Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper: A Story of Cape Cod

A Story of Cape Cod
1917
Of course, my dear, there is nobody but your Aunt Euphemia for you to go to!
Oh, daddy-professor! Nobody? Can we rake or scrape up no other relative on either side of the family who will take in poor little me for the summer? You will be home in the fall, of course.
That is the supposition, Professor Grayling replied, his lips pursed reflectively. No. Dear me! there seems nobody.
But Aunt Euphemia!
I know, Lou, I know. She expects you, however. She writes——
Yes. She has it all planned, sighed Louise Grayling dejectedly. Every move at home or abroad Aunt Euphemia has mapped out for me. When I am with her I am a mere automaton—only unlike a real marionette I can feel when she pulls the strings!
The professor shook his head. There's—there's only your poor mother's half-brother down on the Cape.
What half-brother? demanded Louise with a quick smile that matched the professor's quizzical one.
Why——Well, your mother, Lou, had an older half-brother, a Mr. Silt. He keeps a store at Cardhaven. You know, I met your mother down that way when I was hunting seaweed for the Smithsonian Institution. Your grandmother was a Bellows and her folks lived on the Cape, too. Her family has died out and your grandfather was dead before I married your mother. The half-brother, this Mr. Silt—Captain Abram Silt—is the only individual of that branch of the family left alive, I believe.
Goodness! gasped the girl. What a family tree!