"Best thing in the world, Isaiah," declared the Captain. "Sleep's what everybody needs and I can't think of any surer way of gettin' to sleep than readin' the South Harniss news in that paper."

Whether or not this unkind joke was deserved is not material; at all events Isaiah was reading the paper when he was very much startled by a knock at the door.

"Who--who is it?" he stammered.

"It is Mary," whispered a voice outside the door. "I want to speak with you, Isaiah. You're not in bed, are you?"

Isaiah reluctantly relinquished the paper. "No, no," he replied, "I ain't in bed. What's the matter? Zoeth ain't no worse, is he?"

"Let me in and I'll tell you."

"Come on in. You don't need no lettin'."

Mary entered. She was very grave and very earnest.

"What in the nation," began Isaiah, "are you prowlin' around this hour of the night for?"

"Hush! Isaiah, you must tell me everything now. There's no use to say you won't--you MUST. Who was Edgar Farmer and what wrong did he do my uncles?"

Isaiah said nothing; he did not attempt to answer. Instead he gaped at her with such an expression of guilty surprise, fright, and apprehension that at any other time she would have laughed. Just now, however, she was far from laughing.

"Come! come!" she said, impatiently. "I mean it. I want you to tell me all about this Edgar Farmer."

"Now--now, Mary-'Gusta, I told you--"

"You told me a very little. Now I want to know the rest. Everyone else in this family knows it and it is time I did. I'm not a child any more.

Tell me the whole story, Isaiah."

"I shan't neither. Oh, by G.o.dfreys, this is what I get by sayin' more'n I ought to! And yet how could I help it when I see that tintype? It's just my luck! n.o.body else but me would have had the dratted luck to have that picture stuck into their face and eyes unexpected. And 'twas just so when you found that other one years ago up attic. I had to be the one you sprung it on! I had to be! But I shan't tell you nothin'!"

"Yes, you will. You must tell me everything."

"Well, I shan't."

"Very well. Then I shall go straight to Uncle Shad."

"To who? To CAP'N SHAD! Oh, my G.o.dfreys mighty! You go to him and see what he'll say! Just go! Why, he'd shut up tighter'n a clam at low water and he'd give you fits besides. Go to Cap'n Shad and ask about Ed Farmer! My soul! You try it! Aw, don't be foolish, Mary-'Gusta."

"I'm not going to be foolish, Isaiah. If I go to Uncle Shad I shall tell him that it was through you I learned there was such a person as the Farmer man and that there was a secret connected with him, that it was a disagreeable secret, that--"

"Hush! Land sakes alive! Mary-'Gusta, DON'T talk so! Why, if you told Cap'n Shad he'd--I don't know what he wouldn't do to me. If he knew I told you about Ed Farmer he'd--I swan to man I believe he'd pretty nigh kill me!"

"Well, you'll soon know what he will do, for unless you tell me the whole story, I shall certainly go to him."

"Aw, Mary-'Gusta--"

"I surely shall. And if he won't tell me I shall go to someone outside the family--to Judge Baxter, perhaps. He would tell me, I'm sure, if I asked. No, Isaiah, you tell me. And if you do tell me all freely and frankly, keeping nothing back, I'll say nothing to Uncle Shad or Uncle Zoeth. They shall never know who told."

Mr. Chase wrung his hands. Ever since he had been cook at the white house by the sh.o.r.e he had had this duty laid upon him, the duty of keeping his lips closed upon the name of Edgar Farmer and the story connected with that name. When Captain Shadrach first engaged him for his present situation the Captain had ordered him never to speak the name or mention the happenings of that time. And after little Mary Lathrop became a regular and most important member of the family, the command was repeated. "She mustn't ever know if we can help it, Isaiah,"

said Shadrach, solemnly. "You know Zoeth and how he feels. For his sake, if nothin' else, we mustn't any of us drop a hint so that she will know.

She'll find out, I presume likely, when she gets older; there'll be some kind soul around town that'll tell her, consarn 'em; but WE shan't tell her; and if YOU tell her, Isaiah Chase, I'll--I declare to man I'll heave you overboard!"

And now after all these years of ignorance during which the expected had not happened and no one of the village gossips had revealed the secret to her--now, here she was, demanding that he, Isaiah Chase, reveal it, and threatening to go straight to Captain Gould and tell who had put her upon the scent. No wonder the cook and steward wrung his hands in despair; the heaving overboard was imminent.

Mary, earnest and determined as she was to learn the truth, the truth which she was beginning to believe might mean so much to her, nevertheless could not help pitying him.

"Come, come, Isaiah," she said, "don't look so tragic. There isn't anything so dreadful about it. Have you promised--have you given your word not to tell? Because if you have I shan't ask you to break it.

I shall go to Judge Baxter instead--or to Uncle Shad. But of course I shall be obliged to tell how I came to know--the little I do know."

Mr. Chase did not like the prospect of her going to the Captain, that was plain. For the first time his obstinacy seemed to waver.

"I--I don't know's I ever give my word," he admitted. "I never promised nothin', as I recollect. Cap'n Shad he give me orders--"

"Yes, yes, of course he did. Well, now I'M giving you orders. And I promise you, Isaiah, if it ever becomes necessary I'll stand between you and Uncle Shad. Now tell me."

Isaiah sat down upon the bed and wiped his forehead.

"Oh, Lordy!" he moaned. "I wisht my mouth had been sewed up afore ever I said a word about any of it. . . . But--but . . . Well," desperately, "what is it you want to know?"

"I want to know everything. Begin at the beginning and tell me who Mr.

Farmer was."

Mr. Chase marked a pattern on the floor with his slippered foot. Then he began:

"He come from up Cape Ann way in the beginnin'," he said. "The rest of the firm was Cape Codders, but he wan't. However, he'd been a-fishin'

and he knew fish and after the firm was fust started and needed an extry bookkeeper he applied and got the job. There was three of 'em in Hall and Company at fust, all young men they was, too; your stepfather, Cap'n Marcellus Hall, he was the head one; and Mr. Zoeth, he was next and Cap'n Shad next. 'Twan't until three or four year afterwards that Ed Farmer was took in partner. He was so smart and done so well they give him a share and took him in.

"Everybody liked him, too. He was younger even than the rest, and fine lookin' and he had a--a kind of way with him that just made you like him. The way the business was handled was somethin' like this: Cap'n Marcellus, your stepfather, Mary-'Gusta, he and Cap'n Shad done the outside managin', bossin' the men--we had a lot of 'em on the wharf them days, too, and there was always schooners unloadin' and carts loadin' up and fellers headin' up barrels--Oh, Hall and Company's store and docks was the busiest place on the South Sh.o.r.e. You ask anybody that remembers and they'll tell you so.

"Well, Cap'n Marcellus and Cap'n Shad was sort of outside bosses, same as I said, and Zoeth he was sort of general business boss, 'tendin' to the buyin' supplies and payin' for 'em and gettin' money and the like of that, and Ed--Edgar Farmer, I mean--he was inside office boss, lookin'

out for the books and the collections and the bank account and so on.

Marcellus and Zoeth and Cap'n Shad was old chums and had been for years; they was as much to each other as brothers and always had been; but it wan't so very long afore they thought as much of Farmer as they did of themselves. He was that kind--you couldn't help takin' a notion to him.

"When I get to talkin' about Hall and Company I could talk for a month of Sundays. Them was great days--yes, sir, great days for South Harniss and the fish business. Why I've seen, of a Sat.u.r.day mornin' in the mackerel season, as many as forty men ash.o.r.e right here in town with money in their pockets and their hats on onesided, lookin' for fun or trouble just as happened along. And Cap'n Marcellus and his partners was looked up to and respected; not much more'n boys they wan't, but they was big-bugs, I tell you, and they wore beaver hats to church on Sunday, every man jack of 'em. Fur's that goes, I wore one, too, and you might not think it, but 'twas becomin' to me if I do say it. Yes, sir-ee!

'Twas a kind of curl-up brim one, that hat was, and--"

"Never mind the hat now, Isaiah," interrupted Mary. "Tell me about Mr.

Farmer."

Isaiah looked offended. "I am tellin' you, ain't I?" he demanded. "Ain't I tellin' you fast as I can?"

"Perhaps you are. We won't argue about it. Go on."

"Well--well, where was I? You've put me clear off my course."

"You were just going to tell me what Mr. Farmer did."

"What he did! What didn't he do, you'd better say! The blackguard!

He smashed the firm flat, that's what he done! And he run off with Marcellus's sister."