"Now, Shadrach! You know you was the one that would fetch her over that very day."

"Oh, blame it onto me, of course!"

"I ain't blamin' anybody. But she's here and we've got to decide whether to send her away or not. Shall we?"

They were interrupted by Mary-'Gusta herself, who entered the barn, where the discussion took place, a doll under one arm and a very serious expression on her face.

"h.e.l.lo!" hailed Zoeth. "What's the matter?"

Mary-'Gusta seated herself upon an empty cranberry crate. The partners had a joint interest in a small cranberry bog and the crate was one of several unused the previous fall.

"There's nothin' the matter," she said, solemnly. "I've been thinkin', that's all."

"Want to know!" observed the Captain. "Well, what made you do anything as risky as that?"

Mary-'Gusta's forehead puckered.

"I was playin' with Jimmie Bacheldor yesterday," she said, "and he made me think."

Abner Bacheldor was the nearest neighbor. His ramshackle dwelling was an eighth of a mile from the Gould-Hamilton place. Abner had the reputation of being the meanest man in town; also he had a large family, of which Jimmie, eight years old, was the youngest.

"Humph!" sniffed Captain Shad. "So Jimmie Bacheldor made you think, eh?

I never should have expected it from one of that tribe. How'd he do it?"

"He asked me about my relations," said Mary-'Gusta, "and when I said I hadn't got any he was awful surprised. He has ever so many, sisters and brothers and aunts and cousins and--Oh, everything. He thought 'twas dreadful funny my not havin' any. I think I'd ought to have some, don't you?"

The partners, looking rather foolish, said nothing for a moment. Then Zoeth muttered that he didn't know but she had.

"Yes," said Mary-'Gusta, "I--I think so. You see I'm--I mean I was a stepchild 'long as father was here. Now he's dead and I ain't even that. And I ain't anybody's cousin nor nephew nor niece. I just ain't anything. I'm different from everybody I know. And--and--" very solemnly--"I don't like to be so different."

Her lip quivered as she said it. Sitting there on the cranberry crate, hugging her dolls, she was a pathetic little figure. Again the partners found it hard to answer. Mr. Hamilton looked at the Captain and the latter, his fingers fidgeting with his watchchain, avoided the look. The girl went on.

"I was thinking," she said, "how nice 'twould have been if I'd had a--a brother or somebody of my very own. I've got children, of course, but they're only dolls and a cat. They're nice, but they ain't real folks.

I wish I had some real folks. Do you suppose if--if I have to go to the--the orphans' home, there'd be anybody there that would be my relation? I didn't know but there might be another orphan there who didn't have anybody, same as me, and then we could make believe we was--was cousins or somethin'. That would be better than nothin', wouldn't it?"

Zoeth stepped forward and, bending over, kissed her cheek. "Never you mind, Mary-'Gusta," he said. "You ain't gone there yet and afore you do maybe Cap'n Shad and I can think up some relations for you."

"Real relations?" asked Mary-'Gusta, eagerly.

"Well, no, not real ones; I'm afraid we couldn't do that. But when it comes to make-believe, that might be different." He hesitated an instant, glanced at the Captain, and then added: "I tell you what you do: you just pretend I'm your relation, a--well, an uncle, that's better'n nothin'. You just call me 'Uncle Zoeth.' That'll be a start, anyhow. Think you'd like to call me 'Uncle Zoeth'?"

Mary-'Gusta's eyes shone. "Oh, yes!" she cried. "Then I could tell that Jimmie Bacheldor I had one relation, anyhow. And shall I call Cap'n Gould 'Uncle Shadrach'?"

Zoeth turned to his companion. "Shall she, Shadrach?" he asked, with a mischievous smile.

If it had not been for that smile the Captain's reply might have been different. But the smile irritated him. He strode to the door.

"Zoeth Hamilton," he snapped, "how long are you goin' to set here? If you ain't got anything else to attend to, I have. I'm goin' up to the store. It's pretty nigh eight o'clock in the mornin' and that store ain't open yet."

"Want to come along, Mary-'Gusta?" asked Zoeth. "She can come, can't she, Shad?"

"Yes, yes, course she can," more genially. "Cal'late there's some of those sa.s.safras--checkerberry lozengers left yet. Come on, Mary-'Gusta, if you want to."

But the child shook her head. She looked wistful and a trifle disappointed.

"I--I guess maybe I'd better stay here," she said. "I ought to see to Minnehaha's sore throat. I'm goin' to put some red flannel 'round it; Mr. Chase says he cal'lates he knows where there is some. Good-by, Uncle Zoeth. Good-by--er--Cap'n Gould."

The partners did not converse on the way to the store. Zoeth made an attempt, but Shadrach refused to answer. He was silent and, for him, grumpy all the forenoon. Another fortnight pa.s.sed before the subject of the decision which must, sooner or later, be given Judge Baxter was mentioned by either of the pair.

CHAPTER VI

Mary-'Gusta was growing accustomed to the life in the South Harniss home. She found it a great improvement over that which she had known on Phinney's Hill at Ostable. There was no Mrs. Hobbs to nag and find fault, there were no lonely meals, no scoldings when stockings were torn or face and hands soiled. And as a playground the beach was a wonderland.

She and Jimmie Bacheldor picked up sh.e.l.ls, built sand forts, skipped flat stones along the surface of the water at high tide, and picked up scallops and an occasional quahaug at low water. Jimmie was, generally speaking, a satisfactory playmate, although he usually insisted upon having his own way and, when they got into trouble because of this insistence, did not permit adherence to the truth to obstruct the path to a complete alibi. Mary-'Gusta, who had been taught by the beloved Mrs. Bailey to consider lying a deadly sin, regarded her companion's lapses with alarmed disapproval, but she was too loyal to contradict and more than once endured reproof when the fault was not hers. She had had few playmates in her short life and this one, though far from perfect, was a joy.

They explored the house together and found in the big attic and the stuffy, shut-up best parlor the most fascinating of treasure hordes. The former, with its rows of old trunks and sea chests under the low eaves, the queer garments and discarded hats hanging on the nails, the dusky corners where the light from the little windows scarcely penetrated even on a sunny May afternoon, was the girl's especial Paradise. Here she came to play by herself on rainy days or when she did not care for company. Her love of make-believe and romance had free scope here and with no Jimmie to laugh and make fun of her imaginings she pretended to her heart's content. Different parts of that garret gradually, in her mind, came to have names of their own. In the bright spot, under the north window, was Home, where she and the dolls and David--when the cat could be coaxed from prowlings and mouse hunts to quiet and slumber--lived and dined and entertained and were ill or well or happy or frightened, according to the day's imaginative happenings. Sometimes Home was a castle, sometimes a Swiss Family Robinson cave, sometimes a store which transacted business after the fashion of Hamilton and Company. And in other more or less fixed spots and corners were Europe, to which the family voyaged occasionally; Niagara Falls--Mrs. Bailey's honeymoon had been spent at the real Niagara; the King's palace; the den of the wicked witch; Sherwood Forest; and Jordan, Marsh and Company's store in Boston.

Jimmie Bacheldor liked the garret well enough, but imagination was not his strongest quality and the best parlor had more charms for him.

In that parlor were the trophies of Captain Shadrach's seafaring days--whales' teeth, polished and with pictures of ships upon them; the model of a Chinese junk; a sea-turtle sh.e.l.l, flippers, head and all, exactly like a real turtle except, as Mary-'Gusta said, 'it didn't have any works'; a gla.s.s bottle with a model of the bark Treasure Seeker inside; an Eskimo lance with a bone handle and an ivory point; a cocoanut carved to look like the head and face of a funny old man; a Cuban machete; and a set of ivory chessmen with Chinese knights and kings and queens, all complete and set out under a gla.s.s cover.

The junk and the lance and the machete and the rest had a fascination for Jimmie, as they would have had for most boys, but for him the parlor's strongest temptation lay in the fact that the children were forbidden to play there. Zoeth and the Captain, having been brought up in New England families of the old-fashioned kind, revered their parlor as a place too precious for use. They, themselves, entered it not oftener than three times a year, and Isaiah went there only when he felt inclined to dust, which was not often. Shadrach had exhibited its treasures to the children one Sunday morning when Zoeth was at church, but he cautioned them against going there by themselves. "You'd be liable to break somethin'," he told them, "and some of them things in there you couldn't buy with money. They've been brought from pretty much everywheres in creation, those things have."

But, in spite of the warning, or because of it, Jimmie was, as Isaiah would have said, "possessed" to visit that parlor. He coaxed and teased and dared Mary-'Gusta to take advantage of the steward's stepping out of the house or being busy in the kitchen to open that parlor door and go in with him and peep at and handle the treasures. Mary-'Gusta protested, but young Bacheldor called her a coward and declared he wouldn't play with cowards and 'fraid-cats, so rather than be one of those detestable creatures she usually swallowed her scruples and followed the tempter.

It was a risk, of course, but a real adventure; and, like many adventurers, the pair came to grief. They took David into the parlor and the cat wriggled from its owner's arms, jumped upon the table, knocked the case containing the chessmen to the floor, and not only broke the gla.s.s but decapitated one of the white knights.

Even the mild Mr. Hamilton was incensed when Isaiah told the news at supper time. And Captain Shad, who had bought those chessmen at Singapore from the savings of a second mate's wages, lost patience entirely.

"Didn't I tell you young-ones not to go into that parlor?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir," admitted Mary-'Gusta, contritely.

"Yes, by fire, I did! And you went just the same."

"Yes, sir."

"And you fetched that everlastin'--er--Goliath in there, too. Don't you know you've been a bad girl?"

"Ye--yes, sir."

Zoeth protested. "She ain't a bad girl, Shadrach," he said. "You know she ain't."

"Well--er--maybe she ain't, generally speakin'. I cal'late 'twas that Bacheldor brat that was responsible; but just the same I ain't goin'

to have it happen any more. Mary-'Gusta, if you and that consarned--what's-his-name--Jimmie--go into that parlor again, unless Isaiah or one of us are with you, I--I--by the jumpin' Judas, me and Zoeth won't let you go to the Sunday school picnic. There! I mean that and so does Zoeth. Shut up, Zoeth! You do mean it, too. You know mighty well either your dad or mine would have skinned us alive if we'd done such a thing when we was young-ones. And," turning to the culprit, "if you fetch that cat in there, I'll--I'll--I don't know what I'll do."