e the business equipment of the late
Eben Raymond, hardware dealer and lumber merchant of South Harniss,
said equipment comprising an office, a store and lumber yards near
the railway station. "Got to have somethin' to keep me from gettin'
barnacled," declared Captain Lote. "There's enough old hulks rottin' at
their moorin's down here as 'tis. I don't know anything about lumber and
half as much about hardware, but I cal'late I can learn." As an aid in
the learning process he retained as bookkeeper Laban Keeler, who had
acted in that capacity for the former proprietor.

The years slipped away, a dozen of them, as smoothly and lazily as South
Harniss years have always slipped. Captain Zelotes was past sixty
now, but as vigorous as when forty, stubborn as ever, fond of using
quarter-deck methods on shore and especially in town-meeting, and
very often in trouble in consequence. He was a member of the Board of
Selectmen and was in the habit of characterizing those whose opinions
differed from his as "narrow-minded." They retorted by accusing him of
being "pig-headed." There was some truth on both sides. His detest of
foreigners had not abated in the least.

And then, in this December of the year 1910, fell as from a clear sky
the legacy of a grandson. From Senor Miguel Carlos Speranza the Snows
had had no direct word, had received nothing save the newspaper clipping
already mentioned. Olive had never seen him; her husband had seen him
only on the occasion of the memorable interview in the hotel room. They
never spoke of him, never mentioned him to each other. Occasionally,
in the Boston newspapers, his likeness in costume had appeared amid the
music notes or theatrical jottings. But these had not been as numerous
of late. Of his son, their own daughter's child, they knew nothing;
he might be alive or he might be dead. Sometimes Olive found herself
speculating concerning him, wondering if he was alive, and if he
resembled Jane. But she put the speculation from her thoughts; she
could not bear to bring back memories of the old hopes and their bitter
ending. Sometimes Captain Lote at his desk in the office of "Z. Snow
& Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware," caught himself dreaming of his
idolized daughter and thinking how different the future might have been
for him had she married a "white man," the kind of man he had meant for
her to marry. There might be grandchildren growing up now, fine boys
and girls, to visit the old hom