CHAPTER XIII.THE BASKET-MAKER.IT was a glad day to Ned, when he had so far recovered that the surgeon, yielding to his solicitations, told him he might go on board the vessel, spend most of the day, and come back at night.The fisherman’s house was not far from the pier. Walter and Peterson made a chair, by taking hold of each other’s wrists, and Ned, seated on it, with an arm round each of their necks, was taken on board.The weather was warm, and some blankets from Walter’s berth were spread on the hen-coop, and a pillow placed so that Ned could lie down or sit up, as he chose, see what was going on, and chat with his shipmates, who were all rejoiced to see him on board again. Peterson prepared his dinner, but Ned wanted to eat with the rest, itseemed so much more sociable, having been compelled for so long a time to eat alone.It was just after dinner; Ned was sitting, propped up with pillows, the captain seated near by, watching him, when he noticed an old man, apparently over sixty years of age, in seaman’s dress, coming along the gangway plank. His hair, where it came outside his tarpaulin, was gray; he stooped very much, appearing feeble, and bore on his back a large number of articles manufactured of willows, and strung together by a cord.Approaching the captain, he deposited the bundle on the deck, evidently much fatigued, and asked, in English, if he would like to buy any of his work—market-baskets, knife-baskets, table-mats, ladies’ work-baskets, and many articles, merely ornamental, of superior workmanship and most beautifully stained.There was something in his whole demeanor that was both modest and prepossessing—quite the reverse of street-venders in general.“There,” said he, “is a market-basket that would be very handy on board ship; and here,”—producing a basket nearly square, and with partings in it for tumblers,—“is an article that wouldbe very convenient on a cabin table, or in a ship’s pantry. Many of my articles are made for vessels’ use, as I deal much with seafaring men.”Arthur Brown, who was of quick sympathies, was interested in the old gentleman, and touched by seeing a man of his years, apparently infirm, thus employed, felt inclined to converse, especially as he spoke English.“This is beautiful work,” he observed. “I have seen a great deal of it in England and Germany, where excellent work is made, but never any superior to this. You are surely master of your business.”“I should be, considering I have been at it for the greater part of my life since I was twelve years old, and we have no knowledge that any of our ancestors were ever anything but weavers of sallies,—that’s what we call the rods the baskets are made of.”“You seem infirm. Have you been sick?”“No, captain; I am worn down with wounds and hardships, but, most of all, with a sore heart.”“Then you’ve been a soldier?”“No, sir; a sailor. I was born in Lincolnshire, England, in the fens. There my forefathers alllived and followed their trade. A happier man, sir, the sun never shone upon than myself. I had an affectionate wife,—a right godly woman, and thrifty,—and three children. I employed four, sometimes five men. My oldest child was a boy. He worked in the shop. We paid our rent easy, and were getting along nicely, when, in the midst of all this happiness, I was pressed, torn from my family, and put aboard a hulk. Wouldn’t you think, sir, that would break a man down?”“I should, indeed, my friend,” replied Captain Brown, greatly moved, “and I feel for you, from the bottom of my heart.”The tears were running down little Ned’s cheeks as he sat propped up on the hen-coop.“It must have been long ago,” continued the captain.“Not so very long, sir. Only about ten years.”“Indeed!”“How old might you take me to be, sir?”“Sixty, or thereabouts.”“I am but forty-seven. Ought to be in my prime. But O, sir, to have a wife and family, and be forever separated from them, in a strange land, and not know whether they are dead or alive, orwhether they are in distress or not,—only to know that they are dead to you, and you to them,—it keeps gnawing at the heart-strings.”“It must, indeed. But how did you get clear from the navy?”“It was near the close of the American war. The frigate I belonged to was in action with a French seventy-four. I was wounded and flung overboard for dead. The cold water revived me, and I clung to the wreck of our spars, which were shot away. The French vessel won the battle, being a much heavier ship. I was picked up, brought ashore at Toulon, and lay a long time in the hospital, wishing for death; but I recovered, and since then have, though feeble, made a living by my trade. The people here are very kind.”“What is your name, my friend?”“Bell—John Bell, sir.”“Why, that is the name of the man who built this vessel, and is part owner.”“Indeed, sir, I hope he is a happier man than I am.”“He is a happy man, and deserves to be, for he tries to make others happy.”The captain bought a good many articles of thebasket-maker, and then sent him forward among the crew, who purchased so largely that there remained but very little to carry away. Peterson bought a work-basket for Captain Rhines’s wife, and Enoch Hadlock another for old Mrs. Yelf.Walter was away, for, as he could speak French, the captain had sent him to make some purchases for him. Walter, indeed, had plenty of business in this way, being spokesman for all hands.The captain insisted upon the basket-maker stopping to supper; but something in his appearance prevented him from offering him money as a gift,—he felt it might wound his feelings,—but he gave him a cordial invitation to come on board and eat or sleep, whenever his business led him in that direction. The next night, when Walter went over to see Ned, he mentioned the circumstance of the basket-maker’s coming on board, showed him his purchases, and told him he was an Englishman, and that his name was Bell. This excited Walter’s curiosity. He inquired further about it, and Ned, who had been deeply touched by the man’s pitiful story, repeated the whole conversation between him and the captain, word for word. When he concluded, Walter sat for a fewmoments, with his hands clasped over his knees, as though striving to recall something.At length he said, “Ned Gates, as sure as you are lying on that bed, the basket-maker is our Charlie Bell’s father.”“Charlie Bell’s father?” said Ned, sitting bolt upright, and then screaming at the twinge the effort occasioned, because of his wound.“Yes, Charlie Bell’s father.”“But the man is an Englishman.”“So is Charlie Bell.”“I never knew that before.”“He was an English boy; came to Elm Island as poor as he could be, with some bad men,—but he didn’t know they were bad when he started,—that came to rob; but they came to the wrong place, for Lion Ben most killed ‘em, kept the boy, and brought him up. I’ve heard our Joe and Mr. Williams tell about it a thousand times.”“What if it should turn out to be so?”“I tell you it is so; I’m certain sure it is. His father was a basket-maker, and was pressed; I heard Mr. Williams say so; and when they were boys, Charlie, Mr. Bell, and John Rhines used to make baskets, and Mr. Williams sold ‘em at the mill;and when I first went to tend store for him, there were some of ‘em in the store.”“If your Joe or Mr. Williams were only here, we could ask them, and know all about it.”“Yes, Joe, they said, used to live on Elm Island half the time before he was married. I remember another thing Joe said.”“What is that?”“He said he made baskets of willows, and colored them red, blue, and green, real handsome, and said that was the way they did in England.”“But the basket-maker said, if I remember right, that it was about ten years ago, and that his son was large enough to work in the shop at light work. O, Walter, wouldn’t I be glad, and wouldn’t the captain be glad (when Mr. Bell saved our lives), to be the means of taking his father home to him?”“Don’t you think somebody else would be glad too, you little monkey, you?”“The boys didn’t sleep much that night, having worked each other up to such a state of excitement. In the morning Walter went on board, full of the news, and opened the whole matter to the captain, who was as much astonished as Ned; beingentirely ignorant of the antecedents of Charlie, he supposed him a native of the country. After patiently listening with the deepest interest to all that Walter had to say, he acknowledged that the probabilities were very strong, but, much less sanguine, did not express a very decided opinion.“He said he had a wife and three children,” observed the captain; “what became of them? were they ever at Elm Island?”Walter had never heard them mentioned; but he was very young when Charlie came to Elm Island, and might not have heard half that occurred. Captain Brown turned the matter over in his mind, and conversed with Walter, who daily recollected some fresh corroborating circumstance, till at length he determined, the next time the basket-maker came on board, to broach the matter to him, even at the risk of exciting unfounded hopes. Day after day they expected his appearance; but he came not. Walter searched the streets and piers, but in vain.The time of year now drew on when periodical gales were expected, and the vessel would be likely to go to sea.“He may be sick, Walter,” said Ned; “for he looked pale and half sick the day he was aboard.”“He may be dead,” said Walter; “and we never should know it, in this great city. I wish I had seen him; if he was Charlie Bell’s father, I could tell; I know I could see something of the look.”“I saw, when he pulled his hat off,” said Ned, “that his hair, where it was not gray, is the same color as Charlie’s.”CHAPTER XIV.A STRANGE DISCOVERY.CAPTAIN BROWN had employed Jacques Bernoux, the French fisherman, to get the spy-glass Walter had forgotten and left on the rock, and he came on board, one morning, to bring it.“Do you know a man who goes about the piers and streets selling baskets? an old man, and an Englishman?” said Walter.“John Bell?”“That’s the name.”“Yes; pass his place every day going to my boat.”“Will you ask him to come on board the vessel to-morrow?” asked the captain.“Yes, sir.”Early the next morning the basket-maker made his appearance with a large burden of baskets; he had been so engaged manufacturingthat it kept him out of the streets—the reason that Walter couldn’t find him.The captain, taking him into the cabin, said, “My friend, when you was here, a few days ago, you gave me some particulars of your life. This young man, Mr. Griffin, my mate, was not present; but having heard what then passed between us, he has not a doubt but that Charles Bell, who built and is part owner of this vessel, is your oldest son. As for myself, residing in another part of the country, I have no personal knowledge of the circumstances; but I must say that as related by him, they seem to me most probable. But you can hear what he has to say about it, and judge for yourself.”While the captain was speaking, the basket-maker became very pale, trembled, and big tears rolled down his hollow cheeks.“For the sake of Heaven, captain,” he exclaimed, “do not raise in this sad heart hopes that may have no foundation. I’ve made up my mind to endure the worst, as God shall give me strength, till I lay these bones in the grave.”“I am the last person to do that; but I have been turning the subject over in my mind eversince you were here last, and the more I reflect upon the young man’s story, the more the probability of it grows upon me.”The basket-maker, hearing these words, made a sign to Walter, who gave him substantially the same statement he had made to Ned and the captain. The old man was deeply affected; he evidently saw strong grounds for believing the person described was his child, but was fearful of cherishing a premature hope.“I can bear what I have borne,” he said, “but the disappointment would drive me mad. You say, young man, that you have known this person intimately?”“Yes, sir, as well as it’s possible for one person to know another.”“And that his name is Charles?”“Yes, sir.”“What’s his age?”“I think about twenty-three.”“My son, if living, would be twenty-three next Michaelmas. What sort of a looking man is this Charles Bell?”“Hair, eyes, and complexion just like yours, but he is not so large a man as you are.”“Those are the features of my boy,” replied the old man, evidently gaining confidence as he continued his inquiries.“You say you didn’t know this Charles Bell when he first came to Elm Island, and this Mr. Rhines and his wife took him.”“No, sir; I was too young; but I’ve heard my brother talk about it.”“My boy,” said the old man, “was a most loving boy, very much attached to his mother. I don’t believe he would leave her and his brother and sister. You never heard him mention his parents or family—did you?”“This Charles Bell’s mother is dead. I never heard him speak of any brother or sister.”“How do you know his mother is dead?”“Because, sir, he went to St. John’s two or three years ago, brought her body from there, and buried it on his place, under an elm tree—a beautiful spot. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”The old man’s countenance fell. “It cannot be,” he said, “that my wife, with young children and small means, would leave England, and all her and my relations, and go to the colonies; and yet the time, circumstances, and personal appearance of the young man tally precisely.”“I know it’s your son,” said Walter; “nobody can make me believe it ain’t. He looks as much like you as my two hands look alike, saving the difference in age, and his voice is like yours.”“Do you expect to come here again, captain?”“Yes, if we get off clear this time, and can run the gantlet. You know it is all luck and chance with us.”“I can send a letter by you, and that will remove all doubts, and settle the whole matter.”“But I hoped you would feel sure enough to take passage with us. You can do better in the States than here.”“I could not bear to go over there expecting to meet a son, and be disappointed. I’m making a very good living here.”“I think you’d better go.”“Well, captain, I’ve about as much as I can carry at present, and am somewhat confused. I will go about my regular business the rest of the day; that will steady my mind; and perhaps I may think of some question that this young man can answer, that will throw more light on the matter; and I will be on board again in the morning.”Resisting all solicitations to stop to dinner, the old man departed with his load.“I know it’s his son,” said Walter, as they were eating dinner. “I feel it in my bones, and I think we ought to persuade him to go.”“I have not much doubt,” replied the captain. “People are always emigrating from England to St. John’s and Canada. Her relatives might have gone, and taken her with them. I shall persuade him in the morning to go, if I can.”The second mate, who was a Marblehead man, and had listened to the conversation, now inquired, “Don’t all this crew belong right there? and wouldn’t they be likely to know more about it than Mr. Griffin? Most of them are much older than he is.”“To be sure they would,” cried Walter. “There’s Danforth Eaton helped clear Elm Island when Charlie Bell first came there; then there’s Peterson, and Enoch Hadlock,—what a ninny I was not to think of that before he went away!—there’s notoneof them but knows more about hisfirstcoming there than I do.”Leaving his dinner, Walter ran forward, and soon returned, saying that Eaton knew all about it.When John Bell came on board the next morning, he seemed calm, collected, and much more hopeful. Sending for Eaton, the captain said to him, “Eaton, I want you to tell us all you know about Charles Bell’s coming to Elm Island, and about his parents, if you know or have heard anything about them, and I want you to begin at the bottom.”“What I know, cap’n, isn’t hearsay, but I had it all from his own lips.”“So much the better.”“You see, cap’n, about that time there was some Tories come up from the provinces—”“We know,” said the captain, interrupting him, “how he got to the island; but what we are most concerned to ascertain is, who his parents were, and how he came into the hands of those pirates (for they were no better) who brought him to Elm Island. Can you tell us anything about that?”“Reckon I kin tell you all about it; but I must tell it in my own way. If you keep putting in and interrupting me, I shall get all mixed up.”“Well, go on.”“You see, arter this boy come on the island,Lion Ben he hires me and Joe Griffin, the next winter, to cut spars and clear land. Charlie Bell was a little, slender, half-starved, pitiful-looking creatur’, then, but he was willing and clever, and soon begun to pick up. Most of the winter he drove the team; but along in March, when it was bad hauling, he helped me chop. I tapped a maple, to have sap to drink while I was chopping. One day we comes into the woods arter dinner, and before we went to work, sot down by the sap tree, in the sun. I sets on a stump, same as where that stool is, and he on another, same as where that old gentleman is setting. I takes a good drink of the sap, and hands the dipper to him; says I, ‘Charlie, tell me your history, or part of it, like as you did Joe and Fred Williams.’ He didn’t want ter, but I coaxed him. Then he said, the way his father come to be pressed, was all through another man, that courted his mother when she was a gal, but she liked his father better; he couldn’t give her up, and allers hild that old grudge agin his father. He said his father had agreed to work for the government, and if he had only got his name on the roll, couldn’t have been touched any more than if he had been a peer of the kingdom.This feller, I forget his name—” “Robert Rankin,” said the basket-maker. “That’s it, old man, by jingo,—who thought, if he was out of the way, he could get her, after all,—told the press-gang, and they took him as he was on the road to the place where he would have been safe.”The tears were streaming down John Bell’s cheeks, and his hands were lifted in gratitude to Heaven; but he would not interrupt Eaton by a question.“He said, soon arter his father was gone, he was killed in an action, and his mother carried on the business for a while; but this feller kept prosecutin’ her, and wantin’ her to have him, till she couldn’t stand it any longer. So she packed up everything, and went to St. John’s, where she had a brother; but when she got there, he’d gone to furrin parts, and she took sick and died. Then the boy, destitute and wandering about the streets and docks to pick up a living, fell inter the hands of them are reprobates, thinking they were honest fishermen, and went cook for them. The rest you say you know. Good as a story-book—ain’t it?”“Eaton,” said the captain, sternly, “this is Mr. Bell’s father.”“Hisfather! Then he wasn’t killed. I didn’t dream of that, or I shouldn’t have spoken like as I did. I see now he favors him.”“Did he tell you,” asked the father, “what became of the other children?”“I axed him if there was any more of ‘em. He said his mother’s relations took ‘em.”There was an oppressive pause in the conversation after Eaton had gone forward. John Bell sat with his handkerchief over his face, while the others, respecting his emotions, were silent.“No doubt, there can be none,” he said, at length, “that my poor wife is dead—God only knows what she suffered, in poverty and among strangers; that two of my children—whether alive or dead I know not—are in England, and that the other is in America. I may yet seehim. I ought to be thankful for that.”“Your son, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “is well to do; able to provide you with every comfort; and, what is more, respected and beloved.”“And he owns land?”“Yes; six hundred acres.”“That seems like a dream to me, for none of our folks ever owned a foot of land. I always lovedthe earth, and loved to work on it, even when it was the freehold of another. I feel there may yet be some happiness in store for me.”“You are not an old man yet, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “and good news and good spirits will make you ten years younger; so bring all your things on board, and prepare to go with us, the first gale that scatters the blockaders.”“I don’t suppose there is any doubt now. I know there can’t be. Still, you know a person in my situation feels they can’t be too certain; and there is just one thing more that has come to mind since I was here. I would like to ask of this young man whether he ever noticed any scar on my son’s face.”“Yes, sir,” replied Walter; “it is on his right jaw, and close to his ear,—runs up behind the ear, into his hair.”“Then I’ll indulge no more in doubt. It would be ungrateful. I never shall forget when he received the cut that made that scar, it frightened me so. Though it was long ago, it seems but the other day.”“How did it happen, Mr. Bell?” asked Walter.“I suppose you never saw any basket rods growing?”“No, sir.”“In England, we plant them in rows, three feet apart, and as straight as an arrow. They grow seven or eight feet high, and make a nice place for the children to play. I was cutting the sallies with a large knife, as sharp as a razor. My little children, with their cousins, who had come to see them, were playing hide-and-seek among the rows, when Charlie ran in the way of my knife, and I cut a dreadful gash in his cheek, that made that scar. And now I will leave you, and make my preparations for the voyage.”“Not till you have taken dinner with us,” said the captain; “and, Mr. Bell, I expect you to make the vessel your home, and sleep here whenever it suits your convenience.”“Thank you, captain. My quarters on shore are not so spacious or elegant that I should feel inclined to refuse so handsome and hearty an offer.”When the meal was concluded, Mr. Bell went on shore.“Only see,” said Walter, looking after him, as he went up the pier, “how quick he steps, and how much straighter he is.”“There’s a new heart in him,” said the captain. “He’s something to live for and look forward to now. In a week’s time he’ll be another man. As far as I am concerned, I had rather carryhimhome, than the richest cargo. And now, Mr. Griffin, run up and tell the good news to Ned.”CHAPTER XV.HOMEWARD BOUND.NED had of late recovered rapidly, could walk quite well, and was on board the vessel very often, and went about the city some; but the doctor advised that he should not go on board the vessel to live till she was ready to sail. Ned had not seen Walter since his promotion, but Peterson had been up and informed him of it.“Well, Ned,” said Walter, as he entered the room, “it has turned out just as I told you it would; the basket-maker is Charlie’s father, and no mistake.”“I am so glad, Mr. Griffin! and he will go back with us—won’t he?”“Ned, my boy, just leave that handle off, and call me Walter, as you always did. It makes me sick.”“But you are mate now; Peterson told me so.”“What of that? When we are on board ship, call me what you like; but not when we are alone, as we are now, you little monkey,” patting his cheek.“We shan’t sleep together any more,” said Ned, in a desponding tone.“No, Ned, I shall have to live aft; and that is not the worst of it; we shall now be in different watches.”“I know it. I shall be in Mr. Baxter’s watch. And we used to have such good times in our watch on deck, talking about home, Pleasant Cove, and all the folks there. Walter, who do you like best of all the folks there, out of your own family?”“Charlie Bell.”“So do I, and well I might. He saved my life. Ain’t he handsome?”“Yes; and just as good as he is handsome. A first rate wrestler—there’s none of the young ones can throw him but John Rhines and Ben Peterson.”“What, this Ben aboard here?”“Yes.”“I’m afraid, if I call you Walter all the timewhen we are alone, that I shall forget to put the Sir on sometimes before the men.”“If you do, I shan’t hit you on the head with a belaying pin.”“I tell you what I could do, Walter.”“What?”“I might swap watches with Enoch Hadlock. He is in your watch.”“Yes, youcould, but I wouldn’t.”“Why not? Then we should be in the same watch again, and we could walk the deck, and talk, and have good times together, as we used to.”“I’ll tell you, Ned; if you should swap watches with Hadlock, and get into my watch, it would make trouble. If I happened to give you a soft job, and somebody else a hard one, they would say I was partial—made fish of one, and flesh of another.”“I never thought of that.”“We shouldn’t be together any more for being in the same watch. You would be forward, and I should be aft.”“Shouldn’t we be together when it was my trick at the helm?”“Yes, but we couldn’t talk. It is against therules of the ship, and very unseamanlike, for an officer, or anybody, to make talk with a man at the helm. You couldn’t come aft to talk with me, and if I should go forward to talk with you, it would make growling directly, and set all the men against you.”“I see how it is,” said Ned, sadly. “The good times are all over. There’s going to be a great, high, solid wall, reaching clear up to the sky, built right up between us.”“O, not so bad as that, Ned. There will be cracks and chinks in it, where we can peek through, and boys must change into men some time or other.”“I suppose so, Walter; but I wish the change had not come quite yet.”“I wish so, too. There’s time enough for me these some years yet. But it would never have done for me to refuse the berth when it was offered me. It would have looked as though I did not know how to appreciate kind treatment, and I should never have had another offer. We can’t have everything and keep everything.”The ambitions, cares, and responsibilities of practical life lay a ruthless hand upon the sympathiesand yearnings of young hearts, and the conversation of the boys may, to the minds of older persons who read these pages, recall similar experiences, when the relations of master and servant were rudely thrust between playfellows and near friends.“Cheer up, Ned,” said Walter, noticing the downcast looks of his friend; “we will sleep together once more, at any rate. I’m going to stay here to-night, and take you aboard with me in the morning; that’s the order.”When they were snug in bed, Ned lay for a long time silent. Walter thought him asleep, and had just begun to doze himself, when he was roused by Ned exclaiming, abruptly, “I’m sure I shouldn’t want to be a king.”“Nor I either; I don’t believe in ‘em; but what in the world has put that into your head just now?”“Well, I have been thinking over all the good times we’ve had when we were in the same watch, slept in the same berth, and ate out of the same kid. In good weather we could sit side by side under the lee of the boat, or under the rail, and talk and enjoy ourselves. In our forenoonwatch below, we could comb each other’s hair, tie our cues, read and study navigation; then, being in the same watch, we always got liberty ashore together. Right in the midst of all these good times comes up this chief mate’s affair, takes you right away from me, and sticks you up on the quarter-deck. It’s no longer Ned and Walter; O, no; it’s Mr. Griffin and Gates. I can’t speak to you, for fear the men should think I was currying favor; you can’t speak to me, lest there should be growling about partiality. O, I shouldn’t want to be a king, to be stuck up for everybody to look at, and nobody to love. If people obeyed me, I should know it was because they couldn’t help it; if they pretended to love me, I should be sure they lied.”“But I ain’t a king, Ned.”“No; but you are a mate, and if just being a mate is going to make such an awful gap, what must being a king make? It must be a lonesome thing to be a king.”“What a queer fellow you are, Ned! I always thought you were about as spunky and ambitious a boy as I ever knew. You wouldn’t want to be a boy always—would you?”“No; I don’t know as I should want to bealwaysa boy; but I don’t like stepping over the edge all of a sudden; at any rate, I don’t like to see everybody else stepping over, and leaving me to be boy alone.”“Perhaps you’ll get to be second mate next voyage, and then we can be together again.”“I might if I was older, or if I was only a Griffin, or a Murch, or a Rhines, who are as big when they are seventeen as others when they are men grown. Here you are, a great fellow, your feet sticking out of bed, while my toes are only down to your knees.”“But you are growing all the time; you can steer a good trick now, and do anything that your strength is equal to, as well as any man in the vessel; you must be patient, Ned.”“O, if I was only a little bigger, so that I could furl the royal in wet weather, or when it blows hard! I didn’t use to care so much for you, but I should so hate to have any of the crew come up to help me!”“I’ll have a bunt-line rove for it.”“O, thank you; then I can handle it any time.”“Ned, do you think it is the beef makes the man?”“Not altogether; but I think there must be more beef than I’ve got.”“That is a fault that will be daily mending: see how much you’ve done since you left home; you have obtained a very good knowledge of navigation.”“I shouldn’t have done so much, if I had not been wounded. I have had lots of time to study since I have been getting better; so there’s some good come out of it. That’s just what mother’s always saying—every thing is for the best. I wonder if she’d been here the night I was hit, if she would have thoughtthatwas for the best.”“I’ll warrant she’ll think it is all for the best, Ned, when you get home safe and sound.”“That she will, when she gets me in that old bed again, prays with me and kisses me. Ain’t I a great baby, Walter?”“Not a bit of it, Ned; you’re just right.”“I wish I was good, Wal, just to please my mother, it’s all she thinks about.”“I wishIwas, just to please Charlie Bell; at any rate, we’ll do the best we can.”“O, Wal, it’s nothing at all to be good here,with such a crew as this, all nice, steady men, well brought up. You never sailed in an old country vessel—did you?”“No; I have only sailed with just such a crew as we have here, and part of them are the same men.”“Then you don’t know anything about it. Such a set of reprobates as we had in that ship I was cast away in, cursing, swearing, fighting all the time; the captain never came on deck without his pistols in his pockets; half the crew didn’t know who their father or mother was; the crew were fighting among themselves, and the captain quarrelling with his mates, full of liquor all the time; and such deviltry as they tried to put into my head! I tell you, Walter, there was not the least need of that ship being lost (and I heard Mr. Brown tell Captain Rhines the same thing); the men might have kept her free just as well as not; we were not far from land.”“Why didn’t they, then?”In the first place, the men were harassed to death, kept out of their watch, working up jobs all the time, and half starved; the captain’s idea seemed to be to keep them so used up that theywouldn’t have strength or pluck to rise and take the ship from him, and it came back on his own head; they hadn’t strength enough, when the ship sprung a-leak, to work the pumps; and besides, they were so worn out, and hated him so, that they were desperate, thought it was their turn now, and if they could only drown him, they didn’t care what became of themselves. I tell you, Wal, I think, when a boy is away from home, and thrown into bad places and bad company, it makes a good deal of difference how he’s been brought up, and whether he’s come of nice folks.”“I guess it does, Ned, because he has a good character to sustain, and thinks, when he’s tempted, ‘How can I disgrace my folks? what would my parents, brothers and sisters say? and how would they feel if I should do this thing?’ Then there’s another thing comes of being well brought up.”“What is that, Wal?”“A boy that has been well brought up, and has learning, has hopes; he knows he can make something of himself, and means to; whereas those poor fellows, who, as you say, didn’t knowwho their fathers and mothers were, had no ambition or hope of ever rising, and so made up their minds to enjoy themselves after their own fashion.”“That’s so, for I’ve heard them say so. There was one of them, my watch-mate, Dick Cameron, a very decent fellow when the rum was out of him, and I used to talk with him; but all he would say was, ‘It’s all well for you, who have learning, and friends, and a chance to be something; but it’s no use for me.’”“How big a man was Dick Cameron?”“What do you mean by that?”“Why, I mean, how much did he weigh?”“O, he was a stout, thick-set man—the strongest man in the ship, and always took the bunt of a sail. I shouldn’t wonder if he weighed nearly two hundred.”“Now, see; it’s just as I told you a while ago. It isn’t beef that makes a man, but it’s pluck, knowledge, and good principles.”“And friends.”“He’ll have friends if he has those things. They will raise him up friends anywhere. Here you are, fretting because you don’t weigh two hundred, like Dick Cameron, and are not twenty-one.But if anything should happen to the officers of this vessel, all this crew of twenty great, stout men, second mate and all, couldn’t get this vessel home. They would have to fall back on Ned Gates, if he hasn’t got any cue to speak of, and can’t furl the royal when it blows hard, and the sail is wet and heavy.”“I won’t whine any more, Walter.”“It wouldn’t make one farthing’s difference as to age or size, with such a crew as this, all neighbors. If you are only modest, and know your duty, they would take pride in seeing you go ahead.”“Well, I won’t feel so any more. Let us talk about something else.”“I’ll tell you when we can get together, and it will be nobody’s business.”“When?”“When the voyage is up, then you can go home with me to my house.”“But shall we have time before the vessel goes again?”“Plenty. They will have to pick up a cargo. The articles to carry, many of them, have to be imported from other countries—the salt-petre from England or the East Indies.”“Wouldn’t I like it? Wouldn’t I have the best time that ever was in this world?”“You better believe it.”“I shall see Charlie Bell and his wife, and the baby, Lion Ben, Uncle Isaac, and old Tige.”“Yes, and I’ll get Uncle Isaac, our Joe, and Charlie Bell to go hunting with us. It will be right in bear time, and about town-meeting time, and they’ll have a wrestling match. Our Joe is champion, but father can throw him; only he’s done wrestling in the ring. But I suppose, if any stranger came along, as Ricker did, he’d take hold, for the credit of the place. But father never saw the day he was so stout as grandfather. Did you ever see my grandsir?”“No, I never saw any of your folks but Joe.”“Well, he’s an old man now, but you can see, by his great bones and cords, as big as an ox’s, what he was once. When Hen, and I, and Will were little boys, he used to get us up in the floor, and set us to wrestling.”“I shouldn’t think an old man would care about wrestling and such things.”“He ain’t oldinside; no older than ever he was. O, I’ll tell you the funniest thing. You mustknow, we milk seven cows, and have awful big churnings. One rainy day mother had our great churn, full of cream, sitting in the chimney corner, because it was a rainy day, and father was going to churn for her. Grandsir he ties a string to the churn handle, sat in his chair, and held the end of it, and told us boys to jump over it, and see which could jump the highest. Every little while he would put the string up a little higher. It was Hen’s turn to jump, and just as he was going over, grandsir twitched up the string, and caught his feet. Over went the churn, the cover came out, and there was that cream all over the floor. Grandsir was too old to get out of the way; it filled his shoes full, ran into the fireplace, and soaked Hen all through in front before he could get up. The dog lay asleep before the fire. It ran all over him. He jumped up, and went all round the room, switching his tail, and flinging the cream over everything. We laughed; it frightened the baby; he began to scream, and you never saw such a scrape.”“What did your mother say?”“She didn’t say much. She is one of the best mothers that ever was, always one way. She isn’treligious, like your mother, ‘cause there ain’t any religion in our folks. She is too good to have such a tearing set of boys round her.”“Will you go in the woods, and camp out? I never was in the big woods. There ain’t any woods round Salem.”“Well, there’s woods enough round our way. It’s all woods. You can get bear’s grease enough to make your cue grow three inches a night, and eat bear’s meat till you grow big enough to fill up the boots of a second mate. Come, let’s go to sleep.”When they went on board in the morning, the wind was blowing fresh, and the sea beginning to heave into the roadstead.The captain made his way to the observatory (taking Walter with him), from which he enjoyed a view of the roadstead and all in it. Here he sat, watching the blockading fleet with all the interest with which a beleaguered rat contemplates the movements of his enemy, the cat. Ned Gates had been despatched to find Mr. Bell, and tell him to get his things on board the vessel, accompanied by the fisherman’s boy as pilot. Ned traversed alleys and by-ways, till, in the dark, damp basementof a squalid tenement he found the object of his search. It was a wretched place, the walls low and dripping with moisture; in one corner was a large trough, nearly full of water, in which the willow rods lay soaking, in order to make them pliable to work; the floor was littered with pieces of willows, of all colors, which had been trimmed off; the walls were hung all round with willows, stripped into thin shavings, and made into skeins. In another corner was a rough berth, built up like those on shipboard, where the old gentleman slept, and on a shelf, at the head of it, his Bible; evincing that, in his loneliness and sorrow, he found consolation in the Word of God. There was also a rusty stove, a few cooking utensils, a rickety table, and some rough chairs, made of willow with the bark on.The old gentleman was seated on a wooden platform, a little inclined, with his back against the wall, employed in finishing a basket of such delicate workmanship, such tastefully arranged and beautiful colors, as to elicit the most unbounded expressions of admiration from Ned.The old gentleman was evidently highly gratified with the praise bestowed upon his work.“I am glad you like it,” said he; “I have spent a vast deal of time and work upon it; indeed, it is all I have done since I heard my son was living. I design it as a present for my daughter, if I am ever permitted to see her. It is said, self-praise goes but little ways; yet, when I was working at my trade in England, I had the reputation of doing the best work of any man in the fens, and that is saying a good deal. I used to think, when Charles was growing up, he would make a first-rate workman; but he has found better business than making baskets.”“He can do anything,” said Ned. “He can make a ship, a bedstead, or a fiddle.”“He takes that from his mother’s folks. They were shipwrights and joiners; but mine were all basket-makers, from the beginning. I’m going to take my tools, some basket-rods, and dye-stuffs; the rest I have given to a young man who learned his trade of me.”He then drew from a chest a pair of nice broad-cloth breeches, silk hose, and other things to correspond, a nice pair of shoes, with silver buckles, and, arraying himself, accompanied Ned on board the vessel.The gale increased as the day wore away.“There they go,” said the captain, as one of the frigates loosed her topsails and made sail.“I reckon,” said Walter, “they’ll find that when the cat’s away the mice will play.”The frigate was soon followed by another, till at length only the line-of-battle ship remained. Long she held on against a tremendous sea, till, at length, Walter, who had taken her bearings over a projecting point, exclaimed, “She drags; she will have to go.”In a few moments the men were seen mounting the rigging, and she also joined the rest. She, under short sail, drifted very fast to leeward. The frigates, carrying all the sail they could smother to, and sharper built, made desperate efforts to keep to windward, and did better, especially one which had been taken from the French, that outsailed all the rest; but they all gradually fell to leeward, leaving a clear offing.“Good by, dear friends,” said Captain Brown, highly elated with the turn matters were taking; “sorry to part, but your room is better than your company.”When the basket-maker made his appearancewith Ned, he was scarcely recognized by the captain and Walter, so changed was his appearance, and so sprightly were his looks. Noticing their astonishment, he observed to the captain, “I had contrived to lay by a little, by prudence and hard work, for I couldn’t bear the thought of being a pauper in a foreign land, and that I might have somewhat to give me Christian burial; and I thought I would fix myself up a bit, that my son might not be ashamed of me, should I be spared to see him.”By twelve o’clock at night the gale moderated, the brigantine got under way, and as the sun rose was far beyond the reach of her enemies.CHAPTER XVI.DEAR-BOUGHT WIT.NED had been accustomed, in all ordinary weather, to take his trick at the helm with the rest; but the captain would not permit it for the first fortnight out, greatly to the annoyance of Ned, who prided himself very much on being able to steer. Wheels were not in use then, and the old-fashioned tiller with which vessels were steered came against the hips, sometimes with a good deal of force, and the captain was fearful of causing Ned’s wound to break out again; neither would he permit him to stand his watch. All day he was on deck, pulled and hauled with the rest, and went aloft.As Ned didn’t care for turning in till nine, ten, or even twelve o’clock, of a pleasant night, when he had not been fatigued through the day, Mr. Bell—who was naturally inclined to make all theinquiries possible about his son, and the new country to which he was going—sought out Ned in the pleasant evenings, and whiled away many an hour in conversation most interesting to both. Ned described the personal appearance of the son to his father, and also that of Lion Ben, told all the stories he had ever heard of his enormous strength, and his encounter with the pirates, recounted the beauties of Elm Island, of Charlie’s farm, and sketched the characters of Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac. No doubt the virtues and attractions of Charlie received their just due in the description of so enthusiastic an admirer.“You say, Ned, that my son owns six hundred acres of land.”“Yes, sir; and a saw-mill on it; and the machinery came from England,—that is, the crank, saw, and mill chain.”“Why, a man must be immensely rich to own so much land. There must be some mistake about it.”“No, sir, there ain’t; for Mr. Griffin, the mate’s brother, his next neighbor, told me so, and I’ve been in the mill. He owns more than that, sir; he owns part of this vessel, and part of the Casco(a great mast ship of seven hundred tons), and one fourth of the Hard-scrabble; and he built the whole of them.”“I can’t understand how he came by so much money at his age, for he’s not much more than a boy now.”“Perhaps Lion Ben, Uncle Isaac, and Captain Rhines gave it to him, they think so much of him.”“I don’t believe that. People are not so fond of giving away money. There must be some mistake. All my forefathers have been prudent, hard-working people, and never one of them owned a foot of land.”“Well, sir, I don’t know how it is, but I knowit is so. I will call Danforth Eaton. He can explain it all, I dare say.”“Do, young man.”Eaton told Mr. Bell about the ventures that Charlie sent in the Ark, which gave him the first money he ever possessed; also about his learning the ship carpenter’s trade; and astonished the old gentleman by telling him that Charlie’s land cost only seventy-five cents an acre. He also told him about the building of the Hard-scrabble, and how much money she made. Upon these mattersEaton was an authority, as he had worked on all the vessels Charlie had built, and knew the whole matter from the beginning, whereas Walter Griffin was too young to be familiar with the events of Charlie’s boyhood, and the information of Ned was all second hand.As the voyage approached its termination, the excitement of the father increased. Ned was now able to stand his watch, and often, at twelve o’clock, the old gentleman would come on deck, and spend the remainder of the night talking with him and Eaton, and also with Peterson, whose acquaintance he had now made.When, by the captain’s reckoning, the vessel was nearly up with the land, and men were sent aloft to look out for it, he became quite nervous, thinking, perhaps, the happiness of possessing and meeting such a son was too great a boon. Again, he imagined that he might die before the vessel arrived, or that, after all, there might be some mistake. “God only knows what is in store for me,” he said, brushing the tear from his eye, as a joyous scream from the royal yard, in the shrill tones of Ned, proclaimed, “Land, O!”Let us now see what the unconscious object ofall this solicitude is doing. He is about half way between his house and Uncle Isaac’s, walking at a smart pace, and with the air of one bound upon a long walk. It was early autumn. As he approached the house, he saw Uncle Isaac in the barn floor, winnowing grain in the primitive fashion.“Good afternoon, Charlie. Go into the house. I’ll be there in a moment. I’m almost through.”“I can’t stop, Uncle Isaac. I’m going farther.”“Where to?”“Over to Mr. Colcord’s, to look at a cow. He’s got seven. He told me I might have my pick of them for fifteen dollars.”“What! Jim Colcord?”“Yes, sir.”“I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”“Why not?”“Because he’s the most narrow-contracted creetur that ever lived. He soaks out mackerel, and then takes the water to make hasty-pudding, in order to save the salt. Robert Yelf worked for him one year in haying time. Didn’t you never hear him tell about his jumping into the loaf of hot rye and Indian bread?”“No, sir; what did he do that for?”“I’ll tell you. One day, his wife had cooked all her dinner in the brick oven, except some potatoes that she had baked in the ashes. She had baked beans, Indian pudding, a hind quarter of lamb, and a great loaf of rye and Indian bread in an iron pan that would hold a peck. He had a number of hands at work for him, getting hay. He’s rich the old screw, but so mean that he never allows himself or his family decent clothes, and always goes barefoot. He’s got a noble woman for a wife, too, as ever God made, and a nice family of children.”“I believe such men always get the best of wives.”“It’s a good deal so, Charlie, I guess. Well, as I was saying, coming into the house that day, just afore twelve o’clock, and seeing no pots or kettles on the fire, he took it into his head that his wife had made no preparation for dinner; that the men would come in at twelve, have to wait, and he should lose some time.”“Whereas,” said Charlie, “the dinner was all in the oven, and ready to be put on the table.”“Just so. He instantly began to jump up anddown on the hearth, and curse and swear. His wife, who was scared to death of him, began to take the victuals out of the oven, to let him see it was all right. The first thing she came to was the great iron pan of rye and Indian bread, which she put down on the hearth. Thinking, in his passion, that this was all, he jumped right into it with his bare feet.”“I guess it burnt him some.”“I guess you’d think so; if there’s anything in this world that’s hot, or holds heat, it’s rye and Indian bread. It stuck between his toes, and scalded to the bone. He ran round the room, howling and swearing, and the tears running down his cheeks.”“Served him right.”“I think so. Now, if I were you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him; he’ll cheat you, sure.”“I reckon I can tell a good cow when I see her.”“Perhaps you can; but he’s cheated as smart men as you are. Let me go and trade for you.”Charlie would by no means consent to that, but set off on his errand.“Well,” said Uncle Isaac, as they parted, “it is said, bought wit is good; perhaps it is, if you don’t buy it too dear.” When, at length, at the place, he was received by Colcord with the greatest cordiality; but Charlie saw that the house and all the surroundings accorded precisely with Uncle Isaac’s description of his character.Colcord himself was a meagre-looking being; although in years, he was barefoot, and so was his wife. Charlie also noticed that the small quantity of wood at the door seemed to be rotten windfalls and dead limbs of trees, though he possessed a large extent of very heavily timbered woodland. Three boys, whose dress barely served the purposes of decency, completed this singular family. The youngest, notwithstanding his rags and a certain timidity of expression (the result of hard usage), was a most intelligent, noble-looking boy, with whose face Charlie instantly fell in love; his heart went out to these boys.“I have known hardship and poverty,” he said to himself, “but I thank God I never had a father who, when I asked him for an egg, would give me a scorpion.Mypoor father did all in his power to give me schooling, and make my childhoodhappy.—You remember,” said Charlie to Mr. Colcord, “the talk we had some time since about cows, when you told me that for fifteen dollars I should have my pick out of seven. This is the day set, and I have come to look them over.”“Andrew,” said Colcord, to the oldest boy, “drive the cows into the yard.”After Charlie had examined each cow in succession, he said, “Mr. Colcord, here are but six cows; I was to have my choice of seven.”“It is true, Mr. Bell, I did say so; but when I came home and told my wife, she took on at such a rate about my sellingthatcow, that I’ve tied her up in the barn. She won’t consent to part with her; it would break her heart. You must excuse me there.”Charlie’s suspicions were roused in an instant. All that Uncle Isaac had told him in respect to the sharp practice of the man rushed at once to his recollection. He was determined to have that cow, at any rate, and instantly asked to see Mrs. Colcord, intending to make her a present, to reconcile her to the loss of the cow; but he was told she had gone away to spend the day.“The old rascal,” soliloquized Charlie, “has shutup his best cow, thinking I wouldn’t notice there were but six in the yard.—Mr. Colcord,” he said, “it was a fair contract between us. You agreed to let me take my pick of seven cows. I am here, according to agreement, with the cash. I’ll have that cow, or none.”“Well, if Imust, I must,” said the old man; “but my wife will cry her eyes out;” and he flung open the cow-house.Charlie felt so sure that this was the best cow of the herd, that he never stopped to examine her closely, asked no questions, didn’t even take hold of her teats, to see if she milked easy, or to examine the quality of the milk, but put a rope on her head, and drove her off, congratulating himself, all the way along, that he had outwitted the old sneak.“Guess Uncle Isaac won’t say any more about bought wit,” thought he. “Couldn’t have done better than that himself.”It was about the middle of the afternoon when Charlie reached home. At the usual time his wife went to the barn to milk, and began with the new comer.“She has got nice teats, and milks easy, at any rate,” said Mrs. Bell.The Kicking Cow.Page233.The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the cow gave the pail a kick so vicious as to send it spinning over the floor, spattering her with milk.“It is because she is in a strange place, and is afraid of a stranger,” said Mrs. Bell; and, holding the pail in one hand, she continued to milk with the other. The cow began to kick, first with one leg and then the other, without an instant’s intermission, so that to milk was impossible.Charlie, who was in the barn-yard, milking the other cows, now came to the rescue. “I never saw a cow I couldn’t milk,” he said; and taking up one of her fore legs, fastened it to the rack with a rope. “Kick now, if you can.” Placing the pail on the floor, he began to milk with both hands; but the vicious brute, springing from the floor, fell over upon him, spilling the milk, breaking the bail of the pail, upsetting Charlie’s milking-stool, and leaving him at full length on the floor, in not the most amiable mood (for his wife could not refrain from laughing). He beat her to make her get up, but she was sullen, and get up she wouldn’t. He twisted her tail, but she wouldn’t start. He then, with both hands, closed hermouth and nostrils, strangling her till she was glad to jump up. Thinking she had got enough of it, he began again to milk, when away went the pail into the manger, and the milk into Charlie’s face. Provoked now beyond endurance, he beat her till she roared; but the moment he touched her teats, she began to kick as bad as ever. In short, all the way he could milk her at all was to fasten her to the stake next the side of the barn, build a fence on the other side, so that she couldn’t run around either way, then tie her hind legs together, milk her till she threw herself down, and then finish the operation as she lay.While all this was going on, the dog kept up a furious barking.“What is that dog barking about, Mary?”“I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps there’s a skunk or a woodchuck under the barn.”If it was a skunk, he was peeping through a knot-hole in the back barn-door.As they came in with their milk, Joe Griffin was approaching the door, having come to borrow a chain and canting dog.Charlie now perceived that the cunning old wretch had shut up this pest, and feigned reluctanceto part with her, on purpose to draw him on.“I don’t believe,” said Mrs. Bell, “but what his wife was at home all the time. He knew, if you spoke to her, she would tell you the whole truth, for she is an excellent woman.”Charlie resolved to keep the thing from the knowledge of every one,especiallyof Uncle Isaac, whose assertion, “He has cheated as smart men as you are,” recurred most unpleasantly to his recollection.“Mary,” said he,” we must not breathe a word of this to any soul,—father’s folks, Joe Griffin, or, above all, Uncle Isaac. I had rather pocket the loss than have it known that I got so taken in. I’ll dry her up, and fat her. She’s a large cow, and will make a lot of beef.”But such things will always, in some way or other, leak out. While Charlie imagined that himself and wife alone possessed the secret, it was known to half the town, and they were chuckling over it. Indeed, it had come to the ears of Lion Ben, on Elm Island, whose adopted son he was.A fortnight after the occurrences related, Fred Williams and Joe Griffin were standing in thedoorway of Fred’s store, when they espied Lion Ben coming from Elm Island in his big canoe, which he was forcing through the water with tremendous strokes.Landing, and dragging the heavy craft out of the water as though she was an egg-shell, he merely nodded to Joe and Fred, and proceeded with rapid strides in the direction of Charlie Bell’s.“What can that mean, Joe?” asked Fred. “He never spoke to us.”Fred was his brother-in-law, Joe one of his most intimate friends.“It means that he is angry. Didn’t you notice his face? I never saw him angry, though I’ve known him ever since I was a boy; but I’ve heard say he is awful when he rises. A common man would be no more in his hands now than a fly in the clutch of a lion.”Ben went directly into Charlie’s pasture, avoiding him, hunted around there till he found the kicking cow, and pulling a rope from his pocket, put it over her horns, and led her in the direction of Colcord’s. Uncle Isaac was butchering a lamb at his door when Ben came along with the cow,and was just about to speak to him; but catching one glimpse of his face, he dropped his knife, and pretending not to see him, walked into the barn.“Isaac,” cried his wife from the window. “Isaac, Ben has just gone by.”“I saw him.”“Sawhim; then why didn’t you speak to him, and ask him to come in, and stop to dinner?”“He’s got the cow Jim Colcord sold to Charlie. I guess he’s on his way to call the old viper to account for his trick. When he is in one of those rages you’d better go near a she catamount than him.”“Will he murder him?”“I hope not.”“It is some ways there. Ben can’t hold his passion long, and will most likely get over it somewhat before he gets there.”“If he don’t, much as I abhor the old creetur, I pity him.”When Ben arrived at Colcord’s the family were at dinner; seeing an ox cart in the barn-yard, he tied the cow to it. He entered the kitchen without knocking, where the family were seated at the dinner-table, seized old Colcord by the nape of theneck, carried him, pale as a ghost, with eyes starting from their sockets, and too nearly strangled to scream, into the barn-yard; here Ben sat down upon the cart-tongue, flung his victim across his knees, and while he was alternately screaming murder, and begging for mercy, slapped him with his terrible paw, till the blood came through his breeches, while the family looked on, crying and trembling.Ben, as a redresser of wrongs, considered it his duty, not only to inflict punishment for his knavery in the matter of the cow, but likewise for the abuse he had for years inflicted upon his uncomplaining wife and children.When he had finished the castigation, he ordered him to bring the money Charlie paid him for the cow, and ten dollars additional for his trouble in whipping him. Colcord brought the money, but, fearing to approach Ben, put it on the cart tongue.After counting it, Ben called for a basin of water, soap, and a towel, observing, that he was accustomed to wash his hands after handling carrion, and informing him (after wiping his hands, as he hung the towel on the wheel of the cart)that, if compelled to come there again, he should most probably make an end of him.That night Charlie hunted the pasture over in vain for the cow; but the next morning Uncle Isaac came over, told him where the cow was, and handed him the money, which Ben had left with him on his return.“How did father find it out?” asked Charlie.“Captain Rhines told him.”“Who told Captain Rhines?”“I did.”“Who told you?”“Joe Griffin.”“How in the world came he, or anybody else, to know anything about it?”“That’s more than I know; but he said you had to build a fence round her, and tie her hind legs together to milk her, and when she couldn’t kick, she’d lie down.”“I bought wit pretty dear, Uncle Isaac.”“Not quite so dear as Jim Colcord did. They say he can’t sit down, and won’t be able to till snow flies.”
CHAPTER XIII.THE BASKET-MAKER.IT was a glad day to Ned, when he had so far recovered that the surgeon, yielding to his solicitations, told him he might go on board the vessel, spend most of the day, and come back at night.The fisherman’s house was not far from the pier. Walter and Peterson made a chair, by taking hold of each other’s wrists, and Ned, seated on it, with an arm round each of their necks, was taken on board.The weather was warm, and some blankets from Walter’s berth were spread on the hen-coop, and a pillow placed so that Ned could lie down or sit up, as he chose, see what was going on, and chat with his shipmates, who were all rejoiced to see him on board again. Peterson prepared his dinner, but Ned wanted to eat with the rest, itseemed so much more sociable, having been compelled for so long a time to eat alone.It was just after dinner; Ned was sitting, propped up with pillows, the captain seated near by, watching him, when he noticed an old man, apparently over sixty years of age, in seaman’s dress, coming along the gangway plank. His hair, where it came outside his tarpaulin, was gray; he stooped very much, appearing feeble, and bore on his back a large number of articles manufactured of willows, and strung together by a cord.Approaching the captain, he deposited the bundle on the deck, evidently much fatigued, and asked, in English, if he would like to buy any of his work—market-baskets, knife-baskets, table-mats, ladies’ work-baskets, and many articles, merely ornamental, of superior workmanship and most beautifully stained.There was something in his whole demeanor that was both modest and prepossessing—quite the reverse of street-venders in general.“There,” said he, “is a market-basket that would be very handy on board ship; and here,”—producing a basket nearly square, and with partings in it for tumblers,—“is an article that wouldbe very convenient on a cabin table, or in a ship’s pantry. Many of my articles are made for vessels’ use, as I deal much with seafaring men.”Arthur Brown, who was of quick sympathies, was interested in the old gentleman, and touched by seeing a man of his years, apparently infirm, thus employed, felt inclined to converse, especially as he spoke English.“This is beautiful work,” he observed. “I have seen a great deal of it in England and Germany, where excellent work is made, but never any superior to this. You are surely master of your business.”“I should be, considering I have been at it for the greater part of my life since I was twelve years old, and we have no knowledge that any of our ancestors were ever anything but weavers of sallies,—that’s what we call the rods the baskets are made of.”“You seem infirm. Have you been sick?”“No, captain; I am worn down with wounds and hardships, but, most of all, with a sore heart.”“Then you’ve been a soldier?”“No, sir; a sailor. I was born in Lincolnshire, England, in the fens. There my forefathers alllived and followed their trade. A happier man, sir, the sun never shone upon than myself. I had an affectionate wife,—a right godly woman, and thrifty,—and three children. I employed four, sometimes five men. My oldest child was a boy. He worked in the shop. We paid our rent easy, and were getting along nicely, when, in the midst of all this happiness, I was pressed, torn from my family, and put aboard a hulk. Wouldn’t you think, sir, that would break a man down?”“I should, indeed, my friend,” replied Captain Brown, greatly moved, “and I feel for you, from the bottom of my heart.”The tears were running down little Ned’s cheeks as he sat propped up on the hen-coop.“It must have been long ago,” continued the captain.“Not so very long, sir. Only about ten years.”“Indeed!”“How old might you take me to be, sir?”“Sixty, or thereabouts.”“I am but forty-seven. Ought to be in my prime. But O, sir, to have a wife and family, and be forever separated from them, in a strange land, and not know whether they are dead or alive, orwhether they are in distress or not,—only to know that they are dead to you, and you to them,—it keeps gnawing at the heart-strings.”“It must, indeed. But how did you get clear from the navy?”“It was near the close of the American war. The frigate I belonged to was in action with a French seventy-four. I was wounded and flung overboard for dead. The cold water revived me, and I clung to the wreck of our spars, which were shot away. The French vessel won the battle, being a much heavier ship. I was picked up, brought ashore at Toulon, and lay a long time in the hospital, wishing for death; but I recovered, and since then have, though feeble, made a living by my trade. The people here are very kind.”“What is your name, my friend?”“Bell—John Bell, sir.”“Why, that is the name of the man who built this vessel, and is part owner.”“Indeed, sir, I hope he is a happier man than I am.”“He is a happy man, and deserves to be, for he tries to make others happy.”The captain bought a good many articles of thebasket-maker, and then sent him forward among the crew, who purchased so largely that there remained but very little to carry away. Peterson bought a work-basket for Captain Rhines’s wife, and Enoch Hadlock another for old Mrs. Yelf.Walter was away, for, as he could speak French, the captain had sent him to make some purchases for him. Walter, indeed, had plenty of business in this way, being spokesman for all hands.The captain insisted upon the basket-maker stopping to supper; but something in his appearance prevented him from offering him money as a gift,—he felt it might wound his feelings,—but he gave him a cordial invitation to come on board and eat or sleep, whenever his business led him in that direction. The next night, when Walter went over to see Ned, he mentioned the circumstance of the basket-maker’s coming on board, showed him his purchases, and told him he was an Englishman, and that his name was Bell. This excited Walter’s curiosity. He inquired further about it, and Ned, who had been deeply touched by the man’s pitiful story, repeated the whole conversation between him and the captain, word for word. When he concluded, Walter sat for a fewmoments, with his hands clasped over his knees, as though striving to recall something.At length he said, “Ned Gates, as sure as you are lying on that bed, the basket-maker is our Charlie Bell’s father.”“Charlie Bell’s father?” said Ned, sitting bolt upright, and then screaming at the twinge the effort occasioned, because of his wound.“Yes, Charlie Bell’s father.”“But the man is an Englishman.”“So is Charlie Bell.”“I never knew that before.”“He was an English boy; came to Elm Island as poor as he could be, with some bad men,—but he didn’t know they were bad when he started,—that came to rob; but they came to the wrong place, for Lion Ben most killed ‘em, kept the boy, and brought him up. I’ve heard our Joe and Mr. Williams tell about it a thousand times.”“What if it should turn out to be so?”“I tell you it is so; I’m certain sure it is. His father was a basket-maker, and was pressed; I heard Mr. Williams say so; and when they were boys, Charlie, Mr. Bell, and John Rhines used to make baskets, and Mr. Williams sold ‘em at the mill;and when I first went to tend store for him, there were some of ‘em in the store.”“If your Joe or Mr. Williams were only here, we could ask them, and know all about it.”“Yes, Joe, they said, used to live on Elm Island half the time before he was married. I remember another thing Joe said.”“What is that?”“He said he made baskets of willows, and colored them red, blue, and green, real handsome, and said that was the way they did in England.”“But the basket-maker said, if I remember right, that it was about ten years ago, and that his son was large enough to work in the shop at light work. O, Walter, wouldn’t I be glad, and wouldn’t the captain be glad (when Mr. Bell saved our lives), to be the means of taking his father home to him?”“Don’t you think somebody else would be glad too, you little monkey, you?”“The boys didn’t sleep much that night, having worked each other up to such a state of excitement. In the morning Walter went on board, full of the news, and opened the whole matter to the captain, who was as much astonished as Ned; beingentirely ignorant of the antecedents of Charlie, he supposed him a native of the country. After patiently listening with the deepest interest to all that Walter had to say, he acknowledged that the probabilities were very strong, but, much less sanguine, did not express a very decided opinion.“He said he had a wife and three children,” observed the captain; “what became of them? were they ever at Elm Island?”Walter had never heard them mentioned; but he was very young when Charlie came to Elm Island, and might not have heard half that occurred. Captain Brown turned the matter over in his mind, and conversed with Walter, who daily recollected some fresh corroborating circumstance, till at length he determined, the next time the basket-maker came on board, to broach the matter to him, even at the risk of exciting unfounded hopes. Day after day they expected his appearance; but he came not. Walter searched the streets and piers, but in vain.The time of year now drew on when periodical gales were expected, and the vessel would be likely to go to sea.“He may be sick, Walter,” said Ned; “for he looked pale and half sick the day he was aboard.”“He may be dead,” said Walter; “and we never should know it, in this great city. I wish I had seen him; if he was Charlie Bell’s father, I could tell; I know I could see something of the look.”“I saw, when he pulled his hat off,” said Ned, “that his hair, where it was not gray, is the same color as Charlie’s.”
THE BASKET-MAKER.
IT was a glad day to Ned, when he had so far recovered that the surgeon, yielding to his solicitations, told him he might go on board the vessel, spend most of the day, and come back at night.
The fisherman’s house was not far from the pier. Walter and Peterson made a chair, by taking hold of each other’s wrists, and Ned, seated on it, with an arm round each of their necks, was taken on board.
The weather was warm, and some blankets from Walter’s berth were spread on the hen-coop, and a pillow placed so that Ned could lie down or sit up, as he chose, see what was going on, and chat with his shipmates, who were all rejoiced to see him on board again. Peterson prepared his dinner, but Ned wanted to eat with the rest, itseemed so much more sociable, having been compelled for so long a time to eat alone.
It was just after dinner; Ned was sitting, propped up with pillows, the captain seated near by, watching him, when he noticed an old man, apparently over sixty years of age, in seaman’s dress, coming along the gangway plank. His hair, where it came outside his tarpaulin, was gray; he stooped very much, appearing feeble, and bore on his back a large number of articles manufactured of willows, and strung together by a cord.
Approaching the captain, he deposited the bundle on the deck, evidently much fatigued, and asked, in English, if he would like to buy any of his work—market-baskets, knife-baskets, table-mats, ladies’ work-baskets, and many articles, merely ornamental, of superior workmanship and most beautifully stained.
There was something in his whole demeanor that was both modest and prepossessing—quite the reverse of street-venders in general.
“There,” said he, “is a market-basket that would be very handy on board ship; and here,”—producing a basket nearly square, and with partings in it for tumblers,—“is an article that wouldbe very convenient on a cabin table, or in a ship’s pantry. Many of my articles are made for vessels’ use, as I deal much with seafaring men.”
Arthur Brown, who was of quick sympathies, was interested in the old gentleman, and touched by seeing a man of his years, apparently infirm, thus employed, felt inclined to converse, especially as he spoke English.
“This is beautiful work,” he observed. “I have seen a great deal of it in England and Germany, where excellent work is made, but never any superior to this. You are surely master of your business.”
“I should be, considering I have been at it for the greater part of my life since I was twelve years old, and we have no knowledge that any of our ancestors were ever anything but weavers of sallies,—that’s what we call the rods the baskets are made of.”
“You seem infirm. Have you been sick?”
“No, captain; I am worn down with wounds and hardships, but, most of all, with a sore heart.”
“Then you’ve been a soldier?”
“No, sir; a sailor. I was born in Lincolnshire, England, in the fens. There my forefathers alllived and followed their trade. A happier man, sir, the sun never shone upon than myself. I had an affectionate wife,—a right godly woman, and thrifty,—and three children. I employed four, sometimes five men. My oldest child was a boy. He worked in the shop. We paid our rent easy, and were getting along nicely, when, in the midst of all this happiness, I was pressed, torn from my family, and put aboard a hulk. Wouldn’t you think, sir, that would break a man down?”
“I should, indeed, my friend,” replied Captain Brown, greatly moved, “and I feel for you, from the bottom of my heart.”
The tears were running down little Ned’s cheeks as he sat propped up on the hen-coop.
“It must have been long ago,” continued the captain.
“Not so very long, sir. Only about ten years.”
“Indeed!”
“How old might you take me to be, sir?”
“Sixty, or thereabouts.”
“I am but forty-seven. Ought to be in my prime. But O, sir, to have a wife and family, and be forever separated from them, in a strange land, and not know whether they are dead or alive, orwhether they are in distress or not,—only to know that they are dead to you, and you to them,—it keeps gnawing at the heart-strings.”
“It must, indeed. But how did you get clear from the navy?”
“It was near the close of the American war. The frigate I belonged to was in action with a French seventy-four. I was wounded and flung overboard for dead. The cold water revived me, and I clung to the wreck of our spars, which were shot away. The French vessel won the battle, being a much heavier ship. I was picked up, brought ashore at Toulon, and lay a long time in the hospital, wishing for death; but I recovered, and since then have, though feeble, made a living by my trade. The people here are very kind.”
“What is your name, my friend?”
“Bell—John Bell, sir.”
“Why, that is the name of the man who built this vessel, and is part owner.”
“Indeed, sir, I hope he is a happier man than I am.”
“He is a happy man, and deserves to be, for he tries to make others happy.”
The captain bought a good many articles of thebasket-maker, and then sent him forward among the crew, who purchased so largely that there remained but very little to carry away. Peterson bought a work-basket for Captain Rhines’s wife, and Enoch Hadlock another for old Mrs. Yelf.
Walter was away, for, as he could speak French, the captain had sent him to make some purchases for him. Walter, indeed, had plenty of business in this way, being spokesman for all hands.
The captain insisted upon the basket-maker stopping to supper; but something in his appearance prevented him from offering him money as a gift,—he felt it might wound his feelings,—but he gave him a cordial invitation to come on board and eat or sleep, whenever his business led him in that direction. The next night, when Walter went over to see Ned, he mentioned the circumstance of the basket-maker’s coming on board, showed him his purchases, and told him he was an Englishman, and that his name was Bell. This excited Walter’s curiosity. He inquired further about it, and Ned, who had been deeply touched by the man’s pitiful story, repeated the whole conversation between him and the captain, word for word. When he concluded, Walter sat for a fewmoments, with his hands clasped over his knees, as though striving to recall something.
At length he said, “Ned Gates, as sure as you are lying on that bed, the basket-maker is our Charlie Bell’s father.”
“Charlie Bell’s father?” said Ned, sitting bolt upright, and then screaming at the twinge the effort occasioned, because of his wound.
“Yes, Charlie Bell’s father.”
“But the man is an Englishman.”
“So is Charlie Bell.”
“I never knew that before.”
“He was an English boy; came to Elm Island as poor as he could be, with some bad men,—but he didn’t know they were bad when he started,—that came to rob; but they came to the wrong place, for Lion Ben most killed ‘em, kept the boy, and brought him up. I’ve heard our Joe and Mr. Williams tell about it a thousand times.”
“What if it should turn out to be so?”
“I tell you it is so; I’m certain sure it is. His father was a basket-maker, and was pressed; I heard Mr. Williams say so; and when they were boys, Charlie, Mr. Bell, and John Rhines used to make baskets, and Mr. Williams sold ‘em at the mill;and when I first went to tend store for him, there were some of ‘em in the store.”
“If your Joe or Mr. Williams were only here, we could ask them, and know all about it.”
“Yes, Joe, they said, used to live on Elm Island half the time before he was married. I remember another thing Joe said.”
“What is that?”
“He said he made baskets of willows, and colored them red, blue, and green, real handsome, and said that was the way they did in England.”
“But the basket-maker said, if I remember right, that it was about ten years ago, and that his son was large enough to work in the shop at light work. O, Walter, wouldn’t I be glad, and wouldn’t the captain be glad (when Mr. Bell saved our lives), to be the means of taking his father home to him?”
“Don’t you think somebody else would be glad too, you little monkey, you?”
“The boys didn’t sleep much that night, having worked each other up to such a state of excitement. In the morning Walter went on board, full of the news, and opened the whole matter to the captain, who was as much astonished as Ned; beingentirely ignorant of the antecedents of Charlie, he supposed him a native of the country. After patiently listening with the deepest interest to all that Walter had to say, he acknowledged that the probabilities were very strong, but, much less sanguine, did not express a very decided opinion.
“He said he had a wife and three children,” observed the captain; “what became of them? were they ever at Elm Island?”
Walter had never heard them mentioned; but he was very young when Charlie came to Elm Island, and might not have heard half that occurred. Captain Brown turned the matter over in his mind, and conversed with Walter, who daily recollected some fresh corroborating circumstance, till at length he determined, the next time the basket-maker came on board, to broach the matter to him, even at the risk of exciting unfounded hopes. Day after day they expected his appearance; but he came not. Walter searched the streets and piers, but in vain.
The time of year now drew on when periodical gales were expected, and the vessel would be likely to go to sea.
“He may be sick, Walter,” said Ned; “for he looked pale and half sick the day he was aboard.”
“He may be dead,” said Walter; “and we never should know it, in this great city. I wish I had seen him; if he was Charlie Bell’s father, I could tell; I know I could see something of the look.”
“I saw, when he pulled his hat off,” said Ned, “that his hair, where it was not gray, is the same color as Charlie’s.”
CHAPTER XIV.A STRANGE DISCOVERY.CAPTAIN BROWN had employed Jacques Bernoux, the French fisherman, to get the spy-glass Walter had forgotten and left on the rock, and he came on board, one morning, to bring it.“Do you know a man who goes about the piers and streets selling baskets? an old man, and an Englishman?” said Walter.“John Bell?”“That’s the name.”“Yes; pass his place every day going to my boat.”“Will you ask him to come on board the vessel to-morrow?” asked the captain.“Yes, sir.”Early the next morning the basket-maker made his appearance with a large burden of baskets; he had been so engaged manufacturingthat it kept him out of the streets—the reason that Walter couldn’t find him.The captain, taking him into the cabin, said, “My friend, when you was here, a few days ago, you gave me some particulars of your life. This young man, Mr. Griffin, my mate, was not present; but having heard what then passed between us, he has not a doubt but that Charles Bell, who built and is part owner of this vessel, is your oldest son. As for myself, residing in another part of the country, I have no personal knowledge of the circumstances; but I must say that as related by him, they seem to me most probable. But you can hear what he has to say about it, and judge for yourself.”While the captain was speaking, the basket-maker became very pale, trembled, and big tears rolled down his hollow cheeks.“For the sake of Heaven, captain,” he exclaimed, “do not raise in this sad heart hopes that may have no foundation. I’ve made up my mind to endure the worst, as God shall give me strength, till I lay these bones in the grave.”“I am the last person to do that; but I have been turning the subject over in my mind eversince you were here last, and the more I reflect upon the young man’s story, the more the probability of it grows upon me.”The basket-maker, hearing these words, made a sign to Walter, who gave him substantially the same statement he had made to Ned and the captain. The old man was deeply affected; he evidently saw strong grounds for believing the person described was his child, but was fearful of cherishing a premature hope.“I can bear what I have borne,” he said, “but the disappointment would drive me mad. You say, young man, that you have known this person intimately?”“Yes, sir, as well as it’s possible for one person to know another.”“And that his name is Charles?”“Yes, sir.”“What’s his age?”“I think about twenty-three.”“My son, if living, would be twenty-three next Michaelmas. What sort of a looking man is this Charles Bell?”“Hair, eyes, and complexion just like yours, but he is not so large a man as you are.”“Those are the features of my boy,” replied the old man, evidently gaining confidence as he continued his inquiries.“You say you didn’t know this Charles Bell when he first came to Elm Island, and this Mr. Rhines and his wife took him.”“No, sir; I was too young; but I’ve heard my brother talk about it.”“My boy,” said the old man, “was a most loving boy, very much attached to his mother. I don’t believe he would leave her and his brother and sister. You never heard him mention his parents or family—did you?”“This Charles Bell’s mother is dead. I never heard him speak of any brother or sister.”“How do you know his mother is dead?”“Because, sir, he went to St. John’s two or three years ago, brought her body from there, and buried it on his place, under an elm tree—a beautiful spot. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”The old man’s countenance fell. “It cannot be,” he said, “that my wife, with young children and small means, would leave England, and all her and my relations, and go to the colonies; and yet the time, circumstances, and personal appearance of the young man tally precisely.”“I know it’s your son,” said Walter; “nobody can make me believe it ain’t. He looks as much like you as my two hands look alike, saving the difference in age, and his voice is like yours.”“Do you expect to come here again, captain?”“Yes, if we get off clear this time, and can run the gantlet. You know it is all luck and chance with us.”“I can send a letter by you, and that will remove all doubts, and settle the whole matter.”“But I hoped you would feel sure enough to take passage with us. You can do better in the States than here.”“I could not bear to go over there expecting to meet a son, and be disappointed. I’m making a very good living here.”“I think you’d better go.”“Well, captain, I’ve about as much as I can carry at present, and am somewhat confused. I will go about my regular business the rest of the day; that will steady my mind; and perhaps I may think of some question that this young man can answer, that will throw more light on the matter; and I will be on board again in the morning.”Resisting all solicitations to stop to dinner, the old man departed with his load.“I know it’s his son,” said Walter, as they were eating dinner. “I feel it in my bones, and I think we ought to persuade him to go.”“I have not much doubt,” replied the captain. “People are always emigrating from England to St. John’s and Canada. Her relatives might have gone, and taken her with them. I shall persuade him in the morning to go, if I can.”The second mate, who was a Marblehead man, and had listened to the conversation, now inquired, “Don’t all this crew belong right there? and wouldn’t they be likely to know more about it than Mr. Griffin? Most of them are much older than he is.”“To be sure they would,” cried Walter. “There’s Danforth Eaton helped clear Elm Island when Charlie Bell first came there; then there’s Peterson, and Enoch Hadlock,—what a ninny I was not to think of that before he went away!—there’s notoneof them but knows more about hisfirstcoming there than I do.”Leaving his dinner, Walter ran forward, and soon returned, saying that Eaton knew all about it.When John Bell came on board the next morning, he seemed calm, collected, and much more hopeful. Sending for Eaton, the captain said to him, “Eaton, I want you to tell us all you know about Charles Bell’s coming to Elm Island, and about his parents, if you know or have heard anything about them, and I want you to begin at the bottom.”“What I know, cap’n, isn’t hearsay, but I had it all from his own lips.”“So much the better.”“You see, cap’n, about that time there was some Tories come up from the provinces—”“We know,” said the captain, interrupting him, “how he got to the island; but what we are most concerned to ascertain is, who his parents were, and how he came into the hands of those pirates (for they were no better) who brought him to Elm Island. Can you tell us anything about that?”“Reckon I kin tell you all about it; but I must tell it in my own way. If you keep putting in and interrupting me, I shall get all mixed up.”“Well, go on.”“You see, arter this boy come on the island,Lion Ben he hires me and Joe Griffin, the next winter, to cut spars and clear land. Charlie Bell was a little, slender, half-starved, pitiful-looking creatur’, then, but he was willing and clever, and soon begun to pick up. Most of the winter he drove the team; but along in March, when it was bad hauling, he helped me chop. I tapped a maple, to have sap to drink while I was chopping. One day we comes into the woods arter dinner, and before we went to work, sot down by the sap tree, in the sun. I sets on a stump, same as where that stool is, and he on another, same as where that old gentleman is setting. I takes a good drink of the sap, and hands the dipper to him; says I, ‘Charlie, tell me your history, or part of it, like as you did Joe and Fred Williams.’ He didn’t want ter, but I coaxed him. Then he said, the way his father come to be pressed, was all through another man, that courted his mother when she was a gal, but she liked his father better; he couldn’t give her up, and allers hild that old grudge agin his father. He said his father had agreed to work for the government, and if he had only got his name on the roll, couldn’t have been touched any more than if he had been a peer of the kingdom.This feller, I forget his name—” “Robert Rankin,” said the basket-maker. “That’s it, old man, by jingo,—who thought, if he was out of the way, he could get her, after all,—told the press-gang, and they took him as he was on the road to the place where he would have been safe.”The tears were streaming down John Bell’s cheeks, and his hands were lifted in gratitude to Heaven; but he would not interrupt Eaton by a question.“He said, soon arter his father was gone, he was killed in an action, and his mother carried on the business for a while; but this feller kept prosecutin’ her, and wantin’ her to have him, till she couldn’t stand it any longer. So she packed up everything, and went to St. John’s, where she had a brother; but when she got there, he’d gone to furrin parts, and she took sick and died. Then the boy, destitute and wandering about the streets and docks to pick up a living, fell inter the hands of them are reprobates, thinking they were honest fishermen, and went cook for them. The rest you say you know. Good as a story-book—ain’t it?”“Eaton,” said the captain, sternly, “this is Mr. Bell’s father.”“Hisfather! Then he wasn’t killed. I didn’t dream of that, or I shouldn’t have spoken like as I did. I see now he favors him.”“Did he tell you,” asked the father, “what became of the other children?”“I axed him if there was any more of ‘em. He said his mother’s relations took ‘em.”There was an oppressive pause in the conversation after Eaton had gone forward. John Bell sat with his handkerchief over his face, while the others, respecting his emotions, were silent.“No doubt, there can be none,” he said, at length, “that my poor wife is dead—God only knows what she suffered, in poverty and among strangers; that two of my children—whether alive or dead I know not—are in England, and that the other is in America. I may yet seehim. I ought to be thankful for that.”“Your son, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “is well to do; able to provide you with every comfort; and, what is more, respected and beloved.”“And he owns land?”“Yes; six hundred acres.”“That seems like a dream to me, for none of our folks ever owned a foot of land. I always lovedthe earth, and loved to work on it, even when it was the freehold of another. I feel there may yet be some happiness in store for me.”“You are not an old man yet, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “and good news and good spirits will make you ten years younger; so bring all your things on board, and prepare to go with us, the first gale that scatters the blockaders.”“I don’t suppose there is any doubt now. I know there can’t be. Still, you know a person in my situation feels they can’t be too certain; and there is just one thing more that has come to mind since I was here. I would like to ask of this young man whether he ever noticed any scar on my son’s face.”“Yes, sir,” replied Walter; “it is on his right jaw, and close to his ear,—runs up behind the ear, into his hair.”“Then I’ll indulge no more in doubt. It would be ungrateful. I never shall forget when he received the cut that made that scar, it frightened me so. Though it was long ago, it seems but the other day.”“How did it happen, Mr. Bell?” asked Walter.“I suppose you never saw any basket rods growing?”“No, sir.”“In England, we plant them in rows, three feet apart, and as straight as an arrow. They grow seven or eight feet high, and make a nice place for the children to play. I was cutting the sallies with a large knife, as sharp as a razor. My little children, with their cousins, who had come to see them, were playing hide-and-seek among the rows, when Charlie ran in the way of my knife, and I cut a dreadful gash in his cheek, that made that scar. And now I will leave you, and make my preparations for the voyage.”“Not till you have taken dinner with us,” said the captain; “and, Mr. Bell, I expect you to make the vessel your home, and sleep here whenever it suits your convenience.”“Thank you, captain. My quarters on shore are not so spacious or elegant that I should feel inclined to refuse so handsome and hearty an offer.”When the meal was concluded, Mr. Bell went on shore.“Only see,” said Walter, looking after him, as he went up the pier, “how quick he steps, and how much straighter he is.”“There’s a new heart in him,” said the captain. “He’s something to live for and look forward to now. In a week’s time he’ll be another man. As far as I am concerned, I had rather carryhimhome, than the richest cargo. And now, Mr. Griffin, run up and tell the good news to Ned.”
A STRANGE DISCOVERY.
CAPTAIN BROWN had employed Jacques Bernoux, the French fisherman, to get the spy-glass Walter had forgotten and left on the rock, and he came on board, one morning, to bring it.
“Do you know a man who goes about the piers and streets selling baskets? an old man, and an Englishman?” said Walter.
“John Bell?”
“That’s the name.”
“Yes; pass his place every day going to my boat.”
“Will you ask him to come on board the vessel to-morrow?” asked the captain.
“Yes, sir.”
Early the next morning the basket-maker made his appearance with a large burden of baskets; he had been so engaged manufacturingthat it kept him out of the streets—the reason that Walter couldn’t find him.
The captain, taking him into the cabin, said, “My friend, when you was here, a few days ago, you gave me some particulars of your life. This young man, Mr. Griffin, my mate, was not present; but having heard what then passed between us, he has not a doubt but that Charles Bell, who built and is part owner of this vessel, is your oldest son. As for myself, residing in another part of the country, I have no personal knowledge of the circumstances; but I must say that as related by him, they seem to me most probable. But you can hear what he has to say about it, and judge for yourself.”
While the captain was speaking, the basket-maker became very pale, trembled, and big tears rolled down his hollow cheeks.
“For the sake of Heaven, captain,” he exclaimed, “do not raise in this sad heart hopes that may have no foundation. I’ve made up my mind to endure the worst, as God shall give me strength, till I lay these bones in the grave.”
“I am the last person to do that; but I have been turning the subject over in my mind eversince you were here last, and the more I reflect upon the young man’s story, the more the probability of it grows upon me.”
The basket-maker, hearing these words, made a sign to Walter, who gave him substantially the same statement he had made to Ned and the captain. The old man was deeply affected; he evidently saw strong grounds for believing the person described was his child, but was fearful of cherishing a premature hope.
“I can bear what I have borne,” he said, “but the disappointment would drive me mad. You say, young man, that you have known this person intimately?”
“Yes, sir, as well as it’s possible for one person to know another.”
“And that his name is Charles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s his age?”
“I think about twenty-three.”
“My son, if living, would be twenty-three next Michaelmas. What sort of a looking man is this Charles Bell?”
“Hair, eyes, and complexion just like yours, but he is not so large a man as you are.”
“Those are the features of my boy,” replied the old man, evidently gaining confidence as he continued his inquiries.
“You say you didn’t know this Charles Bell when he first came to Elm Island, and this Mr. Rhines and his wife took him.”
“No, sir; I was too young; but I’ve heard my brother talk about it.”
“My boy,” said the old man, “was a most loving boy, very much attached to his mother. I don’t believe he would leave her and his brother and sister. You never heard him mention his parents or family—did you?”
“This Charles Bell’s mother is dead. I never heard him speak of any brother or sister.”
“How do you know his mother is dead?”
“Because, sir, he went to St. John’s two or three years ago, brought her body from there, and buried it on his place, under an elm tree—a beautiful spot. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
The old man’s countenance fell. “It cannot be,” he said, “that my wife, with young children and small means, would leave England, and all her and my relations, and go to the colonies; and yet the time, circumstances, and personal appearance of the young man tally precisely.”
“I know it’s your son,” said Walter; “nobody can make me believe it ain’t. He looks as much like you as my two hands look alike, saving the difference in age, and his voice is like yours.”
“Do you expect to come here again, captain?”
“Yes, if we get off clear this time, and can run the gantlet. You know it is all luck and chance with us.”
“I can send a letter by you, and that will remove all doubts, and settle the whole matter.”
“But I hoped you would feel sure enough to take passage with us. You can do better in the States than here.”
“I could not bear to go over there expecting to meet a son, and be disappointed. I’m making a very good living here.”
“I think you’d better go.”
“Well, captain, I’ve about as much as I can carry at present, and am somewhat confused. I will go about my regular business the rest of the day; that will steady my mind; and perhaps I may think of some question that this young man can answer, that will throw more light on the matter; and I will be on board again in the morning.”
Resisting all solicitations to stop to dinner, the old man departed with his load.
“I know it’s his son,” said Walter, as they were eating dinner. “I feel it in my bones, and I think we ought to persuade him to go.”
“I have not much doubt,” replied the captain. “People are always emigrating from England to St. John’s and Canada. Her relatives might have gone, and taken her with them. I shall persuade him in the morning to go, if I can.”
The second mate, who was a Marblehead man, and had listened to the conversation, now inquired, “Don’t all this crew belong right there? and wouldn’t they be likely to know more about it than Mr. Griffin? Most of them are much older than he is.”
“To be sure they would,” cried Walter. “There’s Danforth Eaton helped clear Elm Island when Charlie Bell first came there; then there’s Peterson, and Enoch Hadlock,—what a ninny I was not to think of that before he went away!—there’s notoneof them but knows more about hisfirstcoming there than I do.”
Leaving his dinner, Walter ran forward, and soon returned, saying that Eaton knew all about it.
When John Bell came on board the next morning, he seemed calm, collected, and much more hopeful. Sending for Eaton, the captain said to him, “Eaton, I want you to tell us all you know about Charles Bell’s coming to Elm Island, and about his parents, if you know or have heard anything about them, and I want you to begin at the bottom.”
“What I know, cap’n, isn’t hearsay, but I had it all from his own lips.”
“So much the better.”
“You see, cap’n, about that time there was some Tories come up from the provinces—”
“We know,” said the captain, interrupting him, “how he got to the island; but what we are most concerned to ascertain is, who his parents were, and how he came into the hands of those pirates (for they were no better) who brought him to Elm Island. Can you tell us anything about that?”
“Reckon I kin tell you all about it; but I must tell it in my own way. If you keep putting in and interrupting me, I shall get all mixed up.”
“Well, go on.”
“You see, arter this boy come on the island,Lion Ben he hires me and Joe Griffin, the next winter, to cut spars and clear land. Charlie Bell was a little, slender, half-starved, pitiful-looking creatur’, then, but he was willing and clever, and soon begun to pick up. Most of the winter he drove the team; but along in March, when it was bad hauling, he helped me chop. I tapped a maple, to have sap to drink while I was chopping. One day we comes into the woods arter dinner, and before we went to work, sot down by the sap tree, in the sun. I sets on a stump, same as where that stool is, and he on another, same as where that old gentleman is setting. I takes a good drink of the sap, and hands the dipper to him; says I, ‘Charlie, tell me your history, or part of it, like as you did Joe and Fred Williams.’ He didn’t want ter, but I coaxed him. Then he said, the way his father come to be pressed, was all through another man, that courted his mother when she was a gal, but she liked his father better; he couldn’t give her up, and allers hild that old grudge agin his father. He said his father had agreed to work for the government, and if he had only got his name on the roll, couldn’t have been touched any more than if he had been a peer of the kingdom.This feller, I forget his name—” “Robert Rankin,” said the basket-maker. “That’s it, old man, by jingo,—who thought, if he was out of the way, he could get her, after all,—told the press-gang, and they took him as he was on the road to the place where he would have been safe.”
The tears were streaming down John Bell’s cheeks, and his hands were lifted in gratitude to Heaven; but he would not interrupt Eaton by a question.
“He said, soon arter his father was gone, he was killed in an action, and his mother carried on the business for a while; but this feller kept prosecutin’ her, and wantin’ her to have him, till she couldn’t stand it any longer. So she packed up everything, and went to St. John’s, where she had a brother; but when she got there, he’d gone to furrin parts, and she took sick and died. Then the boy, destitute and wandering about the streets and docks to pick up a living, fell inter the hands of them are reprobates, thinking they were honest fishermen, and went cook for them. The rest you say you know. Good as a story-book—ain’t it?”
“Eaton,” said the captain, sternly, “this is Mr. Bell’s father.”
“Hisfather! Then he wasn’t killed. I didn’t dream of that, or I shouldn’t have spoken like as I did. I see now he favors him.”
“Did he tell you,” asked the father, “what became of the other children?”
“I axed him if there was any more of ‘em. He said his mother’s relations took ‘em.”
There was an oppressive pause in the conversation after Eaton had gone forward. John Bell sat with his handkerchief over his face, while the others, respecting his emotions, were silent.
“No doubt, there can be none,” he said, at length, “that my poor wife is dead—God only knows what she suffered, in poverty and among strangers; that two of my children—whether alive or dead I know not—are in England, and that the other is in America. I may yet seehim. I ought to be thankful for that.”
“Your son, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “is well to do; able to provide you with every comfort; and, what is more, respected and beloved.”
“And he owns land?”
“Yes; six hundred acres.”
“That seems like a dream to me, for none of our folks ever owned a foot of land. I always lovedthe earth, and loved to work on it, even when it was the freehold of another. I feel there may yet be some happiness in store for me.”
“You are not an old man yet, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “and good news and good spirits will make you ten years younger; so bring all your things on board, and prepare to go with us, the first gale that scatters the blockaders.”
“I don’t suppose there is any doubt now. I know there can’t be. Still, you know a person in my situation feels they can’t be too certain; and there is just one thing more that has come to mind since I was here. I would like to ask of this young man whether he ever noticed any scar on my son’s face.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Walter; “it is on his right jaw, and close to his ear,—runs up behind the ear, into his hair.”
“Then I’ll indulge no more in doubt. It would be ungrateful. I never shall forget when he received the cut that made that scar, it frightened me so. Though it was long ago, it seems but the other day.”
“How did it happen, Mr. Bell?” asked Walter.
“I suppose you never saw any basket rods growing?”
“No, sir.”
“In England, we plant them in rows, three feet apart, and as straight as an arrow. They grow seven or eight feet high, and make a nice place for the children to play. I was cutting the sallies with a large knife, as sharp as a razor. My little children, with their cousins, who had come to see them, were playing hide-and-seek among the rows, when Charlie ran in the way of my knife, and I cut a dreadful gash in his cheek, that made that scar. And now I will leave you, and make my preparations for the voyage.”
“Not till you have taken dinner with us,” said the captain; “and, Mr. Bell, I expect you to make the vessel your home, and sleep here whenever it suits your convenience.”
“Thank you, captain. My quarters on shore are not so spacious or elegant that I should feel inclined to refuse so handsome and hearty an offer.”
When the meal was concluded, Mr. Bell went on shore.
“Only see,” said Walter, looking after him, as he went up the pier, “how quick he steps, and how much straighter he is.”
“There’s a new heart in him,” said the captain. “He’s something to live for and look forward to now. In a week’s time he’ll be another man. As far as I am concerned, I had rather carryhimhome, than the richest cargo. And now, Mr. Griffin, run up and tell the good news to Ned.”
CHAPTER XV.HOMEWARD BOUND.NED had of late recovered rapidly, could walk quite well, and was on board the vessel very often, and went about the city some; but the doctor advised that he should not go on board the vessel to live till she was ready to sail. Ned had not seen Walter since his promotion, but Peterson had been up and informed him of it.“Well, Ned,” said Walter, as he entered the room, “it has turned out just as I told you it would; the basket-maker is Charlie’s father, and no mistake.”“I am so glad, Mr. Griffin! and he will go back with us—won’t he?”“Ned, my boy, just leave that handle off, and call me Walter, as you always did. It makes me sick.”“But you are mate now; Peterson told me so.”“What of that? When we are on board ship, call me what you like; but not when we are alone, as we are now, you little monkey,” patting his cheek.“We shan’t sleep together any more,” said Ned, in a desponding tone.“No, Ned, I shall have to live aft; and that is not the worst of it; we shall now be in different watches.”“I know it. I shall be in Mr. Baxter’s watch. And we used to have such good times in our watch on deck, talking about home, Pleasant Cove, and all the folks there. Walter, who do you like best of all the folks there, out of your own family?”“Charlie Bell.”“So do I, and well I might. He saved my life. Ain’t he handsome?”“Yes; and just as good as he is handsome. A first rate wrestler—there’s none of the young ones can throw him but John Rhines and Ben Peterson.”“What, this Ben aboard here?”“Yes.”“I’m afraid, if I call you Walter all the timewhen we are alone, that I shall forget to put the Sir on sometimes before the men.”“If you do, I shan’t hit you on the head with a belaying pin.”“I tell you what I could do, Walter.”“What?”“I might swap watches with Enoch Hadlock. He is in your watch.”“Yes, youcould, but I wouldn’t.”“Why not? Then we should be in the same watch again, and we could walk the deck, and talk, and have good times together, as we used to.”“I’ll tell you, Ned; if you should swap watches with Hadlock, and get into my watch, it would make trouble. If I happened to give you a soft job, and somebody else a hard one, they would say I was partial—made fish of one, and flesh of another.”“I never thought of that.”“We shouldn’t be together any more for being in the same watch. You would be forward, and I should be aft.”“Shouldn’t we be together when it was my trick at the helm?”“Yes, but we couldn’t talk. It is against therules of the ship, and very unseamanlike, for an officer, or anybody, to make talk with a man at the helm. You couldn’t come aft to talk with me, and if I should go forward to talk with you, it would make growling directly, and set all the men against you.”“I see how it is,” said Ned, sadly. “The good times are all over. There’s going to be a great, high, solid wall, reaching clear up to the sky, built right up between us.”“O, not so bad as that, Ned. There will be cracks and chinks in it, where we can peek through, and boys must change into men some time or other.”“I suppose so, Walter; but I wish the change had not come quite yet.”“I wish so, too. There’s time enough for me these some years yet. But it would never have done for me to refuse the berth when it was offered me. It would have looked as though I did not know how to appreciate kind treatment, and I should never have had another offer. We can’t have everything and keep everything.”The ambitions, cares, and responsibilities of practical life lay a ruthless hand upon the sympathiesand yearnings of young hearts, and the conversation of the boys may, to the minds of older persons who read these pages, recall similar experiences, when the relations of master and servant were rudely thrust between playfellows and near friends.“Cheer up, Ned,” said Walter, noticing the downcast looks of his friend; “we will sleep together once more, at any rate. I’m going to stay here to-night, and take you aboard with me in the morning; that’s the order.”When they were snug in bed, Ned lay for a long time silent. Walter thought him asleep, and had just begun to doze himself, when he was roused by Ned exclaiming, abruptly, “I’m sure I shouldn’t want to be a king.”“Nor I either; I don’t believe in ‘em; but what in the world has put that into your head just now?”“Well, I have been thinking over all the good times we’ve had when we were in the same watch, slept in the same berth, and ate out of the same kid. In good weather we could sit side by side under the lee of the boat, or under the rail, and talk and enjoy ourselves. In our forenoonwatch below, we could comb each other’s hair, tie our cues, read and study navigation; then, being in the same watch, we always got liberty ashore together. Right in the midst of all these good times comes up this chief mate’s affair, takes you right away from me, and sticks you up on the quarter-deck. It’s no longer Ned and Walter; O, no; it’s Mr. Griffin and Gates. I can’t speak to you, for fear the men should think I was currying favor; you can’t speak to me, lest there should be growling about partiality. O, I shouldn’t want to be a king, to be stuck up for everybody to look at, and nobody to love. If people obeyed me, I should know it was because they couldn’t help it; if they pretended to love me, I should be sure they lied.”“But I ain’t a king, Ned.”“No; but you are a mate, and if just being a mate is going to make such an awful gap, what must being a king make? It must be a lonesome thing to be a king.”“What a queer fellow you are, Ned! I always thought you were about as spunky and ambitious a boy as I ever knew. You wouldn’t want to be a boy always—would you?”“No; I don’t know as I should want to bealwaysa boy; but I don’t like stepping over the edge all of a sudden; at any rate, I don’t like to see everybody else stepping over, and leaving me to be boy alone.”“Perhaps you’ll get to be second mate next voyage, and then we can be together again.”“I might if I was older, or if I was only a Griffin, or a Murch, or a Rhines, who are as big when they are seventeen as others when they are men grown. Here you are, a great fellow, your feet sticking out of bed, while my toes are only down to your knees.”“But you are growing all the time; you can steer a good trick now, and do anything that your strength is equal to, as well as any man in the vessel; you must be patient, Ned.”“O, if I was only a little bigger, so that I could furl the royal in wet weather, or when it blows hard! I didn’t use to care so much for you, but I should so hate to have any of the crew come up to help me!”“I’ll have a bunt-line rove for it.”“O, thank you; then I can handle it any time.”“Ned, do you think it is the beef makes the man?”“Not altogether; but I think there must be more beef than I’ve got.”“That is a fault that will be daily mending: see how much you’ve done since you left home; you have obtained a very good knowledge of navigation.”“I shouldn’t have done so much, if I had not been wounded. I have had lots of time to study since I have been getting better; so there’s some good come out of it. That’s just what mother’s always saying—every thing is for the best. I wonder if she’d been here the night I was hit, if she would have thoughtthatwas for the best.”“I’ll warrant she’ll think it is all for the best, Ned, when you get home safe and sound.”“That she will, when she gets me in that old bed again, prays with me and kisses me. Ain’t I a great baby, Walter?”“Not a bit of it, Ned; you’re just right.”“I wish I was good, Wal, just to please my mother, it’s all she thinks about.”“I wishIwas, just to please Charlie Bell; at any rate, we’ll do the best we can.”“O, Wal, it’s nothing at all to be good here,with such a crew as this, all nice, steady men, well brought up. You never sailed in an old country vessel—did you?”“No; I have only sailed with just such a crew as we have here, and part of them are the same men.”“Then you don’t know anything about it. Such a set of reprobates as we had in that ship I was cast away in, cursing, swearing, fighting all the time; the captain never came on deck without his pistols in his pockets; half the crew didn’t know who their father or mother was; the crew were fighting among themselves, and the captain quarrelling with his mates, full of liquor all the time; and such deviltry as they tried to put into my head! I tell you, Walter, there was not the least need of that ship being lost (and I heard Mr. Brown tell Captain Rhines the same thing); the men might have kept her free just as well as not; we were not far from land.”“Why didn’t they, then?”In the first place, the men were harassed to death, kept out of their watch, working up jobs all the time, and half starved; the captain’s idea seemed to be to keep them so used up that theywouldn’t have strength or pluck to rise and take the ship from him, and it came back on his own head; they hadn’t strength enough, when the ship sprung a-leak, to work the pumps; and besides, they were so worn out, and hated him so, that they were desperate, thought it was their turn now, and if they could only drown him, they didn’t care what became of themselves. I tell you, Wal, I think, when a boy is away from home, and thrown into bad places and bad company, it makes a good deal of difference how he’s been brought up, and whether he’s come of nice folks.”“I guess it does, Ned, because he has a good character to sustain, and thinks, when he’s tempted, ‘How can I disgrace my folks? what would my parents, brothers and sisters say? and how would they feel if I should do this thing?’ Then there’s another thing comes of being well brought up.”“What is that, Wal?”“A boy that has been well brought up, and has learning, has hopes; he knows he can make something of himself, and means to; whereas those poor fellows, who, as you say, didn’t knowwho their fathers and mothers were, had no ambition or hope of ever rising, and so made up their minds to enjoy themselves after their own fashion.”“That’s so, for I’ve heard them say so. There was one of them, my watch-mate, Dick Cameron, a very decent fellow when the rum was out of him, and I used to talk with him; but all he would say was, ‘It’s all well for you, who have learning, and friends, and a chance to be something; but it’s no use for me.’”“How big a man was Dick Cameron?”“What do you mean by that?”“Why, I mean, how much did he weigh?”“O, he was a stout, thick-set man—the strongest man in the ship, and always took the bunt of a sail. I shouldn’t wonder if he weighed nearly two hundred.”“Now, see; it’s just as I told you a while ago. It isn’t beef that makes a man, but it’s pluck, knowledge, and good principles.”“And friends.”“He’ll have friends if he has those things. They will raise him up friends anywhere. Here you are, fretting because you don’t weigh two hundred, like Dick Cameron, and are not twenty-one.But if anything should happen to the officers of this vessel, all this crew of twenty great, stout men, second mate and all, couldn’t get this vessel home. They would have to fall back on Ned Gates, if he hasn’t got any cue to speak of, and can’t furl the royal when it blows hard, and the sail is wet and heavy.”“I won’t whine any more, Walter.”“It wouldn’t make one farthing’s difference as to age or size, with such a crew as this, all neighbors. If you are only modest, and know your duty, they would take pride in seeing you go ahead.”“Well, I won’t feel so any more. Let us talk about something else.”“I’ll tell you when we can get together, and it will be nobody’s business.”“When?”“When the voyage is up, then you can go home with me to my house.”“But shall we have time before the vessel goes again?”“Plenty. They will have to pick up a cargo. The articles to carry, many of them, have to be imported from other countries—the salt-petre from England or the East Indies.”“Wouldn’t I like it? Wouldn’t I have the best time that ever was in this world?”“You better believe it.”“I shall see Charlie Bell and his wife, and the baby, Lion Ben, Uncle Isaac, and old Tige.”“Yes, and I’ll get Uncle Isaac, our Joe, and Charlie Bell to go hunting with us. It will be right in bear time, and about town-meeting time, and they’ll have a wrestling match. Our Joe is champion, but father can throw him; only he’s done wrestling in the ring. But I suppose, if any stranger came along, as Ricker did, he’d take hold, for the credit of the place. But father never saw the day he was so stout as grandfather. Did you ever see my grandsir?”“No, I never saw any of your folks but Joe.”“Well, he’s an old man now, but you can see, by his great bones and cords, as big as an ox’s, what he was once. When Hen, and I, and Will were little boys, he used to get us up in the floor, and set us to wrestling.”“I shouldn’t think an old man would care about wrestling and such things.”“He ain’t oldinside; no older than ever he was. O, I’ll tell you the funniest thing. You mustknow, we milk seven cows, and have awful big churnings. One rainy day mother had our great churn, full of cream, sitting in the chimney corner, because it was a rainy day, and father was going to churn for her. Grandsir he ties a string to the churn handle, sat in his chair, and held the end of it, and told us boys to jump over it, and see which could jump the highest. Every little while he would put the string up a little higher. It was Hen’s turn to jump, and just as he was going over, grandsir twitched up the string, and caught his feet. Over went the churn, the cover came out, and there was that cream all over the floor. Grandsir was too old to get out of the way; it filled his shoes full, ran into the fireplace, and soaked Hen all through in front before he could get up. The dog lay asleep before the fire. It ran all over him. He jumped up, and went all round the room, switching his tail, and flinging the cream over everything. We laughed; it frightened the baby; he began to scream, and you never saw such a scrape.”“What did your mother say?”“She didn’t say much. She is one of the best mothers that ever was, always one way. She isn’treligious, like your mother, ‘cause there ain’t any religion in our folks. She is too good to have such a tearing set of boys round her.”“Will you go in the woods, and camp out? I never was in the big woods. There ain’t any woods round Salem.”“Well, there’s woods enough round our way. It’s all woods. You can get bear’s grease enough to make your cue grow three inches a night, and eat bear’s meat till you grow big enough to fill up the boots of a second mate. Come, let’s go to sleep.”When they went on board in the morning, the wind was blowing fresh, and the sea beginning to heave into the roadstead.The captain made his way to the observatory (taking Walter with him), from which he enjoyed a view of the roadstead and all in it. Here he sat, watching the blockading fleet with all the interest with which a beleaguered rat contemplates the movements of his enemy, the cat. Ned Gates had been despatched to find Mr. Bell, and tell him to get his things on board the vessel, accompanied by the fisherman’s boy as pilot. Ned traversed alleys and by-ways, till, in the dark, damp basementof a squalid tenement he found the object of his search. It was a wretched place, the walls low and dripping with moisture; in one corner was a large trough, nearly full of water, in which the willow rods lay soaking, in order to make them pliable to work; the floor was littered with pieces of willows, of all colors, which had been trimmed off; the walls were hung all round with willows, stripped into thin shavings, and made into skeins. In another corner was a rough berth, built up like those on shipboard, where the old gentleman slept, and on a shelf, at the head of it, his Bible; evincing that, in his loneliness and sorrow, he found consolation in the Word of God. There was also a rusty stove, a few cooking utensils, a rickety table, and some rough chairs, made of willow with the bark on.The old gentleman was seated on a wooden platform, a little inclined, with his back against the wall, employed in finishing a basket of such delicate workmanship, such tastefully arranged and beautiful colors, as to elicit the most unbounded expressions of admiration from Ned.The old gentleman was evidently highly gratified with the praise bestowed upon his work.“I am glad you like it,” said he; “I have spent a vast deal of time and work upon it; indeed, it is all I have done since I heard my son was living. I design it as a present for my daughter, if I am ever permitted to see her. It is said, self-praise goes but little ways; yet, when I was working at my trade in England, I had the reputation of doing the best work of any man in the fens, and that is saying a good deal. I used to think, when Charles was growing up, he would make a first-rate workman; but he has found better business than making baskets.”“He can do anything,” said Ned. “He can make a ship, a bedstead, or a fiddle.”“He takes that from his mother’s folks. They were shipwrights and joiners; but mine were all basket-makers, from the beginning. I’m going to take my tools, some basket-rods, and dye-stuffs; the rest I have given to a young man who learned his trade of me.”He then drew from a chest a pair of nice broad-cloth breeches, silk hose, and other things to correspond, a nice pair of shoes, with silver buckles, and, arraying himself, accompanied Ned on board the vessel.The gale increased as the day wore away.“There they go,” said the captain, as one of the frigates loosed her topsails and made sail.“I reckon,” said Walter, “they’ll find that when the cat’s away the mice will play.”The frigate was soon followed by another, till at length only the line-of-battle ship remained. Long she held on against a tremendous sea, till, at length, Walter, who had taken her bearings over a projecting point, exclaimed, “She drags; she will have to go.”In a few moments the men were seen mounting the rigging, and she also joined the rest. She, under short sail, drifted very fast to leeward. The frigates, carrying all the sail they could smother to, and sharper built, made desperate efforts to keep to windward, and did better, especially one which had been taken from the French, that outsailed all the rest; but they all gradually fell to leeward, leaving a clear offing.“Good by, dear friends,” said Captain Brown, highly elated with the turn matters were taking; “sorry to part, but your room is better than your company.”When the basket-maker made his appearancewith Ned, he was scarcely recognized by the captain and Walter, so changed was his appearance, and so sprightly were his looks. Noticing their astonishment, he observed to the captain, “I had contrived to lay by a little, by prudence and hard work, for I couldn’t bear the thought of being a pauper in a foreign land, and that I might have somewhat to give me Christian burial; and I thought I would fix myself up a bit, that my son might not be ashamed of me, should I be spared to see him.”By twelve o’clock at night the gale moderated, the brigantine got under way, and as the sun rose was far beyond the reach of her enemies.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
NED had of late recovered rapidly, could walk quite well, and was on board the vessel very often, and went about the city some; but the doctor advised that he should not go on board the vessel to live till she was ready to sail. Ned had not seen Walter since his promotion, but Peterson had been up and informed him of it.
“Well, Ned,” said Walter, as he entered the room, “it has turned out just as I told you it would; the basket-maker is Charlie’s father, and no mistake.”
“I am so glad, Mr. Griffin! and he will go back with us—won’t he?”
“Ned, my boy, just leave that handle off, and call me Walter, as you always did. It makes me sick.”
“But you are mate now; Peterson told me so.”
“What of that? When we are on board ship, call me what you like; but not when we are alone, as we are now, you little monkey,” patting his cheek.
“We shan’t sleep together any more,” said Ned, in a desponding tone.
“No, Ned, I shall have to live aft; and that is not the worst of it; we shall now be in different watches.”
“I know it. I shall be in Mr. Baxter’s watch. And we used to have such good times in our watch on deck, talking about home, Pleasant Cove, and all the folks there. Walter, who do you like best of all the folks there, out of your own family?”
“Charlie Bell.”
“So do I, and well I might. He saved my life. Ain’t he handsome?”
“Yes; and just as good as he is handsome. A first rate wrestler—there’s none of the young ones can throw him but John Rhines and Ben Peterson.”
“What, this Ben aboard here?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid, if I call you Walter all the timewhen we are alone, that I shall forget to put the Sir on sometimes before the men.”
“If you do, I shan’t hit you on the head with a belaying pin.”
“I tell you what I could do, Walter.”
“What?”
“I might swap watches with Enoch Hadlock. He is in your watch.”
“Yes, youcould, but I wouldn’t.”
“Why not? Then we should be in the same watch again, and we could walk the deck, and talk, and have good times together, as we used to.”
“I’ll tell you, Ned; if you should swap watches with Hadlock, and get into my watch, it would make trouble. If I happened to give you a soft job, and somebody else a hard one, they would say I was partial—made fish of one, and flesh of another.”
“I never thought of that.”
“We shouldn’t be together any more for being in the same watch. You would be forward, and I should be aft.”
“Shouldn’t we be together when it was my trick at the helm?”
“Yes, but we couldn’t talk. It is against therules of the ship, and very unseamanlike, for an officer, or anybody, to make talk with a man at the helm. You couldn’t come aft to talk with me, and if I should go forward to talk with you, it would make growling directly, and set all the men against you.”
“I see how it is,” said Ned, sadly. “The good times are all over. There’s going to be a great, high, solid wall, reaching clear up to the sky, built right up between us.”
“O, not so bad as that, Ned. There will be cracks and chinks in it, where we can peek through, and boys must change into men some time or other.”
“I suppose so, Walter; but I wish the change had not come quite yet.”
“I wish so, too. There’s time enough for me these some years yet. But it would never have done for me to refuse the berth when it was offered me. It would have looked as though I did not know how to appreciate kind treatment, and I should never have had another offer. We can’t have everything and keep everything.”
The ambitions, cares, and responsibilities of practical life lay a ruthless hand upon the sympathiesand yearnings of young hearts, and the conversation of the boys may, to the minds of older persons who read these pages, recall similar experiences, when the relations of master and servant were rudely thrust between playfellows and near friends.
“Cheer up, Ned,” said Walter, noticing the downcast looks of his friend; “we will sleep together once more, at any rate. I’m going to stay here to-night, and take you aboard with me in the morning; that’s the order.”
When they were snug in bed, Ned lay for a long time silent. Walter thought him asleep, and had just begun to doze himself, when he was roused by Ned exclaiming, abruptly, “I’m sure I shouldn’t want to be a king.”
“Nor I either; I don’t believe in ‘em; but what in the world has put that into your head just now?”
“Well, I have been thinking over all the good times we’ve had when we were in the same watch, slept in the same berth, and ate out of the same kid. In good weather we could sit side by side under the lee of the boat, or under the rail, and talk and enjoy ourselves. In our forenoonwatch below, we could comb each other’s hair, tie our cues, read and study navigation; then, being in the same watch, we always got liberty ashore together. Right in the midst of all these good times comes up this chief mate’s affair, takes you right away from me, and sticks you up on the quarter-deck. It’s no longer Ned and Walter; O, no; it’s Mr. Griffin and Gates. I can’t speak to you, for fear the men should think I was currying favor; you can’t speak to me, lest there should be growling about partiality. O, I shouldn’t want to be a king, to be stuck up for everybody to look at, and nobody to love. If people obeyed me, I should know it was because they couldn’t help it; if they pretended to love me, I should be sure they lied.”
“But I ain’t a king, Ned.”
“No; but you are a mate, and if just being a mate is going to make such an awful gap, what must being a king make? It must be a lonesome thing to be a king.”
“What a queer fellow you are, Ned! I always thought you were about as spunky and ambitious a boy as I ever knew. You wouldn’t want to be a boy always—would you?”
“No; I don’t know as I should want to bealwaysa boy; but I don’t like stepping over the edge all of a sudden; at any rate, I don’t like to see everybody else stepping over, and leaving me to be boy alone.”
“Perhaps you’ll get to be second mate next voyage, and then we can be together again.”
“I might if I was older, or if I was only a Griffin, or a Murch, or a Rhines, who are as big when they are seventeen as others when they are men grown. Here you are, a great fellow, your feet sticking out of bed, while my toes are only down to your knees.”
“But you are growing all the time; you can steer a good trick now, and do anything that your strength is equal to, as well as any man in the vessel; you must be patient, Ned.”
“O, if I was only a little bigger, so that I could furl the royal in wet weather, or when it blows hard! I didn’t use to care so much for you, but I should so hate to have any of the crew come up to help me!”
“I’ll have a bunt-line rove for it.”
“O, thank you; then I can handle it any time.”
“Ned, do you think it is the beef makes the man?”
“Not altogether; but I think there must be more beef than I’ve got.”
“That is a fault that will be daily mending: see how much you’ve done since you left home; you have obtained a very good knowledge of navigation.”
“I shouldn’t have done so much, if I had not been wounded. I have had lots of time to study since I have been getting better; so there’s some good come out of it. That’s just what mother’s always saying—every thing is for the best. I wonder if she’d been here the night I was hit, if she would have thoughtthatwas for the best.”
“I’ll warrant she’ll think it is all for the best, Ned, when you get home safe and sound.”
“That she will, when she gets me in that old bed again, prays with me and kisses me. Ain’t I a great baby, Walter?”
“Not a bit of it, Ned; you’re just right.”
“I wish I was good, Wal, just to please my mother, it’s all she thinks about.”
“I wishIwas, just to please Charlie Bell; at any rate, we’ll do the best we can.”
“O, Wal, it’s nothing at all to be good here,with such a crew as this, all nice, steady men, well brought up. You never sailed in an old country vessel—did you?”
“No; I have only sailed with just such a crew as we have here, and part of them are the same men.”
“Then you don’t know anything about it. Such a set of reprobates as we had in that ship I was cast away in, cursing, swearing, fighting all the time; the captain never came on deck without his pistols in his pockets; half the crew didn’t know who their father or mother was; the crew were fighting among themselves, and the captain quarrelling with his mates, full of liquor all the time; and such deviltry as they tried to put into my head! I tell you, Walter, there was not the least need of that ship being lost (and I heard Mr. Brown tell Captain Rhines the same thing); the men might have kept her free just as well as not; we were not far from land.”
“Why didn’t they, then?”
In the first place, the men were harassed to death, kept out of their watch, working up jobs all the time, and half starved; the captain’s idea seemed to be to keep them so used up that theywouldn’t have strength or pluck to rise and take the ship from him, and it came back on his own head; they hadn’t strength enough, when the ship sprung a-leak, to work the pumps; and besides, they were so worn out, and hated him so, that they were desperate, thought it was their turn now, and if they could only drown him, they didn’t care what became of themselves. I tell you, Wal, I think, when a boy is away from home, and thrown into bad places and bad company, it makes a good deal of difference how he’s been brought up, and whether he’s come of nice folks.”
“I guess it does, Ned, because he has a good character to sustain, and thinks, when he’s tempted, ‘How can I disgrace my folks? what would my parents, brothers and sisters say? and how would they feel if I should do this thing?’ Then there’s another thing comes of being well brought up.”
“What is that, Wal?”
“A boy that has been well brought up, and has learning, has hopes; he knows he can make something of himself, and means to; whereas those poor fellows, who, as you say, didn’t knowwho their fathers and mothers were, had no ambition or hope of ever rising, and so made up their minds to enjoy themselves after their own fashion.”
“That’s so, for I’ve heard them say so. There was one of them, my watch-mate, Dick Cameron, a very decent fellow when the rum was out of him, and I used to talk with him; but all he would say was, ‘It’s all well for you, who have learning, and friends, and a chance to be something; but it’s no use for me.’”
“How big a man was Dick Cameron?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why, I mean, how much did he weigh?”
“O, he was a stout, thick-set man—the strongest man in the ship, and always took the bunt of a sail. I shouldn’t wonder if he weighed nearly two hundred.”
“Now, see; it’s just as I told you a while ago. It isn’t beef that makes a man, but it’s pluck, knowledge, and good principles.”
“And friends.”
“He’ll have friends if he has those things. They will raise him up friends anywhere. Here you are, fretting because you don’t weigh two hundred, like Dick Cameron, and are not twenty-one.But if anything should happen to the officers of this vessel, all this crew of twenty great, stout men, second mate and all, couldn’t get this vessel home. They would have to fall back on Ned Gates, if he hasn’t got any cue to speak of, and can’t furl the royal when it blows hard, and the sail is wet and heavy.”
“I won’t whine any more, Walter.”
“It wouldn’t make one farthing’s difference as to age or size, with such a crew as this, all neighbors. If you are only modest, and know your duty, they would take pride in seeing you go ahead.”
“Well, I won’t feel so any more. Let us talk about something else.”
“I’ll tell you when we can get together, and it will be nobody’s business.”
“When?”
“When the voyage is up, then you can go home with me to my house.”
“But shall we have time before the vessel goes again?”
“Plenty. They will have to pick up a cargo. The articles to carry, many of them, have to be imported from other countries—the salt-petre from England or the East Indies.”
“Wouldn’t I like it? Wouldn’t I have the best time that ever was in this world?”
“You better believe it.”
“I shall see Charlie Bell and his wife, and the baby, Lion Ben, Uncle Isaac, and old Tige.”
“Yes, and I’ll get Uncle Isaac, our Joe, and Charlie Bell to go hunting with us. It will be right in bear time, and about town-meeting time, and they’ll have a wrestling match. Our Joe is champion, but father can throw him; only he’s done wrestling in the ring. But I suppose, if any stranger came along, as Ricker did, he’d take hold, for the credit of the place. But father never saw the day he was so stout as grandfather. Did you ever see my grandsir?”
“No, I never saw any of your folks but Joe.”
“Well, he’s an old man now, but you can see, by his great bones and cords, as big as an ox’s, what he was once. When Hen, and I, and Will were little boys, he used to get us up in the floor, and set us to wrestling.”
“I shouldn’t think an old man would care about wrestling and such things.”
“He ain’t oldinside; no older than ever he was. O, I’ll tell you the funniest thing. You mustknow, we milk seven cows, and have awful big churnings. One rainy day mother had our great churn, full of cream, sitting in the chimney corner, because it was a rainy day, and father was going to churn for her. Grandsir he ties a string to the churn handle, sat in his chair, and held the end of it, and told us boys to jump over it, and see which could jump the highest. Every little while he would put the string up a little higher. It was Hen’s turn to jump, and just as he was going over, grandsir twitched up the string, and caught his feet. Over went the churn, the cover came out, and there was that cream all over the floor. Grandsir was too old to get out of the way; it filled his shoes full, ran into the fireplace, and soaked Hen all through in front before he could get up. The dog lay asleep before the fire. It ran all over him. He jumped up, and went all round the room, switching his tail, and flinging the cream over everything. We laughed; it frightened the baby; he began to scream, and you never saw such a scrape.”
“What did your mother say?”
“She didn’t say much. She is one of the best mothers that ever was, always one way. She isn’treligious, like your mother, ‘cause there ain’t any religion in our folks. She is too good to have such a tearing set of boys round her.”
“Will you go in the woods, and camp out? I never was in the big woods. There ain’t any woods round Salem.”
“Well, there’s woods enough round our way. It’s all woods. You can get bear’s grease enough to make your cue grow three inches a night, and eat bear’s meat till you grow big enough to fill up the boots of a second mate. Come, let’s go to sleep.”
When they went on board in the morning, the wind was blowing fresh, and the sea beginning to heave into the roadstead.
The captain made his way to the observatory (taking Walter with him), from which he enjoyed a view of the roadstead and all in it. Here he sat, watching the blockading fleet with all the interest with which a beleaguered rat contemplates the movements of his enemy, the cat. Ned Gates had been despatched to find Mr. Bell, and tell him to get his things on board the vessel, accompanied by the fisherman’s boy as pilot. Ned traversed alleys and by-ways, till, in the dark, damp basementof a squalid tenement he found the object of his search. It was a wretched place, the walls low and dripping with moisture; in one corner was a large trough, nearly full of water, in which the willow rods lay soaking, in order to make them pliable to work; the floor was littered with pieces of willows, of all colors, which had been trimmed off; the walls were hung all round with willows, stripped into thin shavings, and made into skeins. In another corner was a rough berth, built up like those on shipboard, where the old gentleman slept, and on a shelf, at the head of it, his Bible; evincing that, in his loneliness and sorrow, he found consolation in the Word of God. There was also a rusty stove, a few cooking utensils, a rickety table, and some rough chairs, made of willow with the bark on.
The old gentleman was seated on a wooden platform, a little inclined, with his back against the wall, employed in finishing a basket of such delicate workmanship, such tastefully arranged and beautiful colors, as to elicit the most unbounded expressions of admiration from Ned.
The old gentleman was evidently highly gratified with the praise bestowed upon his work.
“I am glad you like it,” said he; “I have spent a vast deal of time and work upon it; indeed, it is all I have done since I heard my son was living. I design it as a present for my daughter, if I am ever permitted to see her. It is said, self-praise goes but little ways; yet, when I was working at my trade in England, I had the reputation of doing the best work of any man in the fens, and that is saying a good deal. I used to think, when Charles was growing up, he would make a first-rate workman; but he has found better business than making baskets.”
“He can do anything,” said Ned. “He can make a ship, a bedstead, or a fiddle.”
“He takes that from his mother’s folks. They were shipwrights and joiners; but mine were all basket-makers, from the beginning. I’m going to take my tools, some basket-rods, and dye-stuffs; the rest I have given to a young man who learned his trade of me.”
He then drew from a chest a pair of nice broad-cloth breeches, silk hose, and other things to correspond, a nice pair of shoes, with silver buckles, and, arraying himself, accompanied Ned on board the vessel.
The gale increased as the day wore away.
“There they go,” said the captain, as one of the frigates loosed her topsails and made sail.
“I reckon,” said Walter, “they’ll find that when the cat’s away the mice will play.”
The frigate was soon followed by another, till at length only the line-of-battle ship remained. Long she held on against a tremendous sea, till, at length, Walter, who had taken her bearings over a projecting point, exclaimed, “She drags; she will have to go.”
In a few moments the men were seen mounting the rigging, and she also joined the rest. She, under short sail, drifted very fast to leeward. The frigates, carrying all the sail they could smother to, and sharper built, made desperate efforts to keep to windward, and did better, especially one which had been taken from the French, that outsailed all the rest; but they all gradually fell to leeward, leaving a clear offing.
“Good by, dear friends,” said Captain Brown, highly elated with the turn matters were taking; “sorry to part, but your room is better than your company.”
When the basket-maker made his appearancewith Ned, he was scarcely recognized by the captain and Walter, so changed was his appearance, and so sprightly were his looks. Noticing their astonishment, he observed to the captain, “I had contrived to lay by a little, by prudence and hard work, for I couldn’t bear the thought of being a pauper in a foreign land, and that I might have somewhat to give me Christian burial; and I thought I would fix myself up a bit, that my son might not be ashamed of me, should I be spared to see him.”
By twelve o’clock at night the gale moderated, the brigantine got under way, and as the sun rose was far beyond the reach of her enemies.
CHAPTER XVI.DEAR-BOUGHT WIT.NED had been accustomed, in all ordinary weather, to take his trick at the helm with the rest; but the captain would not permit it for the first fortnight out, greatly to the annoyance of Ned, who prided himself very much on being able to steer. Wheels were not in use then, and the old-fashioned tiller with which vessels were steered came against the hips, sometimes with a good deal of force, and the captain was fearful of causing Ned’s wound to break out again; neither would he permit him to stand his watch. All day he was on deck, pulled and hauled with the rest, and went aloft.As Ned didn’t care for turning in till nine, ten, or even twelve o’clock, of a pleasant night, when he had not been fatigued through the day, Mr. Bell—who was naturally inclined to make all theinquiries possible about his son, and the new country to which he was going—sought out Ned in the pleasant evenings, and whiled away many an hour in conversation most interesting to both. Ned described the personal appearance of the son to his father, and also that of Lion Ben, told all the stories he had ever heard of his enormous strength, and his encounter with the pirates, recounted the beauties of Elm Island, of Charlie’s farm, and sketched the characters of Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac. No doubt the virtues and attractions of Charlie received their just due in the description of so enthusiastic an admirer.“You say, Ned, that my son owns six hundred acres of land.”“Yes, sir; and a saw-mill on it; and the machinery came from England,—that is, the crank, saw, and mill chain.”“Why, a man must be immensely rich to own so much land. There must be some mistake about it.”“No, sir, there ain’t; for Mr. Griffin, the mate’s brother, his next neighbor, told me so, and I’ve been in the mill. He owns more than that, sir; he owns part of this vessel, and part of the Casco(a great mast ship of seven hundred tons), and one fourth of the Hard-scrabble; and he built the whole of them.”“I can’t understand how he came by so much money at his age, for he’s not much more than a boy now.”“Perhaps Lion Ben, Uncle Isaac, and Captain Rhines gave it to him, they think so much of him.”“I don’t believe that. People are not so fond of giving away money. There must be some mistake. All my forefathers have been prudent, hard-working people, and never one of them owned a foot of land.”“Well, sir, I don’t know how it is, but I knowit is so. I will call Danforth Eaton. He can explain it all, I dare say.”“Do, young man.”Eaton told Mr. Bell about the ventures that Charlie sent in the Ark, which gave him the first money he ever possessed; also about his learning the ship carpenter’s trade; and astonished the old gentleman by telling him that Charlie’s land cost only seventy-five cents an acre. He also told him about the building of the Hard-scrabble, and how much money she made. Upon these mattersEaton was an authority, as he had worked on all the vessels Charlie had built, and knew the whole matter from the beginning, whereas Walter Griffin was too young to be familiar with the events of Charlie’s boyhood, and the information of Ned was all second hand.As the voyage approached its termination, the excitement of the father increased. Ned was now able to stand his watch, and often, at twelve o’clock, the old gentleman would come on deck, and spend the remainder of the night talking with him and Eaton, and also with Peterson, whose acquaintance he had now made.When, by the captain’s reckoning, the vessel was nearly up with the land, and men were sent aloft to look out for it, he became quite nervous, thinking, perhaps, the happiness of possessing and meeting such a son was too great a boon. Again, he imagined that he might die before the vessel arrived, or that, after all, there might be some mistake. “God only knows what is in store for me,” he said, brushing the tear from his eye, as a joyous scream from the royal yard, in the shrill tones of Ned, proclaimed, “Land, O!”Let us now see what the unconscious object ofall this solicitude is doing. He is about half way between his house and Uncle Isaac’s, walking at a smart pace, and with the air of one bound upon a long walk. It was early autumn. As he approached the house, he saw Uncle Isaac in the barn floor, winnowing grain in the primitive fashion.“Good afternoon, Charlie. Go into the house. I’ll be there in a moment. I’m almost through.”“I can’t stop, Uncle Isaac. I’m going farther.”“Where to?”“Over to Mr. Colcord’s, to look at a cow. He’s got seven. He told me I might have my pick of them for fifteen dollars.”“What! Jim Colcord?”“Yes, sir.”“I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”“Why not?”“Because he’s the most narrow-contracted creetur that ever lived. He soaks out mackerel, and then takes the water to make hasty-pudding, in order to save the salt. Robert Yelf worked for him one year in haying time. Didn’t you never hear him tell about his jumping into the loaf of hot rye and Indian bread?”“No, sir; what did he do that for?”“I’ll tell you. One day, his wife had cooked all her dinner in the brick oven, except some potatoes that she had baked in the ashes. She had baked beans, Indian pudding, a hind quarter of lamb, and a great loaf of rye and Indian bread in an iron pan that would hold a peck. He had a number of hands at work for him, getting hay. He’s rich the old screw, but so mean that he never allows himself or his family decent clothes, and always goes barefoot. He’s got a noble woman for a wife, too, as ever God made, and a nice family of children.”“I believe such men always get the best of wives.”“It’s a good deal so, Charlie, I guess. Well, as I was saying, coming into the house that day, just afore twelve o’clock, and seeing no pots or kettles on the fire, he took it into his head that his wife had made no preparation for dinner; that the men would come in at twelve, have to wait, and he should lose some time.”“Whereas,” said Charlie, “the dinner was all in the oven, and ready to be put on the table.”“Just so. He instantly began to jump up anddown on the hearth, and curse and swear. His wife, who was scared to death of him, began to take the victuals out of the oven, to let him see it was all right. The first thing she came to was the great iron pan of rye and Indian bread, which she put down on the hearth. Thinking, in his passion, that this was all, he jumped right into it with his bare feet.”“I guess it burnt him some.”“I guess you’d think so; if there’s anything in this world that’s hot, or holds heat, it’s rye and Indian bread. It stuck between his toes, and scalded to the bone. He ran round the room, howling and swearing, and the tears running down his cheeks.”“Served him right.”“I think so. Now, if I were you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him; he’ll cheat you, sure.”“I reckon I can tell a good cow when I see her.”“Perhaps you can; but he’s cheated as smart men as you are. Let me go and trade for you.”Charlie would by no means consent to that, but set off on his errand.“Well,” said Uncle Isaac, as they parted, “it is said, bought wit is good; perhaps it is, if you don’t buy it too dear.” When, at length, at the place, he was received by Colcord with the greatest cordiality; but Charlie saw that the house and all the surroundings accorded precisely with Uncle Isaac’s description of his character.Colcord himself was a meagre-looking being; although in years, he was barefoot, and so was his wife. Charlie also noticed that the small quantity of wood at the door seemed to be rotten windfalls and dead limbs of trees, though he possessed a large extent of very heavily timbered woodland. Three boys, whose dress barely served the purposes of decency, completed this singular family. The youngest, notwithstanding his rags and a certain timidity of expression (the result of hard usage), was a most intelligent, noble-looking boy, with whose face Charlie instantly fell in love; his heart went out to these boys.“I have known hardship and poverty,” he said to himself, “but I thank God I never had a father who, when I asked him for an egg, would give me a scorpion.Mypoor father did all in his power to give me schooling, and make my childhoodhappy.—You remember,” said Charlie to Mr. Colcord, “the talk we had some time since about cows, when you told me that for fifteen dollars I should have my pick out of seven. This is the day set, and I have come to look them over.”“Andrew,” said Colcord, to the oldest boy, “drive the cows into the yard.”After Charlie had examined each cow in succession, he said, “Mr. Colcord, here are but six cows; I was to have my choice of seven.”“It is true, Mr. Bell, I did say so; but when I came home and told my wife, she took on at such a rate about my sellingthatcow, that I’ve tied her up in the barn. She won’t consent to part with her; it would break her heart. You must excuse me there.”Charlie’s suspicions were roused in an instant. All that Uncle Isaac had told him in respect to the sharp practice of the man rushed at once to his recollection. He was determined to have that cow, at any rate, and instantly asked to see Mrs. Colcord, intending to make her a present, to reconcile her to the loss of the cow; but he was told she had gone away to spend the day.“The old rascal,” soliloquized Charlie, “has shutup his best cow, thinking I wouldn’t notice there were but six in the yard.—Mr. Colcord,” he said, “it was a fair contract between us. You agreed to let me take my pick of seven cows. I am here, according to agreement, with the cash. I’ll have that cow, or none.”“Well, if Imust, I must,” said the old man; “but my wife will cry her eyes out;” and he flung open the cow-house.Charlie felt so sure that this was the best cow of the herd, that he never stopped to examine her closely, asked no questions, didn’t even take hold of her teats, to see if she milked easy, or to examine the quality of the milk, but put a rope on her head, and drove her off, congratulating himself, all the way along, that he had outwitted the old sneak.“Guess Uncle Isaac won’t say any more about bought wit,” thought he. “Couldn’t have done better than that himself.”It was about the middle of the afternoon when Charlie reached home. At the usual time his wife went to the barn to milk, and began with the new comer.“She has got nice teats, and milks easy, at any rate,” said Mrs. Bell.The Kicking Cow.Page233.The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the cow gave the pail a kick so vicious as to send it spinning over the floor, spattering her with milk.“It is because she is in a strange place, and is afraid of a stranger,” said Mrs. Bell; and, holding the pail in one hand, she continued to milk with the other. The cow began to kick, first with one leg and then the other, without an instant’s intermission, so that to milk was impossible.Charlie, who was in the barn-yard, milking the other cows, now came to the rescue. “I never saw a cow I couldn’t milk,” he said; and taking up one of her fore legs, fastened it to the rack with a rope. “Kick now, if you can.” Placing the pail on the floor, he began to milk with both hands; but the vicious brute, springing from the floor, fell over upon him, spilling the milk, breaking the bail of the pail, upsetting Charlie’s milking-stool, and leaving him at full length on the floor, in not the most amiable mood (for his wife could not refrain from laughing). He beat her to make her get up, but she was sullen, and get up she wouldn’t. He twisted her tail, but she wouldn’t start. He then, with both hands, closed hermouth and nostrils, strangling her till she was glad to jump up. Thinking she had got enough of it, he began again to milk, when away went the pail into the manger, and the milk into Charlie’s face. Provoked now beyond endurance, he beat her till she roared; but the moment he touched her teats, she began to kick as bad as ever. In short, all the way he could milk her at all was to fasten her to the stake next the side of the barn, build a fence on the other side, so that she couldn’t run around either way, then tie her hind legs together, milk her till she threw herself down, and then finish the operation as she lay.While all this was going on, the dog kept up a furious barking.“What is that dog barking about, Mary?”“I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps there’s a skunk or a woodchuck under the barn.”If it was a skunk, he was peeping through a knot-hole in the back barn-door.As they came in with their milk, Joe Griffin was approaching the door, having come to borrow a chain and canting dog.Charlie now perceived that the cunning old wretch had shut up this pest, and feigned reluctanceto part with her, on purpose to draw him on.“I don’t believe,” said Mrs. Bell, “but what his wife was at home all the time. He knew, if you spoke to her, she would tell you the whole truth, for she is an excellent woman.”Charlie resolved to keep the thing from the knowledge of every one,especiallyof Uncle Isaac, whose assertion, “He has cheated as smart men as you are,” recurred most unpleasantly to his recollection.“Mary,” said he,” we must not breathe a word of this to any soul,—father’s folks, Joe Griffin, or, above all, Uncle Isaac. I had rather pocket the loss than have it known that I got so taken in. I’ll dry her up, and fat her. She’s a large cow, and will make a lot of beef.”But such things will always, in some way or other, leak out. While Charlie imagined that himself and wife alone possessed the secret, it was known to half the town, and they were chuckling over it. Indeed, it had come to the ears of Lion Ben, on Elm Island, whose adopted son he was.A fortnight after the occurrences related, Fred Williams and Joe Griffin were standing in thedoorway of Fred’s store, when they espied Lion Ben coming from Elm Island in his big canoe, which he was forcing through the water with tremendous strokes.Landing, and dragging the heavy craft out of the water as though she was an egg-shell, he merely nodded to Joe and Fred, and proceeded with rapid strides in the direction of Charlie Bell’s.“What can that mean, Joe?” asked Fred. “He never spoke to us.”Fred was his brother-in-law, Joe one of his most intimate friends.“It means that he is angry. Didn’t you notice his face? I never saw him angry, though I’ve known him ever since I was a boy; but I’ve heard say he is awful when he rises. A common man would be no more in his hands now than a fly in the clutch of a lion.”Ben went directly into Charlie’s pasture, avoiding him, hunted around there till he found the kicking cow, and pulling a rope from his pocket, put it over her horns, and led her in the direction of Colcord’s. Uncle Isaac was butchering a lamb at his door when Ben came along with the cow,and was just about to speak to him; but catching one glimpse of his face, he dropped his knife, and pretending not to see him, walked into the barn.“Isaac,” cried his wife from the window. “Isaac, Ben has just gone by.”“I saw him.”“Sawhim; then why didn’t you speak to him, and ask him to come in, and stop to dinner?”“He’s got the cow Jim Colcord sold to Charlie. I guess he’s on his way to call the old viper to account for his trick. When he is in one of those rages you’d better go near a she catamount than him.”“Will he murder him?”“I hope not.”“It is some ways there. Ben can’t hold his passion long, and will most likely get over it somewhat before he gets there.”“If he don’t, much as I abhor the old creetur, I pity him.”When Ben arrived at Colcord’s the family were at dinner; seeing an ox cart in the barn-yard, he tied the cow to it. He entered the kitchen without knocking, where the family were seated at the dinner-table, seized old Colcord by the nape of theneck, carried him, pale as a ghost, with eyes starting from their sockets, and too nearly strangled to scream, into the barn-yard; here Ben sat down upon the cart-tongue, flung his victim across his knees, and while he was alternately screaming murder, and begging for mercy, slapped him with his terrible paw, till the blood came through his breeches, while the family looked on, crying and trembling.Ben, as a redresser of wrongs, considered it his duty, not only to inflict punishment for his knavery in the matter of the cow, but likewise for the abuse he had for years inflicted upon his uncomplaining wife and children.When he had finished the castigation, he ordered him to bring the money Charlie paid him for the cow, and ten dollars additional for his trouble in whipping him. Colcord brought the money, but, fearing to approach Ben, put it on the cart tongue.After counting it, Ben called for a basin of water, soap, and a towel, observing, that he was accustomed to wash his hands after handling carrion, and informing him (after wiping his hands, as he hung the towel on the wheel of the cart)that, if compelled to come there again, he should most probably make an end of him.That night Charlie hunted the pasture over in vain for the cow; but the next morning Uncle Isaac came over, told him where the cow was, and handed him the money, which Ben had left with him on his return.“How did father find it out?” asked Charlie.“Captain Rhines told him.”“Who told Captain Rhines?”“I did.”“Who told you?”“Joe Griffin.”“How in the world came he, or anybody else, to know anything about it?”“That’s more than I know; but he said you had to build a fence round her, and tie her hind legs together to milk her, and when she couldn’t kick, she’d lie down.”“I bought wit pretty dear, Uncle Isaac.”“Not quite so dear as Jim Colcord did. They say he can’t sit down, and won’t be able to till snow flies.”
DEAR-BOUGHT WIT.
NED had been accustomed, in all ordinary weather, to take his trick at the helm with the rest; but the captain would not permit it for the first fortnight out, greatly to the annoyance of Ned, who prided himself very much on being able to steer. Wheels were not in use then, and the old-fashioned tiller with which vessels were steered came against the hips, sometimes with a good deal of force, and the captain was fearful of causing Ned’s wound to break out again; neither would he permit him to stand his watch. All day he was on deck, pulled and hauled with the rest, and went aloft.
As Ned didn’t care for turning in till nine, ten, or even twelve o’clock, of a pleasant night, when he had not been fatigued through the day, Mr. Bell—who was naturally inclined to make all theinquiries possible about his son, and the new country to which he was going—sought out Ned in the pleasant evenings, and whiled away many an hour in conversation most interesting to both. Ned described the personal appearance of the son to his father, and also that of Lion Ben, told all the stories he had ever heard of his enormous strength, and his encounter with the pirates, recounted the beauties of Elm Island, of Charlie’s farm, and sketched the characters of Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac. No doubt the virtues and attractions of Charlie received their just due in the description of so enthusiastic an admirer.
“You say, Ned, that my son owns six hundred acres of land.”
“Yes, sir; and a saw-mill on it; and the machinery came from England,—that is, the crank, saw, and mill chain.”
“Why, a man must be immensely rich to own so much land. There must be some mistake about it.”
“No, sir, there ain’t; for Mr. Griffin, the mate’s brother, his next neighbor, told me so, and I’ve been in the mill. He owns more than that, sir; he owns part of this vessel, and part of the Casco(a great mast ship of seven hundred tons), and one fourth of the Hard-scrabble; and he built the whole of them.”
“I can’t understand how he came by so much money at his age, for he’s not much more than a boy now.”
“Perhaps Lion Ben, Uncle Isaac, and Captain Rhines gave it to him, they think so much of him.”
“I don’t believe that. People are not so fond of giving away money. There must be some mistake. All my forefathers have been prudent, hard-working people, and never one of them owned a foot of land.”
“Well, sir, I don’t know how it is, but I knowit is so. I will call Danforth Eaton. He can explain it all, I dare say.”
“Do, young man.”
Eaton told Mr. Bell about the ventures that Charlie sent in the Ark, which gave him the first money he ever possessed; also about his learning the ship carpenter’s trade; and astonished the old gentleman by telling him that Charlie’s land cost only seventy-five cents an acre. He also told him about the building of the Hard-scrabble, and how much money she made. Upon these mattersEaton was an authority, as he had worked on all the vessels Charlie had built, and knew the whole matter from the beginning, whereas Walter Griffin was too young to be familiar with the events of Charlie’s boyhood, and the information of Ned was all second hand.
As the voyage approached its termination, the excitement of the father increased. Ned was now able to stand his watch, and often, at twelve o’clock, the old gentleman would come on deck, and spend the remainder of the night talking with him and Eaton, and also with Peterson, whose acquaintance he had now made.
When, by the captain’s reckoning, the vessel was nearly up with the land, and men were sent aloft to look out for it, he became quite nervous, thinking, perhaps, the happiness of possessing and meeting such a son was too great a boon. Again, he imagined that he might die before the vessel arrived, or that, after all, there might be some mistake. “God only knows what is in store for me,” he said, brushing the tear from his eye, as a joyous scream from the royal yard, in the shrill tones of Ned, proclaimed, “Land, O!”
Let us now see what the unconscious object ofall this solicitude is doing. He is about half way between his house and Uncle Isaac’s, walking at a smart pace, and with the air of one bound upon a long walk. It was early autumn. As he approached the house, he saw Uncle Isaac in the barn floor, winnowing grain in the primitive fashion.
“Good afternoon, Charlie. Go into the house. I’ll be there in a moment. I’m almost through.”
“I can’t stop, Uncle Isaac. I’m going farther.”
“Where to?”
“Over to Mr. Colcord’s, to look at a cow. He’s got seven. He told me I might have my pick of them for fifteen dollars.”
“What! Jim Colcord?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s the most narrow-contracted creetur that ever lived. He soaks out mackerel, and then takes the water to make hasty-pudding, in order to save the salt. Robert Yelf worked for him one year in haying time. Didn’t you never hear him tell about his jumping into the loaf of hot rye and Indian bread?”
“No, sir; what did he do that for?”
“I’ll tell you. One day, his wife had cooked all her dinner in the brick oven, except some potatoes that she had baked in the ashes. She had baked beans, Indian pudding, a hind quarter of lamb, and a great loaf of rye and Indian bread in an iron pan that would hold a peck. He had a number of hands at work for him, getting hay. He’s rich the old screw, but so mean that he never allows himself or his family decent clothes, and always goes barefoot. He’s got a noble woman for a wife, too, as ever God made, and a nice family of children.”
“I believe such men always get the best of wives.”
“It’s a good deal so, Charlie, I guess. Well, as I was saying, coming into the house that day, just afore twelve o’clock, and seeing no pots or kettles on the fire, he took it into his head that his wife had made no preparation for dinner; that the men would come in at twelve, have to wait, and he should lose some time.”
“Whereas,” said Charlie, “the dinner was all in the oven, and ready to be put on the table.”
“Just so. He instantly began to jump up anddown on the hearth, and curse and swear. His wife, who was scared to death of him, began to take the victuals out of the oven, to let him see it was all right. The first thing she came to was the great iron pan of rye and Indian bread, which she put down on the hearth. Thinking, in his passion, that this was all, he jumped right into it with his bare feet.”
“I guess it burnt him some.”
“I guess you’d think so; if there’s anything in this world that’s hot, or holds heat, it’s rye and Indian bread. It stuck between his toes, and scalded to the bone. He ran round the room, howling and swearing, and the tears running down his cheeks.”
“Served him right.”
“I think so. Now, if I were you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him; he’ll cheat you, sure.”
“I reckon I can tell a good cow when I see her.”
“Perhaps you can; but he’s cheated as smart men as you are. Let me go and trade for you.”
Charlie would by no means consent to that, but set off on his errand.
“Well,” said Uncle Isaac, as they parted, “it is said, bought wit is good; perhaps it is, if you don’t buy it too dear.” When, at length, at the place, he was received by Colcord with the greatest cordiality; but Charlie saw that the house and all the surroundings accorded precisely with Uncle Isaac’s description of his character.
Colcord himself was a meagre-looking being; although in years, he was barefoot, and so was his wife. Charlie also noticed that the small quantity of wood at the door seemed to be rotten windfalls and dead limbs of trees, though he possessed a large extent of very heavily timbered woodland. Three boys, whose dress barely served the purposes of decency, completed this singular family. The youngest, notwithstanding his rags and a certain timidity of expression (the result of hard usage), was a most intelligent, noble-looking boy, with whose face Charlie instantly fell in love; his heart went out to these boys.
“I have known hardship and poverty,” he said to himself, “but I thank God I never had a father who, when I asked him for an egg, would give me a scorpion.Mypoor father did all in his power to give me schooling, and make my childhoodhappy.—You remember,” said Charlie to Mr. Colcord, “the talk we had some time since about cows, when you told me that for fifteen dollars I should have my pick out of seven. This is the day set, and I have come to look them over.”
“Andrew,” said Colcord, to the oldest boy, “drive the cows into the yard.”
After Charlie had examined each cow in succession, he said, “Mr. Colcord, here are but six cows; I was to have my choice of seven.”
“It is true, Mr. Bell, I did say so; but when I came home and told my wife, she took on at such a rate about my sellingthatcow, that I’ve tied her up in the barn. She won’t consent to part with her; it would break her heart. You must excuse me there.”
Charlie’s suspicions were roused in an instant. All that Uncle Isaac had told him in respect to the sharp practice of the man rushed at once to his recollection. He was determined to have that cow, at any rate, and instantly asked to see Mrs. Colcord, intending to make her a present, to reconcile her to the loss of the cow; but he was told she had gone away to spend the day.
“The old rascal,” soliloquized Charlie, “has shutup his best cow, thinking I wouldn’t notice there were but six in the yard.—Mr. Colcord,” he said, “it was a fair contract between us. You agreed to let me take my pick of seven cows. I am here, according to agreement, with the cash. I’ll have that cow, or none.”
“Well, if Imust, I must,” said the old man; “but my wife will cry her eyes out;” and he flung open the cow-house.
Charlie felt so sure that this was the best cow of the herd, that he never stopped to examine her closely, asked no questions, didn’t even take hold of her teats, to see if she milked easy, or to examine the quality of the milk, but put a rope on her head, and drove her off, congratulating himself, all the way along, that he had outwitted the old sneak.
“Guess Uncle Isaac won’t say any more about bought wit,” thought he. “Couldn’t have done better than that himself.”
It was about the middle of the afternoon when Charlie reached home. At the usual time his wife went to the barn to milk, and began with the new comer.
“She has got nice teats, and milks easy, at any rate,” said Mrs. Bell.
The Kicking Cow.Page233.
The Kicking Cow.Page233.
The Kicking Cow.Page233.
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the cow gave the pail a kick so vicious as to send it spinning over the floor, spattering her with milk.
“It is because she is in a strange place, and is afraid of a stranger,” said Mrs. Bell; and, holding the pail in one hand, she continued to milk with the other. The cow began to kick, first with one leg and then the other, without an instant’s intermission, so that to milk was impossible.
Charlie, who was in the barn-yard, milking the other cows, now came to the rescue. “I never saw a cow I couldn’t milk,” he said; and taking up one of her fore legs, fastened it to the rack with a rope. “Kick now, if you can.” Placing the pail on the floor, he began to milk with both hands; but the vicious brute, springing from the floor, fell over upon him, spilling the milk, breaking the bail of the pail, upsetting Charlie’s milking-stool, and leaving him at full length on the floor, in not the most amiable mood (for his wife could not refrain from laughing). He beat her to make her get up, but she was sullen, and get up she wouldn’t. He twisted her tail, but she wouldn’t start. He then, with both hands, closed hermouth and nostrils, strangling her till she was glad to jump up. Thinking she had got enough of it, he began again to milk, when away went the pail into the manger, and the milk into Charlie’s face. Provoked now beyond endurance, he beat her till she roared; but the moment he touched her teats, she began to kick as bad as ever. In short, all the way he could milk her at all was to fasten her to the stake next the side of the barn, build a fence on the other side, so that she couldn’t run around either way, then tie her hind legs together, milk her till she threw herself down, and then finish the operation as she lay.
While all this was going on, the dog kept up a furious barking.
“What is that dog barking about, Mary?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps there’s a skunk or a woodchuck under the barn.”
If it was a skunk, he was peeping through a knot-hole in the back barn-door.
As they came in with their milk, Joe Griffin was approaching the door, having come to borrow a chain and canting dog.
Charlie now perceived that the cunning old wretch had shut up this pest, and feigned reluctanceto part with her, on purpose to draw him on.
“I don’t believe,” said Mrs. Bell, “but what his wife was at home all the time. He knew, if you spoke to her, she would tell you the whole truth, for she is an excellent woman.”
Charlie resolved to keep the thing from the knowledge of every one,especiallyof Uncle Isaac, whose assertion, “He has cheated as smart men as you are,” recurred most unpleasantly to his recollection.
“Mary,” said he,” we must not breathe a word of this to any soul,—father’s folks, Joe Griffin, or, above all, Uncle Isaac. I had rather pocket the loss than have it known that I got so taken in. I’ll dry her up, and fat her. She’s a large cow, and will make a lot of beef.”
But such things will always, in some way or other, leak out. While Charlie imagined that himself and wife alone possessed the secret, it was known to half the town, and they were chuckling over it. Indeed, it had come to the ears of Lion Ben, on Elm Island, whose adopted son he was.
A fortnight after the occurrences related, Fred Williams and Joe Griffin were standing in thedoorway of Fred’s store, when they espied Lion Ben coming from Elm Island in his big canoe, which he was forcing through the water with tremendous strokes.
Landing, and dragging the heavy craft out of the water as though she was an egg-shell, he merely nodded to Joe and Fred, and proceeded with rapid strides in the direction of Charlie Bell’s.
“What can that mean, Joe?” asked Fred. “He never spoke to us.”
Fred was his brother-in-law, Joe one of his most intimate friends.
“It means that he is angry. Didn’t you notice his face? I never saw him angry, though I’ve known him ever since I was a boy; but I’ve heard say he is awful when he rises. A common man would be no more in his hands now than a fly in the clutch of a lion.”
Ben went directly into Charlie’s pasture, avoiding him, hunted around there till he found the kicking cow, and pulling a rope from his pocket, put it over her horns, and led her in the direction of Colcord’s. Uncle Isaac was butchering a lamb at his door when Ben came along with the cow,and was just about to speak to him; but catching one glimpse of his face, he dropped his knife, and pretending not to see him, walked into the barn.
“Isaac,” cried his wife from the window. “Isaac, Ben has just gone by.”
“I saw him.”
“Sawhim; then why didn’t you speak to him, and ask him to come in, and stop to dinner?”
“He’s got the cow Jim Colcord sold to Charlie. I guess he’s on his way to call the old viper to account for his trick. When he is in one of those rages you’d better go near a she catamount than him.”
“Will he murder him?”
“I hope not.”
“It is some ways there. Ben can’t hold his passion long, and will most likely get over it somewhat before he gets there.”
“If he don’t, much as I abhor the old creetur, I pity him.”
When Ben arrived at Colcord’s the family were at dinner; seeing an ox cart in the barn-yard, he tied the cow to it. He entered the kitchen without knocking, where the family were seated at the dinner-table, seized old Colcord by the nape of theneck, carried him, pale as a ghost, with eyes starting from their sockets, and too nearly strangled to scream, into the barn-yard; here Ben sat down upon the cart-tongue, flung his victim across his knees, and while he was alternately screaming murder, and begging for mercy, slapped him with his terrible paw, till the blood came through his breeches, while the family looked on, crying and trembling.
Ben, as a redresser of wrongs, considered it his duty, not only to inflict punishment for his knavery in the matter of the cow, but likewise for the abuse he had for years inflicted upon his uncomplaining wife and children.
When he had finished the castigation, he ordered him to bring the money Charlie paid him for the cow, and ten dollars additional for his trouble in whipping him. Colcord brought the money, but, fearing to approach Ben, put it on the cart tongue.
After counting it, Ben called for a basin of water, soap, and a towel, observing, that he was accustomed to wash his hands after handling carrion, and informing him (after wiping his hands, as he hung the towel on the wheel of the cart)that, if compelled to come there again, he should most probably make an end of him.
That night Charlie hunted the pasture over in vain for the cow; but the next morning Uncle Isaac came over, told him where the cow was, and handed him the money, which Ben had left with him on his return.
“How did father find it out?” asked Charlie.
“Captain Rhines told him.”
“Who told Captain Rhines?”
“I did.”
“Who told you?”
“Joe Griffin.”
“How in the world came he, or anybody else, to know anything about it?”
“That’s more than I know; but he said you had to build a fence round her, and tie her hind legs together to milk her, and when she couldn’t kick, she’d lie down.”
“I bought wit pretty dear, Uncle Isaac.”
“Not quite so dear as Jim Colcord did. They say he can’t sit down, and won’t be able to till snow flies.”