"Calm yourself, little mother; perhaps it will come to your mind if I ask you some other questions. Our grandfather, James Richards, came here from Pennsylvania, did he not?"
"Certainly, from about Lancaster. He always promised to take me to see our relatives there, but he never did. You know, son, I was his youngest child, and he was well past fifty when I was born. So he was an old man when I was grown up, and could not travel very much. He took me to the North twice, but each time, before we got around to our Pennsylvania friends, he was so tired out that he had to come straight home."
"Did you ever know anything about his family there?"
"Not much—nothing except what he told me in his last days. He used to talk about them a great deal then, but there was something that seemed to grieve and trouble him so much that I always did all I could to draw his mind away from the subject. Especially was this the case after the boys, your uncles, died. They led rough lives, and it hurt him terribly."
"Do you know whether he ever corresponded with any of our relatives at the North?"
"I think not. I am sure he did not after I was grown. He often spoke of it, but I am afraid there was some family trouble or disagreement which kept him from doing so. I remember in his last years he used frequently to speak of a cousin to whom he seemed to have been very much attached. He had the same name as father, who used to call him 'Red Jim.'"
"Was he then alive?"
"I suppose so—at least when father last heard from him. I think he lived in Massachusetts. Let me see, what was the name of the town. I don't remember," after a pause.
"Was it Marblehead?" asked the son, with some eagerness.
"That's it, dear—Marblehead. How funny that you should strike upon the very name?"