ennett's postoffice, an' ev'ry mornin' he
goes there an' gits another bunch o' letters that's come to him in the
mail. If that don't mean some sort o' business, I don't know what'n
thunder it _does_ mean."

"Nor I," said the girl, yawning again. "What about Ned Joselyn? Was he
nice?"

"Dressed like a dandy, looked like a fool, acted like the Emp'ror o'
Rooshy an' pleased ev'rybody by runnin' away. That is, ev'rybody but
his wife an' Ol' Swallertail."

"I see. Who else lives over your store?"

"I live there myself; me an' my fambly, in the back part. One o' the
front rooms I rents to Ol' Swallertail, an' he pays the rent reg'lar.
The other front room Miss Huckins, the dressmaker, lives in."

"Oh. I'm a dressmaker, too. Guess I'll go up and see her. Is she in?"

"When she's out, she leaves the key with me, an' the key ain't here.
Say, girl, what's yer name?"

"Josie."

"Josie what?"

"Jessup. Pa was a drayman. Ever hear of him?"

"No. But about the Hathaways; what has--"

"And you've got no red thread? Or green?"

"Only black an' white. Does the Colonel--"

"Can't use black or white," said the girl, deliberately getting off the
barrel. "Guess I'll go up and ask Miss Huckins if she has any red."

Out she walked, and old Sol rubbed his wrinkled forehead with a
bewildered look and muttered:

"Drat the gal! She's pumped me dry an' didn't tell me a word about them
Hathaway folks. She worse'n ol' Eben, the nigger help. Seems like
nobody wants t' talk about the Hathaways, an' that means there's
somethin' queer about 'em. But this red-headed sewin'-girl is a perfec'
innercent an' I'll git her talkin' yet, if she stays here long."

Meantime Josie mounted the stairs, which were boarded in at one end of
the building, being built on the outside to economize space, and
entered the narrow upper hallway. A chatter of children's voices in the
rear proclaimed that portion to be the quarters of the Jerrems family.
Toward the front was a door on which, in dim letters, was the legend:
"H. Cragg. Real Estate."

Here the girl paused to listen. No sound came from the interior of H.
Cragg's apartment. Farther along she found a similar door on which was
a card reading: "Miss Huckins, Dressmaker and Milliner." Listening
again, she heard the sound of a flatiron thumping an ironing board.

She knocked, and the door was opened by a little middle-aged woman who
held a hot flatiron in one hand. She was thin; she was bright-eyed;