ave come tomorrow
or next day just as well, but no, nothin' to do but I must start today
'cause I'd planned to. This comes of figgerin' to profit by what folks
leave to you in wills. Talk about dead men's shoes! Live men's rubber
boots would be worth more to you and me this minute. SUCH a cruise as
this has been!"

It had been a hard trip, certainly, and the amount of water through
which they had traveled the latter part of it almost justified its being
called a "cruise." Old Captain Abner Barnes, skipper, for the twenty
years before his death, of the coasting schooner T. I. Smalley, had,
during his life-long seafaring, never made a much rougher voyage, all
things considered, than that upon which his last will and testament had
sent his niece and her young companion.

Captain Abner, a widower, had, when he died, left his house and land at
East Wellmouth to his niece by marriage, Mrs. Thankful Barnes. Thankful,
whose husband, Eben Barnes, was lost at sea the year after their
marriage, had been living with and acting as housekeeper for an elderly
woman named Pearson at South Middleboro. She, Thankful, had never
visited her East Wellmouth inheritance. For four years after she
inherited it she received the small rent paid her by the tenant, one
Laban Eldredge. His name was all she knew concerning him. Then he died
and for the next eight months the house stood empty. And then came one
more death, that of old Mrs. Pearson, the lady for whom Thankful had
"kept house."

Left alone and without present employment, the Widow Barnes considered
what she should do next. And, thus considering, the desire to visit and
inspect her East Wellmouth property grew and strengthened. She thought
more and more concerning it. It was hers, she could do what she pleased
with it, and she began to formulate vague ideas as to what she might
like to do. She kept these ideas to herself, but she spoke to Emily
Howes concerning the possibilities of a journey to East Wellmouth.

Emily was Mrs. Barnes' favorite cousin, although only a second cousin.
Her mother, Sarah Cahoon, Thankful's own cousin, had married a man named
Howes. Emily was the only child by this marriage. But later there was
another marriage, this time to a person named Hobbs, and there were five
little Hobbses. Papa Hobbs worked occasionally, but not often. His wife
and Emily worked all the time. The latter had been teaching school
in Middleboro, but now it was spring vacation. So when