“No, you bet he wouldn't; he'd—I don't know's he wouldn't come to hate you. And you mustn't say it to Cap'n Shad neither.”
The idea of being hated by Uncle Zoeth was a dreadful one and Mary-'Gusta avoided the tabooed subject. But she thought about it a good deal. She noticed that in neither of the two lots in the cemetery, one where the Goulds were buried and the other the Hamiltons, was a stone erected to the memory of the “beloved wife of Zoeth Hamilton,” although other beloved wives of the former generations were commemorated. This seemed odd. As her education progressed she read more and more and from her reading she built up several imaginative romances with Zoeth as the hero, and as the heroines beautiful creatures who had died young, in shipwreck, probably, and whose names were not to be mentioned because. . . . She could not find a satisfactory solution of the because. Shipwreck or burial at sea she deduced from the fact of there being no grave in the cemetery. Mothers and fathers of several of her schoolmates had been buried at sea. Perhaps the late Mrs. Hamilton had been so buried. But Zoeth had never been a seafaring man.
One Saturday afternoon—she was about ten years old at the time—she was in the garret. The garret had taken the place of the old surrey at Ostable, and thither she retired when she wished to be alone to read, or play, or study. This afternoon she was rummaging through the old trunks and sea chests in search of a costume for Rose. It was to be a masculine costume, of course, for there was no feminine apparel in that garret, but in the games which the girl played when alone with her dolls, Rose, the largest of the family, was frequently obliged to change her sex with her raiment.
Mary-'Gusta had ransacked these trunks and chests pretty thoroughly on previous occasions, but this time she made a discovery. In an old trunk which had obviously belonged to Captain Shadrach she found a sort of pocket on the under side of the lid, a pocket closing with a flap and a catch. In this pocket were some papers, old receipts and the like, and a photograph. The photograph interested her exceedingly. It was yellow and faded but still perfectly distinct.
There was a large building standing on posts fixed in the sand, and beyond it were wharves and a glimpse of schooners and the sea. Barrels, a good many barrels, were piled upon the wharves and at the end of the building. Over the door was the sign, “Hall and Company, Wholesale Fish Dealers.”
This sign of itself was interesting enough. Evidently here was the place where her stepfather and Captain Gould and Mr. Hamilton had done business years before. But more interesting still was the group of men standing on the platform under the sign. There were four of these men, dressed in clothes and hats which—especially the hats—looked queer and old-fashioned now. Two of the men Mary-'Gusta recognized, or thought she did. They were Captain Shadrach and Mr. Hamilton. Much younger they looked, of course; their hair was not gray and Zoeth wore a beard, while Shadrach had only a mustache. But, in spite of these things and the odd clothes they wore, she was sure she recognized them. And, having recognized them, she also recognized the man in the center of the group as her stepfather, Captain Marcellus Hall. The fourth man, evidently younger than the others, a handsome, square-shouldered chap in his shirtsleeves, she did not know.
She turned the photograph over. On its back was written:
Firm of Hall and Company. Taken August 19th, 1877.
Marcellus Hall
Zoeth J. Hamilton
Edgar S. Farmer
Shadrach B. Gould.
The names were in differing handwritings. Evidently each man had signed the photograph.
Mary-'Gusta scrutinized the photograph again. Then, with it in her hand, she descended to the kitchen. Isaiah was sitting in a chair by the stove reading a newspaper.