said she was starvin' I didn't mean that exactly.
I wouldn't have let her starve, so far as that goes.  She was my
brother's wife, and Silas Bradford's widow wouldn't starve while
'Bijah Bradford was alive, I'll tell you that.  Your father was a
man, my boy.  We were all proud of him.  And we're proud of his
memory--mighty proud."

"Yes, yes, of course.  But mother--"

"Oh," broke in Captain Bije impatiently, "your mother's all right
in her way.  I tell you I ain't findin' fault with her."

"No"--sharply.  "And you're not going to."

"Don't worry.  Look here, Banks, this talk of mine to you has been
pretty straight.  I haven't muffled it down.  I wanted to see how
much of Silas Bradford there was in you.  If there's any
consider'ble amount of him in you you'll face the music.  I know
you're all upset and disappointed, but disappointments are good
medicine when you're young.  Your father had a lot of 'em in his
time."

Banks shifted in the armchair.  "Yes, yes, sir, I know," he broke
in curtly.  "But it's mother I'm thinking of just now.  I can't
understand--I can't believe--"

His uncle struck the table with his palm.  "Ask her, then," he
ordered.  "Ask her yourself and see what she says."

"I shall.  Be sure of that."

"All right. . . .  Eh?  Yes?  What is it?"

Some one had rapped at the door.  Now it opened and the bald head
of Mr. Rinaldo Bassett was thrust between it and the jamb.

"Cap'n Beals and Emulous Higgins are down below, Cap'n Bije," he
drawled.  "Emulous says you and them had an appointment or
somethin'."

"Yes, so we did.  Tell 'em to come along up. . . .  Well, Banks,"
rising to his feet, "it looks as if this was all we'd have time for
to-night.  Maybe it's enough for the first dose.  You ask your
mother anything you want to.  Then you think over my proposition.
Only remember this, because I mean it:  If you don't fall in with
it, if you go ahead with this Boston foolishness, you'll do it on
your own hook.  And whatever happens to you and your mother
afterward, you'll be responsible--and sorry, I shouldn't wonder.
Come and see me when you've thought it out.  Good night."

He held out his hand.  Banks took it listlessly, said good night
and left the room.  On the stairs he met the two members of the
board of selectmen on the way to the conference with his uncle.



CHAPTER II


The windows of the sitting room of the Silas Bradford house were
faintly illumined as Banks came up the walk to the side door.  A
peep beneath the shade, however, showed him that although the lamp,
its wick turned down, was burning upon the center table, his
mother's chair beside that table was empty.  Evidently she had done
as he requested and had not waited up for him.  He was thankful; he
did not feel equal to another trying interview that night.  There
were so many questions he must ask and which she must answer, but
for those questions and answers his brain must be clear.

He took the lamp from the table and turned toward the door at the
foot of the stairs.  He passed the sofa above which, on the wall,
hung the portrait of his father.  He paused an instant.  From the
frame the face looked down at him, keen eyed, commanding,
confident, dignified.  To Banks his father was but a shadowy
memory.  Silas Bradford had died when his son was five years old,
and during those years Captain Silas was at home only at infrequent
intervals.

But all his life Banks had heard his praises chanted, not only by
Uncle Abijah and Cousin Hettie--who were, of course, Bradfords by
birth--but also by Denboro in general.  Banks had shared the family
pride.  It was a fine thing to be Capt. Silas Bradford's son, even
though, in boyhood, occasionally a trifle wearing to be reminded
that that son must study hard and do this and not do that if he
hoped ever to be as great a man as his father.

Now, as he stood there before the portrait, his thoughts were
strange enough.  For the first time there was a doubt, an
unanswered question, in his mind.  If Silas Bradford was so clever,
so able, so very successful, how could he have left his family, as
Uncle Abijah declared he did leave them, with almost no money?  And
if the other things he had just heard were true--but pshaw, they
could not be true!  Uncle Bije rated his native town, the town he
had always lived in, as a sort of suburb of heaven, and an
opportunity presenting even the faint hope of succeeding the late
Judge Blodgett as that town's legal adviser would seem to his mind
the special dispensation of a kind Providence.  The old chap
realized that his nephew might not share this conviction and so he
was trying to frighten him into it.  That was it, of course.

It must be.  For if the stories of his mother's economies and
sacrifices were true, if they were only half true, what a careless,
selfish, blind cub he, Banks Bradford, had been all these years.

Lamp in hand, he tiptoed up the stairs.  As he passed the door of
Margaret Bradford's room her voice spoke his name.

"Banks," she called.

"Yes, Mother.  I hoped you were asleep before this."

"I'm not.  Aren't you coming in?"

"No, I guess not.  It is late and I'm tired.  Good night."

"Banks."

"Now, Mother, go to sleep, please."

"Just one minute, dear.  Did--did you have your talk with Uncle
Abijah?"

"Yes."

"Did he tell you--"

"He told me a lot of things.  I'll tell them to you in the morning.
Good night."

"Banks, you're not--oh, my poor boy, I am so sorry!"

"Now, Mother, forget it.  I am all right.  Don't worry about me.
Go to sleep; that's what I am going to do."

He closed the door of his own room before she could say more.  He
undressed and went to bed, but not to sleep.  It was almost
daybreak before he succeeded in doing that.

He came down to breakfast a trifle haggard and heavy eyed, but his
good morning was cheerful and he announced that he was hungry.
Margaret, anxiously watching him, noticed that in spite of this
brave declaration he ate very little.  She ate even less.  He did
not mention the conference with his uncle and it was not until the
meal was almost over that she broached the subject.

"Banks," she sighed, putting down the spoon with which she had been
stirring her untasted coffee, "I just can't wait any longer.  You
must tell me about it.  Please do."

He smiled across the table.  "After breakfast," he said.

"We haven't either of us eaten any breakfast.  You know it.  How
could I eat when you--  Oh, my boy, you don't blame me too much, do
you?"

He threw down his napkin and rose.  "Leave the table just as it is,
Mother," he ordered.  "Come into the sitting room and we'll have it
out together.  Shall we?"

They went into the sitting room.  She took the rocker and he the
armchair.  They looked at each other.  Her fingers were nervously
twisting and untwisting in her lap and her gaze was fixed upon his
face.

"Banks," she pleaded, "please!  Don't keep me waiting any longer.
All night I--"

"I know.  Well, I had rather a night myself.  A fellow who is all
set to be handed a bouquet and gets a punch in the eye instead
doesn't get over the surprise, not in an hour or two.  Especially
when he isn't sure whether it was meant to be a real punch or a
bluff.  Now I'm going to tell you the whole business.  This is what
happened."

He told of his interview with Captain Abijah, told it succinctly,
without elaboration, but omitting nothing of importance.  Margaret
would have interrupted at certain points, but he would not let her
do so.

"There!" he said in conclusion.  "That is what Uncle Bije said to
me and what I said to him.  I didn't say much; I was pretty dizzy
after that first smash.  Now I want to say a good deal, and what I
want you to do, Mother, is to answer me yes or no.  Yes, if it
should be yes, and no if it shouldn't.  Will you do that?"

"Yes, Banks.  But first, do let me say that what your uncle said--
oh, so much of it--was only partly true.  He made mountains out of
molehills."

"Did he?  I imagined he did, but I want to be sure.  Now, Mother,
first of all, is it true that we haven't any money?"

"No, of course it isn't.  We're not rich--you know that."

"I'm beginning to think I have never known much of anything.
According to Uncle Abijah, you have taken pains that I shouldn't
know.  How much money have you?  How much did father leave?"

Margaret hesitated.

"Come, Mother.  You must tell me.  We're going through with this,
you know.  How much?"

"Why--why, not a very great deal, dear.  Not as much as most people
suppose.  There was a time when Silas was--when we all thought he
was on the way toward being very well off indeed.  Then"--she
hesitated once more--"then his firm had heavy losses."

"Yes, so Uncle Bije said.  And he died just at that time."

"Yes."

He nodded reflectively.  "Mother," he said, "last night when I was
lying awake upstairs there, I got to thinking things over and it
seemed to me that what I do know about father I learned from Uncle
Abijah and Cousin Hettie and the people in town.  I tried to
remember what you had told me about him and I couldn't remember
much.  That seemed queer to me as I thought of it; it seems queer
now.  Maybe it is my imagination--I did a lot of imagining--but it
set me to wondering if there was any reason why you didn't like to
talk about father--to me, anyhow.  Is there any such reason?"

"No," was the agitated protest.  "Oh, no, no, Banks!  You mustn't
say that.  Please don't say it, or think it.  Don't!  You make me
feel--oh, wicked."

"Do I?  I don't mean to.  It just seemed to me--"

"You imagined it, dear.  You mustn't think such things.  Your
father was--why, the whole town knows what he was.  They talk about
him still--all the older people.  He was one of the most able
captains that ever--"

"Yes, yes, I've been told all that a thousand times.  Do you
suppose I have listened to Cousin Hettie's hymns of praise for
twenty years without learning how smart he was?  Uncle Abijah was
glorifying him last night.  It just seemed to me, as I thought it
over, that you yourself never told me as much about him as other
people have.  Look here, Mother, there is no real reason why you
haven't, is there?"

"Banks, please don't say such things."

"He was always good to you, wasn't he?"

"He was always a kind, generous husband.  I was a very proud girl
when I married him.  You see, most people thought he was marrying
beneath his station.  He was a Bradford, and the Bradfords have
always been prominent in Ostable County; and besides, even then he
was counted a clever, rising man.  I was a Banks, and my people,
most of them, have been just everyday folks.  Perhaps," she added,
smiling tremulously "that may be why I haven't praised him as much
as Abijah and Hettie are always doing.  I may have been a little
jealous, you see.  I have heard it said that his marrying me, when
we were both so young, was a mistake on his part.  Perhaps I didn't
want my son to think of his mother as--as a mistake."

Banks's eyes snapped.  "They'd better not call you a mistake while
I'm around," he growled.  "Well, all right, Mother.  It was just my
fancy probably.  But now about father.  I knew about his going to
sea when he was fourteen and being a captain when he was twenty-
two, and being taken into the firm of Trent, Truman & Bradford
before he was thirty.  I knew all that.  But last night Uncle Bije
started to tell me about things I hadn't known.  He told me only a
little; those selectmen came just as he got started on that part.
I wish you would tell me the rest.  About those losses the firm
had, and--and that sort of thing."

Margaret Bradford was silent for a moment.  Her fingers as they lay
in her lap were trembling.  But her voice, when she spoke, was
calm.

"Very well, dear," she said.  "I will try and tell you what I know.
The firm of Trent & Truman was very successful indeed in the 50's.
Then came the Civil War and the privateers, and they lost some
ships, just as so many firms did.  Business was ever so much better
after the War, and when your father was taken into partnership
every one thought it a wonderful thing for him.  But it wasn't so
wonderful.  The shipping business--with sailing vessels, I mean--
was close to its end, although of course none of us realized it.
Freights grew scarcer, the steamers were taking most of them, there
was a wreck or two, and--well, there came a time when the firm was
in a critical situation.  I don't know all the details--Abijah
knows them better than I do--but at any rate, your father and his
partners were terribly worried; there were notes to be met and all
sorts of things like that.  Finally Silas decided to take command
of one of their ships himself to go to sea again.  The vessel was
the Golconda, and she sailed from New York around the Horn to San
Francisco.  She caught fire off the California coast and burned.
The officers and crew took to the boats and landed safely.  Your
father went to San Francisco and a month later he--died there."

"Yes.  By accident, something to do with a gun he was handling.  Of
course, I know that much."

His mother drew a long breath.  "It wasn't a gun, it was a pistol,"
she said.  "No one knows exactly how it happened.  He was in his
room at the hotel, cleaning the pistol or handling it in some way,
and it went off.  The mate wrote that to Mr. Trent.  His body was
sent home and--well, that is all, Banks.  I have told you this
before.  I don't talk about it unless I have to.  You can
understand why, dear."

He nodded absently.  "Yes," he said, "I understand that, I guess.
But there is a lot I don't understand.  Why did father decide to go
to sea again; take command of this ship--what was her name?"

"The Golconda.  Why, to save money for the firm, I suppose.  And it
was a very important voyage; her cargo was very valuable.  Uncle
Abijah will tell you all about it, if you ask him."

"I'll ask him sometime.  You see, Mother, what still puzzles me is
this money business.  Trent, Truman & Bradford were in a bad way
before this Golconda burned.  They must have been a lot worse off
afterward.  She was a total loss, wasn't she?"

His mother hesitated.  "Not exactly," she said.  "She and the cargo
were insured."

"I see.  But this is what gets me:  Old Benjamin Trent, over at
Ostable, was a very rich man when he died; so was Elijah Truman,
and his widow is rich now.  Oh, well, it doesn't matter much.  I
remember Uncle Bije did say something about their making fortunes
afterward, out West, somehow.  But here we are again, just where we
started.  How much money did father leave you?"

Margaret looked up.  Again she tried to smile.  "Well," she said
slowly, "he left me this house and land and another piece of land
in South Denboro.  I sold that afterward.  And his life was insured
for five thousand dollars.  Then--oh, there was more than that, of
course!"

"How much more?"

"There was his interest in the firm.  I got something from that
later on.  And he had some investments--some railroad stock and
some bonds."

"Mother, you are just dodging.  What I want to know is just how
much money we have had to live on since father died.  You must tell
me.  If you don't Uncle Abijah shall."

Margaret sighed.  "I have had an income of about sixteen hundred a
year, most of the time.  Oh," she added hastily, "it was enough.
We have got along.  It doesn't cost me much to live here."

He was staring at her, aghast and incredulous.  "Sixteen hundred a
year!" he gasped.  "And with that you have paid my bills at college
and in law school and kept this house?  Mother, you're crazy!"

She shook her head.  "No, no, I'm not," she protested.  "What I got
for the South Denboro land paid your college bills, or most of
them.  That was an extra, you know."

"But the law school?"

"Well," she faltered, "I--I have used a little of the principle for
that.  Not a great deal, but some.  You see, dear, you had to have
your education.  You always wanted to be a lawyer, and I was
determined you should be."

His face was flushed.  "Had to have my education," he repeated
slowly.  "And I had it.  And you have been starving yourself and--
and--  My God, Uncle Bije was right.  He was right!"

"Oh, no, no, he wasn't!  If he told you I was starving, or any such
ridiculous thing as that, he ought to be ashamed.  Do I look as if
I starved?"

"Hush!  Let me think this out, if I can.  And here I have been
sponging on you and taking your money, going to California on a
vacation."

"It was to be your last long vacation.  I wanted you to remember it
always.  Don't you see?"

"I see"--bitterly.  "Mother, I--oh, how could you?  If it hadn't
been for Uncle Abijah I suppose you would have let me go on for a
year or two more; let me drag you to Boston."

"No, no, Banks, I intended to tell you that I didn't think I could
do that."

"But you would have let ME go."

"I would have let you do anything that was best for you.  You are
the one interest I have in life and nothing--NOTHING shall stand in
your way if I can prevent it.  If you are sure that this place in
your friend's father's office is your best chance to get on in the
world, you must take it.  You must, Banks.  And you mustn't worry
about me.  I am capable of taking care of myself, perfectly
capable.  I am almost sorry I let you talk with Abijah last night.
He told you a lot of foolish things, as I was afraid he might."

He was not listening.  He was thinking, and now he spoke his
thoughts aloud.  "I wouldn't have believed it," he vowed.  "I
wouldn't have believed that a fellow as old as I am could have been
such a blind jackass.  To think that I have never even suspected;
never asked a question.  Just taken it for granted that we were
comfortably fixed and--and breezed along, while you--  Sixteen
hundred a year!  Good Lord!"

He turned away and began pacing the floor.  His mother, anxiously
watching him, saw him stop in his stride and look toward the
window.  She, too, looked.

"Who is it?" she cried hastily.  "Is it--oh, I hope it isn't!  Now,
of all times!"

He groaned.  "Your hopes are wasted," he muttered in utter disgust;
"it is.  Mother, you'll just have to excuse me.  With all I've got
on my mind this minute I can't stay here and listen to her chatter.
I'm going out."

She lifted a hand.  "Please don't, Banks," she begged.  "She'll
hear you go and she'll suspect that you are running away.  And I
shall have to answer more questions.  Stay a little while."

He was still hesitating when the side door opened.  There was a
swish of skirts, a brisk step, and Cousin Hettie marched into the
sitting room.

Marched is the only fitting word.  The progress of Miss Henrietta
Bradford was always martial.  She was the daughter of Abner
Bradford, younger brother of the father of Abijah and Silas
Bradford.  Uncle Abner earned his first dollar when he was eleven
years old; that identical dollar was in his possession when he
died.  His daughter inherited it and she had it yet.  She inherited
also the house on the Swamp Road where, except during the fall and
winter months, when she rented her upstairs front room to the
school-teacher or some other lodger, she lived alone.

She was fifty-eight and a spinster.  "Outside of father and Abijah--
and poor dear Cousin Silas, of course--I've never seen a man yet
I'd give twenty-five cents for," was her scornful declaration.  The
male population of Denboro was not deeply humiliated by this low
estimate.  "Show me somethin' Hettie Bradford will give twenty-five
cents for," sneered Jotham Gott, during one of the euchre games in
Ebenezer Tadgett's back room, "and I'll show you a bargain at
seventy-five.  And I've generally understood," he added with a
grin, "that it took two to make a bargain."

Cousin Hettie marched into the sitting room and, as Margaret had
risen from the rocker, she promptly sat down in it.  "There!" she
exclaimed, with a sigh of satisfaction.  "I got here finally.  Such
a morning as I've had!  Don't say a word!  My soul!"

The request--or command--was entirely superfluous.  Neither Banks
nor his mother had made any attempt to say a word.  Margaret was
regarding her with an expression of weary resignation which
changed, as she caught a glimpse of her son's face, to one of quiet
amusement.

"Don't say a word!" repeated Cousin Hettie with even more emphasis.
Then, an instant later, "Well?  Are you struck dumb, both of you?
What on earth's the matter?  You haven't opened your mouths since I
came in."

Margaret opened hers then.  "What is the trouble this time,
Hettie?" she asked.

"Trouble!  Don't say a word!  Is there anything BUT trouble in this
vale of tears for most of us?  I haven't found much else.  You read
your Bible, I suppose, Margaret?  I hope you do.  Of course"--
turning toward the other member of the trio--"I don't presume to
ask you that, Silie.  If half of what I see and hear tell of young
folks nowadays is true they don't waste much time on the
scriptures.  No, indeed! they want livelier reading than that.
I've just read--I had to read it, being on the choosing committee
for the library; otherwise than that I never would have soiled my
eyesight with such a thing, you'd better believe--I've just
finished a novel that was sent in on approval by some book-printing
people in New York or Boston or somewhere.  And really--  Written
by a woman 'twas, too, and of all the brazen things she must be!
About a man who was married to the wrong one, and there was
somebody else, of course, who was the right one.  And--but there!
sometime when we're alone, Margaret, I'll tell you the rest of it,
though I shall be ashamed to.  When I'd read the last word of that
book, thinks I to myself, 'Well, if--'  Eh?  you're not going away,
are you, Silie?  I've just got here and I came partly to see you."

Banks was strongly tempted to reply that her getting there was the
reason for his leaving.  He did not like Cousin Hettie.  He
considered her the family pest.  She insisted upon calling him
Silie--because Silas had been his father's name and it was his
name, too, and he ought to be grateful for it and proud to use it.
As a small boy she made him ridiculous in the eyes of his playmates
by screaming "Silie!  Silie!" at him from the window when he passed
her house.  Juvenile Denboro promptly changed this appellation to
"Silly," and it had cost him several black eyes and many bruises to
prevent being tagged with the nickname.  His earliest recollections,
the disagreeable ones, centered around Cousin Hettie--her
preachments about his behavior in Sunday school, about taking care
of his clothes, sitting up straight, like a little man, and not
gobbling his food at table.  At Christmas she gave him "useful"
presents.  Firecrackers on the Fourth were wicked wastes of money,
and dangerous besides.

And, always and forever, she told him what a wonderful man his
father had been and how far short of such perfection he was likely
to be.  If any one could have made him regard his father's memory
with detestation instead of pride that one would have been Cousin
Hettie Bradford.

"Why, yes," he admitted, not too graciously, "I was going out.  At
least I was thinking of it."

"What for, this early in the morning?"

"Oh, I--I had errands uptown."

"Whereabouts uptown?"

Margaret came to his rescue.  "You said you were in some sort of
trouble, didn't you, Hettie?" she suggested.

"Did I?  Yes, I guess likely I did.  Well, as I started to say in
the beginning before you two put me off, if you read your Bible, as
I hope and trust you do, you'll remember it tells us that man born
of woman is of few days and full of trouble.  It doesn't tell us
that woman is fuller.  Didn't think 'twas necessary, I presume
likely; anybody--every woman, anyhow--knows that without being
told. . . .  I'm not going to have my new sitting-room stove put up
after all."

"You're not?  Why, I thought you had bought it already."

"So I had.  For mercy sakes, Silie, come back here and sit down!
You make me nervous.  Those errands of yours can wait a minute or
two, can't they?"

The errands being purely fictitious, Banks had no satisfactory
answer ready.  He sat, though with reluctance, and in a chair close
by the kitchen door.  Cousin Hettie went on.

"No," she declared, "I've decided not to put that stove up yet
awhile.  For much as a year I've been looking forward to buying it
and setting it up and enjoying my Item and my library books in
comfort, cold winter nights.  The old airtight I've got there now
is the one father bought years and years before he died, and it
leaks smoke all around the pipe and the grate keeps falling down
and--and I don't know what all.  I've had it fixed and fixed and
fixed, but the last time Zenas Hubbard came to look at it he said,
'Hettie,' he said, 'fixing that stove again would be like putting
iron hoops on a cracked wooden leg; 'twould cost more than to buy a
new one and would be a waste of time besides.'  So finally I went
in and saw Ebenezer Tadgett and he had a real nice second-hand gas
burner, and after considerable beating down--you never want to pay
that man his first price for anything--I bought it.  And now I
can't put it up after all.  Do you wonder I'm sick and disgusted?"

It was evident that she expected her hearers to say something, so
Margaret said it was too bad.  Banks was silent.  His thoughts were
far away from air-tights and gas burners and his glance wandered
toward the kitchen door.

"I should say 'twas," agreed Cousin Hettie.  "And it's all on
account of that Mr. Payson, the high-school principal.  He's had my
upstairs front room for a year now and he's takin' it again for
this coming winter.  It's a real nice comfortable room; my own
father passed through his last sickness in it, as you know,
Margaret, and that shows what sort of room it is, for nobody on
earth was more particular about his comfort than father was.  Mr.
Payson rented it all last winter and never complained about it and--
well, it just goes to show you can't be too careful about keeping
your affairs to yourself.  Last night I happened to tell him I'd
bought the new gas burner, and what do you think he said?  Said
that was nice, because now I could put the old airtight up in his
room.  The Franklin grate that's there now, he said, was no good--
those were the words he used, no good--and most of the evenings
last winter he had to go to bed to keep warm.  Did you ever in your
born days!"

Mrs. Bradford said she never did.  There was a twinkle in her eye
as she glanced at her son.  He did not notice the twinkle; his
chair had been hitched perceptibly nearer the door.

"I GUESS you never did!" agreed Cousin Hettie.  "Well, you can
imagine I didn't sleep much after I had that said to me.  I just
laid awake thinking and thinking, and I came to the conclusion
there was only one thing to be done--I must do without my new stove
for this winter.  Perhaps Ebenezer Tadgett will take it back--I
don't know, but anyhow, I must do without it and get along best I
can with the old air-tight."

Margaret looked puzzled.  "But why?" she asked.

"Why?  I should think it was plain enough why.  That air-tight
can't be fixed for less than seven dollars.  Zenas Hubbard named
seven and a half as his figure, and it can't be used at all unless
it is fixed.  If I wouldn't have it fixed for myself, is it likely
I'll do it for that Payson man--and pay for a new stove besides?  I
shall tell him I've decided I can't afford the new gas burner, and
that I'll get along with the air-tight and he must get along with
the Franklin.  It's a shame, but that is how it always is.  I'm a
lone woman and every man in this town knows it and would take
advantage of me, if I was soft-minded enough to let 'em.  But you
can't imagine how disappointed I am about that gas burner.  It is
such a nice stove, and hardly worn at all.  Why, the hot-water urn
on top isn't even cracked."

She was out of breath by this time, and she finished the recital of
her grievances with a groan and a shake of the head.

"Well, there," she added a moment later.  "That's all of that, I
guess.  I just had to come and tell you about it.  It's a dreadful
thing to be alone in the world and have to do your own planning and
figuring and--and all like that.  You can be thankful you had such
a husband as you did have, Margaret Bradford, even though an all-
wise and seeing power took him away from you.  If Silie here only
turns out to be half as--  Oh, that reminds me!  It was what I came
here to talk about, mainly.  Silie, what in the world were you and
your Uncle 'Bijah up to last night?"

Banks, started out of his reverie by this unexpected question,
stared at her.  "Up to?" he repeated.

"Why, yes.  I've been told that you and he were shut up together in
his room at the hotel for much as an hour.  That's the story;
perhaps it isn't true."

Banks said nothing.  If Miss Bradford was expecting him to ask the
name of her informant she was disappointed.  He opened his lips as
if to speak, then frowned and closed them tightly.  He and his
mother exchanged looks.  Cousin Hettie went on:

"Of course," she said, with a toss of the head, "it isn't any of my
affairs.  I was a little surprised to hear it, that's all.
Considering that so far, since you came back home, you haven't as
much as dropped in to say howdydo to any of your relations, I--
Ah, hum! never mind.  It will be my turn some day perhaps.  When
your father got home from a voyage one of the first things he
always did was to run right around to my house.  But times change,
and manners change with 'em, I suppose.  It's all right.  I'm not
jealous; I haven't got a jealous disposition, I'm thankful to say."

"It wasn't a social call, Hettie," Margaret explained.  "Banks and
his uncle talked over a business matter, that's all."

"Business matter?  Dear me!  That sounds terribly important."

Banks put in a word.  "It was important," he said curtly.

"I want to know!  What sort of business did you talk about?"

"Oh--well, the law business."

"Law business!  Goodness gracious!  Nobody in our family is going
to law, is there?"

"Yes; I am."

It was a perfectly innocent if not very illuminating reply, but it
had a curious effect.  Miss Bradford caught her breath and leaned
forward in her chair.

"You are!" she repeated sharply.  "YOU are?  What's all this?  What
has Abijah Bradford been saying to you?  Has he--  What are you
talking about?  Come!  I want to know."

Banks and his mother gazed at her in amazement.  Her hands were
clenched and her tone was shrill and insistent.

"Why, Hettie!" protested Margaret.  "What--"

"I want to know what is going on behind my back.  That's what I
want to know."

"There, there!"  It was Banks who interrupted.  "Hush, Mother, I'll
tell her; it isn't any secret.  Nothing is going on behind your
back, Cousin Hettie.  Uncle Bije and I were talking over plans for
my practicing law.  I'm a lawyer now, and the important question is
where I shall begin to practice, or try to.  That's all.  There is
no conspiracy, and nothing for you to get excited about, so far as
I can see."

Cousin Hettie's odd and, to Margaret and her son, inexplicable
agitation, suspicion--whatever it might be--was apparently not yet
entirely allayed.  She regarded her young relative steadily for a
long instant.  Then she turned to Margaret and looked at her.

"Humph!" she mused.  Then addressing Banks, "So that's all 'twas,
eh?  Just about you practicing law?  You're sure there was nothing
else?"

"Of course I'm sure," he said impatiently.  "What else could there
be?  No one is trying to put anything over on you, if that's what
you're afraid of."

Miss Bradford's thin bosom rose and fell with a long sigh,
apparently of relief.  "Well, all right," she said.  "Only--well,
it does seem kind of funny that I never heard a word about all this
planning, or whatever 'twas, that's been going on between you and
Abijah.  I'm a Bradford as much as the rest of you, or I always
supposed I was.  Why didn't I know?"

"Oh, because nobody knew it.  I didn't know myself, until last
evening, that Uncle Bije had any plans for me.  Mother, I'm going
now."

He rose, but Cousin Hettie lifted a hand.  She was smiling now,
after a fashion.  "Oh, dear!" she groaned.  "Dear, deary me!  You
both think I'm queer in the head, I guess.  I don't wonder.  It's
my poor nerves.  Doctor Brand keeps dosing 'em and fussing with 'em
but they don't get any better and I'm about resigned to it.  It
takes next to nothing to get me all upset, and if one thing is
surer to do it than anything else it's the very name of a lawsuit.
Ever since that Baker man sued father for not paying for that cow
he never bought and I had to stand up over in that Ostable court
and testify before everybody, I--  Oh, dear!  I'm sorry if I scared
you.  I'm all right now. . . .  Yes, yes, Silie, of course I know
you're a lawyer, a real lawyer, and it makes me proud to think of
it.  But it's so hard to realize that you're a grown-up man and--
and all like that. . . .  So you and Abijah were making plans
together?  That's awfully interesting.  What did you decide?  Do
sit down again and tell me all about it, that's a nice boy."

But the nice boy refused to sit.  "We didn't decide anything," he
replied.  "When anything is decided you shall know about it; so
will every one else.  Mother, I'm going out.  I may be back at
dinner time or I may not.  I'll be all right, wherever I am, so
don't fret."

"But Banks, where are you going?"

"I don't know exactly.  Just out around--somewhere by myself.  See
you later.  Good morning, Cousin Hettie."

He walked to the hatrack in the entry.  Miss Bradford called after
him to say that if he were going uptown she was going that way
herself in a minute or two.  Apparently he did not hear her, for
the outer door closed behind him.



CHAPTER III


At two o'clock that afternoon Mr. Ebenezer Tadgett, in what he
called the "other back room" of his place of business on Main
Street, was kneeling before a battered piece of furniture and
humming a tune.  The other back room in Mr. Tadgett's shop must not
be confused with the back room; they were separate and quite
individual apartments.  The back room was small; the other back
room was of good size.

The former was Mr. Tadgett's office.  His flat-topped desk and desk
chair were there; also a table, two other chairs and a small and
ancient iron safe.  Ebenezer had bought the safe of its former
owner several years before, but at the time of its purchase the key
could not be found, nor had it been found since.  When asked, Mr.
Tadgett was accustomed to say that he had been meaning to fit
another key to that safe, but that he hadn't got round to it yet.
Consequently, the safe was never locked.

The desk--it, too, like every other article of furniture on the
premises, was secondhand--was heaped high with papers piled
higgledy-piggledy, except for a small space in the center where the
papers were pushed back to leave room for an ink-stand, a pen or
two and a can of smoking tobacco.  The chairs were of different
patterns, one of them mended with cod line.  The table was of the
"tip up" variety and it was upon it that Ebenezer and Jotham Gott
and Eliab Gibbons played cutthroat euchre at their regular
Wednesday afternoon sessions.

The back room opened from the shop itself, and the shop was crammed
with merchandise in various stages of dilapidation--chairs, tables,
glassware, trunks, sea chests, lamps, dory anchors, pictures,
books, rowlocks, clocks, garden tools, whatnots, crockery, oars,
household and nautical discards of all sorts.  When a Denboro
citizen, male or female, desired to get rid of something which had
outgrown use or fashion the invariable custom was to find out what
Tadgett would give for it.  If he would give nothing for it it was
burned or thrown away.  A thing he would not buy at some price was
worthless indeed.

The other back room was at the rear of the back room.  Its two
windows looked out upon the back yard; across that yard was the
garden gate of the Tadgett cottage, which faced on Mill Road.  In
the other back room Ebenezer kept his treasures.  If you liked fine
old things--really liked them and understood them, and showed that
you liked and understood them--you might be admitted to that room.
The craze for antiques was young yet, but Mr. Tadgett, although far
from young, was a sufferer from it.  He sold what he called junk to
any one, but in order to get him to part with, or even to exhibit a
really fine piece the would-be purchaser must possess tact and
prove knowledge.  Making believe helped very little.  "It don't
take me very long to spot a fake," boasted Ebenezer, "whether it's
dressed up in mahogany or diamonds."

He spent a great deal of his spare time in the other back room,
doing what he called resurrecting.  He was resurrecting now.  He
was kneeling before a small drop-leaf table and scraping carefully
at one of its edges with a sharp knife.  The table was of a
pleasing shape, but it was scarred and dented and had at some
period of its existence been painted a hideous blue green.  The
edge from which Mr. Tadgett was so carefully scraping the green
paint was beginning to show dully brown, and this brown surface was
bisected with a line of lighter wood.

Ebenezer paused in his labor, sat back upon his heels, inspected
the space he had just scraped, and smiled apparently with
satisfaction.  The tune he was humming grew louder, acquired words
and became the verse of a song:


     "Stick to your mother, Tom,
         When I am gone,
      Don't let her worry, lad,
         Don't let her mourn.
      Remember how she watched you
         When I was far away--"


The singing stopped, for the bell attached to the Main Street door
to the shop jingled, announcing the entrance of a visitor.  Mr.
Tadgett reluctantly laid the scraping knife on the floor and turned
his head to listen.  Then he slowly and stiffly rose from his knees
to his feet.


     "Stick to your mother
         When her hair turns gray,"


he finished deliberately.  Then he dusted his hands on his trousers
and strolled into the shop.

The person standing there was a young man.  Ebenezer, blinking
behind cloudy spectacles, did not at first recognize him.  "Yes,
sir," he observed cheerfully.

"Mr. Tadgett, is it?"

"The same.  Yes, sir."

"My name is Bradford."

"Eh?  Bradford?  Oh!  Yes, yes, of course."

It was the young fellow who had passed the shop the previous
afternoon; Jotham Gott had called him "Margaret Bradford's boy."
Any long-time resident of Denboro would have recognized him.
Ebenezer Tadgett was a comparative newcomer, having migrated from
South Harniss only three years before.

"Bradford," repeated Ebenezer.  "Oh, yes, yes.  Well, it's a good
seasonable day for this time of year, Mr. Bradford."

Banks Bradford agreed that it was.  Then he said, "Mr. Tadgett, I
noticed that card in your window."

"Did, eh?  Well, that's comfortin'.  I kind of hoped somebody might
notice one of 'em sometime.  Which one did you notice?"  It was a
fair question, for there were no less than seven lettered bits of
cardboard hanging in the shop windows.

"The one about the rooms to let in the post-office block; Judge
Blodgett's law offices, they used to be.  That one."

"O-oh!"  Mr. Tadgett shook his head.  "Too bad, too bad," he added
mournfully.

"Too bad?"

"Yes, sort of too bad, in a way.  I had hoped 'twas the one about
that secondhand mackerel sieve I've got for sale.  I'd like to get
rid of that seine.  It takes up consider'ble space and it don't
smell like lemon verbena, neither. . . .  But I have got the key to
Judge Blodgett's rooms.  Like to look at 'em, would you?"

"Why," said the other with an apologetic smile, "I have looked at
one of them already."

Ebenezer stared at him.  Then he took a bunch of keys from his
pocket and stared at that.  "Humph!" he grunted.  "You must have
eyes like a pair of gimlets.  Or did you peek through the window?"

"No, I went into the building, just to see where the rooms were
located, you know, and the door of the back room was open."

Mr. Tadgett regarded the bunch of keys thoughtfully.  "Humph!" he
grunted once more.  "I'd have swore I locked that door yesterday
forenoon, when Cap'n Bije Bradford and me went over to look at them
rooms."

"Yes.  Well, you see the key had been turned, but the door wasn't
shut tight."

Ebenezer nodded several times; then he put the keys in his pocket.
"I do see," he observed.  "Yes, yes, I see.  Well, I promised when
they put those rooms in my care that I wouldn't forget to keep 'em
locked up; but I don't remember promisin' to shut the doors afore I
locked 'em.  Half a loaf is better than no bread; they can't expect
too much for three dollars a week, now can they? . . .  So you
looked the premises over on your own hook, eh?"

"I looked at one room, the smaller one."

"Sho, that one isn't for rent--not exactly.  Cap'n Abijah Bradford
has took a sort of what he calls option on that room for a week or
so."

"Yes, I know.  He told me.  He thinks it will make a good office
for me.  I am his nephew."

"Eh? . . .  Why, yes, so you are.  Yes, yes. . . .  Humph!  That
makes you Hettie Bradford's nephew, too, don't it?"

"No"--promptly.  "She is my cousin, that's all."

"Cousin, eh?  First or second?"

"Why, second or third, I guess, if that makes any difference."

Again Tadgett nodded.  "'Twould to me," he said with emphasis.
"However, that's neither here nor yonder, as the feller said.
Well, Mr. Bradford, what about them rooms?  You've seen 'em and
Cap'n Bije has seen 'em.  Cal'latin' to take up the option on the
one in back, are you?"

Banks hesitated.  "I don't know whether I can do that or not.  You
and my uncle have discussed rent, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Would it be all right to ask what the rent of that back room, the
smallest one is?"

Ebenezer rubbed his chin.  "Why, it would be all right to ask," he
observed.

"I see.  Well, that matter is between you and Uncle Abijah, of
course.  I beg your pardon."

"Sho, sho!  Nothin' to beg about.  And considerin' who you are, I
don't see why I shouldn't tell you the figure.  That room can be
hired by Cap'n Bije, or anybody he stands responsible for, for
twelve dollars."

"Twelve dollars--a week?"

"Week!  Good Lord, no!  Twelve dollars a month."

The young man looked tremendously relieved.  "Why, that's awfully
cheap, isn't it!" he exclaimed.

"It would be cheap for a yoke of oxen, or a sealskin cape, but for
that room it's a plenty.  However, it's what Nathan Blodgett told
me was the lowest I could sublet it for.  Goin' to take it?"

A long breath, then a nod.  "Yes, I am," said Banks Bradford.  Then
he added, "And now, Mr. Tadgett, there is something else.  I
suppose I shall have to have a little furniture."

"Well, it is a pretty general habit to have a little, that's a
fact."

"Yes.  I must have a desk and--and a chair or two."

"Two's more convenient; unless you're cal'latin' to play solitaire."

"I thought perhaps I might try to find what I want here in your
place."  He looked about the huddled mass of odds and ends in the
shop.

The proprietor of the shop looked also.  "Uh-hum," he drawled.
"You never can tell till you do try.  I'm willin' to guarantee you
can find what you DON'T want; I make it a p'int to keep a good-
sized stock of that on hand.  But let's have a look.  Desk first,
eh?  Humph!  Now there's somethin'."  He pointed to an ancient
ruin, half hidden by a roll of musty rag carpet.

Banks pulled aside the carpet.  "Is that a desk?" he asked
dubiously.

"The folks I bought it of seemed sartin 'twas one once. . . .
Humph!  Well, there ought to be more somewheres."

There were several more, varying from a huge ugly walnut secretary
to pine tables with drawers missing or minus a leg.  As the search
proceeded Banks Bradford's expression grew more and more gloomy.

"Are these all you have, Mr. Tadgett?" he asked.  "Just these
here?"

"Just about. . . .  Eh?  What's the matter?"

The door of the other back room was open and Banks was standing on
its threshold looking in.  "Why, there is a desk," he exclaimed--
"that one in there."

Ebenezer peered over his shoulder.  "Yes," he admitted.  "That's a
desk, of a kind.  It's about as seedy, though, as the one I showed
you first."

"Yes, but it is such a corking shape."

"Think so, do you?"

"You bet!" said Banks enthusiastically.  "May I go in and look at
it?"

"Yes, if you want to.  It ain't for sale, though."

His visitor did not appear to have heard the last sentence.  He was
standing before the desk, regarding it with rapt interest.  It was
a small four-legged affair; a flat top covered with ragged faded
felt; a drawer beneath, with an ancient copper handle hanging by
one rivet; a low rack of pigeon-holes and tiny drawers, before
which sliding ribbed partitions were partially drawn.  It had been
painted a hideous shiny black, but most of the shine had
disappeared and the paint itself was peeling in patches.

"Some derelict, ain't it?" observed Tadgett, standing by the
Bradford elbow.  "'Bout ready for the kindlin' pile, eh?"

Banks did not answer.  He bent forward and pulled gently at a tiny
brass knob.  One of the ribbed partitions slid farther across the
rows of pigeonholes.

"A tambour desk!" he cried enthusiastically.  "And look at those
legs!  And that handle!  Why, it's the original handle--with the
eagle and the thirteen stars.  Yes, sir, it is! . . .  Lord, what a
pity the other one is lost!  But perhaps it isn't lost.  Have you
got it, Mr. Tadgett?"

Ebenezer pulled open a drawer.  The second handle was within.
"Don't suppose it's hardly wuth while puttin' it on," he said.
"A wreck like that must be pretty nigh past salvage, wouldn't you
say?"

Bradford turned on him.  "What are you talking about!" he cried.
"It's a peach of a thing.  I haven't seen so good a one for ever so
long."

"Well, well!  You don't tell me!  So you like it, do you?"

"Like it!  Who could help liking it?"

"Lots of folks, and without no trouble at all.  Your Cousin
Henrietta, now, she see it yesterday and what she said about it was
pretty discouragin'.  I told her the old codger I traded with for
it had it out in the barn to keep seed potatoes in, and she said he
couldn't have set much store by the potatoes."

"No?  Well, Cousin Hettie is--"

"Yes? . . .  What did you say she was?"

"She is Cousin Hettie."

"Um-hum; maybe that's enough.  She did offer to take it off my
hands, though.  If I'd take back a gas-burner stove I sold her last
month, she'd agree to take that old desk as a dollar's worth of
part pay."

"She didn't really!"

"She did.  I was the one that didn't.  But I'm kind of surprised
you like that desk--all painted up in mournin' so."

"That paint doesn't amount to anything.  I'll bet if you scraped
that paint off you'd find--  What are you smiling at?"

By way of answer Mr. Tadgett pulled the desk from the wall.  For
six inches along the top at the back a space had been scraped clean
of paint.

"Mahogany!" cried Banks Bradford.  "I knew it.  And look at that
grain!"

"Good old San Domingo.  You can't always tell what's underneath
paint, on women or furniture.  For instance, look at that table
behind you.  I'm resurrectin' it now."

Banks turned, saw the table and hastened to examine it.  His
enthusiastic exclamations seemed to please Ebenezer Tadgett
extremely.

"There's a crippled highboy over in the corner," he said.  "Cap'n
Seth Lamon see it a spell ago and wanted to know if I picked it up
on the beach when that schooner loaded with junk came ashore."

The highboy--it was a cripple--was examined and highly praised.
Bradford looked about the other back room.

"Look at that chair--and that lamp," he cried, pointing.  "This
place is full of wonderful stuff.  Why do you keep it all shut up
in here?"

Ebenezer closed one eye, opened it, and closed the other.  "We-ll,"
he drawled, "if you keep the wrecks out of sight the reg'lar
customers--them that buy the bargains in the front room--have more
confidence in your judgment. . . .  See here, you seem to know
consider'ble about old things--good things.  And you ain't by no
means an antique yourself.  How did you catch the disease?  Wasn't
born with it, was you?"

"I don't know," replied the other with a laugh.  "I have it, I'm
sure of that.  I have a friend whose family are--sort of
collectors, you know, and every time I visit their house I have an
acute attack.  I've got one now, and you are responsible, Mr.
Tadgett."

"Sho, sho!  Well, I suppose I'd ought to try and cure you, if I
can."

"You needn't mind; I don't want to be cured.  Gee, Mr. Tadgett,
you've got some fine stuff!  I suppose there is a lot more I
haven't seen."

"Well, there's some.  That's the only tambour desk, though."

"Of course"--this with a sigh and a longing look at the tambour
desk.  "And that would be too expensive for me, even if it was for
sale.  And you said it wasn't."

"Did I?  Well, it ain't for sale to your Cousin Henrietta, that's a
fact."

"I should say not; nor to any one else who didn't appreciate it, I
hope.  I musn't take any more of your time, Mr. Tadgett.  You were
working on that table when I interrupted you, I suppose."

"Yes, I was."

Bradford turned to go.  Then he paused.  "Would you mind if I
stayed and watched you work a little while?" he asked.  "I'd like
to.  I don't know what there is about old furniture and--and glass
and all that, but there must be something.  It gets me, that's all
I can say."

For the first time during their interview Ebenezer Tadgett showed
genuine enthusiasm.  He slapped his knee.  "That's it!" he vowed
heartily.  "That's what it does, it gets you.  It got me more'n
twenty years ago and it's got me for keeps now.  Maybe it's the
things themselves--maybe it's because each one of 'em is a sort of
storybook, you know, and you get to wonderin' who made it in the
fust place, and whose houses it had been in, and what it's seen, if
it could see, and the like of that.  I'd give more for one old
bureau that had the right stuff in it and was made by a feller that
knew how and cared, you understand, than I would for all the new
factory-built stuff there is in Boston this minute."

He picked up his scraping knife and turned to the drop-leaf table.
"Set down," he ordered.  "Haul up one of them chairs over there and
set down.  I'd like to have you, Banks.  Banks is your first name,
ain't it?"

"Yes."

"Sartin.  Sit right down, Banks.  You just let me scratch away here
for a spell, and by and by maybe we'll see what we can do about
locatin' a desk and a couple of chairs for you.  Oh, not out
yonder"--with a contemptuous wave toward the front shop; "in here,
amongst the storybooks. . . .  That's it--comfortable, be you?
Good!  Well, there!  I've preached, my sermon.  In a couple of
minutes, unless this service is different from most of mine, I'll
be liable to start in on a hymn.  Know anything about music, do
you?"

"Not much."

"That's good.  Then you'll appreciate my singin'."

He bent over the table and resumed his resurrecting.  A few minutes
later, in exact accordance with his prophecy, he broke into song.


     "The volley was fired at sunrise,
         Just at the break of day.
      And while its echo lingered
         A soul had passed away--


"Humph!  That's a nice line of holly inlay comin' out now.  See it?
Oh, I was pretty sartin 'twas there: I've run acrost this kind of
table afore.


     "Into the arms of its Maker
         There to meet its fate.
      A tear, a sigh, a sad good-by;
         The pardon came too late!"


Just before suppertime that evening Capt. Abijah Bradford threw
open the side door of his sister-in-law's house on Mill Hill and
strode through the sitting room and dining room into the kitchen.
Margaret Bradford was busy at the cook-stove.

"Why, hello, Bije!" she said.  "Going to have supper with us, are
you?"

Captain Abijah snorted.  "No," he declared.  "I'm too mad to eat.
Where's that durned boy of yours?"

"Banks?"

"He's the only boy you've got, ain't he?  And enough, too--of the
kind.  Where is he?"

"Upstairs in his room, writing a letter, I believe."

"Call him down here.  I want him."  Margaret opened the oven door
and peeped inside.  "Call him yourself, Bije," she said calmly.
"I'm busy."

Her brother-in-law's red face grew redder, but as Mrs. Bradford
seemed to consider the matter settled he yielded.  Striding back to
the foot of the stairs leading from the sitting room, he roared his
nephew's name.  "Banks?" he hailed.  "You up aloft there, are you?"

"Yes.  Is that you, Uncle Bije?"

"Sounds like me, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sir, very much."

It certainly did, but the captain was a trifle taken aback,
nevertheless.  "Well, come down this minute," he commanded.  "I
want to see you."

Banks descended promptly.  His uncle met him in the sitting room.

"Look here," he demanded, "what's this I've just heard about you?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"I guess you can guess, if you don't know.  You spent considerable
time with Ebenezer Tadgett this afternoon, I understand."

"Yes sir, I did."

"But that's all I understand about it.  Accordin' to Tadgett, you
told him you'd take that back office of Judge Blodgett's."

"He told me that you had a week's option on it and I told him the
option was taken on my behalf.  That is what you told me yourself
last night, Uncle Abijah."

"Humph!  Yes, it was.  But look here, boy, does this mean that you
have decided to give up your Boston scheme and stay here for good?"

"Yes, sir."

"Stay here and do your lawyerin' in Denboro, same as I told you
you'd ought to do?"

"Yes, sir."

Captain Bradford shook his head.  It was evident that he was
gratified, also that he was surprised and puzzled.  "Well," he
admitted, "I'm glad to know you've got that much common sense in
your manifest.  Changed your mind some in twenty-four hours,
haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"I have been thinking, as you asked me to."

"Is that so!  Did you do the thinkin' for yourself, or did your
mother do it for you?"

Margaret would have spoken but her son spoke first.

"I thought a good deal last night after I left you," he replied
sharply.  "This morning I asked mother a lot of questions.  Then
I walked up and down the beach for two or three hours, thinking
again.  Then I went in and looked at the room you had picked out
for me.  After that I called on Mr. Tadgett."

"So I heard.  Why didn't you call on me?  As I recollect, you were
to see me as soon as you'd thought this business through."

"I did call on you, but you were out and Mr. Bassett said you told
him you probably wouldn't be back before five."

This was true, and the captain's guns were spiked for the moment.
But only for a moment.  "Well, all right," he growled.  "Nobody's
neck would have been broken if you'd waited till five--but that's
only part of it.  Here's the main thing.  Tadgett says you and he
picked out furniture for that room and that you went ahead and
bought it.  Considerin' that I'll be expected to pay for that
furniture it seems to me I might have some say in the buyin'.
What's your answer to that?"

Banks' answer was very prompt.  "Mr. Tadgett didn't tell you that
you were expected to pay for it," he said.

"How do you know he didn't?  And what difference does that make?
Who will pay for it, if I don't?  Your mother?  No, she won't.  She
can't afford it, for one reason; and for another, I won't let her."

"It is paid for already.  I paid for it myself."

Uncle Abijah was speechless.  He turned to look at his sister-in-
law.  She was smiling.  The captain swung back to glare at his
nephew.  "You paid for it?" he repeated.  "With whose money?"

"My own.  I had a little, about a hundred and twenty dollars.  Some
of it I saved from my allowance; of course that part was mother's
really.  The rest I earned this summer while I was out West.  I
looked up some legal records and things--oh, they didn't amount to
much--for Mr. Davidson, my college friend's uncle.  He was going to
have his lawyer do it, but I told him I believed I could, so he let
me try.  I wouldn't let him pay me, but he insisted on giving me
seventy-five dollars for what he called my traveling expenses.  I
meant to send it back to him, but--well, this morning I decided to
keep it.  I paid for the desk and table and two chairs I bought of
Mr. Tadgett."

Captain Abijah stared.  Then once more he turned to Mrs. Bradford.
"Margaret," he demanded, "did you know about this?"

"No, Abijah; not until a little while ago, when Banks came home.
Then he told me what he had done."

Banks himself broke in here.  "Nobody knew about it, Uncle Bije,"
he said.  "I thought it out for myself and I did it.  I've rented
the room in the post-office building and I've paid the first
month's rent in advance.  You may have to lend me enough to pay the
second; I hope you won't, but you may.  And mother, I suppose, will
have to board and lodge me gratis for a while.  I'm ever so much
obliged for your kindness and your interest and your telling me the
truth about things.  I only wish you had told me sooner.  Well, I
know now.  I've given up my Boston plan; I'm going to try my luck
here at home.  And," he ended very earnestly, "I'm going to get
along just as fast as I can, and as much on my own hook as I can.
You can depend on that, both of you."

Captain Bradford did stay for supper, after all.  On his way home
he dropped in--it was a sort of duty visit he paid once a week--on
Cousin Hettie at her home on the Swamp Road.  He told her of their
young relative's plans for a career as an attorney in Denboro.
Cousin Hettie was tremendously interested but somewhat spiteful.

"So that's what you and he talked about, Abijah," she observed.
"Why you hid it from me all this time is your own affairs, I
suppose, and I don't complain; I'm used to being pushed into a
corner.  When poor dear Silas was alive he always--"

"Oh, bosh!  Nobody's shoved you into a corner.  They'd have a
lively time keepin' you there, if they did!  And speakin' of Silas,
I'm beginnin' to believe that boy of his won't make us so
everlastin' ashamed of him as I was afraid he might.  Margaret's
done her best to spoil him, of course--"

"Certainly she has.  Did you expect anything else from one of her
family?  Oh, dear, why a Bradford, and the very best of the
Bradfords except dear father--oh, yes, and you and me, Abijah--why
Silas ever married so beneath him I can't see.  And never could.
But the best of us have our weak spots.  I presume likely I've got
some of my own, if I knew what they were."

Abijah, at that moment, looked as if he were tempted to enlighten
her.  He resisted the temptation, however.

"Well, anyhow," he said with decision, "I'm easier about that young
fellow than I have been before since his father died.  I can look
his portrait--Silas', I mean--in the eye tonight and feel better.
The boy may never be as smart a man as his father--"

"Nobody could be that."

"Probably not.  But he's beginnin' to show signs that he is a man,
and that's somethin'.  I tell you this, Hettie--no matter how much
Banks there is in him there's some Bradford along with it."



CHAPTER IV


The following day the rear room of what had been the Blodgett suite
of offices in the post-office building was scrubbed and swept.
Eliab Gibbons did the scrubbing and sweeping.  Mr. Gibbons was
regularly employed for three days of the week about the grounds of
the Truman estate on the Old Ostable Road, but during the other
three working days he was open to engagement for odd jobs.  He was
a close friend of Ebenezer Tadgett, and it was the latter who
summoned him for this particular job.  Banks Bradford, watching the
cleaning process, suggested that washing the windows might be an
improvement.

Eliab regarded the windows with languid interest.  "I don't know
but you're right!" he drawled thoughtfully.  "You could see out of
'em better, I suppose, if some of the crust was rubbed off."

So the crust was rubbed off and the little room became much lighter
in consequence.  The furniture purchased of Mr. Tadgett was carried
in and, after thought and several changes, finally placed.  The
desk--Ebenezer had unearthed it in a forgotten corner of his other
back room--was a walnut affair, old and rather shabby, but solid,
roomy and convenient enough.

"'Tain't the tambour, by no means," said Tadgett, "but maybe you
can make out with it for a spell.  And you can have it for fourteen
dollars, if you think that's fair enough."

Banks thought it altogether too fair, and said so.  "Why, that's a
ridiculous price, Mr. Tadgett," he protested.  "You can't be making
a cent on it."

"Yes, I am.  I took it in trade from Heman Bearse, over to the
Neck.  Swapped a chair and a clam hoe and an old pair of steelyards
for it.  Oh, yes--and he was to give me a dollar to boot.  When he
does, or IF he does, I'll have made money afore you come in on the
dicker at all, Banks.  You scratch along with it now, and maybe by
and by, when you get prosperous, we'll make another trade for the
tambour, eh?"

Bradford shook his head.  "That tambour desk will have gone long
before that happens," he said.

"Maybe not.  I ain't in any hurry to sell it.  Want to fix it all
up first and then keep it for a spell to look at and--er--gloat
over, you might say."

Uncle Abijah came in while the furniture was being placed.  He
suggested the need of another chair and a few shelves.  "You might
possibly have more than one client at a time, boy," he said with a
grin.  "Probably not at first, but later on.  And you'll want a
shelf or two to put your law books on.  Got some law books of your
own, I presume likely?"

"Yes, sir.  A few."

"Well, stack 'em up around.  You ought to look like an able seaman
even if you are a green hand.  Tadgett and I will paw over his
scrap pile together and see if we can't find a little more stuff to
help you out.  Oh, I'll take care of the cost.  You can pay me back
after you win your first case for the New York, New Haven and
Hartford Railroad.  Anyhow, I'd like to feel I'd given one shove to
help get your craft off the ways."

He gave several such shoves.  One was to commission Jacob Shell,
the local boat and wagon painter, to letter the glass door of his
nephew's office.  "S. B. Bradford, Attorney at Law" was the result
of Mr. Shell's labors.  The new attorney would have preferred
"Banks" to the "S. B.," but as long as his uncle had paid for the
lettering he felt that he should not criticize.

Cousin Hettie, when she saw it, did the criticizing for him.  "If I
was a young man with an honored name such as you've got," she
vowed, "I wouldn't miss a chance to put it up where folks could see
it.  I'D have had 'Silas Bradford' there; but if you must have
something in the middle, why not 'Silas Banks Bradford'?  I don't
believe Mr. Shell would have charged one cent more, and you might
as well have got your money's worth."

Another contribution of Captain Abijah's was delivered a week
later.  The captain came into the office bearing a large flat
parcel.  He ripped off the wrapping paper and exhibited a framed
photograph of the crayon-enlarged portrait of Capt. Silas Bradford,
copies of which hung in the Bradford sitting room and on his own
wall at the Malabar.

"We'll rig that right up over yonder opposite your desk, Banks," he
announced.  "Every time you lift up your head you'll see it.  It'll
be a kind of channel light for you.  Keep your eye on that father
of yours, boy, and you won't be liable to get far off the course."

Margaret Bradford, of course, was among the very first to inspect
the new office.  Her son would have liked her to come every day.

"It's going to be lonesome enough here for a while, Mother," he
said.  "Do run in any time you are out and cheer me up."

"I'll come sometimes, Banks, but not too often.  I don't want
Hettie and Abijah--no, nor any one else--to have an excuse for
saying I'm trying to keep you tied to my apron strings.  When you
come home for dinner and at night you must tell me everything that
has happened, every single thing.  Be sure you do, for"--with a
little smile--"I shouldn't wonder if I were as interested in all
this as you are."

When he told her of his uncle's gift of the portrait and the
accompanying counsel to keep his eye on it, she seemed about to
speak.

"Yes?" he asked, as she hesitated.

"It was very thoughtful of Abijah," was her only comment.

Banks laughed.  "Uncle Bije apparently doesn't think I can be
trusted unless there is another Bradford to keep watch over me," he
observed.  "If I could afford it I'd have your portrait there, too,
Mother.  Maybe I will some day."

She shook her head.  "I'm afraid my picture wouldn't bring you many
clients--in Denboro," she said.

Her son did not press the point.  He remembered her confession
during their conversation the morning following his fateful
interview with Captain Abijah.  She really was a little jealous of
his father, he decided.  That was silly, but natural, too,
everything considered.  He had a number of snapshots of her which
he had taken from time to time.  One of these he had framed and
placed it on his desk.

On the occasion of her second call at the office he showed it to
her.  She laughed and made fun of her appearance in the photograph,
"with that old dress on and my hair every which way."  But he could
see that she was pleased, nevertheless.

And now began the weary days, the long discouraging days of sitting
alone in the little room overlooking the back yards of the shops on
the first floor of the post-office building, waiting for clients
who did not come.  He read diligently in law books of his own and
others which had belonged to Judge Blodgett and which his uncle had
purchased for him at bargain prices.  Between readings he looked
out of the windows.

At first, every step in the corridor outside his door caused his
hopes to rise; but as they almost invariably passed the door or,
when they did pause and the door opened, proved to be the steps of
Captain Abijah or Cousin Hettie or Ebenezer Tadgett, or Eliab
Gibbons in quest of another odd job, he ceased to regard them.
There might be, as Uncle Bije had declared, plenty of work for a
lawyer in Denboro, but it was increasingly obvious that that work
was not brought to S. B. Bradford, Attorney at Law.

Captain Abijah counseled patience.  "It's the first days of the
voyage that's always longest," he said.  By way of encouragement he
entrusted his nephew with the drawing of a deed to a woodlot which
he had sold to a neighbor.  Banks got through this ordeal without
mistake; and the captain, who had been obviously nervous, seemed
much relieved and gratified.  "Eben Caldwell, who owns the hardware
and general store at the other corner," he said, "was talkin' with
me about some old accounts he'd had on his books for a long spell.
Said he didn't know's he wouldn't give 'em to a lawyer to try and
collect.  Seein' as you've handled this deed of mine all right,
maybe I'll suggest his trustin' 'em to you.  Think you could manage
'em without snarlin'?  I wouldn't want you to run aground and get
me in bad with Eben."

Banks replied that he guessed he could.

"Um-hum.  Well, I'll mention you to him.  Don't get the notion that
it's goin' to be an easy job.  Any bill that Caldwell can't collect
himself is liable to be a tough one."

They were all tough.  And as a test of a young lawyer's diplomacy
and tact they left little to be desired.  The delinquent debtors
were scattered throughout the outlying districts, one or two of
them had moved away, and each one had a plausible excuse for
nonpayment.  Some of the excuses were good and others were not, but
Banks was made aware of one thing, the New Englander's respect for
the law.  To each letter he wrote came a reply, and each call he
made found the recipient anxious not to face a suit.  "I've been
cal'latin' to pay that bill, Mr. Bradford.  It's worried me so's I
couldn't sleep nights.  But my wife's been ailin', and two of the
children have been laid up with the measles, and the fishin' ain't
worth a darn this fall"--and so on.

The worst of it was that most of these people were honest and did
mean to pay sometime or other.  Banks found himself respecting some
of them a good deal more than he did the grasping Caldwell.

He collected a little here and a little there.  In two instances
the entire bill was paid.  Six proved to be quite hopeless.  At the
end of a fortnight he laid the results before his employer.  The
latter seemed to be satisfied.  "I don't know but you've done full
well as I could expect," he admitted.  "Those there"--pointing to
the list of six--"nobody could get a cent out of without holdin'
'em over a hot fire, and not enough then to pay for the kindlin'.
I imagine," he added with a grin, "that all this hasn't made you
any too popular in some quarters, eh?  Never mind, business is
business, and a lawyer can't expect to be popular with all hands if
he attends to his job."

Banks laughed and agreed that he supposed not.  As a matter of
fact, he had lost little popularity.  He was far too new to be
popular or unpopular as yet, and he tried hard to be just, to show
a disposition to make allowances and to discriminate between
poverty-stricken honesty and plausible crookedness.  Practically
all the unpopularity pertaining to the collecting process centered
about Eben Caldwell.  "That feller wouldn't kill a skunk for fear
of losin' a scent," declared one individual disgustedly.

This burst of activity was like a puff of wind on a calm day in
summer--it was refreshing while it lasted, but it did not last
long.  Then followed another session of idleness, with nothing to
do but read the law books or look out of the window.

By way of relieving the monotony and diverting his thoughts, Banks
had formed the habit of dropping in on Mr. Tadgett and watching the
latter scrape and polish and "resurrect" in his other back room.
These calls were always made late in the afternoon, after the door
of the law office was locked for the day.  He and Ebenezer had
become good friends.  The love for antiques which they shared in
common was the basis for this friendship, but before long Banks had
learned to like the eccentric little man for himself.

Tadgett, he discovered, was a shrewd philosopher; he possessed a
dry humor and a faculty for appraising his fellow man and woman
which was close to genius.  Ebenezer liked Banks.  During one of
their conversations he gave some of his reasons for the liking, and
gave them in a characteristic way.

"Banks," he said, "you belong to what you might well call the
sheep, did you know it?"

"Sheep?  Why, no, I don't know it.  If that's a compliment it
doesn't sound like one."

"I don't know whether it's a compliment or not; that depends on how
you look at it.  On the day of judgment, so Scriptur' gives it to
us, the sheep are goin' to be shooed one way and the goats t'other.
I don't set myself up to part all creation right and left--off my
own premises I don't--but in here I'm a sort of secondhand Saint
Peter, as you might say.  There's nobody but sheep gets into this
other back room of mine, and only the right kind of them are asked
to stay in it."

Banks laughed.  "I see," he said.  "Well, if this particular sheep
gets to pasturing in this room too often, you just--"

"There, there!  I've been beggin' you for the last ten minutes to
pull off your coat and set down, haven't I?  The first time you
come in here I was pretty sartin you was my kind of mutton.  After
you made a fuss over that tambour desk I was sure of it.  Soon as I
found you didn't like Hettie Bradford, I knew it."

"Here, hold on!  I never told you I didn't like her."

"No, so you didn't.  And I never told you that I didn't like this
rheumatiz that gets holt of my knees every once in a while.  If
you've seen how I act when I have a twinge you don't need to be
told.  Accordin' to my experience, there's times when one look is
worth a barrel of talk."

"Come, Mr. Tadgett, you mustn't get the idea--"

"No, now, don't let your conscience fret you.  Diseases and
relations are laid onto us; we didn't ask for 'em, so we ain't to
blame if we have 'em. . . .  And see here, I've told you no less
than twenty times that my name is Ebenezer, and I answer my friends
quicker if they remember to hail me by it."

As he came to know the little man better Banks grew not only to
like but to respect him.  Underneath his veneer of business acumen,
his sharpness in trade when dealing with one trying to get the
better of him, his absent-mindedness and dry humor, were other
qualities inspiring respect.  His treatment of his wife was one of
these.

Banks had heard of Mrs. Tadgett's peculiarities.  He had heard
Cousin Hettie contemptuously refer to her as "that cracked Tadgett
woman."  Stories of her weird habit of dress, of things she had
said, of her "visions"--she was a devout Spiritualist--had come to
his ears while at home on holidays or vacations during the years of
the Tadgett residence in Denboro.  But until Ebenezer invited him
to his house and to dinner one day he had never seen or met her.
It was a meeting to be remembered.

Mr. Tadgett had in a measure prepared him for it.  "Banks," he
said, as he "washed up" in the back room preparatory to their short
walk through the yards to the cottage, "you've never been
introduced to Sheba--my wife, I mean--have you?"

"No."

"I know you ain't.  Well, you've heard about her, of course.
She's--hum--queer, kind of.  You knew that?"

Banks, much embarrassed, stammered that he supposed every one was
queer, in one way or another.

"Yes.  But Sheba's queerer.  When I married her she was teachin'
downstairs school over to Trumet.  Smart girl--my soul!  How she
ever come to marry me nobody could make out, and I ain't made it
out since.  Educated, great reader, knew more about history and
geography and all that in a minute than I'd know in a lifetime.
She reads a whole lot now; got a book in her hand most of her spare
time, fur's that goes. . . .  Ah, hum!  Well, about eleven years
ago she was took down awful sick.  What they used to call brain
fever 'twas; they call it somethin' else now.  All hands cal'lated
she'd die, and I was afraid she would and that I wouldn't.  She
didn't die, though.  She got well, all but her head--that never got
same as 'twas.  Since then she's been queer.  Now, as it's gettin'
on toward cold weather, she'll be most likely wearin' her hoods.
You've heard about her wearin' them hoods?"

Banks had heard many stories, all wildly absurd.  He murmured
something, he was not quite sure what.

Tadgett paid little attention.  "Course you have," he went on.
"They're town talk.  You see, a year or so after she got up from
the brain fever she commenced to complain that her head was cold.
'Twan't, of course, but she thought 'twas, which amounted to the
same thing.  Finally she made herself one of them old-fashioned
quilted hoods same as our grandmarms used to wear.  She wore that
pretty reg'lar and it seemed to help some, but not enough; so she
made another and wore that on top of the fust one.  Since then
she's made four more.  She'll probably have 'em all on when you and
me get there. . . .  Say, you'll try not to laugh when you see her,
won't you--so she'll know you're laughin' at her, I mean?"

"Certainly I shan't laugh.  Ebenezer, do you think I'd better dine
with you, after all?  Perhaps--"

"I want you to.  So does she; 'twas her own idea, askin' you.  I
tell you honest," he added with a one-sided grin.  "I shan't blame
you for wantin' to laugh, not one bit.  All them hoods do make her
head look like a punkin on a stick."

It was an apt comparison.  Mrs. Tadgett was tall--she towered above
her diminutive husband; she was thin, and her neck was long.  At
the end of the long neck her head swathed in layer upon layer of
quilted silk, waved back an forth like a sunflower on its stem, to
use another simile.

She seemed entirely unaware of her strange appearance.  She greeted
their guest with dignified solemnity.  The dinner--she had cooked
it herself--was good.  During the first half of the meal she said
very little, sitting in state at the foot of the table and gazing
fixedly at the wall above her husband's head.  Then all at once she
began to talk.  Banks dutifully listened, but he found her
discourse hard to follow.  She had a habit of beginning with some
simple statement, drifting from that into a long-winded wandering
peroration and finishing with a question or another statement miles
away from the starting point and having no discernible bearing upon
it.

"The winter is almost on us, Mr. Bradford," she proclaimed.  "Yes,
it's drawing nigh.  The melancholy days have come, the saddest of
the year.  There are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year.
And four seasons--spring, summer, autumn and winter.  Four is an
even number, and divided by two equals two, without remainder.  Two
is a pair.  We each have a pair of eyes and a pair of shoes and--
and this makes it a complete whole.  Don't you feel that way, Mr.
Bradford?"

Banks, very much bewildered, was struggling for a reply, but
Ebenezer saved him the trouble.

"Sure, sure, Sheba," he said hastily.  "That's the way we all feel.
Now I guess likely Banks'll have another biscuit, if you'll hand
across the plate."

On the way back to the post-office building he tried to explain.
"You see how 'tis," he said apologetically.  "She's apt to get this
way when strangers are around.  When she and I are alone there's
long stretches when she's just as sensible as anybody; but when she
gets nervous over havin' company or anything she's liable to get
moonin' on, same as she used to when she was teachin' the seven-
year-olders in the schoolhouse.  I don't mind.  You see, I remember
her as she used to be, clever and full of book learnin'.  Oh, well,
it's a tough old world. . . .  But she ain't crazy--you can see she
ain't that, can't you, Banks?" with pathetic eagerness.

Banks said of course he could see it.  Ebenezer nodded.  "Yes," he
said.  "Well, the general run of folks don't understand her.  I do.
She's my wife and I wouldn't swap her for anybody on earth."  Then
after a momentary hesitation he added, "I'm much obliged to you for
not laughin', Banks."

It was on the afternoon of the following day that he broached a
subject which was to result in the new attorney's first real case.
He entered the office just after five, when Banks, weary of reading
law and looking out of the window, was thinking of locking up and
going home to supper.  Being invited to sit down, Ebenezer did so
and took from his pocket a packet of letters and papers.

"Banks," he began, "you done pretty well with them accounts Eben
Caldwell give you to collect, didn't you?"

"Why, I managed to collect some of them.  Half a dozen or so stuck
me completely."

"Um-hum.  That needn't fret you.  If Eben hadn't been pretty sure
they were all stickers he'd never have risked havin' to pay you ten
per cent for collectin'.  He don't separate from money easy, Eben
don't.  The last time Doc Spear pulled a tooth for him, the only
time he groaned--this is Spear's story--was after 'twas over and he
was reachin' into his pocket for the dollar to pay for the job.  He
was really sufferin' then."

He chuckled and then lapsed into silence, shuffling the papers in
his hands.

"What have you got there?" inquired Bradford after a moment.

"Eh?  Why--well, I've got a sticker of my own.  A pretty bad one,
too, I'm afraid.  I was gettin' kind of desperate about it and the
notion struck me to run in here and ask your advice.  I don't
know's I'd better, though, after all."

"Why not?"

"Oh, because I ain't sure it's a thing you ought to be mixed up in--
for your own sake, I mean.  You've just started to paddle your own
canoe here in Denboro and it might not help you much to begin by
heavin' rocks at the skipper of one of the biggest craft in the
same channel."

"What's all this?  Canoes and channels and rocks!  What are you
talking about, Ebenezer?"

Tagdett was still hesitating.  Then he drew a long breath.  "I
guess," he said slowly--"yes, I guess I will tell you about it.
Seem's if I must tell somebody.  It'll be just between us two, and
when you hear it I shouldn't wonder if you thought that was where
it better stay."

He began his story, at first mentioning no names.  In May of that
year he sold a sideboard to a customer.  This customer had
commissioned him to find an American board, a good one, Sheraton
type preferred.  It must not be too long, nor too high; it must be
a genuine antique, and of course of fine mahogany and pattern and
in good condition.  Price was to be a secondary consideration.  He
had been on the lookout and at last discovered what seemed to him
precisely the article required.  He had brought the sideboard to
his shop; the customer had seen it and liked it.  He had spent
another two months "resurrecting" it and at last had delivered it
to his patron.  He had paid the original owner with his own money.

"That sounds all fair and square so far, don't it, Banks?" he went
on.  "Well, it sounded good to me--then.  I'd found and delivered
what my customer had been terribly anxious to get for a long spell,
and what I thought--and still believe--is about the best sideboard
of its kind I ever see.  I had to pay two hundred and eight dollars
for it, and I sold it to her--to this customer--for three hundred.
Considerin' my two months' work on it and the double cartin' and
all, I don't think that's a big profit; now, do you?"

"No.  I should say it was a very reasonable one."

"Um-hum.  So I figgered.  Well, then this customer of mine she went
away, shut up her house and cleared out for all summer.  She hadn't
paid my bill, but that didn't worry me much, though I could have
used the money.  Fur's that goes," he added reflectively, "I can
usually use money.  I'm funny that way--don't hardly ever have to
set down and look at a fifty-cent piece and strain my brain
wonderin' what I'll do with it. . . .  Well, now comes the trouble.
Three weeks ago, this customer havin' come back home and opened up
her house, I got reckless enough to write and ask if 'twould be
convenient to send me the three hundred.  And the next day after
that I got a letter.  Seems she doesn't want the sideboard after
all.  It's there at her house, or out in her barn where's she put
it, and all I've got to do is send a cart up there and haul it away
again.  Sounds simple enough; if the three hundred was in one of
the drawers and I could haul that away, too, 'twouldn't be."

"But--but she saw it in your shop, you say, and liked it and bought
it at your price.  I don't understand."

"Don't you?  Neither did I, but I didn't lose much time tryin' to
find out.  I went right up to see her.  And there's where I got my
heaviest jolt.  She explained everything--that is, everything but
what would explain the explanation.  She had decided that the board
I sold her wasn't a genuine antique.  She had strong doubts about
it; always had had so--"

"Wait a minute.  Did she express those doubts when she agreed to
buy the board?"

"No.  I told her then, just as I told her again when I went to her
house after gettin' the letter, that I knew who had owned it, the
house it was in and how long it had been there.  She seemed
satisfied; yes, and said she was."

"And you do know, don't you?"

"Know as well as a man in the secondhand business can know
anything.  I'll bet my Sunday go-to-meetin' clothes, hat and all,
that that board is real all the way through, and all of a hundred
year old besides."

"And you told her so again?"

"I spent two solid hours tellin' her.  I might have been there yet
if she hadn't called her hired girl to show me where the front door
was, in case I got lost tryin' to find it.  And after that I put in
a lot of time tryin' to get the real reason for her shovin' the
board back on my hands.  I guess I have found that reason; yes, I
guess I have."

"What is it?"

"She's bought another board, bought it up in Boston.  It suits her
better'n mine does.  That's the meat in the clamshell."

Banks laughed.  "If that's all," he said, "you're safe, Ebenezer.
She may have bought a dozen others, but she'll have to pay for the
one she bought of you."

Mr. Tadgett shook his head.  Apparently this confident assurance
did not hearten him greatly.  "Um-hum," he grunted, "maybe so; but
she vows she won't pay.  The board's a jim-dandy.  I could take it
back into stock and hang on to it for a couple more year and then
sell it, perhaps.  But I need the money.  Puttin' out the two
hundred for it in the first place made my bank account shrink like
a new flannel shirt in a rainstorm.  I've been short as that shirt
ever since.  And that ain't all--no, sir, it ain't half all.  The
real point I stick on is away one side of the money part.  She
says, or as much as says, that I sold her a fake article.  I never
sold a fake, except as a fake, in my life.  It hurts me to have her
say such a thing and--and get away with it.  I--well, I'm a
secondhand junk dealer, I know; but by thunder mighty, I'm an
honest one!"  He struck the arm of his chair with his fist.  His
face was red and his voice shook with earnestness.

Bradford was stirred to indignation.  "It's a shame, Ebenezer," he
declared hotly.  "She shan't get away with it.  You let me handle
this for you.  I believe I can collect your three hundred."

Another shake of the head.  "No," said Tadgett.  "No; I'm much
obliged to you, Banks, but you can't afford to meddle with it."

His friend misunderstood.  "Don't worry about that," he said.
"I'll be glad to do it for you for nothing.  It sounds as if it
might be fun; I think I shall enjoy it."

"No, no.  You don't understand what I mean.