“But I don’t know,” was all the woman could answer. “The only way in the world to find it is to dig up that pouch.”
“But even if you can’t remember the new address tell me one of the old ones,” he pleaded. “I’ll take a chance on writing there and having it forwarded.”
But the woman could not recall the name of a single city. South America, Australia, New Zealand, she remembered he had been in those countries, but that was all. Richard, upon being cross-questioned again, “b’leeved” the stamp was from Siam or China but couldn’t be certain which.
“Here comes Henry!” exclaimed the woman in a relieved tone. “Maybe he’ll remember.”
Henry, a tall, raw-boned man with iron-gray hair under his Texas sombrero, in his shirt sleeves and with his after-dinner pipe still in his mouth, came leisurely out of the woods, leading the horses. They were already harnessed, ready to be hitched to the wagon. He backed them up to the tongue and snapped the chains in place before he paused to give the strangers more than a passing nod of greeting. Then he came around to the side of the wagon nearest the machine, and putting one foot up on a spoke of his front wheel, leaned over in a listening attitude, while the whole story was repeated for his benefit.
“So you’re his father,” he said musingly, looking at Uncle Darcy with shrewd eyes that were used to appraising strangers.
“Who ever would a thought of coming across Dave Daniels’ tracks up here on old Cape Cod? You look like him though. I bet at his age you were as much alike as two peas in a pod. I never did know where he hailed from. He was a close-mouthed chap. But I somehow got the idea he must have been brought up near salt water. He talked so much sailor lingo.”
“Put on your thinking-cap, Henry,” demanded his wife. “The gentlemen wants to know where that last letter was written from, what the postmark was, or the address inside, or what country the stamp belonged to. And if you don’t know that, what are some of the other places he wrote to us from?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree when you ask _me_ any such questions,” was the only answer he could give. “I didn’t pay any attention to anything but the reading matter.”
Questions, surmises, suggestions, everything that could be brought up as aids to memory were of no avail. Henry’s memory was a blank in that one important particular. Finally, Mr. Milford took two five-dollar gold pieces out of his pocket and a handful of small change which he dropped into the woman’s lap despite her protests.