She and Georgie and Imogene spent Thanksgiving Day alone. Heman Daniels and Mr. Hammond were invited out and Captain Obed, who had meant to eat his Thanksgiving dinner at the High Cliff House, was called to Boston on business connected with his fish selling, and could not return in time.
Early in December Thankful once more drove to Trumet to call upon Solomon Cobb. The question of the renewal of the mortgage she felt must remain a question no longer. But she obtained little satisfaction from her talk with the money-lender. Mr. Cobb's first remark concerned the Holliday Kendrick offer to buy the “Cap'n Abner place.”
“Did he mean it, do you think?” he demanded. “Is he really so sot on buyin' as folks say he is?”
“I'm afraid so.”
“Huh! And he's hired his lawyer—that young cousin of his—Bailey Kendrick's son—to make you sell out to him?”
“Yes.”
“What's the young feller done about it; anything?”
“No; nothin' that I know of.”
“Humph! Sure of that, be ye? I hear he's been spendin' consider'ble time over to Ostable lately, hangin' round the courthouse, and the probate clerk's office. Know what he's doin' that for?”
“No, I didn't know he had. How did you know it?”