“Sellin' them Youngs a whole passel of stuff and lettin' 'em charge it up!” went on Shadrach. “They owe us enough now to keep a decent family all winter. Reg'lar town dead-beats, that's what they are. You couldn't get a cent out of Rastus Young if you were to run a dredge through him.”
Mr. Hamilton groaned remorsefully. “If I'd only stayed at home!” he said.
“If you'd stayed to home you'd have charged up the stuff just the same as she did. You're the softest thing, outside of a sponge, in this town. Anybody can impose on you, and you know it, Zoeth.”
Zoeth's habitual mildness gave way to resentment, mild resentment.
“Why, Shadrach,” he retorted, “how you talk! You was the one that charged up the last things Rastus's folks bought. You know you was.”
The Captain looked as if he had been caught napping.
“Well, what's that got to do with it?” he sputtered. “'Twasn't nothin' but some corn meal and a few yards of calico. How could I help chargin' it up, with that woman cryin' and goin' on about their havin' nothin' to eat nor wear in the house? I couldn't let 'em starve, could I? Nor freeze neither?”
“'Twas only last week she did it,” protested his partner. “Folks don't freeze in April, seems to me.”
“Aw, be still! Don't talk no more about it. By fire!” with a sudden change of subject and a burst of enthusiasm, “look at that horse, will you! Turned right in at the gate without my pullin' the helm once or sayin' a word—knows as much as a Christian, that horse does.”
The buggy had rocked and plowed its way over the hummocks and through the sand of the narrow lane and was at the top of a grass-covered knoll, a little hill. At the foot of the hill was the beach, strewn with seaweed, and beyond, the Sound, its waters now a rosy purple in the sunset light. On the slope of the hill toward the beach stood a low, rambling, white house, a barn, and several sheds and outbuildings. There were lilac bushes by the front door of the house, a clam-shell walk from the lane to that door, and, surrounding the whole, a whitewashed picket fence. A sandy rutted driveway led from the rear of the house and the entrance of the barn down to a big gate, now wide open. It was through this gateway and along this drive that the sagacious Major was pulling the buggy.