He passed me Beanblossom's letter, back side up. There was a P.S., but it looked to me more like the finishin' knock on the head than it did like a life-saver. This was it:
"P.S. I have neglected to state another fact which my researches have brought to light and which makes the affair even more hopeless. My own ancestor, at that time Governor of the Colony, was the person who sentenced Ezekiel Pendlebury and caused him to be hanged."
"And that," says I, "is what you call a life-saver! My nine-times great-granddad has your nine-times great-granddad hung and that removes all my objections to marryin' you. Oh, sure and sartin! Yes, indeed!"
He smiled superior. "Listen, you doubtin' Thomas," says he. "You can't see it, but Sister Letitia saw it right off when I put Pullet's case afore her at the Hotel Somerset, where she was stoppin'. Her ancestor was a hog-stealer and a hobo; but Beanblossom's ancestor was a Governor and a nabob from way back. If by just sayin' yes you could swap a pig-thief for a governor, you'd do it, wouldn't you? You would if you'd been braggin' 'family' as Letitia has for the past three months. I saw her, turned on some of my convincin' conversation, saw Pullet at his cousin's and convinced him. They were married at Trinity parsonage this very forenoon."
"My! my! my!" I says, after this had really sunk in. "And the Pendlebury tree is—"
"There ain't any Pendlebury tree," he interrupts. "It's the kindlin'-bin for that shrub. But the Beanblossom tree, with governors and judges and generals proppin' up every main limb, is goin' to hang right next to Pa Pendlebury's picture in the mornin' room of Pendlebury Villa. And the head of Pendlebury Villa is the senior partner in the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store."
He was wrong there. Letitia Pendlebury Beanblossom had another surprise under her bonnet and she sprung it when she got back. She sent for Jacobs and me and made proclamation that her husband would withdraw from the firm.
"I trust that Mr. Beanblossom and I are democratic," she says. "Of course we shall continue to purchase our supplies from you gentlemen. But, really," she says, "you must see that a man whose ancestor by direct descent was Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony could scarcely humiliate himself by engaging in trade."
So, instead of gettin' out of storekeepin', I was left deeper in it than ever. But Jim Henry cheered me up by sayin' I hadn't really been in it at all yet.
"This foundlin' is only beginnin' to set up and take notice," he says. "Skipper, you put your faith in old Doctor Jacobs' Teethin' Syrup and Tonic for Business Infants."