Zoeth answered.  “I guess maybe you’d better read it, Judge,” he said.  “I don’t cal’late Shadrach nor me are capable of readin’ much of anything just this minute.  You read it.  Shadrach, you be still now and listen.”

The Captain opened his mouth and raised a hand.  “Be still, Shadrach,” repeated Zoeth.  The hand fell.  Captain Gould sighed.

“All right, Zoeth,” he said.  “I’ll keep my batch closed long’s I can.  Heave ahead, Judge.”

The letter was a long one, covering several sheets of foolscap.  It began: 

To Shadrach, Gould and Zoeth Hamilton, my old partners and friends.

DEAR SHAD AND ZOETH: 

I am writing this to you because I have known you pretty much all my life and you are the only real friends I have got in this world.

“I was his friend, or I tried to be,” commented Baxter, interrupting his reading; “but he considered you two, and always spoke of you, as his oldest and nearest friends.  He has often told me that he knew he could depend on you.  Now listen.”

The letter went on to state that the writer realized his health was no longer good, that he was likely to die at any time and was quite reconciled.

I should be glad to go [Captain Hall had written], if it was not for one thing.  Since my wife was took from me I care precious little for life and the sooner it ends the better.  That is the way I look at it.  But I have a stepdaughter, Mary Augusta Lathrop, and for her sake I must stick to the ship as long as I can.  I have not been the right kind of father to her.  I have tried, but I don’t seem to know how and I guess likely I was too old to learn.  When I go she won’t have a relation to look out for her.  That has troubled me a lot and I have thought about it more than a little, I can tell you.  And so I have decided to leave her in your care.  I am hoping you will take charge of her and bring her up to be a good girl and a good woman, same as her mother was before her.  I know you two will be just the ones for the job.

“Jumpin’ fire!” broke in Shadrach, the irrepressible.

“Hush, Shadrach,” continued Mr. Hamilton.  “Go on, Judge.”

Baxter continued his reading.  The letter told of the will, of the property, whatever it might be, left in trust for the child, and of the writer’s desire that it might be used, when turned into money, for her education.  There were two pages of rambling references to stocks and investments, the very vagueness of these references proving the weakening shrewdness and lack of business acumen of Captain Hall in his later years.  Then came this: