not find out the secret, although he--"
She had evidently scratched out what followed, but Captain Cy mentally
filled in the blank with details of abuse and cruelty. "If anything
happens to me," concluded the widow, "I want the land sold and the money
used for Emily's maintenance as long as it lasts."

The captain went over to Orham and looked up the land. It was a strip
along the shore, almost worthless, and unsalable at present. The taxes
had been regularly paid each year by Mary Thomas, who had sent money
orders from Concord. The self-denial represented by these orders was not
a little.

"Never mind, Bos'n," said Captain Cy, when he returned from the Orham
trip. "Your ancestral estates ain't much now but a sand-flea menagerie.
However, if this section ever does get to be the big summer resort folks
are prophesying for it, you may sell out to some millionaire and you and
me'll go to Europe. Meantime, we'll try to keep afloat, if the Harniss
Bank don't spring a leak."

On the day following this conversation he took a flying trip to Ostable,
the county seat, returning the same evening, and saying nothing to
anyone about his reasons for going nor what he had done while there.

Bos'n's birthday was the eighteenth of November. The captain, in spite
of the warmth of his struggle for committee honors, determined to have a
small celebration on the afternoon and evening of that day. It was to be
a surprise for Emily, and, after school was over, some of her particular
friends among the scholars were to come in, there was to be a cake with
eight candles on it, and a supper at which ice cream--lemon and vanilla,
prepared by Mrs. Cahoon--was to be the principal feature. Also there
would be games and all sorts of fun.

Captain Cy was tremendously interested in the party. He spent hours with
Georgianna and the Board of Strategy, preparing the list of guests.
His cunning in ascertaining from the unsuspecting child who, among her
schoolmates, she would like to invite, was deep and guileful.

"Now, Bos'n," he would say, "suppose you was goin' to clear out and
leave this town for a spell, who--"

"But, Uncle Cyrus--" Bos'n's eyes grew frightened and moist in a moment,
"I ain't going, am I? I don't want to go."

"No, no! Course you ain't goin'--that is, not for a long while, anyhow,"
with a sidelong look at the members of the "Board," then present. "But
just suppose you and me was startin' on that Europe trip. Who'd you want
to