The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thankful's Inheritance, by Joseph C. Lincoln

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Title: Thankful's Inheritance

Author: Joseph C. Lincoln

Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2552]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THANKFUL'S INHERITANCE ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

THANKFUL'S INHERITANCE

By Joseph C. Lincoln

CHAPTER I

The road from Wellmouth Centre to East Wellmouth is not a good one; even
in dry weather and daylight it is not that. For the first two miles it
winds and twists its sandy way over bare hills, with cranberry
swamps and marshy ponds in the hollows between. Then it enters upon a
three-mile stretch bordered with scrubby pines and bayberry thickets,
climbing at last a final hill to emerge upon the bluff with the ocean
at its foot. And, fringing that bluff and clustering thickest in the
lowlands just beyond, is the village of East Wellmouth, which must on
no account be confused with South Wellmouth, or North Wellmouth, or West
Wellmouth, or even Wellmouth Port.

On a bright sunny summer day the East Wellmouth road is a hard one to
travel. At nine o'clock of an evening in March, with a howling gale
blowing and rain pouring in torrents, traveling it is an experience.
Winnie S., who drives the East Wellmouth depot-wagon, had undergone the
experience several times in the course of his professional career, but
each time he vowed vehemently that he would not repeat it; he would
"heave up" his job first.

He was vowing it now. Perched on the edge of the depot wagon's front
seat, the reins leading from his clenched fists through the slit in the
"boot" to the rings on the collar of General Jackson, the aged horse, he
expressed his opinion of the road, the night, and the job.

"By Judas priest!" declared Winnie S.--his name was Winfield Scott
Hancock Holt, but no resident of East Wellmouth called him anything but
Winnie S.--"by Judas priest! If this ain't enough to make a feller give
up tryin' to earn a livin', then I don't know! Tell him he can't ship
aboard a schooner 'cause goin' to sea's a dog's life, and then put him
on a job like this! Dog's life! Judas priest! What k