A little later he went off, and Mr. Norton and I were left alone. I set to work with a will, and he stood around watching me. “That’s easy enough,” he said, as I fed the grain into the hoppers. “I should think almost any one could do that.” “Feeding is easy enough, but there are a good many other things to learn, as you will soon see.” A little later Mr. Norton took a walk around the outside of the place. He was gone fully an hour, and when he came back he appeared to be quite uneasy. “Do you need anything from the village?” he asked. “We need a number of groceries,” I replied. “I wanted to get them day before yesterday, but Mr. Jackson wouldn’t let me have them until I settled up in full. I owe him three dollars yet.” “Well, you had better go down and get those groceries now. Let this grinding go till this afternoon or to-morrow. I want you to get me some――some tobacco.” “I will have to pay for all I get.” “Well, I will give you the money. Will two dollars do?” “I need but a dollar.” “Then here is a dollar and a quarter. Get me a quarter’s worth of plug-cut smoking. You needn’t hurry about getting back. Seeing what you’ve got on your mind you need a rest.” In ten minutes I was off in the sloop. Mr. Norton seemed to be very anxious to have me go, but for what reason I could not determine. “And remember you needn’t hurry back,” he called out as I hoisted the mainsail and stood off from the shore; “if any orders come in I will attend to them.” As I moved down the shore toward the Bend I reviewed my strange situation. How much had happened in the last forty-eight hours! I was far from satisfied with Mr. Norton――somehow I could not call him my uncle. I had expected my mother’s brother to be a different kind of a man. He would evidently make a hard guardian, and I was sure that for me there were many breakers ahead. As the sloop skimmed along far enough from the shore to catch the full benefit of the breeze that was blowing, I espied another craft anchored in a little cove a quarter of a mile below the mill. She was a stranger to me, and I wondered who owned her, and why her master had stopped at the spot, which was a rocky one, full of thorny bushes. Perhaps he had come for some geological specimens, which the visitors at Bayport were frequently after. The region was full of all kinds of stone, and I knew it was quite a fad to study them. I passed the craft, and continued on the way to Bend Center, arriving there in the middle of the forenoon. I found that the news of my father’s death had been widely circulated, and nearly every one I met came forward to extend a sympathy that went straight to my heart. I did not go to Mr. Jackson’s store, but to the “opposition,” as it is called in such places. This was kept by Mr. Frank Lewis, a young man, and one whom I found very obliging. It did not take me long to make my purchases. As I turned to go back to the boat I came face to face with Tom Darrow.