She was pointing to the estate adjoining the Barnes house and fronting the sea further on. “Estate” is a much abused term and is sometimes applied to rather insignificant holdings, but this one deserved the name. Great stretches of lawns and shrubbery, ornamental windmill, greenhouses, stables, drives and a towered and turreted mansion dominating all.
“I seem to have aristocratic neighbors, anyhow,” observed Mrs. Barnes. “Whose tintype belongs in THAT gilt frame?”
Captain Obed chuckled at the question.
“Why, nobody's just now,” he said. “There was one up to last fall, though I shouldn't have called him a tintype. More of a panorama, if you asked me—or him, either. That place belonged to our leadin' summer resident, Mr. Hamilton Colfax, of New York. There's a good view from there, too, but not as fine as this one of yours, Mrs. Barnes. When your uncle, Cap'n Abner, bought this old house it used to set over on a part of that land there. The cap'n didn't like the outlook so well as the one from here, so he bought this strip and moved the house down. Quite a job movin' a house as old as this one.
“Mr. Colfax died last October,” he added, “and the place is for sale. Good deal of a shock, his death was, to East Wellmouth. Kind of like takin' away the doughnut and leavin' nothin' but the hole. The Wellmouth Weekly Advocate pretty nigh gave up the ghost when Mr. Colfax did. It always cal'lated on fillin' at least three columns with the doin's of the Colfaxes and their 'house parties' and such. All summer it told what they did do and all winter it guessed what they was goin' to do. It ain't been much more than a patent medicine advertisin' circular since the blow struck. Well, have you looked enough? Shall we heave ahead and go aboard your craft, Mrs. Barnes?”
They walked on, down the little hill and up the next, and entered the front yard of the Barnes house. There were the marks in the mud and sand where the depot-wagon had overturned, but the wagon itself was gone. “Cal'late Winnie S. and his dad come around early and towed it home,” surmised Captain Obed. “Seemed to me I smelled sulphur when I opened my bedroom window this mornin'. Guess 'twas a sort of floatin' memory of old man Holt's remarks when he went by. That depot-wagon was an antique and antiques are valuable these days. Want to go inside, do you?”
Thankful hesitated. “I haven't got the key,” she said. “I suppose it's at that Badger man's in the village. You know who I mean, Cap'n Bangs.”
The captain nodded.
“Christopher S. H. Badger, tinware, groceries, real estate, boots and shoes, and insurance,” he said. “Likewise justice of the peace and first mate of all creation. Yes, I know Chris.”
“Well, he's been in charge of this property of mine. He collected the rent from that Mr. Eldredge who used to live here. I had a good many letters from him, mainly about paintin' and repairs.”