"You know Margery?"
"Since she was about so high." He gestured toward his knees. "Used to go smelting with her father, Jack."
"I'm Charlie, friend of Margery's."
"Tucker," the man said. "Tucker Smollett."
"That's an old name."
"Smolletts go way back around here. Smolletts and Sewells, both." They stared into the graveyard. "You from around here, then?" He knew that Charlie was from away; he was being polite.
"Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine."
"Well, then." The world divides into people who have been hungry and those who haven't. Charlie felt himself grandfathered into the right camp. It was strange how some people you got along with and some you didn't. "I'll tell you one thing," Tucker said, "there weren't nobody smarter than Margery Sewell ever come out of here. She got prizes, awards—some kind of thing from the governor, even. Whoever he was. Can't recall."
Charlie nodded. "She's a professor—classics—Latin and Greek."
"It don't surprise me," Tucker said.