She understood a little of all this, and tried hard to understand the rest, preaching between times to Georgianna how "the bad men were trying to beat Uncle Cyrus because he was gooder than they, but they couldn't, 'cause everybody loved him so." Georgianna had some doubts, but she kept them to herself.
Among the things in Bos'n's "box" was a long envelope, sealed with wax and with a lawyer's name printed in one corner.

The captain opened it, at Emily's suggestion, and was astonished to find that the inclosure was a will, dated some years back, in which Mrs.Mary Thomas, the child's mother, left to her daughter all her personal property and also the land in Orham, Massachusetts, which had been willed to her by her own mother.
There was a note with the will in which Mrs.Thomas stated that no one save herself had known of this land, not even her husband.

She had not told him because she feared that, like everything else, it would be sold and the money wasted in dissipation.

"He suspected something of the sort," she added, "but he did not find out the secret, although he--" She had evidently scratched out what followed, but Captain Cy mentally filled in the blank with details of abuse and cruelty.

"If anything happens to me," concluded the widow, "I want the land sold and the money used for Emily's maintenance as long as it lasts." The captain went over to Orham and looked up the land.