Bayport winters and Bayport small boys as best it might.

For years it stood empty. The weeds grew high about its foundations; the
sparrows built nests behind such of its shutters as had not been ripped
from their hinges by February no'theasters; its roof grew bald in spots
as the shingles loosened and were blown away; the swallows flew in and
out of its stone-broken windowpanes. Year by year it became more of a
disgrace in the eyes of Bayport's neat and thrifty inhabitants--for neat
and thrifty we are, if we do say it. The selectmen would have liked
to tear it down, but they could not, because it was private property,
having been purchased from the Howes heirs by the third Cy Whittaker,
Captain Cy's only son, who ran away to sea when he was sixteen years
old, and was disinherited and cast off by the proud old skipper in
consequence. Each March, Asaph Tidditt, in his official capacity as town
clerk, had been accustomed to receive an envelope with a South American
postmark, and in that envelope was a draft on a Boston banking house for
the sum due as taxes on the "Cy Whittaker place." The drafts were signed
"Cyrus M. Whittaker."

But this particular year--the year in which this chronicle begins--no
draft had been received. Asaph waited a few weeks and then wrote to the
address indicated by the postmark. His letter was unanswered. The taxes
were due in March and it was now May. Mr. Tidditt wrote again; then he
laid the case before the board of selectmen, and Captain Eben Salters,
chairman of that august body, also wrote. But even Captain Eben's
authoritative demand was ignored. Next to the harbor appropriation, the
question of what should be done about the "Cy Whittaker place" filled
Bayport's thoughts that spring. No one, however, had supposed that
the Honorable Heman might wish to buy it. Bailey Bangs's surprise was
excusable.