The old man could not abide Gertrude (nor she him). To his mind, she was born with a strike against her: She was a Quaker, and Quakers had peculiar notions. He agreed with some of her notions, at least those not Quaker in origin. Woman’s suffrage, for example; if Negroes had the right to vote, then so should women. But Gertrude went too far. She always went too far. She had gone too far in her divorce suit, she went too far in this business of female emancipation, advocating that women had a right to hold jobs as well as to vote, and she went much too far, speaking out on the right of working men to form unions. That rankled Dad the most. The rights of labor would be safeguarded by men like him, he fulminated, slamming fist into palm; by good Christian men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom had entrusted control of the nation’s capital, and not by socialists and agitators. Certainly not by the likes of Gertrude Williams, whose chief transgression, in his eyes, was to vocally support the quarrymen during the big strike of ’99. He prized loyalty above all things: loyalty to country, to God and family, to shipmates and friends. How could Gertrude claim to be Mother’s friend and then write letters to the editors of the Camden and Portland newspapers, declaring that the men employed by her friend’s husband had a right to walk off their jobs, a right to overtime, a right to unionize? She had stabbed him in the back, betrayed him and all those men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom had entrusted, et cetera.

The launch, its short stack smoking, its single piston banging with monotonous rhythm, chugged toward Double Eagle. Nathaniel went below, into a main cabin redolent with the aroma of coffee, roused Eliot and Drew, and while they heaved out of their bunks, gave his hair a quick brushing and put on a shirt. When he returned to the deck, the launch pilot, a boy not much older than himself, swung the tiller hard over and eased alongside.

“Good morning, Nathaniel.”

“Morning, Mrs. Williams,” he answered, and extended a hand to help her aboard.

“No need of that. Got my health skirt on, health corset, too.” Gertrude slapped her midriff with a fishwife’s gusto, and Constance chided, “Mother!”

Gertrude Williams grabbed a stanchion, stretched out a leg, showing a flicker of petticoat, and hauled herself on board. Will handed her parasol to her, then passed a wicker picnic hamper to Nathaniel.

“We’re going to Camden first, my aunt has some business there,” he said, smoothing his mussed hair with both hands. “Then we’ll all have a fine time—suitably chaperoned, of course.”

“Hello, Natty, and bye for now.” Constance, with a coy smile, raised her palm and curled her fingers in a coy wave. “See you there.”