“I'm not raving. It's the truth. That sailor was Ansel Coffin. I watched with him and one night, the night before he died, he spoke Keziah's name. He spoke of New Bedford and of Trumet and of her, over and over again. I was sure who he was then, but I called in Ebenezer Capen, who used to know Coffin in New Bedford. And he recognized him. Nat, as sure as you and I are here this minute, Ansel Coffin, Aunt Keziah's husband, is buried in the Trumet cemetery.” CHAPTER XXI IN WHICH MR. STONE WASHES HIS HANDS Mr. Abner Stone, of Stone & Barker, marine outfitters and ship chandlers, with a place of business on Commercial Street in Boston, and a bank account which commanded respect throughout the city, was feeling rather irritable and out of sorts. Poor relations are always a nuisance. They are forever expecting something, either money--in Mr. Stone's case this particular expectation was usually fruitless--or employment or influence or something. Mr. Stone was rich, he had become so by his own ability and unaided effort. He was sure of that--often mentioned it, with more or less modesty, in the speeches which he delivered to his Sunday-school class and at the dinners of various societies to which he belonged. He was a self-made man and was conscious that he had done a good job. Therefore, being self-made, he saw no particular reason why he should aid in the making of others. If people were poor they ought to get over it. Poverty was a disease and he was no doctor. He had been poor once himself, and no one had helped him. “I helped myself,” he was wont to say, with pride. Some of his rivals in business, repeating this remark, smiled and added that he had been “helping himself” ever since. Mr. Stone had “washed his hands” of his cousin, Keziah Coffin, or thought he had. After her brother Solomon died she had written to him, asking him to find her a position of some kind in Boston. “I don't want money, I don't want charity,” wrote Keziah. “What I want is work. Can you get it for me, Abner? I write to you because father used to tell of what you said to him about gratitude and how you would never rest until you had done something in return for what he did for you.” Captain Ben Hall's kindness was the one thing Mr. Stone forgot when he said no one had ever helped him. He disliked to be reminded of it. It was a long while ago and the captain was dead. However, being reminded, he had called upon a friend in the tailoring line and had obtained for Keziah the place of sewing woman. She decided to become housekeeper at the Trumet parsonage and so notified him. Then he washed his hands of her. But now he was compelled to soil them again. Keziah had appeared at his office, without warning, and demanded that he find her a position. “Demanded” was the proper word. Certainly she had not begged. She seemed to feel that her demand was right and proper, and his acceding to it the least he could do.