“You can laugh,” Caleb scolded us; “you never saw her!”
“Old Jeremiah Hawes’ wife?”
“Her!” Caleb jabbed with his jack-knife as he spoke, as if he wished that it was the old lady he had under his blade.
“But I don’t see why the New Captain could not have married Mattie after his mother died. They must have lived a long time together in the House of the Five Pines after that.”
“Forty years is all. Same reason that he didn’t leave her nothin’. He was past the place where he wanted to.”
Caleb had finished what he was whittling now, and, as if he knew that Ruth carried all such things home to her children, he handed it to her with an apologetic smile. It was the hull of a little fishing-boat, with two masts and a rudder all in place.
We thanked him and backed out down the ladder.
Looking at the toy in the sunlight, Ruth exclaimed. The name of that fatal ship which had brought the little half-drowned French child to the sterile land of her adoption had been carved by the Winkle-Man upon this tiny model—Charles T. Smith.
“It must have looked just like that!” I cried.
“It’s like Caleb,” said Ruth, with her slow, fond smile.