iend to both.

"Goin' to church and believin' in a futur'," he would say, "is jest as
necessary to livin' and happiness as sparkin' on the part of young folks
is necessary to the makin' o' homes."

For Jesse Hutton, or simply Jess, as old and young called him, was in
his way a bit of a philosopher, and his philosophy may be summed up by
saying that he had the happy faculty of looking upon the dark side of
life cheerfully. It also may be said that he looked upon the cheerful
side of life temperately.

And here it may be prudent to insert a little of Jess Hutton's history.
He was the elder of two brothers, schoolboys on the island when its
population numbered less than one hundred, and one small brown
schoolhouse served as a place of worship on Sundays as well as a temple
of learning on week-days. Here the two boys Jesse and Jethro, received
scant education, and at the age of fourteen and sixteen, respectively,
knew more about the sailing of fishing smacks and the catching and
curing of cod and mackerel than of decimal fractions and the rule of
three.

And then the Civil War came on, and when its wave of patriotism reached
far-off Rockhaven, Jess Hutton, then a sturdy young man, enlisting in
the navy under Farragut, served his country bravely and well. Then Jess
came back, a limping hero, to find his brother Jethro deeply in love
with pretty Letty Carver, for whom Jess had cherished a boyish
admiration, and in a fair way to secure a home, with her as a chief
incentive. Jess made no comment when he saw which way the wind blew in
that quarter, but, philosopher that he was, even then, quietly but
promptly turned his face away from the island and for a score of years
Rockhaven knew not of his whereabouts. Gossips, recalling how he and
Letty, as grown-up school children, had played together along the sandy
beach of the little harbor or by the old tide mill, then grinding its
grist, asserted that Jess had been driven away by disappointment; but
beyond surmise they could not go, for to no one did he impart one word
of his reasons for leaving the island and the scenes of his boyhood.

Twenty years later, Letty Carver, who had become Mrs. Jethro Hutton, was
left a widow with one child, a little girl named Mona, a small white
cottage on Rock Lane, and, so far as any one knew, not much else.

And then Jess Hutton returned.

Once more the gossips became busy with what Jess would or should do,
especially as he seemed to have b