of New Bedford and of Trumet and of her, over and over
again. I was sure who he was then, but I called in Ebenezer Capen, who
used to know Coffin in New Bedford. And he recognized him. Nat, as sure
as you and I are here this minute, Ansel Coffin, Aunt Keziah's husband,
is buried in the Trumet cemetery."

CHAPTER XXI

IN WHICH MR. STONE WASHES HIS HANDS

Mr. Abner Stone, of Stone & Barker, marine outfitters and ship
chandlers, with a place of business on Commercial Street in Boston, and
a bank account which commanded respect throughout the city, was feeling
rather irritable and out of sorts. Poor relations are always a nuisance.
They are forever expecting something, either money--in Mr. Stone's case
this particular expectation was usually fruitless--or employment or
influence or something. Mr. Stone was rich, he had become so by his own
ability and unaided effort. He was sure of that--often mentioned it,
with more or less modesty, in the speeches which he delivered to his
Sunday-school class and at the dinners of various societies to which he
belonged. He was a self-made man and was conscious that he had done a
good job.

Therefore, being self-made, he saw no particular reason why he should
aid in the making of others. If people were poor they ought to get over
it. Poverty was a disease and he was no doctor. He had been poor once
himself, and no one had helped him. "I helped myself," he was wont to
say, with pride. Some of his rivals in business, repeating this remark,
smiled and added that he had been "helping himself" ever since.

Mr. Stone had "washed his hands" of his cousin, Keziah Coffin, or
thought he had. After her brother Solomon died she had written to him,
asking him to find her a position of some kind in Boston. "I don't want
money, I don't want charity," wrote Keziah. "What I want is work. Can
you get it for me, Abner? I write to you because father used to tell of
what you said to him about gratitude and how you would never rest until
you had done something in return for what he did for you."

Captain Ben Hall's kindness was the one thing Mr. Stone forgot when he
said no one had ever helped him. He disliked to be reminded of it. It
was a long while ago and the captain was dead. However, being reminded,
he had called upon a friend in the tailoring line and had obtained for
Keziah the place of sewing woman. She decided to become housekeeper at
the Trumet parsonage and so notified him. Then he washed