This was Southport in summer, but in winter when the little harbor at the Cape was ice-bound, the winding road to the head of the island buried beneath drifts, and the people often for weeks at a time absolutely cut off from communication with the rest of the world, it was a place cheerless in its desolation. Like so many woodchucks then, the residents kept within doors, or only stirred out to cut wood, fodder the stock, and shovel paths so that the children could go to school. The days were short and the evenings long, and to get together and spend hours in labored conversation the only pastime. It was one of those long evenings, and when Aunt Lissy and Telly were at a neighbor's, and Uncle Terry, left to himself, was reading every line, including the advertisements, in the last "Boston Journal," that the following met his eye:
WANTED.--Information that will lead to the discovery of an heir to the estate of one Eric Peterson, a land-owner and shipbuilder of Stockholm, Sweden, whose son, with his wife, child, and crew, were known to have been wrecked on the coast of Maine, in March, 187-. Nothing has ever been heard of said Peterson or his wife, but the child may have been saved. Any one having information that will lead to the discovery of this child will be amply rewarded by communicating with
NICHOLAS FRYE, -- PEMBERTON SQUARE, BOSTON. _Attorney at Law._
"Wal, I'll be everlastin'ly gol darned!" he exclaimed after he had read it for the third time. "If this don't beat all natur, I'm a goat."
It was fortunate he was alone, for it gave him time to think the matter over, and after half an hour of astonishment he decided to say nothing to his wife or Telly.
"I'll jis' breathe easy an' sag up," he said to himself, "same as though I was crossin' thin ice, an' if nothin' comes on't nobody'll be the worse for worryin'."
Then he cut the slip out and hid it in his black leather wallet, and then wisely cut out the entire page and burned it.
"Wimmin are sich curis creeters they'd be sure to want to know what I'd cut out o' that page," he said to himself, "an' never rest till I told 'em."
When Aunt Lissy and Telly came home he was as composed as a rock and sat quietly puffing his pipe, with his feet on top of a chair and pointing towards the fire.