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Title: The Hard-Scrabble of Elm Island

Author: Elijah Kellogg

Release Date: May 23, 2017 [EBook #54767]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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[Illustration: BEN, JR., TRIES HIS GOAD.--Page 78.]




  ELM ISLAND STORIES.

  BY
  REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG.

  [Illustration]

  HARDSCRABBLE

  _JOHN ANDREW--SON_

  LEE & SHEPARD BOSTON.




  ELM ISLAND STORIES.


  THE

  HARD-SCRABBLE

  OF

  ELM ISLAND.


  BY

  REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG,

  AUTHOR OF “LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND,” “CHARLIE BELL OF ELM ISLAND”,
  “THE ARK OF ELM ISLAND,” “THE BOY FARMERS OF ELM
  ISLAND,” “THE YOUNG SHIP-BUILDERS
  OF ELM ISLAND,” ETC.


  _ILLUSTRATED._


  BOSTON:
  LEE AND SHEPARD.
  1871.




  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,

  BY LEE AND SHEPARD,

  In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


  ELECTROTYPED AT THE

  BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY,

  19 Spring Lane.




PREFACE.


This volume of the series finds the boys entering upon manhood.
Already, by integrity and energy, have they secured the respect and
confidence of their employers and the community.

Isaac at sea, John behind the anvil, Fred in trade, and Charlie in
the shipyard. Fired by the success of Lion Ben, and the spirit of
enterprise abroad, among a people who, having burst the shackles of
arbitrary power, were leaping forward, with long strides, in pursuit
of wealth, knowledge, and power, they resolve to build a vessel. When,
by severe toil, and all manner of make-shifts, they have completed the
hull, their means fail. Roused by necessity to still greater efforts,
they weave the canvas for the sails in household looms, betake
themselves to the depths of the forest, there spend an entire winter
hunting and trapping. When the spring opens, they build canoes of bark,
and return by water, unloading their furs, and carrying their canoes
round the rapids, thus obtaining sufficient to accomplish their purpose.

So severe and protracted has been the conflict, they call their vessel
the Hard-Scrabble.

She arrives at Martinique during the contest occasioned by the French
revolution; war prices are obtained for the cargo, affording a most
ample return. The property thus acquired is used to create business for
the benefit of the community.




_ELM ISLAND STORIES._


  1. LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND.
  2. CHARLIE BELL, THE WAIF OF ELM ISLAND.
  3. THE ARK OF ELM ISLAND.
  4. THE BOY FARMERS OF ELM ISLAND.
  5. THE YOUNG SHIP-BUILDERS OF ELM ISLAND.
  6. THE HARD-SCRABBLE OF ELM ISLAND.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

  I. INSTINCT TRIUMPHANT.                                              9

  II. I’LL GIVE HIM QUICKSILVER.                                      13

  III. THE BOYS CATCH THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE.                          31

  IV. NEWS FROM HOME.                                                 40

  V. TIGE’S NOSE BETTER THAN THE CAPTAIN’S SPY-GLASS.                 45

  VI. TELLING AND HEARING THE NEWS.                                   55

  VII. CHARLIE AT HOME AGAIN.                                         64

  VIII. JOE GRIFFIN AT HOUSEKEEPING.                                  77

  IX. HOW JOE ENTERTAINED HIS GUESTS.                                 88

  X. TRAPPING AND NETTING.                                           104

  XI. MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS.                                      118

  XII. GENIUS STRUGGLING WITH DIFFICULTIES.                          135

  XIII. SCATTERING FRAMES.                                           148

  XIV. CHARLIE ACHIEVES SUCCESS.                                     162

  XV. DIFFICULTIES WHET THE EDGE OF RESOLUTION.                      169

  XVI. SALLY COMES TO THE RESCUE.                                    188

  XVII. CHARLIE’S THEODOLITE.                                        200

  XVIII. HARD-SCRABBLE.                                              204

  XIX. PLEASURE AND PROFIT.                                          219

  XX. CAMPING.                                                       234

  XXI. UNCLE ISAAC’S BEAR STORY.                                     246

  XXII. RAID ON A BEAVER SETTLEMENT.                                 266

  XXIII. BREAKING CAMP.                                              276

  XXIV. THE HARD-SCRABBLE WEIGHS ANCHOR.--CHARLIE GETS MARRIED.      284

  XXV. STRIKING WHILE THE IRON’S HOT.                                300

  XXVI. PROGRESS.                                                    312




THE HARD-SCRABBLE OF ELM ISLAND.




CHAPTER I.

INSTINCT TRIUMPHANT.


We took leave of our young friends at the close of the previous volume
as they separated, John to return to the blacksmith’s shop at Portland,
Charlie to the ship-yard at Stroudwater, while Fred Williams remained
in his store, which was in one part of his father’s mill.

On Elm Island, Lion Ben was recovering from a severe sickness, through
which he had passed without any other attendance than that of his wife,
or medicine save those simple remedies which nature and experience had
taught our mothers, or had been learned from the red man.

As Ben was not reduced by bleeding or purgatives,--the mode of medical
practice prevalent in those days,--he gained strength rapidly after
the first few weeks, soon being able to go about the house, and at
length to extend his excursions to the workshop and barn.

He soon discovered that the partridges were missing; and upon asking
Sally, she told him she remembered having seen them a week before, but
had been so much occupied since that she had not given any attention to
them.

“Then they are gone,” replied Ben; “some owl or hawk has carried them
off.”

“I don’t believe they would go of their own accord,” said Sally; “they
seemed just as tame and contented as the rest. Perhaps the coons have
got them. There are no skunks or foxes on the island.”

“That’s it. I’m sorry, because Charlie will feel bad about it.”

A few days after, Ben went out quite early in the morning to the barn,
and instantly returning, called Sally to the door, and told her to
stand still and listen.

Soon a sound was heard in the woods, like that of distant thunder.

“Do you hear that noise, Sally?”

“Yes; what is it?”

“It is one of Charlie’s partridges drumming. They have taken to the
woods. Uncle Isaac said they would, but I didn’t believe it. It’s all
the better; they will breed, and fill the island full in a few years,
and get their own living. Charlie will be glad of it, for he will have
them to shoot.”

“But won’t they fly away?”

“No; it’s too far from the main land. They can’t fly but a little way
before they have to light. Thus we shall have coons, partridges, and
gray squirrels grow at our own door.”

“How nice it will be for Charlie to have all these things right on the
island! He loves dearly, after supper, when he has done a good day’s
work, to go shooting. How much better it would be, when he was tired
and had not much time, to be able to find game here, instead of pulling
three or four miles to some ledge or island!”

“Yes, this island is so large, we might have almost anything, except
wolves, bears, and foxes; we shouldn’t want them.”

“Ben, what are you going to do with the corn-house that Charlie made?
You don’t want two corn-houses.”

“I thought, when I was able, I would cut off the legs, and make a
pigsty of it. ’Twould make a capital one. He needn’t have set it up on
posts. There are no mice here; but I suppose he thought he must make
it just like Uncle Isaac’s.”

“I never would make a pigsty of it in this world, it is so handsome.
Charlie took so much pains with it, and was so proud of it when he got
it done. Give it to me.”

“What do you want of it?”

“O, I want to keep flax and yarn there in the summer, and perhaps put
the loom there.”

“Well, I’ll stop up the openings left to air the corn, and you may have
it.”




CHAPTER II.

“I’LL GIVE HIM QUICKSILVER.”


The partial reformation in James Welch, to which his father referred in
the conversation with Captain Rhines, already narrated, proved to be,
like too many of those delusive hopes to which fond parents cling as
drowning men to straws, void of foundation; and the father, driven to
extremity, and perceiving at length that much of the criminal conduct
of the son lay at the door of his own indulgence, determined to use
sharper measures.

He informed James that he must go to Elm Island for the summer, there
struggle with his habits, in the absence of outward temptation, or
leave his house forever; that his mother, utterly discouraged, had come
to the same conclusion.

James Welch, who, on the 15th of June, came to Elm Island, and became
an inmate of Ben’s family, was a young man of superior general ability,
remarkable business talent, fine appearance, affectionate, generous
disposition, although of hasty temper, and exceedingly attractive in
his manners.

He was passionately fond of all out-door recreations; but a drunkard
at two-and-twenty. He proved a great accession to the society on Elm
Island, being an excellent singer, fond of children, and rare company
for Bennie, who was lonely enough without Charlie. They all enjoyed
themselves finely, sitting on the door-stone at twilight, and singing
together.

It was difficult even for Ben, but especially for Sally, to credit the
stories they had heard of him.

As his father had predicted, the first time he came in contact with
Uncle Isaac, he conceived a liking for him, which continually increased.

He soon learned to manage a boat; and Captain Rhines let him take his,
and keep her at the island, although he took the precaution, unknown to
Welch, to cut her sails down.

He would take this boat, and go over to Uncle Isaac’s Point; if he was
working, off coat, and help him, in order that Uncle Isaac might be
able to fish or hunt with him.

He was naturally of a mechanical turn, and would amuse himself in the
shop with the tools. Indeed, he was, with one exception, universally
liked. He could not make friends with Tige, and never dared to go to
Captain Rhines’s in the evening. With Sailor and Uncle Isaac’s Watch he
was a sworn friend; but Tige would have nothing to do with him, and it
was by no means safe to _force_ attentions upon Tige.

His attenuated limbs became round and plump with muscle; his haggard
cheeks began to crimson; his step regained the elasticity, and his eye
the fire, of youth, which seemed forever to have departed.

Uncle Isaac said he was as fine-looking and good-hearted a fellow as
ever the sun shone upon.

He learned, after upsetting several times, to manage the birch. Uncle
Isaac permitted him to keep her at the island. Thus he had two boats,
and when it was calm, would take her, paddle over to the main, and up
the river, following all its windings. In one of these excursions, he
discovered Pleasant Cove. Enraptured with the beauty of the spot, he
carried his canoe around the fall, and paddled up the brook into the
pond.

“Ben,” said he, on his return, “I have known people spend thousands of
dollars to make a beautiful place, and not obtain anything half so fine
as the place I have seen to-day. I mean to ask father to buy it. Would
Charlie sell it?”

“When he sells himself,” replied Sally. “Besides, there’s another party
as much attached to it as he is.”

“Well, I mean to sketch it, at any rate.”

Matters went on thus pleasantly for some time. James would often start
off, taking a luncheon, fishing-lines, cooking utensils, and be gone
a day or two, sometimes longer, camping in the woods, sleeping at
Captain Rhines’s or Uncle Isaac’s, just as it happened. Sometimes the
first thing they would know of him, he would make his appearance at the
breakfast-table, having come across in the night.

His parents, who were informed of his good doings by Captain Rhines,
and especially of his friendship with Uncle Isaac, with that parental
credulity ever prone to catch at the shadow of a hope, were greatly
encouraged.

“No one,” wrote his father, in reply, “could like Uncle Isaac so well
as I know he does unless there was some good in them, and some hope of
them.”

Captain Rhines shook his head. He had seen, in a life spent at sea, too
much of the strength of the appetite for liquor to leap at conclusions.

One morning after breakfast, as Ben was going to the field, he
saw James, as they now called him, paddling out of the cove in the
birch. Two days after, about ten o’clock in the forenoon, Uncle Isaac
espied from his point the birch half way over to Elm Island. She was
apparently empty, drifting down the bay with the tide.

He waited a while, and seeing no one coming after her, took his boat,
and pulled off, when he found James Welch flat on his back in the
bottom of her, and an empty bottle beside him. He was completely
stupefied with liquor. It appeared afterwards that he had gone along
shore gunning, camped a night in the woods, and the next afternoon came
upon some men who were making potash, and well provided with liquor.
They offered him some. This awoke the slumbering appetite. He bought
a bottle, and kept drinking. Through the aid of that Providence which
seems to watch over drunkards, he made out to get into the birch, and
push off, when becoming helpless, the tide was drifting him to sea.
Uncle Isaac, with a sad heart, towed the birch, with its occupant, to
the island. Ben took him up in his arms, carried him to the house, and
laid him on the bed.

Sally, who had felt greatly encouraged, was affected to tears.

“Stop to dinner, Uncle Isaac.”

“I’ll stop and rest, and cool off, Benjamin; but as for eating, this
thing has taken away all my appetite.”

“I’m sorry for his poor parents; but I’m afraid it’s no use.”

“O, Ben, it’s too much! It’s more than I can bear to see so fine a
young fellow go to ruin right before my eyes! We’ve done all that can
be done in the way of counsel, coaxing, and kindness. I mean to give
him a dose of quicksilver.”

When James Welch recovered his senses, his reflections were most
harrowing. Having formed a strong and healthy attachment to Ben and his
family, he was deeply mortified when he reflected upon the exhibition
he had made of himself before them. But he was, most of all, attached
to Uncle Isaac, and loved him with all his heart. How he got back
to the island, whether Uncle Isaac knew what had taken place, were
questions he could not solve, and was too proud to ask.

He went to the cove. The birch was there. He then concluded that Ben
went in search of and picked him up; that Uncle Isaac knew nothing
about it, and had half a mind to go over and see him; but he was by no
means sure that Ben would permit it. His pride inclined him to remain
where he was, rather than ask or attempt to go and be prevented. Ben
had not made the most distant allusion to his conduct; but he saw he
kept his eye on him, and knew he was in the hands of a giant.

He wandered over the island a day or two, miserable enough, and for
the first time in his life really sorry for his acts. While in this
state of suspense and misery, uncertain whether he was a prisoner or
not, Uncle Isaac came to the island, apparently as cordial as ever,
and invited him to go after fowl. The invitation was most joyfully
accepted, and they set out. He now felt sure that Uncle Isaac was
ignorant of all that had taken place; but he was soon undeceived.

They killed a few birds; then went to Pleasant Cove, and landing, sat
down to rest beneath the birches at Cross-root Spring, when Uncle
Isaac, in a kind but commanding tone, said,--

“James, I was at work last Tuesday forenoon on the eend of my p’int,
and happening to look off in the bay, I saw the birch drifting about.
Going to see what was the matter, found you dead drunk in the bottom of
her. Don’t you feel ashamed of yourself?”

The fiery temper of the young man was roused in an instant by this
blunt question. Forgetting the usual urbanity of his manners, and the
deference he always paid to his friend, he exclaimed,--

“What concern is that to you? I should like to know what business you
have to go nosing round after me, watching my proceedings?”

“The birch was mine. I had a perfect right, and it was my duty, to look
after my own property when I saw it adrift and likely to go to sea.
It is, moreover, the duty of every one who loves his neighbor to give
seasonable advice, and even to reprove, in a kind spirit, a young man
who is ruining himself, bringing disgrace upon his friends, and setting
a bad example to those who have had fewer privileges.”

“Murch, you ignorant, meddlesome old codger you! Because I have
permitted you some liberties, you presume on my condescension to insult
me. But,” he replied, with an awful oath, “I’ll make you know your
place! I’ll trample you under my feet!”

“Please not swear in my presence, young man. It’s wrong, and hurts
my feelings. I am indeed ignorant, as you say, having had but few
privileges; but I certainly have the advantage of you in one thing.
I have made the best use I know how of the few a kind Providence has
given me. Neither am I a pauper, swearer, drunkard, or thief.”

“This to _me_, you old villain!” exclaimed Welch, leaping to his feet,
with both fists clinched, and livid with passion. “Take every word of
that back, and humbly ask my pardon, or I’ll beat you like a dog.”

A quiet smile played over the features of Uncle Isaac, as he replied,
“I do love to see a mud-puddle in a squall.”

Pulling a bulrush out of a clump that grew beside the spring, he flung
it across one of the enormous roots of the birch that towered above
them.

“You speak of beating me, young man. What that rush is to this birch
would you be in my hands. You have drunk too much liquor to have any
strength, even if you was made for it, which you are not. Just open
these fists, which look more like potato-balls than anything else. Sit
down on that flat rock, and listen to what I have to say, or I shall be
tempted to call you a fool, which is contrary to Scripture. ‘A little
pot soon biles over.’ If I had no more government over myself than you
have, I should set you on your head in this spring, when you would
probably die by water, which is a much more respectable death than the
one you seem to be preparing yourself for.”

“I will leave you, at any rate,” replied Welch, in a much more subdued
tone; for he now bethought himself that he was in the woods, miles from
any human being, and entirely in the power of a man whom he had most
grossly insulted and threatened, and whose forbearance he might well
distrust.

“No, you won’t, except you can outrun a man who has run down a
bull-moose more than once or twice. Did you hear me tell you to sit
down?”

This was spoken in a tone so peremptory that Welch obeyed at once,
trembling with passion and fear. James Welch was the idol of his
parents, and with an overweening affection by no means uncommon, they
had injured him by indulgence.

Uncle Isaac, with that instinctive discernment of character that can
neither be learned nor taught, had become aware of this. He had also,
during their long and familiar intercourse, obtained an accurate
knowledge of his character; as he would have phrased it, “knew just how
much of sound wood there was in him to nail to.”

In view of the estimate thus formed, he had resolved, as he told Ben,
to give him quicksilver. This was a metaphoric term for stringent
measures, borrowed by Uncle Isaac from the practice of physicians in
his day, who were accustomed, in severe cases of stoppage, where life
was at stake, to give quicksilver, which, by its weight, was sure to
force a passage, either by the ordinary channel, in which event the
patient recovered, or through the walls of the intestines, when death
was the result. Thus it became a synonyme for “kill or cure.”

“I have said,” he continued, addressing his involuntary listener,
“that you are a profane swearer and a drunkard. You have sworn in my
presence. I found you drunk in my birch, and it is well known that
these are your customary habits. You are also a pauper. All property,
everything that goes to support life, in these parts, of any amount,
comes by the hard work of somebody,--either bone labor or brain
labor,--the labor of those who now possess it, or of those from whom
they inherited it. That, I take it, you can’t deny, though you’ve been
to school and I ’aint. If a great, stout, hearty feller, able to work,
should go about the country, eating the bread and wearing the clothes
somebody else earned, sleeping in the beds and warmed by the fires
that others provided, I take it there wouldn’t be much doubt he was a
pauper. That’s just the way with you. You have eaten your three meals
a day ever since you was born, and never earned one--no, not the salt
that seasoned them. That makes you out to be a pauper, and it’s only
your father that keeps you off the town. Everybody who lives in society
is bound to do something for the society in which he lives--to help
bear its burden, and return something for the benefits he receives from
his neighbor, and be a man among men. If he don’t do it, he’s not one
whit better than a thief, because he takes from the common stock, eats
up what ought to go to those who ain’t able to earn it, and he makes no
return to society for what he draws. That’s just what you are doing.
You are useless, which seems to me to be the meanest of all things,
just about as bad as being a drunkard or thief. You are not of so much
account as one of the clams in these flats, or one of the frogs in
this spring, for they answer the end of their existence, and get an
honest living, which you don’t. Your father and mother begun the world
with nothing but their heads and hands; and your father, moreover, had
to support your grandfather after his misfortune, and pay his debts;
but by industry, good principles, and the blessing of God on their
labor, they have got together a large property, and bear nobly their
share of the burdens of society. They have spent--I would say, thrown
away--a mint of money on you; given you the best of larning, the best
of opportunities to go into business, do for yourself and others,
make something of yourself, and be looked up to; but here you are at
two-and-twenty years of age. You’ve done nothing, you’re good for
nothing, and are going to the devil as fast as you can. Look at Charlie
Bell. He came to Elm Island a poor, ragged orphan. See what he’s made
of himself. Talk about beating me! He could lay you on your back faster
than you could get up. Look at Fred Williams. His father and mother
never knew how to treat a child, always hectoring and fretting him; and
now that his father is poorly, and can do but little, that boy is at
work from daylight till dark, tending mill and store, making fish, and
seeing to the whole family; while you are lazing round here, and can’t
be trusted with yourself, spending money you never earned a dollar
of, and killing the best of parents by inches. Look at John Rhines.
Yes, there’s a case in _pint_. Look at that boy. He might have staid
at home, worked or played, laid abed or got up, as he liked; for his
father is indulgent, and as well off as yours, considering the small
expense at which he lives, and that he hasn’t got a reprobate son to
break his heart, and spend his hard earnings. There he is, larning a
blacksmith’s trade; up early and late, sweating at the anvil. He scorns
to live on his father and grandsir’s substance. Yes, and I may say your
grandsir, for Elm Island stood in his name, though he would have lost
it shortly, for the mortgage had nearly eaten it up, when your father,
from his own earnings, cleared it. Yes, and took care of your grandsir
in his old age. When your father is in his grave, which will be shortly
unless you turn over a new leaf, you will be living on what he leaves,
gnawing the bones of the dead--a business that I never knew any dumb
cretur to foller for a living but a wolf. When you die, you’ll be no
more missed than yonder dead limb on that leaning beech. Now, if you
ain’t the smallest, pitifulest consarn there is round here, I should
like to know who is. There’s another thing to be thought of, young man.
Where God has given great capacity and great privileges, there’s great
accountability; there’s Holy Scripture for that. You _may_ see the time
that you will wish you had been born a fool, or not born at all. Come,
it’s time we were going.”

Welch uttered not a word in reply, or on the way home.

“What have you done to him?” asked Ben, astonished at the appearance of
Welch.

“Given him quicksilver, and it’s my opinion ’twill either kill or cure.
I do hope he’ll rally, for I love the young man, though I felt it my
duty to speak quite plain to him. Indeed, I spoke quite plain to him.
He feels bad, Benjamin--all mixed up, half crazy. We must let him sweat
in his grease. I shouldn’t wonder if he had a strong craving to drown
trouble in liquor. I think you had better keep him on the island for a
day or two.”

When James Welch got out of the boat, he would have killed Uncle Isaac
if he could. O, how he wished he had the strength of Ben! But God
generally gives great strength, and a mild temper in connection with
it, to those who know how to use it.

He declined coming to the supper-table, saying he was unwell, and
shutting himself in his room, paced the floor till midnight, half
demented. At length there came over him a craving for liquor, that he
might escape from himself in the delirium or stupor of intoxication. He
knew the men who were making potash had half a barrel of New England
rum in their camp, and went to the shore resolved to go after some;
but Ben had hauled the boats so far up on the grass-ground that he was
unable to launch any of them.

Foiled in this, he bathed his burning forehead in sea-water, and sat
down on the rocks of the eastern point, beneath the light of the stars.

No sound disturbed the night, save the low, peculiar murmur of the
tide, as it crept around the foot of the cliff. The first paroxysm of
passion had passed away. He recalled the stinging truths to which he
had so unwillingly listened. They no longer excited his anger, but
appeared to him in a very different light. His ingratitude to his
parents assumed a new aspect when presented by another, and touched him
to the heart. He could no longer doubt that Uncle Isaac had faithfully
portrayed the estimation in which he was held by the community at large.

No part of the conversation had touched him so nearly, or cut so
deep, as the parallel instituted between himself and John Rhines. So
completely was he absorbed in thought, that the flowing tide wet him to
the knees unperceived.

In that still midnight hour, on the ocean cliff, the better nature of
James Welch won the victory.

“Uncle Isaac is right,” he said. “I have been a drunkard, swearer,
pauper, and thief. But from this hour I am so no more.”

The gray light of morning was breaking, as, utterly exhausted in mind
and body, he flung himself upon the bed, and sank into a profound
sleep. The next day Ben noted the change, and, surprised by his
offering to help him about his work, shoved the boats into the water.
In the course of the week, James took the boat, and told Ben he was
going over to see Uncle Isaac. Before he had fairly cleared the harbor,
Ben entered the house at a rate so unusual--for he was generally quite
moderate in his motions--and a face so replete with joyful emotions,
that Sally instantly exclaimed,--

“Why, Ben, what has happened?”

“The best thing that could happen. James has gone over to Uncle
Isaac’s.”

“Glory to God! He’s all right, or he never would do that.”

James and Uncle Isaac came back together in the afternoon, and before
night there was another auger-hole in the great maple.

Mr. Welch soon received a letter from his son, telling him all that had
transpired, and asking permission to come home and go to work.

“Blessed be God!” exclaimed the delighted father. “My last days are
going to be my best days.”

The reform proved permanent. James Welch became a partner with his
father, and assumed the position for which his abilities qualified him.
In after years, he often visited the spot where this singular scene
was enacted, and the fountain was ever after, by universal consent,
called Quicksilver Spring. In process of time the first syllable was
dropped, and many who are familiar with Silver Spring are ignorant of
the circumstances from whence it derived its present name.




CHAPTER III.

THE BOYS CATCH THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE.


After the departure of James Welch, nothing worthy of note occurred to
disturb the quiet enjoyment of life on Elm Island.

Upon Ben’s recovery in the spring, he had hired Robert Yelf for the
summer.

Ben, Jr., who now began to manifest as great a capacity for work as he
had heretofore evinced for mischief, made himself extremely useful. He
assumed the entire charge of the hens, ducks, geese, and turkeys. In
the spring he had dropped corn and potatoes, and assisted in planting
the garden. He pulled up weeds, carried in wood and chips for his
mother, brought up the cows at night, and drove them to pasture in the
morning.

After haying, Ben and Yelf finished and rigged the scow, which he had
begun before he was taken sick, and built a wharf in the cove, with an
inclined platform, over which cattle could be driven to or from the
scow. They also built a boat to take the place of the Perseverance,
Jr., from Charlie’s moulds, which was an easy matter, as the work was
all laid out.

When corn was in the milk, Sally Merrithew ventured to marry Joe
Griffin, who had been on probation since he nearly finished Uncle
Smullen. Joe built his log house in the midst of a burn, where he had
planted corn and sowed wheat in the spring. Ben gave Sally a cow and
Captain Rhines a pig to begin housekeeping with, and Ben continued to
pasture her sheep on Griffin’s Island, as Joe had no land cleared for
pasturing sheep, and they were safe from the wolves on that island. Elm
Island gradually improved in beauty as Ben ploughed and removed the
stumps; and the fruit trees in the new soil increased rapidly in size.

Amid these quiet occupations and enjoyments, interspersed with tramps
in the woods, bear-hunts and gunning expeditions with Uncle Isaac, the
autumn, winter, and succeeding summer glided rapidly away.

Very different was the appearance of Elm Island, with its comfortable
and roomy buildings, broad fields covered with crops, now fast ripening
to the harvest, and vocal with the lowing of kine and the song of
birds, from its appearance the morning that Uncle Isaac and Joe
Griffin landed on the beach, and startled the herons from their nests
with the sound of the axe and the crash of falling trees. Great as
was the change that had taken place on Elm Island, it was trifling in
comparison with that which obtained in respect to the country at large.

Then it was a period of general poverty and distress, although
money was made by individuals through superior energy, tact, and
the irregularities then existing in trade, and the intercourse of
nations,--Ben and his father being among the fortunate ones.

Then there was neither revenue nor power to collect any; the country
oppressed with debt, and no means to pay the old government under which
the war of the revolution had been fought--a rope of sand--and no
confidence in any quarter. The states were deluged with importations
of all kinds--French gewgaws, English broadcloths, iron, cordage, and
duck from Russia and Sweden--which people who had any means or credit
were but too much inclined to buy, despite the efforts made by the
government to discourage it, and encourage home manufacture.

But now the Federal government was established, and Washington at its
head, with power to form treaties of amity and commerce, lay duties and
imposts; the national debt funded, affording an opportunity for safe
and profitable investments; and banks were established. The spirit of
the country was up, and rose with a bound over all obstacles, ready to
grapple with any odds.

Nowhere was the exhilarating influence of the times more eagerly
responded to than in the District of Maine,--with a vast extent of
sea-coast, and to a great degree aquatic population, and the town
of Portland in particular, then but recently arisen from its ashes
after its bombardment by the British, and incorporated, with an
unrivalled harbor, a back country almost one unbroken forest of timber
of all kinds, for which there was an abundant demand at high prices
in Europe and the West Indies, with extensive water-power for its
manufacture; vast quantities of ship-timber, with mechanics both native
and imported; and a population whose energies were _then_, and have
_continued_ to be, equal to every demand made upon them.

This town was among the first to avail itself of, and profit by, these
altered circumstances. Mills were going up on every waterfall, wharves
building, distilleries erecting, the keels of vessels laid, and the
roads thronged with teams dragging the masts, spars, and boards to the
place of shipment. Mails were established, and a newspaper published.
It is easy to perceive what effect these new excitements must make upon
boys so impressible as Charlie and John, at work in the midst of such
scenes. They read the Cumberland Gazette, which Mr. Starrett took; also
the Columbian Centinel, printed at Boston, which he borrowed from one
of his neighbors; a Portsmouth paper, which was sent to a Portsmouth
man who worked in the shop. They listened with sharp ears to every
word of the excited conversation that occurred within their hearing,
in that stirring period, when the state of Europe, its politics, its
markets, the troubles in France, and their bearing upon the prosperity
of America, became subjects of discussion, and were every whit as much
interested as the actual participants, and, when they were alone,
talked over all they had heard between themselves.

John was now working as a journeyman, and received four-and-six a day.
Charlie found an excellent employer in Mr. Foss, who instructed him by
every method in his power, and put him on the best work, as he found
that he was capable of doing it, and also increased his wages.

Fishing, too, had received the same impulse as other pursuits, not
merely by reason of the increased market for fish, and increased
facilities for carrying them to foreign parts, but also in consequence
of a bounty granted by the government. And Fred Williams, who, to his
traffic in fish and groceries, had added the buying of potash, beef,
and pork, was steadily acquiring.

As the country became cleared, great numbers of cattle were raised, and
salted beef found a ready market in the West Indies for the use of the
slavers.

Potash was in great demand in Europe. Fred was able to barter goods for
potash, sell it in Boston at a large advance, and thus make a double
profit--making more in that way than by all his other traffic.

Charlie, finding that the price of land was rising, sent word to Uncle
Isaac to purchase enough more of the heavy pine growth abutting on the
back part of his lot to make, with what he already had, four hundred
acres; but Uncle Isaac bought the whole lot, and informed Charlie he
might have of him, at the price he gave, enough to make out his four
hundred acres. Charlie also bought Birch Island of the state, as he
did not relish the idea of being a squatter; and the whole island,
containing six acres of first-rate land, covered with a heavy growth of
birch, an excellent harbor, and a noble spring of water, cost him only
nine shillings. But in those days land on a small island like that was
but lightly valued, while birch wood was not considered worth thanking
God for.

“Charlie,” said John, in one of those confidential interviews that
generally occurred on Saturday night, “couldn’t you build a vessel now?”

“I don’t know but I could. I lined up the Freebooter, while Mr. Foss
was laying the keel of another vessel.”

“What is the reason we couldn’t build a vessel? I know I could do the
iron-work.”

“I suppose we might do the work if somebody would find the money. It
takes a heap of money to build a vessel and fit her for sea.”

“But couldn’t we build one, take time enough, and sell her just as you
do the boats--without rigging her?”

“I’ll tell you what we might do.”

“What?”

“Build one, take our own time for it,--I’ve got timber enough on my
land to build and load ever so many,--then keep a part of her, and sell
the rest; put our work, my timber, and what little money we could
muster, against somebody else’s money.”

“Yes, we could do that; but I should much rather have her to
ourselves,--say you, and I, and Fred.”

“We might go to work, cut the timber, and set up a vessel, get her
along as far as our means would allow, then let her stand till we could
earn more. But we should want a captain.”

“That is true; and perhaps Seth Warren or Sydney Chase might take a
part, and go in her.”

“Yes, that would be a quarter apiece.”

“Charlie, I heard Captain Pote say, in this very house last Saturday
night, that if anybody could get a load of lumber to the West Indies,
at the right time, he could make enough to build another vessel.”

“How much do you suppose it costs to build a vessel?”

“I don’t know; the rigging and sails are the most. You can build the
hull very cheap, so that she will last a little while without much iron
fastening; but you must have good rigging and sails, or else you are
liable to lose vessel and cargo.”

“How much?”

“I know Mr. Foss built a vessel for Weeks and Tucker, hull and spars,
and found everything, for fifteen dollars a ton, delivered at Pearson’s
breast-work, in Portland.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars for the hull and spars of a vessel of a
hundred tons?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m sure we could build a sloop of fifty.”

“But a sloop of fifty tons wouldn’t be of any use to carry such bulky
cargoes as boards, spars, ton-timber, and molasses, which is what we
must do.”

“Ye-e-e-e-s.”

Here the conversation came to an abrupt termination by Charlie’s
falling asleep.




CHAPTER IV.

NEWS FROM HOME.


As the summer was drawing to a close, the evenings grew longer, and
these conversations were renewed from time to time, as the boys were
excited by hearing of some great slap made by an enterprising captain,
or some smuggler making a fortune in one or two trips to Havana.
Captain Starrett, the brother of John’s master, was an inveterate
smuggler. The house was resorted to by seafaring men, masters and
mates, and the boys had abundant opportunities to gain information in
respect to voyages and profits.

Both Mr. Foss and Mr. Starrett owned a small part of several vessels,
which afforded the boys an excellent opportunity to obtain accurate
and reliable information, of which they did not hesitate to avail
themselves.

As there were no mails east of Portland, the only way in which the boys
obtained letters from home was by some coasting vessel. When they did
get one, it was correspondingly valued, read and re-read, commented
upon, and formed the subject of conversation for a month. John received
a letter one afternoon, and on opening it, found enclosed one from Ben
to Charlie.

The moment he was done work at night, he went to Stroudwater to see
Charlie, spend the night with him, and walk in before work-hours in the
morning. To the no small delight of the boys, they were informed that
it was nearly two years since they had been at home, with the exception
of the time when Ben was sick; that neither Captain Rhines’s family nor
Ben and Sally could stand it any longer, and they must come home, and
make a good visit.

“Ain’t I glad!” cried John.

“Ain’t I!” replied Charlie. “I wanted to go bad enough, but I didn’t
like to lose my time, and was afraid Mr. Foss would think I was a baby.”

“That was just the way with me.”

Mr. Foss had a vessel that would be ready to launch in a fortnight,
and wanted Charlie to stay till after launching. They wrote home by
a coaster, that was to sail the next day, that they would start in a
fortnight in the boat.

Meanwhile the Perseverance, Jr., was hauled up, repaired, re-painted,
and put in first-rate order for the cruise. During that fortnight there
was but one subject of conversation, and that never grew stale--_home_,
and what they should do when they got there.

“There’ll be partridges and coons, lots of ’em, to shoot on Elm Island,
Charlie.”

“There’ll be bears on my land, John.”

“Won’t Tige wag his tail off?”

“Won’t Bennie and the baby have a time?”

“What will Fred say?”

“We shall see Uncle Isaac!”

“Yes, and Joe Griffin and Henry.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if they’ve got any boat there that’ll outsail the Wings of
the Morning?”

“Do you calculate to come back here, Charlie?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know; Mr. Starrett wants me to. I shall come if you do.”

“Mr. Foss _wants_ me, too; but I can do better building boats at home
than I can working in the ship-yard. I’ve learned about all I can here.”

“I could get just as good wages at Wiscasset as I can here, and go home
every few weeks.”

“Ain’t we going home in a glorious time of year? The sea-fowl will be
coming along.”

“There will be berries.”

“Pickerel in my pond.”

“O, Charlie, I’ll tell you what we’ll do--you, and I, and Fred.”

“What?”

“We’ll borrow Uncle Isaac’s birch, and go up the brook to the falls,
then take her on our shoulders, and carry her round the falls, then
follow all the crooks of the brook till we come to the pond. It is real
crooked; I dare say ’twould be three or four miles.”

“That would be something we never did; and the water in the pond will
be so warm to go in swimming!”

“Yes; I never thought of that.”

“O, John, I tell you, we’ll go on to Indian Island, and make a birch of
our own--a smasher. I know I can make one.”

“And we’ll get Uncle Isaac to work the ends with porcupine quills.”

“Then we shall have the Perseverance, Jr., to go outside in and fish,
and take the girls to sail. We’ve got a boat now--no old dugout--and
we’ll go exploring just where we like--way down the coast.”

As is often the case with boys, they planned employments and enjoyments
enough to occupy a whole summer, while they intended to allow
themselves not more than three weeks of vacation at the outside.

“I felt real bad, John, when father wrote that the partridges had gone;
but come to think, I’m glad of it, ’cause they’ll breed in the woods,
and if I want to try to tame some more, I can find the eggs.”

“I should be; because when it blows, and you can’t get off the island,
or any time after supper, you can take the gun, and find them in the
yellow birches.”

While the boys are revelling amid these anticipated pleasures, let us
note what effect the announcement of their coming produced at home.




CHAPTER V.

TIGE’S NOSE BETTER THAN THE CAPTAIN’S SPY-GLASS.


No sooner had Captain Rhines received the letter, informing him of the
time at which they expected to set out, than he hurried home with it,
and then, getting into his boat, made sail for Elm Island, where his
information caused no little gratification. He had scarcely left the
shore on his errand, when Elizabeth made the discovery that there was
not a needle in the house fit to sew with, nor one grain of beeswax.

“You must go to the store, Elizabeth, and get some needles and wax,”
said her mother; “and tell Fred to send me half a yard of cloth from
the piece I looked at yesterday. I must finish John’s waistcoat before
he comes home.”

Thus Fred was made acquainted with the tidings, and through him Uncle
Isaac, Henry Griffin, and Joe.

“I do believe,” said Mrs. Rhines, “that Tige knows what is going on,
for every time John’s name is mentioned, he wags his tail, and seems
uneasy.”

“Knows!” replied the captain; “to be sure he does. Any fool of a dog
might know as much as that; and Tige has forgot more than most dogs
know. Here, Tige--go find John.”

The dog instantly ran to the door, and barked to be let out. After
making a tour of the premises, he came in, ran up to John’s bedroom,
and came down with one of his jackets in his mouth, and laid it at his
master’s feet.

“See that, and tell me he don’t know what we are talking about!”

Ever since Tige had saved little Fannie from drowning, she had been in
the habit of making him frequent visits, bringing with her something
she knew he would like to eat. Tige never returned the visits, for it
was not in accordance with his habits and principles ever to leave the
premises, except sent on an errand by his master, or with one of the
family; but he always received her with great cordiality. Fannie could
talk plain now. Ever since the promise to her from Captain Rhines, that
Tige never should be whipped, do what he would, she had entertained a
very high opinion of the captain, who loved dearly to play and romp
with her.

While Captain Rhines and his wife were conversing, Fannie came trudging
along, with gingerbread and meat in her basket for Tige.

“Good morning, my little woman! Have you come to see me, and have a
good frolic?”

“Fannie came to see Tige.”

“Then you think more of Tige than you do of me?”

“I love Tige.”

“That’s a fact.”

I’ve no doubt Tige by this time had his nose in Fannie’s basket.

“Captain Rhines, you know Tige loves babies.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Don’t you know we have a little baby?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve come for Tige to go and see it.”

“What a comical little thing you are! Well, I suppose he must go. Then
you’re not going to stop and play with me?”

“No, sir; because Tige wants to see the baby.”

“He won’t go with her,” said Mrs. Rhines, “without some of us go with
him.”

“Yes, he will,” said the captain, “if I tell him to, and give him
something to carry.”

“Then you must give him something that he won’t eat, or she’ll give
every mite of it to him.”

Captain Rhines filled Fannie’s basket with apples, and put in some
flowers, and Mrs. Rhines gave her some cake to eat herself. Tige took
the basket in his mouth, and away they went; but Fannie gave him all
her cake before she got home.

She made out to get him into the house, where he licked the baby’s
face, and frightened it half to death, and then set out for home,
refusing the most urgent solicitations to stay to dinner.

Tige also had the promise of going over to Elm Island again, to see the
baby there.

The heart of Captain Rhines was bound up in John. Two days had now
passed since the time fixed in his mind for their arrival. He became
very uneasy. Every few moments he would catch the spy-glass, and run
out on the hill to look.

“Why, Captain Rhines,” said his wife, “I don’t think you need laugh any
more at us women for being nervous and fidgety when our friends are
away! I’m sure you beat us all. Old Aunt Nabby Rideout, of Marblehead,
that they say used to bank up her house with tea-grounds, never begun
with you! You can’t expect folks that are coming by water to come just
at the time they set. You must have patience.”

“Patience! I’ve had patience to kill.”

“Perhaps they’ve had a head wind, or calm.”

“No, they haven’t! I know how the winds have been. They’ve had as good
and steady a wind as ever blew--just the breeze for a boat.”

The next day after this conversation, the captain, after running in and
out half of the forenoon with the spy-glass in his hand, said, “Wife,
I won’t look any more till they come. I’m going to have patience; but
there’s Tige been laying all the morning before the door, with his
nostrils to the wind.”

He put the glass in the brackets, and taking up a book, began to read.
He had hardly commenced, when a tremendous roar, ending in a prolonged
howl, rang through the house.

“Heavens!” cried the captain; “why couldn’t I have seen them? I’ve been
looking with all the eyes I’ve got the whole morning;” and rushing to
the door, he caught a glimpse of Tige’s tail disappearing round the
corner of the wood-pile.

To his astonishment, there was no boat to be seen in the cove, nor in
the offing. Turning round to learn what had become of Tige, he espied
him going at full speed across the orchard, clearing logs and fences
at a leap, for the main road, emitting sharp, short barks as he ran,
and was soon lost to view around a point of thick woods. The captain
sat down on a log to see what would turn up next, and in a quarter of
an hour was joined by all the family.

“What do you suppose it means?” asked Mrs. Rhines.

“_Means?_ It means they are coming along the road. Tige has known it
since six o’clock this morning. I knew he did by his actions, and that
was what made me so patient.”

“Yes, you was very patient; but what has become of their boat?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps she has sprung a-leak, or they run on to some
reef and punched a hole in her. Here they come!” roared the captain,
as Tige’s voice was again heard. He was evidently returning, and the
barking sounded louder and louder. In a few minutes Tige appeared in
view around the point of woods.

He presented a comical appearance. He was coming sidewise, doubled all
up like a rainbow, or the colonel’s horse prancing at the head of the
regiment general-muster morning, caused by the effort to keep one
eye on the boys and the other on Captain Rhines and his company, and
progress at the same time.

These anxiously-expected ones came in sight, each with a pack on his
back. John also bore a gun on his shoulder, and Charlie a hatchet in
his hand.

“They have travelled all the way!” exclaimed Captain Rhines.

“What are we thinking about! Here it is, most noon, not a thing done
towards dinner, and these poor boys tired and half starved!” said Mrs.
Rhines.

This was the signal for a general stampede in the direction of the
house.

“I’ll get some dry wood, and have a fire in no time, wife.”

Then, with the combined efforts of these practised hands, a great
fire was roaring in the chimney, the teakettle boiling, the table in
the floor, and eggs frying by the time that Tige burst into the room,
followed by the boys.

“Why, John, how you’ve grown!” said Captain Rhines, twirling him round
on his heel; “and Charlie, too; I believe he has grown more than you
have. There was more chance for it. You was as big as a moose before.”

“I guess hard work agrees with both of you,” said Mrs. Rhines.

“It always did,” replied Charlie. “We’re the boys for that.”

“Yes,” added John, “none of the western boys can lay us on our backs,
either. Mother, do your hens lay well?”

“Yes; but what makes you ask that?”

“Because, if you think there’s eggs enough in that kettle, you’re very
much mistaken.”

“There’s half a bushel in the buttery,” said his father. “They’ll stay
your stomachs, and after dinner I’ll kill a fat wether I’ve got in the
barn.”

The captain could not well have given stronger evidence of hospitality
and glad welcome than by his resolve to kill a wether, that would
afford double the wool which could be sheared from an ordinary sheep,
as will be evident if we reflect a moment upon the state of affairs
at that period. Before the war of the revolution, when the British
government was imposing onerous taxes upon our fathers, prohibiting
American manufactures, and endeavoring to compel them to purchase
those of the mother country, they not only threw the tea overboard,
but in every way attempted to clothe themselves, that they might be
independent of Great Britain. In order to be provided with material
for cloth, the people of Massachusetts resolved to eat no lamb, and
not a butcher dared to offer any for sale. Bounties were offered for
wolves, flocks of sheep were increased by every possible means, great
quantities of flax were raised, and every household was transposed into
a manufactory, where wool and flax were carded, spun, and wove, and
colored with barks and roots found in the woods.

“Save your money, and save your country,” became a proverb.

After the war, and at the period of our tale, when the country was
oppressed with debt, and its infant manufactures were struggling for
existence, when Great Britain, while excluding us from her West India
ports, was deluging the country with her manufactures in order to
effectually crush our own, all true patriots, and the government to
the extent that lay in its power, strove to sustain the old spirit of
independence, and raise wool and flax. Captain Rhines very rarely, and
Uncle Isaac never, killed a lamb; but on this occasion the glad father
was willing to slaughter even a wether.

Evil kills the home-feeling; virtue deepens and strengthens it. The
fact that the presence of these boys added so much to the happiness of
home, and that they were so happy to get home, was a fine tribute both
to their heart and principles.




CHAPTER VI.

TELLING AND HEARING THE NEWS.


“What’s the news, father?” asked John, when the protracted meal was at
length finished. “Who’s dead? who’s married?”

“Are all well on the island?” interposed Charlie.

“All are first-rate on the island. Aunt Molly Bradish, good old soul!
has gone to heaven. She was buried a week ago Tuesday. Nobody else has
died that you are much acquainted with; but old Mrs. Yelf is very sick,
and you must go and see her. She has talked about you ever since you
have been gone, and will never forget the good turns you did her after
her husband died.”

“How is Uncle Isaac, father?”

“Smart as a steel trap; has killed lots of birds, and last winter
bears, deer, and three wolves; and the last time I rode by there, I saw
a seal-skin stretched on the barn.”

“How is Fred?”

“First-rate.”

“Has he built a new store?”

“A real nice one.”

“And put a T on the wharf?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you talk some, Charlie?” asked John. “You sit there just as
mum!”

“He can’t get a word in edgewise,” said Mrs. Rhines, “you talk so fast
yourself.”

“Well, then, I’ll hold my tongue.”

“There’s another hole bored in your great maple, Charlie,” said Mary.

“There is? Who bored it?”

“Guess.”

“Joe Bradish?”

“Guess again.”

“Sydney Chase?”

“Guess again. O, you’ll never guess! James Welch;” and she told him the
story.

“I’ll name that spring ‘Quicksilver Spring.’”

“Father,” said Mary, “you haven’t told the boys who is married.”

“Indeed, their questions follow each other so fast, I lose my
reckoning. Joe Griffin.”

“Joe!” cried John. “Where does he live?”

“Right on the shore, between Pleasant Point and Uncle Isaac’s, in a log
house.”

“Then he’ll be close to me,” said Charlie.

“Yes, only two lots between. They say he’s raised the biggest crop of
wheat that was ever raised in this town, and has got the handsomest
crop of corn growing.”

“Then Sally mustered up courage to marry him?”

“_Marry him!_ She may thank her stars she got him. Let them talk as
much as they like about his being a harum-scarum fellow. There’s not
a smarter, better-hearted fellow in this place, nor a man of better
judgment. He showed a good deal more sense than our Ben, who, folks
think, is all sense.”

“How, father?”

“Why, Ben built his house, and then set his fire, and liked to have
burned up his house, baby, and all the lumber that went into his
vessel, and did scorch his wife; but this harum-scarum fellow burnt his
land over first, and put something in the ground to live on.”

“They say,” said Mrs. Rhines, “that they are the most affectionate pair
that ever was. Joe thinks there is not her equal in the world.”

“That’s just what he ought to think, wife. I hope it will last, and not
be with them as it was with Joe Gubtail and his Dorcas.”

“How was that?”

“Why, he said, when they were first married, he loved her so well he
wanted to eat her up, and now he wishes he had.”

“I don’t think it will, for they have been fond of each other since
they were children, and ought to be well acquainted.”

“You haven’t said anything about Flour, Captain Rhines,” said Charlie.

“O, he ain’t Flour any longer. He lives in a frame house on his own
land, is Mr. Peterson, has money at interest, can read, write, and
cipher, and is master-calker at Wiscasset.”

“Good! Won’t we go over and see him? Didn’t they cut up some rusties on
Joe when he was married?”

“No.”

“I should have thought the boys would have done something to him to pay
him up for all his tricks, for there’s hardly anybody in town but has
something laid up against him.”

“So should I,” said John. “I should have thought they would have given
him a house-warming, and paid up old scores.”

“I suppose there were good reasons why they didn’t.”

“What were they?”

“One was, that everybody loves and respects his wife; another, that Joe
had been very quiet for a long time before he was married, and they
didn’t quite like to stir him up again, for fear they might get the
worst of it, get into a bear-trap, or he might fire a charge of peas or
salt into them. Joe Griffin isn’t a very safe fellow to stir up.”

“I suppose,” said Charlie, “they thought as I did about the bear at
Pleasant Cove--if you’ll let me alone I’ll let you alone.”

“That’s it.”

“_I_ can tell you some news,” said Mrs. Rhines.

“Let’s have it, mother.”

“Isaac has arrived.”

“Isaac Murch?”

“Yes.”

“And has come back mate,” said the captain.

“Where is he?”

“In Boston; but he’s coming home to stay some time. They’re going to
heave the vessel out, recalk, and overhaul her thoroughly.”

“Where is Henry Griffin?”

“Gone to Liverpool in a snow out of Portland.”

The conversation was now interrupted by the entrance of Fred. While
the boys were greeting and talking with him, Mrs. Rhines and the
girls embraced the opportunity to clear away the table; and when this
necessary duty was accomplished, all drew up, and formed a happy circle.

“Here we are, all together again,” said John, thrusting his chair
between Charlie and Fred, and taking a hand of each, while Tige, who
could bear “no rival near the throne,” put his nose in John’s lap.

“Now,” said Mrs. Rhines, “we have answered all your questions, and told
you all the news, we should like to have you tell us some; and first,
why did you come afoot? You wrote us you was coming by water. What has
become of the boat, Charlie?”

“Sold her to Mr. Foss. Just before we were going to start, he offered
me twenty-five dollars for her. I asked John what he thought about it.
He said, sell her; ’twould be a great deal better fun to come through
the woods, and camp out; that sailing was nothing new to us. So we put
our things aboard a coaster, took our packs, and started.”

“And you had rather go through all that than come comfortably in the
summer time, with a fair wind, in a good boat?”

“Yes, father; we had a first-rate time. I can tell you they are going
ahead in Portland, building vessels at a great rate. Congress has
granted money to finish the light on Portland Head, and it’s almost
done.”

“They’ve got wagons and sleighs there,” said Charlie. “They don’t ride
altogether on horseback as they do here. In one of these wagons a
farmer can carry a whole ox, or three or four calves; carry a barrel
of molasses, and two folks ride besides; or eight or ten bushels of
potatoes, and whole firkins of butter. They don’t have to carry a
little, stuck in saddle-bags.”

“I should be afraid they would upset,” said Mrs. Rhines.

“Father, they’ve got the biggest ox-wagons, that haul monstrous loads
of boards, and the wheels have iron hoops on the rims. Our wheels are
all wood.”

“You can’t expect such things, John, in new places. Portland is an
old-settled place.”

“They’ve got a wagon with two horses, that carries the mails and
passengers to Portsmouth, to meet the Boston stage. They’ve got
chaises, lots of them. All the ministers have them; and there’s a man,
just come there from Newburyport, that’s going to make chaises.”

“Captain Rhines,” said Charlie, “there are big Spanish and English
ships come there after spars.”

“It must be a great place,” said Mary.

“I guess it is. Everybody that lives there says it can’t help being
a great place. They are expecting it will be an awful big place; and
there’s a company getting up to build a wharf clear to the channel,--O,
I don’t dare to tell how long!--with stores on it. They’re going to
call it Union Wharf.”

“Father,” said John, “a man came there lately who wears loose breeches
that come clear to his shoes. They call ’em pantaloons. Captain
Starrett says it’s because he’s spindle-shanked, and wants to cover his
legs up.”

In the course of the afternoon, Captain Rhines put the saddle on the
horse, and sent Elizabeth over to Uncle Isaac’s; and when she returned,
both he and his wife came with her.

“Charlie,” said Captain Rhines, “in the morning you and John must go
and see old Mrs. Yelf.”

“O, sir, I can’t go anywhere or do anything till I see father and
mother.”

“You must see her, because the poor old lady won’t live long, and she
longs to see you. It will take but a few minutes to go over in the
morning, and then John can set you on to the island.”




CHAPTER VII.

CHARLIE AT HOME AGAIN.


The next morning, after making their call upon Mrs. Yelf, greatly to
the old lady’s satisfaction, they started for Elm Island.

Ben and Sally, having been informed by Captain Rhines of the time at
which the boys would start, and of the manner in which they expected to
come, were equally, with him, eagerly expecting their arrival.

Many times she left her work during the day, and went to the door to
see if they were coming. During the period that had elapsed since
the brief but glorious career of the West Wind, the old dugouts had
either passed into oblivion, or were debased to mere tenders for the
whaleboats, which were kept afloat at their moorings, or even used as
cars (cages) to keep lobsters and clams alive in. Whaleboats had also
increased in numbers, by reason of the impulse given to fishing, and
were frequently seen going to and fro in good weather; and Bennie, who
took every sail, it mattered not in what direction they were heading,
for the Perseverance, Jr., kept his mother in a constant state of
excitement by running into the house, and bawling out, “Marm, they’re
coming! They’re most here!” Ben also frequently, in the course of the
day, swept the horizon with his spy-glass. They expected the boys would
land at Captain Rhines’s first, stop all night, and then John come over
with Charlie. Accordingly he frequently inspected the cove, and the
adjacent shores, and if he manifested less outward show of interest
than his father, it must be attributed to his sluggish temperament,
which was less easily roused, and the fact that he had more to occupy
him, and was just at that time engaged with his hired man upon a job
that interested him exceedingly. He was at work in his orchard.

When Ben declared that he would make cider yet on Elm Island, it was no
idle boast. He had gone to work in the best possible way to accomplish
his designs. He had, in the first place, burned the land over, the same
season in which the growth was cut, and before it was dry, on purpose
that the fire should not burn too deep, and consume the vegetable mould
down to a barren subsoil. The growth of wood was also of a kind that
was rich in potash, an element in which the apple, of all the trees
of the field, delights. Instead of waiting till he had taken several
crops from the land, the stumps had decayed, and it was exhausted by
many ploughings and plantings, he set out three hundred grafted trees,
of choice fruit, that Mr. Welch had given him, right in the ashes, and
among the stumps. Wherever a stump interfered with the regularity of
the rows, he dug it up, otherwise set the tree close beside it, and
the young tree fed upon its decaying roots. In addition to this, the
soil was filled with the excrements of sea-fowl, that for centuries had
bred upon the island, and it was abundantly supplied with lime from the
shells of muscles, cockles, and bones of fish with which they fed their
young.

The orchard was upon a southern exposure, sheltered by cliffs, forests,
and rising ground from cold and blighting winds, and the bowlders,
sprinkled here and there over the surface of the land, were granite.
Enjoying all these advantages of soil and exposure, protected with
jealous care from the encroachments of cattle, the trees grew more in
one year than they would in one of our old exhausted fields in four.
Ben, excessively proud of them, stimulated their growth by every
means in his power, especially as he expected Mr. Welch to make him
another visit before long, and wanted to show him what could be done
on Elm Island, as he had expressed some doubts if apple trees would do
anything so near the sea.

He was now engaged in burning the weeds and brush, which had been
previously cut and piled up, intending to scatter the ashes around the
roots of the young trees. He was also removing the stumps, a sharp
drought proving very favorable to his operations. There were a few pine
stumps on the piece, which, when not too near an apple tree, were set
on fire, and completely exterminated, the fire following the roots into
the dry soil, and living there sometimes for weeks.

The greater proportion of the stumps were rock-maple, beech, birch, and
oak. The roots of these had become a little tender, and by chopping off
some of the larger ones, could be upset and wrenched from the soil with
oxen, aided by a pry, to which the great strength of Ben, supplemented
by that of Yelf, was applied. Setting cattle for a severe pull, and
making them do all they know how, seems to consist in something more
than practice. It is a gift, and it was one that Ben possessed in
perfection.

When a lad, before he went to sea, he was considered the best teamster
in town, except Uncle Isaac. It was the same with Charlie, who had
not been accustomed to cattle till he came to the island, while John
Rhines, who had all his life been used to driving oxen, evinced neither
inclination nor capacity for it. As for Robert Yelf, he couldn’t, to
save his life, make four cattle pull together, and always, when he got
stuck, took off the leading cattle. Those who do possess this gift,
like to exercise it: there is to them a strange fascination in driving
oxen, so dull and stupid a business to others. It was thus with Ben; no
music was so sweet to him as the singing of the links of a chain and
the creaking of the bows in the yoke as the cattle settled themselves
for a severe pull, their bellies almost touching the ground. He had
a noble team,--six oxen,--the smallest ox in the team girthing seven
feet three inches, fat and willing. He had them so perfectly trained,
that after attaching them to the stump, and placing them for a twitch,
he and Yelf would apply their strength to the pry, Ben would speak to
the oxen, rip, tear, snap would go the great roots, out would come the
stump, taking with it earth, stones, and bushes, while Bennie would
scream, “Get up, Star, you old villain!” pounding on the ground with
his stick, till he was red in the face, the baby sitting in his little
cart, would crow, and Sailor bark in concert.

It is often that friends, for whom we have been persistently watching,
surprise us after all, when we least expect them; it was so in the
present instance. Ben was so much occupied in his work that day (and
having been disappointed), that after taking a look in the morning, he
had not again inspected the bay.

As for Sally, after having cooked up a lot of niceties to welcome the
boys, and running to the door to look the greatest part of the time for
three or four days, she concluded that something had delayed them at
Portland, and there was no telling when to look for them.

Since the stump-pulling had commenced, and the fires been started,
Bennie, having changed his playground from the green before the front
door, which commanded a full view of the bay, to the orchard, was
busily employed roasting clams by a fire made under a pine stump;
Sailor was helping him, the cat patiently waiting for her share of
the repast, the baby asleep in the cradle, and Sally busy getting
dinner. Aided by all these circumstances, the boys entered the cove
unperceived, and with all the caution of whalemen approaching a
slumbering whale.

“What a splendid wharf!” whispered Charlie to John, as silently they
crept along the footpath to the house, expecting every moment to hear
an alarm. The hop-vine had covered half the roof, and reached the
chimney in one broad belt of green, the honeysuckle hung in fragrant
festoons around the door and windows; Charlie gave John a punch, and
pointed to them, which was answered by a nod.

The doors were all open, for it was a warm day. Slipping off their
shoes, they passed on to the kitchen. Sally was frying fish in the
Dutch oven, and talking to herself all the while.

“I don’t see what has got those boys: they ought to have been here a
week ago. Here I, and all of us, have been watching, and I have been
cooking, to have something nice for them when they come. There are
the custards, that John likes so well, as sour as swill; the cake all
mouldy, and the chicken pie soon will be. Charlie likes warm biscuit so
well, I thought we should see them when they got to the other shore,
and then I should have time to bake some, and have them piping hot
when they get here; now I don’t know what to do. There’s that mongrel
goose, the first one we have ever killed, Charlie thought so much of
them, and took so much pains to raise them, I did mean he should help
eat the first one. O dear, I wish I hadn’t killed it; but now it’s
killed and cooked we must eat it, or it will spoil; Charlie ain’t here,
nor like to be.”

“Yes, he is, you good old soul you.”

With a scream of delight Sally flung herself on his neck.

“How you started me, you roguish boy, you and John too. Why boys, where
have you been? We’ve been looking more than a week, with all the eyes
in our heads, and you’ve come at last, just as we had given up.”

“What boat is that at the mooring, mother?”

“One your father built the year after you went away.”

“I’m right glad, for I’ve sold mine in Portland, and was afraid I
shouldn’t have any to sail in. Whose scow is that?”

“Ours; your father and Robert built it.”

“Where is father?”

“Out in the orchard, pulling up stumps.”

“Come, John, let’s go and surprise them.”

In this they were disappointed. Sailor espied them, and gave the alarm.

“Why, how you’ve grown, you dear child!” cried Charlie, catching Bennie
up in his arms, who came running to meet them.

“I should think somebody else had grown too,” said Ben, taking them
both up, setting Charlie astride one of the near oxen’s back, with the
child in his arms; “but I believe John has grown the most,” putting his
arm around him, with an appearance of great affection.

“What a noble team you’ve got, Ben; are these the same cattle you had
when we went away?”

“Yes, all but them sparked ones on forward; they are twins, and are
seven feet and a half. I went clear to North Yarmouth after them, and
I never have dared to tell how much I gave for them. I’ve never asked
them to do anything yet, but what they’ve done it: that yoke ain’t fit
for them, it’s too narrow between the bow holes, and hauls upon their
necks. Charlie you must make me one.”

“I will, father, I’ll make one that will fit them. But how these apple
trees have grown, I couldn’t have believed it possible.”

“Ah, Charlie, what do you think now about making cider on Elm Island?
In three years more some of these largest apple trees will begin to
bear, and one of these in the garden, that Uncle Isaac gave you,
blossomed last spring.”

“Mother says dinner is ready.”

“How does the goose go, Charlie?” asked Sally, when they were well
entered upon the repast.

“Never tasted anything better in my life,” said he, speaking with his
mouth full.

“I must go now,” said John, when the meal was ended; “I promised father
I wouldn’t stop.”

“No, you won’t go,” said Sally, “till after supper. I baked some
custards for you, and kept them till they were sour. You can’t go till
I bake some more; so it’s no use to talk.”

“We’ll have supper early,” said Ben, “and you can get home before dark.”

They spent the time till supper in social chat, and in looking at the
crops and improvements that had been made on the island.

Charlie found the swallows had multiplied amazingly, the eaves and
rafters of the barn being filled with long rows of nests.

“What a master slat of fowl” said both the boys.

“I shouldn’t think you ever killed any,” said Charlie.

“We haven’t many,” replied Ben; “we’ve been saving them till you came.”

“Well Charlie,” said he, as they stood at the shore looking after John,
as he departed, “I suppose Elm Island seems rather a dull place, and a
small affair, after being in such a great place as Portland.”

“Portland!” cried Charlie, in high disdain, “I wouldn’t give a gravel
stone on this beach for Portland, and all there is in it.”

“Nor I either. I suppose to-morrow you’ll want to go over and see Joe
and Uncle Isaac, and go to Pleasant Cove.”

“Not till that orchard is done. I want to drive those oxen. O, father,
won’t we have a good time burning the stumps, putting the ashes round
the trees, making it look neat and nice, and picking up all the stones?”

“I see,” replied Ben, “you have brought back the same heart you carried
away.”

“Why, father, how could I go right off, when you have got so much to
do, and it is such a nice time to do it? Besides, I haven’t seen the
maple, nor been up in the big pine; and I’ve only just looked over the
fowl, and haven’t taken particular notice of any of them, nor of the
birds; then there’s a leg gone out of mother’s wash-bench, a latch off
the kitchen door, a square of glass broke in the buttery, and that yoke
to be made, and the piece must be cut and put to season. You must have
a better goad, father; it’s a shame to drive such a team with a beech
limb. There’s a tough little white-oak butt, as blue as a whetstone, in
the shop, that Uncle Isaac gave me: I’ll make a goad of that. Then I
mean to make a pair of cart wheels, such as I saw in Portland, on the
Saccarappa teams, and John says he’ll put tires on them. Why shouldn’t
we have things on Elm Island as well as they up there.”

“If you’re going to do all that, or half of it, you wont get off the
island this month.”

“I don’t know as I shall do it all now, but I’ll begin, and I’ll make
the goad before it’s time to go to work to-morrow. Come, father, let us
go and split up the butt before dark.”

They took the small oak butt, set it on end, Charlie held the axe to
the end of it, Ben struck the pole of the axe with a piece of wood, and
they split it in halves, saved one half for axe handles, and split the
other up fine for goads. Charlie was up betimes in the morning, made
a beautiful goad, scraped it with glass, then rubbed it with dogfish
skin, oiled it, and put a brad in it. It was tough as leather. He
made another for Bennie, Jr. Proudly the little chap strutted beside
Charlie with his goad, kindled fires, heaped the brush and roots on
them, roasted clams, baked potatoes in an oven Charlie made for him,
and blessed his stars that Charlie had come.

Before two days Charlie had cut down an elm, roughed out a yoke,
bored the bow-holes, and put it up in the smoke-hole to season, to be
smoothed by and by. He counted sixteen partridges among the yellow
birches, but by Ben’s advice abstained from killing any till they
should have increased in numbers.

“Let them alone, and give them a chance to lay and breed another spring
and summer,” said Ben, “and then we can shoot as many as we want to
eat, and they will hold their own.”




CHAPTER VIII.

JOE GRIFFIN AT HOUSEKEEPING.


When Ben, Jr. received his goad, made as smooth as glass and fish-skin
could render it, oiled with linseed oil to give it a handsome color and
make it more pliable, he was highly gratified. The youngster, however,
soon ascertained that in one very important respect it was deficient:
there was no brad in it.

The discovery was by no means satisfactory; a goad without a brad,
was no goad at all, and he teased Charlie till he put in one of
considerable length, as sharp as a needle, but told him he must not
stick it into the oxen. It unfortunately happened that this was just
the thing Bennie wanted to do, and wanted the brad for. Charlie stuck
it into the oxen, and he flattered himself that he could perform
equally well. While his father and Yelf were at the pry, he strutted
alongside of Charlie, leaping up and down when it came to a severe
pull, very red in the face, smiting on the ground, and screaming, “Gee
Turk! back Buck! her Spark up, you old villain.”

For a while he amused himself by sticking the brad into chips and
flinging them to a distance, or impaling wood-worms and grasshoppers;
but these amusements soon ceased to be exciting. The little Mischief
longed, but didn’t _quite dare_, to try it on the oxen; he at length
determined to do or die. Watching his opportunity when Charlie’s back
was turned, he set his teeth, went close to old Turk, shut both eyes,
and jabbed the brad into his thigh the whole length, with such good
will that the blood followed the steel. All around the scene of labor
were great stumps which had been torn from the ground, some of the
pines ten or fifteen feet in circumference, sitting on their edges, the
sharp points of their roots protruding in all directions. The enraged
ox administered a kick that sent Bennie through a thorn bush, in
amongst the jagged roots of a pine stump, where he was wedged in fast,
screaming piteously. There was, indeed, abundant cause for lamentation;
the thorns had torn his hands and the side of his face, the point of a
pine root had gone through his upper lip, and the skin was scraped from
his thigh.

Notwithstanding his fright and wounds, though the blood was running
from his lip and hands, he resolutely refused to be carried to his
mother till he obtained his goad, thoroughly convinced that it was a
real one, and effectual, clung like birdlime to the instrument of his
misfortunes. The next day being rainy, Charlie went to work in the shop
upon a pair of cart wheels, and during the rest of the week continued
to work on them.

When Saturday evening came, Sally said to him, “Now, Charlie, not
another stroke of work shall you do till you’ve been to see Uncle
Isaac, Joe Griffin, and the rest of your friends. Here you’ve been away
going on two years, and come home for a visit, and stick right down to
work the very next day. It’s too bad. Uncle Isaac will think you don’t
care anything about him. I should think you’d want to go to Pleasant
Cove.”

“So I do, mother; but you know father has been alone a great part of
the time, and I wanted to help fix the orchard, get the stuff sawed out
for the wheels, and then I’m going to get Uncle Isaac to help me make
them.”

“Well, when we go over to meeting to-morrow, I shall leave you, and
you must stay till we come over the next Lord’s day, and see all hands.”

“I will, mother.”

John and Charlie went over to Uncle Isaac’s and staid two days and
nights. There they learned that Isaac, his nephew, was expected that
week. From there they went to Joe Griffin’s. His farm was situated on a
ridge of excellent land that rose gradually from the water, the summit
being covered with a mixed growth, in which beech largely predominated,
succeeded on the declivity by rock maple, ash, and yellow birch. In
front of the house was a cove, with a point on the south-west side,
which sheltered it from winds blowing from that direction, but was
exposed to the north and north-west winds. The house itself stood
within a stone’s throw of the shore, in the middle of a clearing of
about six acres. It was a log house, of the rudest kind, as Joe thought
it very likely he might burn it up before he got done setting fires.
Rude as was its appearance, the whole scene presented to the eye an
aspect of comfort and plenty. The burn had a noble log fence around
it; a magnificent piece of corn completely surrounded the house and
log barn, growing to the very threshold, leaving only a footpath by
which to reach the house; on the other side, the lot had been sown with
wheat, which was now cut, and large stooks were scattered over the
field.

As the boys approached, they paused in admiration.

“I have seen a good many pieces of corn planted on a burn, but I never
saw anything that would begin with that.”

“Look at the grain,” said Charlie, “don’t that look rich? Well, they’ll
have enough to eat, that’s certain.”

Entering the house, they found Mrs. Griffin at the loom, weaving, and
received a most cordial welcome. The house had but two rooms, but the
roof being sharp, and the house large on the ground, there was room to
put beds in the garret. Skeins of linen and woollen yarn, hanging up
all around the room, attested Sally’s capabilities.

“Where is Joe?” asked Charlie.

“In the woods, on the back end of the lot, falling trees. He goes into
the woods as soon as he can see, and stays as long as he can see.”

“He must make an awful hole in the woods in a week,” said John.

“Have you got any pasture?”

“No; but the cow does first-rate on browse, and what grass grows on
open spots in the woods. Now Joe gives her cornstalks, she does better
than our cows ever did at home in the best pasture.”

“Have you got a pig?” asked Charlie.

“Yes, a real nice one. Come, go look at him. We’ve had milk enough for
him till lately. Now Joe has to buy potatoes for him; but we shall have
corn enough of our own by and by.”

“That you will,” said John. “I don’t see how you get your cow into the
barn. You can’t drive her through this cornfield; it’s all around the
barn.”

“We don’t. I go out in the woods to milk. We’ve got a cow-yard there;
and when it rains Joe milks.”

“You have real nice times--don’t you, Sally?”

“I guess we do, John. We work hard, but we are well and strong: work
don’t hurt us, and we’ve enough to eat. Our place is paid for. There
ain’t a man in the world has a right to ask Joe for a dollar, and there
never was a woman had a _better_ husband. We are just as happy as the
days are long.”

After seeing the pig and hens, the boys said they must go and find Joe.

“Well, go right to the end of the corn, and you’ll hear his axe. Do you
like coot stew, boys?”

“Don’t we!” said Charlie; “and haven’t had one since we left home.”

“Then you shall have one for supper. Joe shot some coots this morning.”

The boys proceeded through the woods, guided by the sound of the
axe, and soon perceived their friend through the trees busily at
work. Creeping cautiously on their hands and knees, they succeeded in
approaching within a stone’s throw, and concealing themselves behind
the roots of an upturned tree, observed his movements. For a long
distance in front of him were trees cut partly through, the white chips
covering the ground all around their roots. He was now at work upon an
enormous red oak, with long, branching limbs. Having finished his scarf
on the side next to some partially cut trees, and which had taken the
tree nearly off, he wiped the sweat from his brow, and with an upward
glance at the sun, leaned upon his axe-handle.

It was evident to the boys that Joe had been chopping trees partly
off during the whole afternoon, and was about to fall the monster
oak on them, in order to make a drive; and as he knew by the sun it
was not far from supper-time, this was the last he intended to cut
before supper. He had evidently done a hard day’s work. The sweat was
dropping from his nose, and his clothes were saturated. Nevertheless, a
smile passed over his features, as he stood with a foot on one of the
great spur roots of his victim, leaning forward upon the axe-handle,
evidently in a very happy frame of mind.

“He’s thinking about that piece of corn,” whispered Charlie, “and what
a nice farm he’ll have when he gets these trees out of the way.”

“Didn’t you see him looking at the sun? He’s glad it’s most
supper-time, when he can see Sally.”

Joe now resumed his work, and taking hold of the end of his axe-handle
with both hands, delivered long, swinging blows, with the precision and
rapidity of some engine, while the great chips fell from the scarf, and
accumulated in a pile around the roots.

“I told you he wanted to see Sally. Only see that axe go in! How true
he strikes, and what a long-winded creature he is!”

“Won’t that make a smashing when it falls? Such a big tree, and such
long limbs! There it goes! I can see the top quiver!”

Crack! snap! Joe ceased to strike as the enormous bulk tottered for a
moment in the air, then falling upon the trees adjoining, which were
cut nearly off, bore them down in an instant, these in their turn
falling upon others. Beneath this tremendous aggregate of forces, the
forest fell with a roar and crash, as though uprooted by a whirlwind,
the air was filled with branches and leaves, and when the tumult had
subsided, a long, broad path was cut through the dense forest, with
here and there a mutilated stub standing upright amid the desolation.
As the last tree touched the earth, a loud cheer, mingled with the
sound of cracking timber and rending branches. Turning suddenly around,
Joe confronted John and Charlie.

“How are you, old slayer of trees?” cried Charlie.

“First-rate, my little boat-builder,” replied Joe, taking both his
hands; “and how are you, John?”

“Well and hearty.”

“I’m right glad to see you, boys, and take it real kind in you to come
clear up here to visit me. When did you get home?”

“Last week,” said Charlie. “We came over to Uncle Isaac’s, and from
there here. You’ve got a real nice place, Joe. How much land have you?”

“Two hundred acres. It is well watered and timbered. There’s pine on
the back part, as there is on your’n, and all these lots. Did you see
my corn?”

“Yes, we’ve been to the house, and came right through it. I never saw
such corn before!” said John.

“That’s what everybody says, and the wheat is as good as the corn. If
the frost holds off, and the bears don’t eat it up, I shall have a lot
of corn; but right here in the woods the frost is apt to strike early.”

“Been cutting up any shines lately, Joe?” asked John.

“Not a shine. I’m an old, steady, married man.”

The horn was now heard.

“Come, boys, there’s supper.”

It was only five o’clock. It was the farmers’ custom in those days to
have supper at five or half past, and then work till night. Sally had
provided a bountiful supper--a coot stew, flapjacks, with maple sirup
and custards.

“Did you make this sirup, Joe?” asked Charlie.

“Yes, or rather, Sally did, and sugar enough to last a year. I tapped
the trees, and fixed a kettle in the woods, and she made it while I was
clearing land long before the house was built. She said if I was going
to have corn to begin with, she would have sugar, and you see she’s got
it.”




CHAPTER IX.

HOW JOE ENTERTAINED HIS GUESTS.


After supper the boys prepared to take leave.

“Go!” cried Joe; “you ain’t a going to do any such thing. You’re going
to stay a week. What did you come for--just to aggravate a fellow? It
is like showing a horse an ear of corn out of the garret window.”

“But we want to go and see Flour, and Fred, and lots of folks,” said
John.

“Flour’s over to Wiscasset: besides, you mustn’t call him Flour; he’s
Peterson, now.”

“But you want to be clearing land, and we shall only hinder you.”

“I tell you you _can’t_, nor _shan’t_ go; so say no more about it. I
want you to help me make a bear-trap to-night, and shoot some pigeons
in the morning on the stubble.”

“Then I’m sure I shan’t stir a step,” cried Charlie.

“Nor I, either,” said John.

“I thought I should bring you to your senses. Have you seen the pig?”

“Yes; he’s a beauty!”

“Well, you haven’t seen the garden.”

“A garden on a burn! Who ever heard of such a thing?” said Charlie.

“You don’t know everything, if you have been to Portland, and worked in
a ship-yard. Come ‘long o’ me.”

He led them to the south side of the log barn, and there they beheld a
sight that astonished them not a little. Right among the stumps were
growing, in the greatest imaginable luxuriance, beans, peas (second
crop), squashes, cucumbers, potatoes, cabbages, watermelons, and
flat-turnips. The peas and squash-vines had completely covered the
stumps, and large squashes were hanging from them, and lying between
the great forked roots of the trees in all directions.

“Didn’t take many sticks for the peas,” said Joe, “stumps are so thick.
What do you think of that for a cowcumber?” pointing to a very large
one. “Just see the watermillions!” taking up one as large as a large
pumpkin. “All this kind of truck grows first-rate on a burn--squashes,
turnips, peas, and especially watermillions. But come, if we are going
to set that bear-trap, it’s time we were at it.”

When they arrived at the place Joe had selected, he cut a large log,
three feet in diameter and about fifteen feet long, rolled another of
the same length and size on top of it, then set two large stakes at
each end where the two logs were to touch each other, driving them down
with his axe. These were to keep the top log from rolling off the under
one. They now lifted the top log up. It was as much as the three could
lift, and John held it with a handspike, while Joe and Charlie set the
trap, which was done in this manner: A round stick was laid across the
bottom log, and a sharpened stake set under the upper one, the end of
it resting on this round stick, and the bait fastened to the round
stick. The moment the bear pulled the bait towards him, it caused the
round stick to roll, and down came the great log on his head.

“I could have set it more ticklish,” said Joe, “but I was afraid the
wind would spring it; and these plaguy coons, that eat whatever a bear
eats, will do it.”

It is evident, that as the trap is now arranged, the bear might
approach on the side, pull the bait out, and spring the trap without
being caught. In order to prevent this, a row of strong stakes is set
in the ground on the side where the bait is, forming a pen enclosing
the bait placed upon the end of the round stick, which projects into
the pen; thus the bear, in order to reach the bait, must crawl between
and across the logs, and by pulling the bait, brings down the top log
upon him.

“Charlie, I’ve forgot the bait,” said Joe. “Run up to the house, and
ask Sally to give you the quarter of lamb Uncle Isaac gave me. Don’t
you think the wolves killed ten sheep last night for him and the
Pettigrews!”

“How did they get at them?”

“There hadn’t been any wolves round for some time, and they left them
out of the fold. Uncle Isaac sent the meat of one to me.”

It may be well to inform our readers that in those days sheep were
folded every night, to protect them from the wolves. A log pen was
built on a piece of land where some one of the neighbors intended to
plant corn the next year, and a number of flocks of sheep were driven
in every night. After a while the pen was moved to another spot, and
the land was thus thoroughly enriched.

The next year, the sheep were folded upon another person’s land.
Sometimes, as in the present instance, through neglect, or not being
able to find them, they were left out, and fell a prey to the wolves,
who not only killed what sheep they wanted to eat, but would bite the
throats and suck the blood of all they could get at.

When Charlie came with the meat, Joe fastened it to the round stick,
taking several turns with the rope around the stick, in order that it
might roll when the bear pulled the meat towards him.

“Now,” said Joe, “all that’s wanting is the bear, and there’s just time
enough before dark to set a spring-gun. Did you know I’ve got Ben’s big
gun over here?”

“No.”

“I have. He said I might have it a while if I would make a handsome
stock to it. It’s just the thing for bears. Come, go with me and get
it, right in my shop. You haven’t seen my work-shop yet.”

“Have you got a work-shop?”

“To be sure I have. Not quite so nice as yours on the island, but it
answers the purpose very well.”

Joe led the way to the house. On the side of it he had built a lean-to
of logs, quite large, and in it a stone fireplace, with a chimney of
sticks of wood, filled in with clay; but he had an excellent set of
tools, of the kind used in that day, and a bench. Here Joe worked for
others, not for himself, and made yokes, harrows, ploughs, and other
utensils for his neighbors, who did not possess the tools, or the gift
to use them, and received his pay in labor or provisions, and a little
money.

In his proceedings was realized the proverb, “The shoemaker’s wife and
the blacksmith’s mare always go bare;” for while he made all kinds of
conveniences for others, he had none for himself, but intended to have
them all by and by, when the land was cleared, the place stocked, and
he built a frame house.

“Look here, Charlie,” said Joe, showing him a piece of wild cherry-tree
wood, in which the veins were very much diversified, “won’t that be
handsome when it is worked off and polished? I mean to make a stock of
that for the old gun, that will come to a fellow’s face like a duck’s
bill in the mud; but the old one is just as good for me to knock round
in the dirt, and set for bears.”

Joe threw the gun on his shoulder, and they started for the cornfield.
He had planted the corn somewhat regularly in rows, though they were
often broken by stumps.

He showed the boys a gap in the fence, where a bear had come in a few
nights before.

“Why don’t you stop it up?” asked Charlie.

“What would be the use of that? You can’t fence against a bear. You
might as well fence against a cat. Besides, when a bear has come into a
field once, he will most always take the same road next time, and I’m
going to plant my battery on that calculation.”

It so happened that the gap in the fence through which the bear had
made his entrance on previous nights ranged between two rows of corn.
In the centre, between these rows, Joe drove two stout stakes into the
ground, and splitting their ends with the axe, forced the gun, heavily
loaded with ball and shot, into the splits, the muzzle directed towards
the gap in the fence. At the breech of the gun, near to, and a little
behind the trigger, he placed a crotch, in which he laid a stick, one
end of it resting in the ground before the trigger, to the other end
he fastened a stout cod-line, thus forming a lever purchase. This line
was conducted by crotches driven into the ground directly in front of
the gun, then ran across the row back again, and was fastened to the
stake which supported the muzzle of the gun. If the bear trod upon or
leaned against this line, he would discharge the piece, shoot himself,
and thus his blood be upon his own head. If he came through the gap, or
along between the rows, he could not well help stepping on the line.

“There ain’t much likelihood of shooting a bear with a spring-gun,”
said Joe, when he had made his preparations. “They have got to come
right before it. If he don’t come through this gap to-morrow night,
I’ll put some bait before the gun to tole him.”

They now returned to the house.

“It must be nice to have bears!” said Charlie. “What a good time I
might have if I was on my place, making traps, setting guns, and
hunting!”

“It ain’t so very nice,” said Joe, “to work hard, and raise a piece of
corn, then just as it is in the milk, and growing as fast as it can,
have a whole army of bears and coons waiting to destroy it the moment
you shut your eyes.”

The boys, when they retired, thought they should certainly hear the gun
if it went off in the night; but instead of this, they slept so soundly
they did not wake till Joe called at sunrise.

“Has the gun gone off?” cried Charlie, almost before his eyes were
open.

“Don’t know. Didn’t hear it. Didn’t calculate to.”

“Is there any bear in the trap?” cried John.

“Haven’t been to see.”

The boys were quickly dressed, and all three were on their way to the
cornfield.

“It’s sprung! Hurrah! The trap’s sprung!” shouted Charlie, standing on
tiptoe, and looking ahead.

The boys broke into a run, leaving Joe, more cool and probably less
sanguine, to follow at his leisure. When at length he reached the spot,
he found them standing with blank faces before the trap, in which was
the head and shoulders of a coon, the remaining portion of the body
having been eaten off.

“You mean, miserable little rat you!” exclaimed Charlie. “Nobody wanted
you. What business had you to get into a bear-trap?”

“What do you suppose eat the coon?” asked John. “Foxes?”

“Foxes? no,” replied Joe. “A bear. Look at that corn,” pointing to
a place where the bear, after eating the corn, had broken down the
stalks, eaten some ears, bitten others, and apparently lain down and
wallowed.

“Look there,” said Charlie, taking up a stalk of corn that was bloody;
“that was the first one he bit, and some of the coon’s blood is on it.”

“He hasn’t done much hurt,” said Joe; “didn’t get in till most morning,
or he would have done more; he’ll be sure to come back again, as he got
part of a bellyful, and didn’t get enough.”

They now went to the place where they had set the gun.

“It’s gone,” screamed the boys, who had gone ahead; “there’s no gun
here.”

When Joe came to the place, he found the gun gone, the stakes that had
held it upset, the crotches torn from the ground, and the cod-line
wound around the hills of corn, which was trampled down in all
directions.

“Here’s the gun,” cried John; “it’s gone off.”

“Here’s blood,” said Charlie, who had gone to the gap in the fence;
“here’s blood all over this log, where he bled getting over.”

“Look here,” said John, holding up the gun; “only look at the stock.”

“That’s where he bit it,” said Joe; “he was mad, and so he bit the
thing that hurt him.”

“I don’t blame him,” said Charlie, “if he got all that buck shot and
those balls in him.”

“I guess he’s hurt bad; he’s got some of ’em in him.”

“Let’s go right after him this minute: we’ll have him.”

“Not so fast, my boy; we’ll have some breakfast first; we may have to
follow him miles.”

Breakfast was soon despatched. Joe loaded up the big gun, gave John his
own rifle, and Charlie an old Queen’s arm that belonged to Henry.

“There’s been two of ’em in the corn, I know as well as I want to,”
said Joe. They were able to track him by the blood and a peculiar mark
like a scratch on the leaves, and wherever the ground was soft.

“He must have one leg broke or hurt,” said Joe: “see there! every
little while he drags it.”

Thus they followed for hours, sometimes losing the track, and then,
after a long search, finding it again, which consumed a great deal of
time. The trail led them in the direction of Charlie’s place.

“It’s one of your bears, Charlie; they are breachy. I wish you would
keep them at home out of my corn.”

“You must put them in pound, Joe.”

Pursuing till they came to the brook, they lost the track altogether.
Thinking he might have gone into the brook, they followed along the
banks on each side to the pond, hoping to regain his track when
he left the water, but without success. They were now hungry and
discouraged,--it was the middle of the afternoon,--and were about to
abandon the search and return, but sat down under a short, butted,
scrubby hemlock to rest and consult.

“If we only had Tige,” said John, “he would take us right to him.”

For the last hour they had seen no blood, and Joe reckoned that the
blood had clotted in the wounds, or he had stuffed them with moss.

“We shall have to give him up; he’s got into his den,” said Joe.

“Why couldn’t we go home and get Tige on the track, and start, early in
the morning?”

While they were conversing, a drop of blood fell on the back of
Charlie’s hand. Looking up, he saw the bear in the tree right over his
head.

Worn out with fatigue and loss of blood, and unable to reach his den,
with the last efforts of remaining strength he had crawled up the
tree, with the design of ascending to the thick top, and escaping
the notice of his pursuers; but having tangled the cod-line, to which
the stake which supported the muzzle of the gun was attached, round
one of his hind legs, he had dragged it after him, and catching it in
the lower limbs, he, being exhausted, was brought to an anchor. The
exertion of climbing the tree had made the wound bleed afresh.

“Good afternoon, friend,” said Joe, who was greatly elated at this
unlooked-for success; “see what you did,”--holding up the long gun, and
showing the bear the marks of his own teeth on the stock. “Who do you
think is to pay for that, eh? Don’t you wish you’d kept out of my corn?”

“See how guilty he looks,” said John, pointing to the creature, who lay
with his fore paws on a large branch, gravely regarding his foes with
the stoicism of an Indian at the stake.

“Come, boys, which of you want to shoot him?”

They both were silent.

“John does,” said Charlie, at length.

“Charlie does,” replied John.

“Both of you do. Well, both of you fire at him.”

[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE BEAR.--Page 101.]

Scarcely were the words uttered when their guns made a common report,
and the bear tumbled to the ground perfectly dead.

“Ain’t you glad you didn’t go home yesterday?”

“Guess we are.”

“Ain’t a bit hungry, nor tired, now?”

“Not a bit.”

“It’s nearer five o’clock than four, and that bear must be got home and
dressed to-night. I thought his leg was broken, but it was that stake
dragging that made the trail, and helped greatly to tire him.”

Joe tied his legs together with the cod-line, and finding a dead
spruce, they broke it down, and thrust it between his legs; Joe taking
one end on his shoulders and the boys the other, they carried the
carcass to the shore.

“This is a big one,” said Joe, drawing a long breath: “he weighs every
bit of three hundred. Well, I’ve kept him well; he’s had all the corn
he’s wanted, and the best of corn too; and there’s been any quantity of
blueberries this year. Now let us take a drink at Cross-root Spring,
leave our guns here, go home and get supper, then take the boat, come
up and get the bear.”

“We are going to call it Quicksilver Spring now,” said Charlie: “you
know what happened here.”

“Well, Quicksilver Spring, then.”

“It was a noble day’s work Uncle Isaac did that day.”

“He saved that young man; but we are not a going to have to fight the
battle, a handful of us, with liquor much longer.”

“Why not?”

“Because people that have got larning, and that are looked up to,
are beginning to take it up. James Welch sent a newspaper to Uncle
Isaac that has printed what Dr. Franklin said about it long ago; and
there’s a long piece that the College of Doctors in Philadelphia sent
to Congress, about it, saying something ought to be done; that rum
was ruining the country, and upsetting all we had done in getting our
liberty: the paper’s at the house; you can read it. Now, when the
papers take anything up, it’s a sartain sign that there are a good many
people thinking about those matters, and want to hear about them; they
never bark till the deer’s afoot; it will spread just like ile when you
drop it on the water to spear a flounder.”

Thus beguiling the rough journey through the forest, they arrived home
just before sundown.

“Now, boys, while Sally’s putting supper on the table, we’ll just set
the trap again.”

After resting a while, and eating a substantial meal, having eaten
nothing since six o’clock that morning, they took the boat, and being
favored with a fair wind and tide, sailed leisurely up the bay under a
bright starlight.

“We’ve got the night before us,” said Joe, “so needn’t hurry.”

“This is easier than walking,” said Charlie; “the tide will turn by the
time we get there, and if we do have to beat or row back, we shall have
a fair tide.”

They were favored in this respect; for by the time they had placed the
bear in the boat, and were ready to start, it fell calm, and they rowed
leisurely home with the tide.

It was much nearer morning than midnight, when, having dressed the
animal and hung him up in the barn floor, they went to bed.




CHAPTER X.

TRAPPING AND NETTING.


It was eight o’clock when the boys got up the next morning. Joe was
stretching the skin on the barn door, and his wife frying bear’s steaks
for breakfast. They had eaten but two meals the day before, and though
the last was a very hearty one, yet, as they had been at work out of
door, the greater part of the night, they awoke hungry. The smell of
the meat was so savory, and it looked so tempting, as Sally piled up
the large slices on the plate, and prepared to place them on the table,
that, resisting the impulse to go out of doors, the boys sat down to
await breakfast, which they saw was nearly ready.

“Where is Joe?” inquired John.

“Stretching the bear’s skin.”

“Has he been to the trap?”

“I don’t know.”

Charlie shoved back the sliding shutter of the window that commanded a
view of the barn (there was but one glazed window in the house; the
others were furnished with wooden shutters, in two of which there were
diamond-shaped holes cut, and small squares of glass set in them),
where Joe was at work.

“Joe!”

No reply.

“Joe!”

Joe kept on driving the nails into the edges of the hide.

“Jo-o-o-o!”

“Well.”

“Have you been to the bear-trap?”

“Been _where_?”

“Why, to the trap, to see if it was sprung.”

“How could I go, when I had this hide to take care of?”

“Will you say you haven’t?”

“Guess not.”

“Is there anything in it?” cried Charlie, stirred up by the evasive
answers he received.

“How you do like to ask questions!”

“A bear! a bear!” roared Charlie, jumping out of the window and running
full speed for the trap, with John at his heels. When they arrived at
the spot, the trap was sprung, sure enough, and in it was a bear of
the largest size, with his body across the lower log, the upper on his
back, and his hinder parts on the ground.

“Ain’t he a big one!” said John: “see what handsome fur; a real jet
black,”--passing his hand along his back; “they are not all so black;
some of ’em are kind of brown and faded out.”

“See what claws!” said Charlie, taking up one of his fore paws and
spreading apart the toes with his fingers.

“They are awful strong,” said John: “Uncle Isaac says they will stave
the head of a barrel of molasses in with blows of their paws, and that
he has seen ’em, when hunting after bugs and wood-worms in old rotten
logs, strike with their paws, and split them right open.”

The horn now sounded for breakfast.

“How much is that bear-skin worth, Joe?” asked Charlie.

“About six dollars; perhaps more.”

“Then you’ll get some pay for your corn.”

“Yes; and then the meat is good.”

“And the fat is first rate to have in the house; it’s as good as lard,”
said Sally.

“The worst of it is,” said Joe, “we have it all at once; now we’ve got
the meat of two bears, and it will spoil before we can eat half of
it; then there are sea-fowl, lobsters, and pigeons, so that everything
comes together. We ought to give some of this meat to the neighbors:
bears ain’t so plenty down to the village as they are up here in the
woods.”

“I’ll go over to Uncle Isaac’s,” said Sally, “and tell him he can send
word to some of the neighbors, and to your father’s folks, to come and
get some.”

“When the boys go home I will take them down to Captain Rhines’s in the
boat, and carry some meat to him and Ben.”

“We’ll help you dress the bear, Joe, and then we must go,” said
Charlie: “we can’t stay any longer; we should like to; we’ve had the
greatest time that ever was, but we must go now.”

“Don’t want to hear any such talk as that; it’s no kind of use to talk
that way here; can’t spare you; we’ve got just as much to do to-day as
we can spring to, then fix the pigeon-bed, set the net, make a cage to
put them in, dress this bear, and set the dead-fall for another.”

“A pigeon-net? What is that?”

“Why, Charlie,” said John, “don’t you know what a pigeon-net is?”

“No. I thought they shot ’em.”

“How should he know?” said Joe.

“Why, Charlie, they catch them by hundreds in nets.”

“Do?”

“Yes, and put them in a cage.”

“And put them in a cage?”

“Yes, they put them in a cage, or some place, and keep them, and fat
them.”

“Don’t the net kill ’em?”

“No. Don’t hurt ’em one mite.”

“Then I shan’t go, if all that’s going on.”

No sooner was breakfast over, and the bear dressed, than Joe brought
out his net. It was fifteen feet in length by ten in width.

“Who made this net?” asked Charlie.

“Sally: she spun all the twine on the flax wheel, and netted it.”

Taking the net, they went on to the wheat stubble. Near the woods was
a place where there had been an opening when the land was in forest;
consequently, when the fire had burned off the moss and leaves (duff,
as Joe called it), the ground was mellow and free from roots. A portion
of this he had dug up, carried away all the sticks and stones, raked it
as smooth as a garden bed, and flung wheat on it.

Early in the morning and towards night the wild pigeons would come,
light on the trees, look at the grain a while, then fly down and eat.
He had baited the pigeons thus for several days, till they had become
used to the spot, and quite tame: now he prepared to net them.

In the first place, they set down, at each corner of the bed (which
was a little larger than the net), pieces of plank with their edges
directed across the bed, about a foot above the surface of the ground:
in the sides of two of them cut slots, on the inside of one and the
outside of the other, that is, the corner ones; on the longest side, at
the distance of about twelve feet from the planks and on the opposite
side from the posts in which the slots are cut, they put down, three
feet into the ground, and on a line with them, two tough green beech
saplings, three inches through at the butt, and six feet in height.
To the top of these posts he fastened a strong rope forty feet long,
and the edge of the net to this rope. The lower edge of the net was
fastened to the ground by little crotches, on the opposite side from
the high posts, and merely slack enough left of the rope to admit of
taking the net and rope across, and permitting the net to lie nicely
folded in as compact a form as possible on the ground along the edge
of the bed. He then took two strips of stiff, hard wood board, an inch
and a quarter thick and two inches wide, with a dove-tail notch in one
end to hold the rope; one end of these he set against the plank posts,
which were well over towards the middle of the bed on the side the log
posts stood, put the notched end against the bight of the rope to which
the net was fastened, and, pressing down with all his might, sprung
the stiff beech posts enough to force the sticks (flyers he called
them), with the rope attached to them, into the slots in the plank
posts. The net, which lay nicely folded along the edge of the bed, was
then covered over with earth; long limbs, thickly covered with leaves,
were now cut and set up, forming a booth around one of the high posts
at one end, bringing the line to which the flyers were fastened into
the booth, thus enabling the hunter concealed there, at one twitch, to
pull the flyers, which held the net down, out of the slots, when the
tremendous spring of the beech poles would fling the net over the bed
in an instant.

Wheat was now strown in a long row the whole length of the bed, and
nearest to the side on which the net was folded, that the pigeons, when
they came on, might be sure to be completely enveloped, being nearer
the centre of the net. Some saplings were set in hollow stumps and in
the ground to form lighting places, as pigeons like to have a chance to
reconnoitre before flying down.

Joe had not intended to set the net so soon, but to have built the
booth, set up the poles, and put on the rope, in order that the pigeons
might get accustomed to the sight of these objects; but he had hurried
up matters to keep the boys there and gratify them.

“We won’t spring it to-night, boys, but let them come here, get their
supper, and see all these fixings. They will come and light on the
trees, look round, see the grain; some of them will come to the bed,
eat a little, and make up their minds that all is right. To-night we’ll
put on fresh grain, and in the morning make a real haul.”

The forenoon was fully occupied with the bear and the pigeon-bed. In
the afternoon they went to work to make a cage to keep them. They made
it of logs, covering the top with small poles, that they might have
plenty of light and air, put in roosts, and made a trough for water.

The cage, instead of being square, was made in the shape of a blunt
wedge, and the apex lined with a net, so that they could be driven into
the narrow part into the net, and caught without difficulty.

At night they visited the bed, found the pigeons had been there, and
having put on fresh grain, went home, and, being weary from the work of
the previous night, retired early, with sanguine expectations for the
morrow.

Joe called them before the dawn of day, and they were all three soon
secreted in the booth. As the day broke, they began to hear a flapping
of wings. First came three or four, then more, till long before sunrise
the saplings, trees in the woods, and even the rope that ran from the
spring-pole to the ground, were all covered with them.

Charlie was quivering with excitement. He had never seen anything like
it in his life, and could scarcely contain himself as he watched them
through the network of branches. There they sat, arching their necks,
turning their heads first to one side and then to the other. At length
one flew down to the grain, instantly followed by others; and then the
whole flock came down, crowding together, and eating with the utmost
voracity. As they were coming to the place, Charlie had entreated Joe
to let him spring the net, and now stood with his hand on the rope;
but when the crisis came, he felt that there was too much at stake, and
made a sign to Joe. He gave a sudden jerk; whiz! went the rope. The
fliers were flung twenty feet in the air, the whole front of the booth
fell over, flung off by the rope, and such a fluttering of wings you
never heard!

“O, my soul!” exclaimed Charlie. “There, there, I’ve lived long enough!
Only see the--see the necks!”

“There’s forty dozen if there’s one,” said Joe.

“That’s what I call a haul,” said John.

“But,” said Charlie, “only see how pert they look, and happy, too! I
thought it was going to hurt or kill some of them.”

When the net goes over the pigeons, they will stick up their necks
through the meshes. It was this sight, so singular to one unaccustomed
to it, that excited the wonder and prompted the exclamation of Charlie.

“I have made up my mind to one thing,” he continued. “I _will not_ go
back to Portland if I can get my living here.”

“Nor I, either,” said John.

“Glad you’ve both got so much sense. What ails you to get your living?
I’ll give both of you your board and clothes to come and work for me.”

“Much obliged, but we want to do a little more than that.”

“Well, haven’t you got a good farm, all paid for, or something to make
one of? Ain’t you a boat-builder? Ain’t John a blacksmith?”

“If anybody was living here,” said John, “they could put in and do a
lot of work, then go off and hunt, have a grand time, get straightened
out, the kinks taken out of them, and then come back and work all the
better.”

“Yes,” replied Charlie; “and it pays to net pigeons, kill bears and
coons, and get the flesh to eat; also sea-fowl, seals, and deer, and
have the feathers and skins to sell. But in Portland, if you’re out
of work, all you can do is to sit on the anvil, or stand in the sun,
leaning against an upright in the ship-yard, chewing chips, making up
sour faces, and saying, ‘O, I wish somebody would give me a job! some
farmer lose his axe and want another, or some ship would get cast away,
so I could build one.’ I tell you, I won’t go back. The more I think of
it, the more I don’t want to.”

“On the strength of that,” said Joe, “kill half a dozen of these
pigeons, and we’ll go home and get some baskets to take the rest to the
cage.”

Our readers know that Charlie was exceedingly fond, not only of
the soil, but of trees and plants of all kinds. Born and reared in
early life in a land where trees are comparatively rare, and prized
accordingly, he was not at all pleased with the wholesale destruction
Joe had made with axe and firebrand. Joe, on the other hand, possessed
the true spirit of a pioneer, and had been educated to consider trees
as natural enemies, and that a person’s pluck was to be measured by the
number he could destroy.

“Joe,” said Charlie, “why didn’t you save some of those splendid great
maples, ash, and birches to shade your homestead?”

“_Save_ ’em! I’ve had trouble enough to get rid of ’em. I’d rather have
corn and wheat.”

“But after you get all this land into grass, and a frame house built,
then you’ll wish you had, and go to setting them out; and by the time
they’re grown you’ll be an old man. Don’t you think the trees around
our brook, and before Captain Rhines’s house, look handsome?”

“Yes,” said his wife, “I’m sure I do; they look beautiful. There’s one
tree I don’t believe Captain Rhines would sell for a hundred dollars.”

“You can’t save ’em. You got to put the fire in to clear your lands,
and do it when it’s dry, or you can’t get a good burn; and if you leave
any trees, the fire will roast the roots and kill ’em. Those trees of
Captain Rhines’s wasn’t _saved_. His father set them out, and I’ve
heard Uncle Isaac say people thought he was in his dotage for doing it.”

“They don’t think so now. I don’t see why you can’t pull the brush and
other trees away from their roots.”

“I tell you, you can’t; for in a dry time the old leaves, moss, and
the whole top of the ground will burn, or at any rate be hot enough to
scald and kill the roots.”

“I don’t believe you ever tried very hard to save a tree, Joe.”

“I don’t care. I saw Seth Warren try to save some sugar maples, and he
couldn’t.”

“Well, if ever I build a house on my place, I’ll save some, and a good
many, too; see if I don’t.”

“We shall see. When is that happy time coming?”

“I don’t know, but hope it will be before you kill all the bears.”

“You and I ain’t much alike. You want to save all the bears and trees,
and I want to use up both.”

“Joe, there’s one thing I wish you’d do for me.”

“What is that?”

“If you ever come across a little cub, save it for me, or a pair if you
can.”

“You going to stock Elm Island with bears?”

“I would if I could. Joe, what’s the reason pigeons don’t come to Elm
Island? Only once in a while half a dozen light as they go over.”

“’Cause there’s nothing for them to eat there. They live on what bears
do--acorns, beech-nuts, and blueberries; but on your place there’s
enough for both. Come, hurry up your cakes, and get on to it, and we’ll
hunt in company.”

In the afternoon Joe carried the boys down to Captain Rhines’s in the
boat, with pigeons and bear’s meat enough for his family and Ben’s.
After meeting Sunday, Charlie returned to the island.




CHAPTER XI.

MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS.


One would naturally suppose that Charlie, returning to the quiet of Elm
Island after the exciting week he had passed, would have experienced
at least a transient feeling of loneliness; but he manifested no such
sentiment, and went to work at his cart-wheels with the greatest
assiduity and evident enjoyment.

In the course of the week he was most agreeably surprised by a visit
from John and Fred, bringing Isaac Murch, Jr., with them, now a tall,
strong young man, swarthy from long exposure to the East India suns
and sea-winds, bearing a very strong resemblance to his uncle, with
intelligence and energy in every feature.

It was past the middle of the afternoon when the boys arrived at the
island. After Isaac had spent some time with Ben and Sally, the four
friends strolled up to the old maple. They told Isaac the history of
the holes bored in it, and of all that had transpired in respect
to temperance while he had been away, and then listened with great
interest to an account of his life at sea, and the scenes he had
witnessed in the East. John at length inquired if he intended to
continue in the same employ; to which he replied that he did not.

“I see no prospect,” said he, “of being anything more than mate. Mr.
Welch has a great many relatives who follow the sea, and so have the
captains who have long sailed in his employ, and are at the same time
owners in the vessels they go in. Captain Radford, I’m with, is an old
man. If there was nobody in the way, he would give me the vessel in
a year or two, for he wants to retire. But he has a son who is going
second mate this voyage. The next voyage, or the next after, he’ll put
him in captain over my head if I am willing to remain; and so it is
all through. Now, if I had a vessel,--any kind of a thing, if it was
like the Ark,--to get a cargo of spars to Europe, or lumber, spars, and
other truck to the West Indies, I could pay for it, and build a better
one in a short time; with good luck, make more in one year than I can
going mate in five.”

“I believe that,” said John; “for I know by what I’ve heard captains in
Portland say, and what Mr. Starrett, that I learned my trade of, who
is concerned in several of these lumber vessels, has told me.”

“Some of those Portland captains have coined money; but it is a good
deal as you happen to hit. If you get to a West India port when the
market is empty, you get your own price; if not, you won’t make much.”

“Only see,” said Fred, “what Captain Rhines did in the Ark!”

“That was an exception. He arrived off the harbor of Havana in a
peculiar time. Lumber was scarce, they had no beef for their slavers,
they gave him a license to trade, and the captain-general remitted
the duties. He saved by that remission more than two thousand five
hundred dollars. The Federal Constitution was not formed then, and he
had no duties to pay in Boston. However, I’m going to stick where I am
this voyage, and perhaps another, till I get money enough to take a
part of some kind of craft, if it’s only a pinkie, go round among the
neighbors, scare up owners, and try my luck. I’d rather be a king among
hogs than a hog among kings. I’d rather be skipper of a chebacco boat
than mate of a ship,--to sail the vessel, take all the responsibility,
endure all the anxiety for somebody’s son or nephew, who runs away with
all the credit, and the money to boot, and don’t know how to knot a
rope-yarn, or handle a ship in a sea-way.”

There was now a pause in the conversation, when Charlie, who, though
an attentive listener, had not uttered a word, said, speaking
deliberately, “We will build you a vessel, Isaac.”

“_We!_” replied Isaac in astonishment. “Who’s _we_?”

“We three sitting here.”

“Three _boys_ build a vessel!”

“We may be boys, but we are all able to do a _man’s_ work. I think,
as you say you are in no hurry, give us time, we could build a cheap
vessel, that would be strong and serviceable to carry heavy cargoes for
a few voyages, which you say is all you want.”

“I think as much,” said Fred. “We three boys have always been together,
and have undertaken several things, and have never yet failed to
accomplish what we have attempted.”

“But you never undertook anything like this, or to be compared with it.
Building a vessel is quite another matter from making _baskets_.”

The reader will bear in mind that Isaac had been away during the
period in which the boys had developed most rapidly, and was not so
well aware of what they might be expected to accomplish as he otherwise
would have been.

“But,” asked Isaac, “where are the carpenters coming from? There are
none here but Yelf and Joe Griffin, and neither of them have ever been
master workmen. You must go to Portland or Wiscasset for a master
workman and blacksmith; and where is the money to pay them, fit up a
yard, build a blacksmith’s shop, buy tools and iron?”

“Charlie,” replied John, “can be master workman.”

“John,” said Fred, “can do the iron-work.”

He then told Isaac of their capabilities, and what they had done since
he had been gone, which greatly astonished him, and presented the
subject under discussion in a very different light, especially when
Charlie told him that he could cut the timber entirely on his own land,
the spars, and also spars and lumber to load her.

“But,” said Isaac, “you must have carpenters. You can’t build her
alone.”

“To build a vessel in the manner we shall build one, we don’t need but
three good carpenters, and there are plenty of men round here that can
hew, bore, drive bolts, and saw with a whip-saw. Yelf is a capital man
with an adze, and so is Ralph Chase. They can do all the dubbing.”

“My uncle can make the spars,” said Isaac.

“Peterson,” said John, “can calk and rig her, and father and Ben can
make the sails.”

“The next question,” said Charlie, “is, What kind of a vessel do you
want?”

“I want her built to lug a load and to steer well. Speed is no object
to what the carrying part is. The voyages will be short, and wages
and provisions are not high in comparison with the value of cargoes.
I don’t want one cent laid out for looks. We must go on the principle
of the man who goes on to new land. He lives in a log cabin, built as
cheap as possible, because he expects to have a better one.”

“But you wouldn’t have her look too bad,” said Charlie.

“That’s just the way I want her to look. All I’m afraid of is, you
can’t make her look bad enough. I want a sloop, with good spars,
rigging, cables, and anchors.”

“What makes you want a sloop?”

“Because she is cheaper rigged and handled.”

“How large?”

“Two hundred tons.”

At this all the boys expressed their astonishment.

“A sloop of two hundred tons! Why, who ever heard of such a thing!”
said Charlie. “The most of brigs are not more than that, many less. I
never saw a sloop bigger than eighty-five tons.”

“I saw one last week, in Boston, that had just arrived from Liverpool
with a load of salt, that was one hundred and fifteen. If you want to
carry timber, you must have some bigness, and if spars, some length.”

“But what an awful mainsail! How could you ever handle it?”

“I’ll take care of that part of it. Shorten the mast, and put a good
part of the canvas into a topsail, top-gallant sail, and jibs.”

“I never saw a sloop with a topsail,” said Fred.

“They are common enough,” said Isaac, “though not round here.”

“Now,” said Charlie, “it is best to have a fair understanding. I think
we can build this vessel, although you want a larger one than I had
expected. We are used to working together, are of one mind, and, as
Fred says, never undertook to do anything we didn’t accomplish; but it
will be a hard, trying thing, and we may have to leave off two or three
times, and go to work at something else to earn money to go on again.”

“I will go mate till you get her done, no matter how long it is. I
shall be contented if I have something to look forward to.”

“I suppose,” said Fred, “Captain Rhines or Mr. Ben would help us out if
we got stuck.”

“Not with my consent,” said John. “If we’ve got to fall back on the old
folks, I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“That is just the way I feel. I only wanted to see what you would say.”

“My idea is just this,” said Charlie. “If we conclude to build her, go
to work and set her up, pay our bills as we go along, and before the
money quite runs out, stop and earn more. I’m one of those chaps that
want to know just how I stand every Saturday night.”

“If we begin,” said John, “we’ve got to go ahead, for everybody within
twenty miles will know it; and if we slump, we might as well leave the
country.”

“I know just what they’ll say,” replied Charlie. “They’ll say, there’s
a parcel of boys thinking they are going to build a vessel, and a nice
piece of work they’ll make of it! lose what little they’ve earned, and
find out they don’t know as much as they thought for. I wonder Captain
Rhines and Ben allow them to do it!”

“That,” said John, “is just what was said when we undertook to carry on
the farm; but they didn’t laugh when harvest-time came.”

“You say you want her two hundred tons, but you have said nothing about
the dimensions.”

“I want her a great carrier, and as good a sea-boat as she can be and
carry. I know enough to know that a vessel can’t be full and fast both;
but there’s a medium, to hit which you know more about than I do; if
you don’t, you know where to get information. I don’t care how rough
she is. We can’t afford to do anything for looks. She can’t look worse
than the Ark. I wish you could have heard all that was said when she
went into Havana! Why, the darkies laughed and opened their mouths
till I thought they never would shut them again. I couldn’t understand
Spanish, but Flour told me what they said. All I have to say about
dimensions is, I want her one hundred feet long, twenty-six feet beam,
eight and a half feet deep. There is length enough for spars, depth
enough for two tier of molasses. If you can make her any other than a
great carrier with that breadth of beam, you’re welcome to. Where would
you build her?”

“At my shore,” said Charlie. “The timber is at the water’s edge. Never
was a better place to set a vessel.”

“But there’s no house where you could live.”

“Build a log house,” said Fred.

“Ten men would build her,” said Charlie, “especially such men as Joe
Griffin, Peterson, and Yelf. Peterson can use a broadaxe or whip-saw as
well as a calking-iron. Uncle Isaac would work after haying, and Black
Luce could cook for us.”

“What would you do for a blacksmith’s shop?”

“Build a log one,” said John, “and burn our own coal.”

“The hardest nip,” said Isaac, “will be the sails, rigging, and
anchors.”

“I know that,” said Charlie; “but if I find the timber, and turn in my
work on the vessel, John turns in his, Fred pays the men in part out of
his store, then we shall economize what little money we have to pay the
men, buy sails and rigging.”

“Mine will be all cash. I’ll leave what I’ve got in Captain Rhines’s
hands, part of my two months’ advance, and I can leave a draw-bill on
the owners.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“About two years. We shall trade out there, or perhaps go from there to
Europe and back.”

“The _iron_ will be a heavy bill,” said John, “for it will have to be
imported.”

“If we make the timbers large, timber her close, put in plenty of
knees and treenails, we can save on the iron,” said Charlie. “There’s
a vast deal to be saved in a vessel if you don’t stand for looks,
especially if you have _time_, and the vessel will answer the purpose
just as well. If a man contracts to build a vessel for so much a ton,
in so many days, he has got to work right through, short days as well
as long, perhaps in bitter cold weather, when it will take a man one
quarter of the time to thrash his hands, and another quarter to stamp
his feet, and very often the timber has to be dug out of the snow;
then, if iron, wages, or pitch goes up, he must pay the price; he can’t
wait. But building as _we_ shall, we can take advantage of all these
things, and work in the long days, especially if we pay as we go along.
I’ve known ship-builders who were afraid to discharge a man, lest he
should ask for his money.”

“We are great fellows!” said Isaac. “Here we are talking about where we
will build, and what we will build, fixing our yard, boarding our men,
making all our calculations, and nobody has even _asked_ what she’s
going to _cost_. That’s neither according to reason nor Scripture.”

“Speaking about Scripture,” said Charlie, “just brings to my mind _one
thing_, that, now we are all together, I _must_ speak about. Here are
three of us that have professed religion, and Isaac, I know, respects
it.”

“To be sure I do. I wouldn’t have any _Murch_ blood in me if I didn’t.”

“Well, here we are, laying plans, as I may say, for life, just starting
out to do for ourselves, and we haven’t one of us done anything for the
Lord, or the support of his gospel.”

“I should think,” replied Fred, “that if we build this vessel, we shall
have about load enough to carry. When we are twenty-one we shall be
_called upon_.”

“I think it would be a great deal better not to wait to be _called_
upon. When we were so hard put to it, while father was paying for this
island, and had to live mostly on clams and sea-fowl, before we got
any news from the Ark, and didn’t know as we ever should, he, in his
_poverty_, paid something for the support of the gospel. I think, when
we are not pressed in any way, only pressing ourselves, we ought to do
_something_.”

“So do I,” replied John. “Don’t you know, Fred, how hard we worked to
make that garden, and cut the hay on Griffin’s Island, just to let Ben
and Sally know that we had hearts and consciences, knew when we were
well used, and who our friends were? I would like to show my heavenly
Father the same thing.”

“That’s the talk, John,” said Isaac. “I’ll do my part.”

“So will I,” said Fred, “and I’m ashamed I said what I did; but you
know I always was meaner than the rest of you.”

“I don’t know any such thing,” said John. “You’ve had your parents to
help, while we’ve had all we’ve earned, and all our clothes given us.
I didn’t mean we should give _much_, nor all alike, but we’ll make a
beginning. By and by, perhaps, we can do more.”

“Now I feel right,” said Charlie, “and we’ll talk _vessel_. I didn’t
say anything about the price, because this is all talk. We shouldn’t
feel like _doing_ anything,--at least I shouldn’t,--before asking
father, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac. They are the best friends
we’ve got in the world, know every crook and turn, and ain’t like some
old folks, who think everybody must be forty years old before they can
do anything.”

“We might as well talk about price,” said Isaac, “as about the rest.
What do you imagine she would cost?”

“The man I worked for in Portland sold a vessel of two hundred tons,
hull and spars, for sixteen dollars per ton. He bought the stump leave
of the timber, and hired it hauled six miles.”

“That would be three thousand two hundred dollars for the hull and
spars.”

“Yes; what it would cost for rigging, sails, and the rest, you know
better than I do.”

“It would cost about half as much more.”

Timber, labor, and board were cheap then--canvas, rigging, and iron
extremely high.

“But then it ain’t a going to cost us near that to build the same
number of tons.”

“Neither is it going to cost so much to rig and spar a sloop as a brig.”

“Nor so much for iron-work,” said John. “The more spars, the more
chain-plates, blocks, bolts, bands, boom-irons to make, and caps to
iron.”

“I believe she could be built in the way we should build her for twelve
dollars per ton, and I don’t know but less, hull and spars. The timbers
and spars are not much account here; the hauling is nothing. But she
will be an awful _looking_ thing, though!”

“Then she would cost two thousand four hundred dollars, six hundred to
a share, hull and spars, and half as much more to rig her.”

“Yes, I know she can be built for that; but there won’t be a brush full
of paint on her, and I don’t know but the name will have to be put on
with _chalk_. _I_ wouldn’t go to a foreign port in her.”

“_I_ will, though. I’m fire-proof. I’ve been in the _Ark_. Let us
calculate. Twelve dollars per ton. I can take a quarter at that rate,
and more on a pinch; for in addition to my wages, I have made something
by ventures.”

“I can take a quarter,” said Fred, “if I can have orders to pay some of
the men out of the store.”

“I,” said Charlie, “can take a quarter by turning in my labor. If I
hadn’t bought my land, I could have taken more.”

“Well,” said John, “I can take a quarter, and turn in my work.”

“What we want to know,” said Isaac, “is, how much _cash_ we can raise
to pay the men, buy iron, rig her, and for other materials. I can pay
my part in cash by the time it is wanted, and six hundred dollars of it
now.”

“I,” said Fred, “can pay in cash one hundred dollars.”

“I,” said John, “two hundred.”

“I,” said Charlie, “one hundred.”

“Well, there’s so much to begin with. Now the question is, _can_ we
begin with that?”

“We will carry all these calculations to father,” said Charlie, “and
ask him.”

It was dark when they arrived at the house.

“Why, boys,” said Ben, “where have you been all this time?”

“I should have thought,” said Sally, “hunger would have brought you
home before this. I told Ben you must have camped again in the top of
the old maple. I’m afraid you’ll have but a cold supper.”

“I declare,” said Charlie, “I never once thought about supper.”

“I thought I’d been to supper,” said John.

“You must have had some interesting matter on hand.”

“The most interesting thing in the world,” said Charlie.

“Do let me know what it is.”

“I’m going to after supper.”




CHAPTER XII.

GENIUS STRUGGLING WITH DIFFICULTIES.


When the meal was concluded, the boys all surrounded Ben, and Charlie
laid the whole matter before him. To their great delight and no
little surprise, Ben gave his unqualified assent, told them they had
a great and difficult enterprise before them, but that he admired
their resolution, and to go ahead. When he concluded, there was a dead
silence. Charlie was completely nonplussed, for he had arranged a
series of arguments to meet the objections he supposed his father would
make; and though he hoped, with the aid of his mother, to carry the
point, he expected and was prepared to exert his powers of persuasion
to the utmost. This hearty approval quite disconcerted him, and he was
very much in the situation of Uncle Isaac, when he took Sally over to
Elm Island to see her future home, prepared for tears, and, to his
utter amazement, was greeted with a hearty, ringing laugh.

“But, father,” asked Charlie, “do you think we’ve got money enough?”

“Yes, indeed, plenty to begin with; you’ve got enough, upon the largest
calculations, to set her up, plank her, get out all your deck plank,
water-ways and spars, and have them seasoning;” and without paying the
least attention to Charlie’s “ifs” and “ands,” Ben went right on, to
inquire where he was going to build her.

“At my shore,” was the reply.

“But,” said Isaac, “ought we not, I especially, to ask your father’s
advice? He was my earliest friend, set me agoing, and has always been
interested in me. I shouldn’t have been alive to-day if it had not been
for him.”

“Certainly; but he will approve of it; so we can go on and talk.”

“Mr. Rhines,” said Fred, “isn’t she a monster?”

“No, Fred, not one whit too large to carry lumber or molasses; she
won’t be as big as the Ark; and the English mast and timber ships that
come to Wiscasset and Portsmouth, are seven hundred tons and rising.”

“Isn’t she large for a sloop, sir?”

“Yes, but, as Isaac says, it will cost less to rig her, take less men
to handle her, and if you find she don’t work well, you can stick
another mast in her any time. Boys, let me plan a little for you; build
her here, Charlie.”

“O, father, what an awful job it would be to bring all the timber from
Pleasant Point, over here! and how much it would cost!”

“It won’t cost near as much as it would to build her there. If you
build her there, all you’ve got is the timber; you must build a house
to live in with a chimney, and even if it is a log house, it will cost
something; you must hire or buy cattle to haul your timber, hay to keep
them on, and somebody to cook for you. I’ve got a piece of land that
I want cleared: if you will fall the whole piece for me, you can take
your timber out of it. I’ll board your men for less than it would cost
you to board them, a great deal; you and John won’t have to pay any
board, for you’ll be at home.”

“But it’s _pine_ timber, father.”

“Well, build her of pine; the trees are big enough to hew all the sap
off, and it will last as long as you want her to, and she will be so
buoyant you can’t load her.”

“But,” said Isaac, “the keel, stem, stern-post, and keelson must be
hard wood, or oak.”

“Well, there’s hard wood enough for that on the lot; there’s rock
maple for keel, yellow birch for keelson, stem and stern knees,
and spruce for knees above. Charlie can get oak stem, stern-post,
breast-hooks, or any other particular sticks for bitts or rudder he may
want, at Pleasant Point.”

“I never heard of a vessel being built of pine,” said Charlie.

“I have; the Russians build all their frigates of fir, that ain’t one
quarter as good. There was a brig built at Salem of pine before the
war, and I’ve heard she’s a capital vessel; she has been to India three
or four times, and they say, though she is sharp, she is so light
she carries first rate. This old-growth, thin sap, pumpkin pine will
outlast any oak, and won’t eat up the iron, nor cost near as much to
work it.”

“That’s so: there would be a great difference between dubbing pine and
oak, or in sawing out plank with a whip-saw.”

“So there would in hewing, and all through; there’s nothing better for
beams than a heart of hemlock.”

“O, father, folks think hemlock ain’t worth anything.”

“They will think differently one of these days: see how long a hemlock
stub will stand, or a windfall last, in the woods. There’s hemlock
rails in our fence, that my grandfather put there more than a hundred
years ago; they are worn thin in the weather, but are just as sound as
ever. It’s all a notion about oak. Unless you want to build a vessel of
six or seven hundred tons, to carry iron, salt, or stone, pine is just
as good only make it larger.”

“I’m sure, father, it would be a great deal better for us to build her
here, and we are all very much obliged to you.”

The others all expressed their gratitude to Ben.

“There are other things,” said he, “that will be quite an object with
you: here is a good work-shop to shoot treenails, keep your tools in,
and to work in rainy days. There’s the barn floor, where you can use
the whip-saw in the winter if you want to; then here are six great fat
oxen, doing nothing, that you can take to haul your timber, which will
all come down hill, and you can haul it as well on bare ground as on
the snow. Here is a whip-saw, a cross-cut saw, and a threefold tackle;
thus, you see there are many advantages in building here rather than in
the woods; besides, if I am round, you can call on me when you have a
hard lift or a wale piece to lug; you can give me a lift in haying or
hoeing, and that will be a mutual benefit.”

“We’ll do that, father; we’ll put the haying through.”

After the boys went up to bed, they expressed in no measured terms, to
each other, their surprise at the readiness with which Ben had entered
into their plans, and our readers may also feel the same; but the fact
was, the boys had merely anticipated purposes which had for some time
occupied the thoughts of Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, and Ben, and,
indeed, been a matter of conversation between them.

They had long cherished the desire to make their property a source of
benefit to their neighbors, the place where they lived, and the young
men growing up around them. Captain Rhines wanted to take advantage of
the facilities for ship-building furnished by the forests, and give
to the young men growing up lucrative employment at home. He had,
therefore, watched with great interest the development of Charlie’s
capacities in that direction, and for the same reason did all in his
power to train Isaac, not merely in the matter of seamanship, but also
to inculcate those principles of integrity more valuable than silver
or gold; and he was more pleased than he cared to show when John wanted
to learn the trade of a blacksmith.

“When these boys get older,” said the captain to Ben and Uncle Isaac,
“we’ll raise our own mechanics and seamen, and make the place what it
ought to be.”

Thus, in Ben’s opinion, it mattered very little whether the boys had
half money enough or not. He was pleased with their grit, told them
to go ahead, intending, whenever their means failed, to help them
out. The boys met with the like encouragement from Captain Rhines and
Uncle Isaac, none of them aware, however, of the compact the boys had
entered into to receive no aid, or dreaming that they would refuse it
if proffered.

Captain Rhines now drew up their building contract in due form,
although it was good for nothing in law, since no one of them was of
age, except Isaac, and he but just twenty-one, though he called the
others _boys_.

“Now, Mary,” said Captain Rhines, rubbing his hands, after the boys had
gone, “we’ve got all our chickens at home once more, and we shall see
what they will do.”

The boys lost no time in giving him the desired information.

The birch they were going to build on Indian Island, the pickerel they
were to catch in Charlie’s pond, the bears they were to kill, and
exploring expeditions to be undertaken, were forgotten, driven from
their minds by the expulsive power of this new affection.

It is not our design to enter into the details of ship-building. Boys,
if they want to build ships, must begin with boats, and go into the
ship-yard, as Charlie did, where they will find competent instructors.
We intend merely to give such details as may note the progress made,
and show the indomitable energy of those who laid the foundations
of our commerce, the difficulties with which they were compelled to
struggle, and the rude beginnings from which the fleet, and beautiful
specimens of naval architecture that now grace our seaports, have grown.

There was no scientific draughting of vessels then. No close models,
or even rack models. There were, indeed, among carpenters, some few
general principles; but the whole shaping of the vessel was by the eye,
judgment, guess-work.

Let us see how Charlie went to work; for it was not much like the
way ship-builders go to work now, and quite original. He took a
piece of board, a little over two feet in length by one in width,
and planed it perfectly smooth. This he dignified with the name of
a draughting-board, although, as we proceed, our readers may think
there was very little draughting about it. Charlie dearly loved a
sharp model. He wanted something that would sail. His first model was
a mackerel. His first efforts in boat-building had all been in that
direction, and were successful. His tastes would have been gratified
had he been set to build a clipper or a pilot-boat. He was now
compelled to do violence to these inclinations, by stern necessity
to abjure all ideas of grace and beauty, consult only _profit_, and
build this “box,” as he termed her. He was not devoid of experience in
this direction. It was just the kind of vessel he had worked upon in
Portland, designed for the same business, with the exception that there
were some attempts at finish about them, the wales and bulwarks being
foreplaned. In the cabin was some joiner-work; the wales and bulwarks
were daubed with lampblack, fish-oil, and red ochre, but the bottom
was left rough, and pitched. Here their means would admit of no such
attempt at ornament.

Captain Rhines and Ben had determined to allow the boys to proceed
entirely in their own way, giving no advice till it was asked, nor
offering to aid till they were in _extremity_.

Charlie was by no means inclined to adopt notions without examination.
He knew from the report of all the sea captains that the vessels Mr.
Foss built, though carrying enormous cargoes, and _profitable_, were,
when deep loaded,--and that was nearly all the time,--terrible things
to steer and live in, and would not sail much more than a raft, and
_thought_ he knew the reason. They were so full aft, and the transoms
so low, that when this great buttock was brought into the water by a
heavy cargo, they could not be otherwise than unmanageable. The bilge
also went up with a square turn, resembling a scow. Without presuming
to criticise, Charlie, while at work, had been constantly revolving
these matters in his mind, listening to the criticisms made, and the
improvements suggested, by masters and seamen. He knew the Perseverance
sailed well and steered well, no matter whether she was deep or light,
and so did his boats.

“I’ll see if I can’t make her steer and sail a little better than a
log, and carry just as much,” said Charlie, as he sat under the big
maple with the board on his knees, a piece of chalk and compasses in
his hand. “I’ll give her a round side, instead of a square knuckle.”

He at length determined, while giving her a long floor and large
breadth of beam, to cut through at the bow and stern, and sharpen the
ends something like his boats, instead of keeping them full, like the
vessels he had worked on. Upon a scale of a quarter of an inch to a
foot, he drew lines to represent his keel, stem, and stern-post. He
then marked on the keel the dead rise amidships, forward, and aft, and
with a limber batten drew a line through these points, forming a true
sweep. This he called the rising line. On this line he divided up the
rise on every timber, giving a very long floor, kept well out forward;
next marked on the keel the length of his floor at the midships,
forward and after frames, drew a line through these points, which
he called his shortening line, to regulate the length of the floor
timbers, and also dividing them up on this line, marked the respective
lengths by letters of the alphabet, as he had their dead rise by
numbers; marked on perpendiculars drawn from the keel the breadth both
amidships, forward, and aft, and the depth, and drew a line through
these points, representing the shape of the top and the hanging wale.
The curve of the stem and the rake of the stern-post not suiting him,
he rubbed out his work, and drew it again and again, till he was
satisfied; then went to the shop, and with a pencil and dividers, took
it off on the other side of the board, making some little further
alterations. These three lines on a board were all that Charlie had to
guide him, as far as lines were concerned, in building his vessel. He
now wanted to represent the round of the side, that he might see how
it would look on a larger scale than he could if on a board, and took
a queer method to obtain his end.

At the mouth of the brook was a flat, smooth beach of white sand, so
hard that when wet an ox would not print it with his foot. He tool a
pole eighteen feet in length, drove a nail through one end of it, bored
a hole in the other end, and made a long, pointed peg to fit it. He
represented on the sand the actual length of the vessel, stem, stern,
and floor timbers; then, fastening one end of the pole to the ground by
the peg, in such a manner that it would revolve, he, by means of the
nail in the other end, swept out the round of the whole side, till he
got a shape to suit him, then took it off, and reducing it to a proper
scale, transferred it to his board.

His draughting, such as it was, being thus finished, he was prepared,
having the proportions and dimensions, to make his moulds.




CHAPTER XIII.

SCATTERING FRAMES.


By the modern process of scientific draughting, an exact mould of every
timber in the vessel is made in the moulding loft, from lines drawn
on the floor, the bevel of each timber ascertained, and marked on the
mould. These moulds are then taken into the forest, or wherever the
timber in its rough state is, and it is hewed out to these moulds.

They are often packed up, taken to Virginia or Delaware, and the
whole frame of a vessel moulded with such accuracy, that when it is
brought home and set up, if it does not come within half an inch, it is
considered bungling work.

Thus a vessel can be commenced at different points, by different
parties of workmen, and built with the greatest despatch. All that is
needed is men and money enough. They can all be at work at once, and a
large ship can be built in ninety days as well as in a thousand. One
gang begin to stretch out and put together the keel, which is brought
into the yard rough-hewed, and put on the midship frames, which are put
together and raised at once. While this is being done, another gang are
at work upon the stern, another upon the stem, which are ready to go
up with the rest, another making the windlass, and still another the
rudder. In the mean time the blacksmith, knowing the exact model of
the future ship, and size of everything, can make the iron-work ahead,
before the stem and stern are set up. Another gang begin to put on the
plank, and another, whose business it is, bore every hole and drive
every bolt. The joiners plane the whole outside of the ship, smooth
up everything, and do all that comes in their line. The calkers and
painters follow close at their heels, and after them the riggers.

But all this accuracy and despatch, resulting from a division of labor,
has been a work of time, brought about by the efforts of many minds,
and from very rude beginnings.

We cannot go into detail. It is sufficient to say that, in the present
system of what is termed close modelling in this country, the master
workman puts together with screws or keys, so they can be taken apart
at pleasure, some pieces of soft pine, half an inch in thickness, three
feet, two, or eighteen inches in length, according as he intends to go
upon the scale of a fourth of an inch or an eighth, more or less, to a
foot.

From this block he cuts out half his future vessel, making it to suit
his eye. As these pieces, being in leaves, can all be taken apart, he
can take by measurement the exact proportions of every part on the
floor of a large loft, mark them down, enlarged to the full size, and
from these make his moulds of every timber.

It is evident that the mechanical genius here lies in making this
model, shaping the vessel in the mind of the architect. All, after
this, is a matter of measurement and arithmetic. It requires
mathematical ability to take off this complicated system of lines from
the model, a clear head and mechanical ability to make the moulds; but
after this any one who can handle tools can follow the patterns, and
cut out the timber. But carpenters were hundreds of years getting as
far as this, although they were building vessels all the time, some
very good, where the workman was possessed of superior genius; but the
great majority were wretched models, requiring an enormous waste of
time, labor, and timber.

The first decided approach to the present method was the rack model,
which consists in fastening several pieces of board edgewise to a flat
surface, to represent the frames of a vessel, and cutting out the
model on the edges of these. By measurements from these, the moulds
were made, which insured accuracy, economized labor and timber. The
first water-line model now in use was made by Orlando B. Merrill, of
Newburyport, in 1794; but, like all new things, there were prejudices
against it. The old carpenters would have nothing to do with the
“newfangled thing.”

It was a long time before it was used in Massachusetts, and thirty-six
years getting into Maine. The first vessel built from the new plan
there was the ship Burmah, of Portland, built by Water-house, from New
York, in 1831, for the Messrs. Oxnards, who came there and modelled
her; but, after all, she was not so good a vessel as many built on
the old plan, to the great delight of the old carpenters, who “knew
it would turn out just so.” Even then they got no farther than the
forward and after frames, but had to timber out the ends by guess for a
long time. The fact is, the ground of success lies in originating the
model. Thus the same principles are involved in both methods, whether
a man holds all the proportions of a vessel in his mind to a great
extent, sets her up, and makes his model as he goes along, altering
his ribbands and cutting his frames to suit his ideas, or does it all
on a block of wood beforehand. The same man will build as good a model
in one way as the other. The difference is, that in one case he knows,
when he has made his model, precisely what kind of a vessel he will
have. The draughting from the model is a matter of mathematics. The
result must follow as inevitably as a sum in the rule of three, if
rightly stated and accurately worked. In the other way he cannot know
this till she is timbered out. To work by the first method, some little
education is needed; in the other, not the least.

Another more important matter is the great saving of time, rendering
it possible for all parts of a vessel to go on together, and the great
saving of timber.

The man who works from the modern plan knows just what wood he needs to
form every timber; whereas, in the old way, some of the timbers were
half cut off, some had to be thrown away, and others that would not
fill up the ribband furred out; but neither time nor timber was worth
a third as much then as now. A mast that cost sixty dollars then now
costs two hundred and forty dollars, while those of the largest size
cannot be obtained at all, but must be _made_ in pieces and hooped. A
carpenter who was worth a dollar a day then is worth four now, and it
costs twice as much to feed him.

You will perceive, my young friends, there is the same, and
even greater, scope for ability now than there was then, with
this difference, that there is a greater opportunity for sham.
Ship-carpenters can now pony in ship-building as well as in these days
of mathematical keys and translations; students can “pony” in algebra
and Æschylus. Then they had to make their own keys and unlock their own
doors.

All the way a carpenter, who was a good mechanic, but not possessed of
ability to model a vessel, could build one, was to get some one who had
to timber her out to the ribbands, after which he could finish her; but
then everybody knew it. Now a person, by paying for it, may (privately)
get any kind of a model he likes, build from it, and nobody--or but a
very few--the wiser. Thus a man with modern helps can build vessels,
and good ones, who, for the life of him, could not have gone to work,
set up, and built a vessel, as Charlie did on Elm Island.

A master workman meant brains then, though the workmanship was rough
and the beginnings rude. Even in this first rudest form of building,
accuracy, by a person of genius, could be obtained. If they made
one side of the vessel fuller than the other, it was the result of
negligence, not of necessity, by suffering their shores to slip, or not
proving their work by a plumb line.

Mr. Foss was one of those rude beginners. He built vessels on the
same general principle as the May Flower. Charlie was another; but
having received the instructions of Mr. Foss, listened to the remarks
of seamen, the result of experience in the actual management of
vessels, and with greater genius than his master, he had already, and
even in this rude craft, made improvements. What is more, they were
improvements that he had originated, and the principles of which were
first suggested to his mind by taking the model from the fish.

We have seen how perfectly prepared the scientific draughtsman is
to go with his moulds into the forest, and mould his timber. Let us
now ascertain how our young ship-builder, alone on Elm Island, went
to work from the scanty data he had to make moulds to cut timber by.
All his three lines told him was the shape of the floor timbers, the
proportional length of them, the shape and sheer of the top; and his
pole, with a nail in it, the sweep of the side.

He made moulds from his rising line of the floor timbers, of the stem
and stern-post from their shape on the board; his shortening line gave
him a water line along the heads of his floor timbers, the rising-line
the shape of the bottom.

But now his lines fail him. He has not, like the scientific
draughtsman, a line for every timber, from which to make his moulds.
Well, he don’t make any more, except five or six, of what he calls
“scattering frames.” His third line has given him the length of the
vessel, and general shape on top, and the sweep on the sand of the way
in which her side will round; and he goes to work, and makes by his
eye, and what aid he can derive from these moulds futtocks, naval, and
top timbers, which, put together, form the side, cuts and alters them
till they suit his eye; and that is all there is about it. When he gets
them done, he calls them the moulds of the scattering frames. He makes
five or six of them, perhaps more--one amidships, one at the forward
and one at the after floor timber. They are called scattering frames
because they are scattered along the keel for guides. By and by we
shall see what he will do with them. Instead of making, as is now done,
a mould for every timber, amounting to hundreds, and occupying weeks,
he makes no more. His moulds are all made, and he is ready to cut his
timber. He will, however, lose four times the amount of time, fussing,
guessing, and moulding his vessel as he goes along, and doing work over
two or three times, than he would if he had known the present method.

In cutting timber there is a great deal of work to be done with the
narrow axe, and a great deal of digging out roots for knees, for
which it is not necessary to employ skilled labor. There were also,
in this new country, many men who had been used all their lives to
handling a broadaxe, hewing ton timber for exportation to Europe, and
ranging timber for the frames of buildings. The saw-mills, in those
days, especially in new places, where there were not means to purchase
machinery, were in a very imperfect state, possessed but little power,
could not saw greater length than twenty feet, while the carriage,
instead of being run back by touching a lever, and by the power of the
water-wheel, as at the present day, was slowly and laboriously pushed
back by turning a wheel with the foot. Mill-cranks were all imported
from England, and people, under the pressure of necessity, made cranks
of a crooked root, sometimes hunting for weeks in the woods to find one
that had the right turn, and was of tough wood. This was the case with
the mill in Charlie’s vicinity, which, however, was six miles off.

In this state of things there was a great deal of sawing done with a
whip-saw. It was cheaper, in many cases, to do this than to haul the
timber a great distance to a mill. There was no other way when plank
and boards were required longer than the mills; but with the whip-saw
you could have it whatever length you wished. In ship-building it is
especially desirable to have the stuff as long as can be worked, as
there will be fewer joints to calk, less danger of leaks, and greater
strength. Even now a great deal of long stuff is sawed with a whip-saw.

This species of labor then being so much in vogue, plenty of men could
be found, who, from youth, had been accustomed to the use of the
broadaxe and whip-saw. They were not carpenters, could not edge planks,
fay knees, make scarfs in keels, as Joe Griffin, Uncle Isaac, and
Yelf could; but for cutting timber in the woods, beating it out, with
a master workman to boss them, and for two thirds of the work in the
ship-yard, they were just as good, and would work for a great deal less
wages.

John Rhines, who would not have any blacksmith work to occupy him
till they began to put the timber together, was equally useful with
the narrow axe in cutting, and as a teamster in hauling the timber.
Charlie, who was keenly alive to all these matters, sat down, pencil in
hand, to calculate.

“My plank,” he said, “and wales must be sawed with a whip-saw. My deck
plank, I need about nine thousand five hundred feet; wales, three
thousand three hundred; outboard and ceiling plank, two thousand four
hundred feet.”

Knowing the price of sawing at the mill per thousand, how many feet two
men would saw in a day, and about what it would cost to hire the kind
of men I have described, who could saw and hew both, he found he could
saw his deck plank for less on the island than it would cost to raft
the logs to the mill, have them sawed, and get them back.

In addition to this, he knew what length the mill would saw, and that,
as the planks must butt on the beams, there would be a piece to cut off
of almost every plank, when he would lose the timber, and expense of
sawing and cutting; whereas, knowing the exact dimensions of his deck,
he could cut his logs the length he wanted them, lose no timber, and
only pay for cutting and sawing what he used.

The first thing Charlie did, after making these calculations, was to
construct fixtures for four men to saw, both out of doors and in the
barn, make a gin, with a windlass and a tackle on it, to hoist the
timber up on the stage. Thus, in fair weather, they could work beside
the vessel, and in stormy weather in the barn.

When the two boys had arranged these matters, Charlie hired four men,
such as we have described. Two of them were Eaton and his brother; one
of whom, Danforth, shaved the clapboards for Ben’s house. The others
were Thorndike, that smart man who worked with Uncle Isaac, and helped
the boys plough the garden; the other, our old acquaintance, Joel
Ricker, who came to Elm Island to wrestle with Ben. By the advice of
Uncle Isaac, Charlie sent for him.

“You don’t want many men,” said Uncle Isaac, “because Ben has not room
for a great crowd; so you must have them strong. He’s a master strong,
smart man, and he’ll be a real pleasant fellow, now Ben has brought him
to his bearings, and taken the wind out of him. Then, when you come to
have Joe, Yelf, and one or two more, you’ll have a whole team, I tell
you.”

“And you, Uncle Isaac, O, do come!”

“Well, if I can get anybody to do my harvesting, I will, when you begin
to put timber together, and need carpenters.”

Charlie hired the four men for three shillings each, per day. The first
thing he cut was the stocks for deck plank, hauled them out, and some
of them into the barn, in order to keep his men at work sawing in rainy
weather, and in order to permit the plank to season. He next began to
cut his floor. We have said that the modern carpenter takes a mould for
every timber into the woods. What do you suppose Charlie did? He took
a pole, thirteen feet long, the length of his longest floor timber,
with the dead rise of each timber marked on one side, and the length
of each, in letters of the alphabet, on the other. This he called the
rising rod. When the men cut a stick, he laid this across it, and
measured down from the middle for his rise, according to the scale
on the rod, and lined it out; then they cut it the right length, and
beat off the wood to lighten it for hauling. As for the other timber,
knowing the length, he guessed at the shape.

In this rude way, to modern eyes, he cut his frame; and in about forty
days the timber was in the yard, and the stocks for planks and wales
at the saw-pit. It required no small degree of mechanical ability to
build a vessel in this way. Sometimes they got them fuller on one side,
so they would sail faster on one tack than the other. It was just like
preaching without notes. Sometimes you’ll hit first rate, and then
again you won’t.




CHAPTER XIV.

CHARLIE ACHIEVES SUCCESS.


In the modern mode of building, the carpenter will stretch out his
keel, begin to timber out in the middle, perhaps timber out as far as
the forward and after frames, and even put in some ceiling, before
raising the stem and stern, because the vessel is all modelled, and
he can put every timber in her, and hold her together with ribbands
without putting on a single plank. But in the old mode, nothing could
be done without the stem and stern-post, as they were needed to shape
her by. We shall now see what use Charlie made of his scattering
frames, as he called them, since they are to play a very important part.

Although Charlie was not working by contract, and limited as to time,
yet he thought he should need ten men to handle the timber, which was
all green and of large size, especially as, being on an island, it was
not very easy to procure more. He already had six; Uncle Isaac, Joe,
and Yelf would make nine: four of these, however, would be employed in
sawing, and the whip-saw must be in steady use, in order that plank and
wales might be in readiness, since, in his method of working he must
plank up as he went along; it was also necessary that his deck plank
should be sawed out and stuck up to season. This would leave him but
five men to work on the frame and handle the timber. He therefore hired
four more. He could, upon occasion, call the men from the saw-pit, John
from the anvil, and, more than all, he could have the aid of Ben, in
case of a heavy lift. Ben’s house now very much resembled a bee-hive,
both as to the number of its inhabitants and their industry. There was
no ten-hour system then. It was, begin with the sun and work as long as
you can see to pick up your tools. But on the other hand, as the men
were not so particular as at the present day, to work just so long to
a minute, insomuch that, if the axe is uplifted, and the clock strikes
six, they won’t let it fall, so neither was the employer. The master
workman was not always on the watch to see if a man stopped to rest his
back or light his pipe; whether he ground his tools in his own time or
that of his employer: if a man had a first-rate story, not too long to
tell, he told it.

Sometimes, if a coon ran across the yard, or a squirrel got in among
the timbers of the vessel, the master workman would go for him with
the whole crew at his heels; and then, enlivened by a little fun, they
would work enough faster to make it up. Where all were neighbors, men
of principle, and calculated to earn their wages, and unwilling to be
outdone, there was no necessity for drawing lines, as with the kind of
labor often found in yards at the present day.

Henry Griffin, coming home from sea, resolved to give it up, and learn
the blacksmith’s trade, as he was, like all the Griffins, strong,
willing, and ingenious. John gladly received him as an apprentice. Thus
the family, including the children and Sally’s hired girl, numbered
twenty-two. Taking away the partition between the workshop and the
wood-shed, they threw it all into one room, which made a splendid
workshop in rainy weather, large enough to hew timber or joint deck
plank. The chamber overhead they filled with beds, while Charlie, John,
Henry, and Ben, Jr., slept in the sap camp. It was such a handy place,
after they had worked from sun to sun, to run out and shoot a coon
among the corn in the moonlight evenings!

The stem and stern-posts were bolted on to the keel, lying on the
ground; the whole was raised together and held in position with shores,
and the transom bolted on when it was half up. Charlie now took the
moulds and moulded his scattering frames, and fastened them, together
with the floor timbers, to the keel. These frames, extending from the
keel to the deck, and ranged along at intervals from stem to stern,
kept in position by spruce poles spiked to them and to the stern and
transom, and also to cross pawls at their tops, gave the outline of
the whole vessel. In the modern process of working, the timber, being
all accurately moulded from the draught, the timbering out is a very
rapid process--the planking, fastening, and finishing occupying a much
greater length of time.

But in respect to Charlie, the regulating of these scattering frames,
being accomplished entirely by the eye, was not only a good deal of
work, but it was a very anxious period, since upon this depended the
whole shape of his vessel.

It was no light matter for a boy, not quite twenty, with such men as
Uncle Isaac, Joe, and Yelf looking on, to model a vessel.

They offered no advice; Charlie asked none. He would set up a
scattering frame, squint at it, draw it in or let it out, cut it away,
shape it with the axe or adze to suit his eye, then put up another. He
proved his work by a plumb-line, as he was determined that one side
should not be fuller than the other.

This doing and undoing,--for some of the frames were cut half
off,--occupied a vast deal of time, as nothing could be prepared
beforehand. It was not so very slow work when they tumbled them in
any how, letting anything go that came within hail, not concerning
themselves whether she was fuller one side than the other; but it _was_
in Charlie’s way, who would have everything in proportion, however
rough it might be, no matter how much time it occupied.

The weather was cold, the ground hard-frozen. Charlie was anxious to
plank up before he left off. The custom was to plank up to the heads of
the floor timbers, then put in another set, plank up to them, and so on.

“Uncle Isaac,” said he, “the scattering frames are all in, and nearly
all the others. You can see the shape of her. How do you like her? I’ll
make any alterations that you or father think for the best.”

“Don’t disturb anything. Don’t start a cross-band or a ribband. She’ll
steer well, carry like blazes, sail well for a full vessel, or I’m much
mistaken. Joe and your father are of the same opinion.”

“She looks better than I expected,” said Charlie, drawing a long
breath, struggling to conceal his delight under an appearance of
indifference. “I wish we were able to finish her in good shape, smooth
her up, and paint her.”

“I can see the boat-model in her. You haven’t got that out of your
head, and I hope you never will.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Uncle Isaac. I’ll build a yawl for her,
that shall be as handsome as any of the boats Isaac will run afoul
of--you see if I don’t. Do you think it would do to plank with these
green plank? or would they shrink all up--make an open seam to eat up
oakum?”

“Shrink? No, indeed! They are froze as hard as a rock, and won’t shrink
one mite if you put them on frozen.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, indeed. A piece of timber, hard-frozen, is as small as ever it
will be. I’ve laid a house-floor with boards green from the mill, in
the dead of winter, put them down froze, and the next July you couldn’t
put a pin in the joints.”

“Then I will plank her up, and knock off till spring. It is not
profitable to hire in these short, cold days. John and I will do what
we can this winter, which will make our money hold out.”

“What are you going to make your treenails of?”

“White oak, of course.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“What would you make them of?”

“Spruce limbs.”

“Spruce limbs? That’s a funny thing to make a treenail of!”

“They are better than white oak. They are hard, stiff, all heart, and
full of pitch. They’ll never rot.”




CHAPTER XV.

DIFFICULTIES WHET THE EDGE OF RESOLUTION.


While Charlie and his men were hewing the timber, John Rhines and his
apprentice were getting ready to do the iron-work.

They built a blacksmith’s shop of logs,--the floor was of earth,--made
a bench, and shove-windows. Leaving the rest to complete in rainy days,
they began to prepare coal. Very little coal, except charcoal, was then
used by blacksmiths, small quantities being imported from England into
the seaports, but none at all used in the country shops.

The boys could not afford to buy it. John and Henry went into the
woods, and cut birch and maple into proper lengths for their purpose.
Then, on a flat piece of ground they built up a little cobwork of small
sticks of dry wood, forming a little chimney about six feet high.
They then set green sticks of cord-wood up around this chimney in a
slanting direction, filling the interval between with short sticks.
When a sufficient quantity of wood was set up, they rounded the top
with shorter sticks. They dug green, strong turf, and covered the pile
all over with it, grass-side down, except the top of the chimney, and
some air-holes at the bottom, to make draught enough to keep the fire
steadily burning. Then they threw earth all over it, and stopped the
cracks where the pieces of turf came together, filled the chimney
full of shavings and dry stuff, and kindled it at top. When it had
burned down into the body of the kiln, and the whole mass of wood was
hot and fairly on fire, they put turf on top, and made all tight, the
air-holes at the bottom affording just draught enough to make the wood
coal, without burning to ashes, as it would in an open fire. By these
air-holes they could regulate the draught. If the wind blew hard, and
the draught was too great, stop them up on the windward side; if too
weak, open them.

Boys will have fun out of anything. One wouldn’t think there was a
great deal of fun in watching a coal-kiln night and day, so as to be
ready to fling on earth, or put on turf, if the fire should burst out
anywhere; but they had lots of fun out of it, and the best times
imaginable. They built a camp, made it rain-proof by putting a board
roof on it, built a chimney of stones, where they could cook in rainy
weather, though in fair weather they always built their fire before the
door of the camp, hunter fashion. They loved to see the stars, the fire
flashing through the trees; and somehow things tasted sweeter when the
kettle hung by the crotch out of doors. The care of the coal-kiln did
not occupy much of their time; but one of them was always obliged to
be there, in the event of the fire breaking out. Thus, while one kiln
was burning, they cut the wood for another. Rare times they had of it
in the evening! They roasted coons, that could always be found round
the edge of the corn, clams, and ears of corn, baked potatoes, and had
all the maple sugar they wanted, roasted eggs, and sometimes a chicken.
Neither did they lack for company. Charlie, Uncle Isaac, and Joe were
pretty sure to be there every night. Sometimes Sally would take her
knitting-work and come up; and it was by no means rare for all on the
island, except the baby and whoever had the care of him, to come; and
there was not a happier visitor at the camp than Tige Rhines, who
insisted on coming to the island with John, and could not be persuaded
to return without him, although Captain Rhines, who was a frequent
visitor to the island, used all the arts of persuasion he was master of
to engage him to return with him.

It is no marvel the coal-kiln was a popular resort. The captain never
failed, when he came on, to bring apples, pears, plums, and a jug of
new cider to John. He was by no means chary of his treasures; and it
was quite agreeable to tired men to sit around a blazing fire, eat
apples and pears, perhaps a piece of baked coon, with a roast potato,
drink a mug of sweet cider, and tell, or listen to, a good story.

Upon such occasions Joe Griffin generally kept the company in good
humor. Ricker, who had now become a universal favorite, contributed a
song. The change in this man was most remarkable. From being a bully
and a brag, he had become a most agreeable, pleasant companion. He had
also manifested a great capacity for handling tools; since latterly,
the four men having sawed out all the plank that was needed for present
use, Charlie had taken him and Thorndike from the saw-pit, and set them
at work on the vessel.

“The best thing that ever happened to me,” said he to Uncle Isaac,
“was when I fell into the hands of Lion Ben. Before that, I thought
there was nobody could handle me, and the idea came near ruining me. I
left off work, thought of nothing but wrestling; was running to every
launching, raising, hauling, muster, and log-rolling I could hear of,
and was straining myself all to pieces.”

“I,” replied Uncle Isaac, “used to wrestle a good deal in my young
days, and I know that in some of those scrapes I have injured and worn
myself out more than I have in a year’s work; yes, more than in two.”

“No doubt you have. I wrestled once, at North Yarmouth, till the blood
spun from my nose a stream, and I was as sore the next day as though I
had been pounded with an ox-goad. Then I was always treating and being
treated, and got so I couldn’t settle myself to work; and liquor was
fast getting the upper hands of me; but after I went home from here, I
thought of Mr. Rhines’s advice, and determined to follow it. I never
was among such people as the folks are here. They don’t drink as they
do up our way,--at least those that I’ve seen and worked with,--and are
just like brothers.”

“There’s plenty of drinking here, but you have been among those who
have seen the evil of it, and left it off. There’s not a man you work
with, myself included, but, three years ago, drank spirit. Now we think
we’ve found a better way, one that is more pleasant, better for the
pocket, the health, and the conscience.”

“It _is_ a better way, and I’m going to join you, and do as you do.”

“You are a young man, Mr. Ricker. Have you any parents depending on
you?”

“No, sir. My parents both died when I was a child. My father was killed
by a falling tree. My mother took sick and died, and my uncle brought
me up.”

“Well, then, just stay here amongst us. There is plenty of work to do
round here--chopping, logging, and river-driving. There will be more
vessels built here, too. I don’t know whether Charlie will work much
longer or not; but if he don’t, I will give you and Thorndike work all
winter, logging and making shingles; and when you are not at work,
you’re welcome to make my house your home.”

“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Murch, and shall be right glad, if
Master Bell don’t work, to take up with your offer.”

“There’s plenty of land here, that can be bought cheap--good land,
too; and there’s plenty of nice young women, that know how to spin and
weave, and would make a striving man a good wife, take care of whatever
he brings into the house; and, though I say it myself, there’s not a
more industrious, neighborly set of people in the United States of
America than live in this town; and you travel the country through,
and you won’t find a better principled, more enterprising set of young
men; and I mean to do what little I can to encourage them, and there’s
others feel just as I do.”

“I mean to be governed by your counsel, Uncle Isaac. But, to tell the
truth, there’s a young woman up our way that I’ve had some dealings
with, and we were engaged once; but she didn’t like my drinking,
wrestling, and carousing about, and neglecting my work, and her folks
set in, and that made a coldness between us. I love her as the apple of
my eye, and I drank more to drown trouble.”

“You ought to think the more of her for not approving of your drinking
and idleness.”

“So I do.”

“Well, then, all you have to do is, just to go on as you are now
doing, stay here out of the way of temptation, and build up a good
reputation. The news won’t be long getting back to your place.
They’ll miss you at musters and raisings, and begin to inquire,
‘Where’s Ricker? We want him to take hold of this man that’s throwing
everybody.’ The answer will come back, ‘Ricker’s given up drinking and
wrestling, and is at work on Elm Island, having the best of wages.
People there think everything of him, and won’t let him go. He’s going
to buy a farm, and live among them.’ Take my word for it, the young
woman will be the first one to hear of it; and in time matters will
right themselves.”

The first kiln that John and Henry burned contained forty bushels; the
next, eighty. They burned one more, drew the kilns, and put the coals
in a pen in one corner of the shop.

Captain Rhines came over to see how matters progressed, and spent the
night. In the evening Charlie and John held a consultation in respect
to iron, which would soon be wanted, and fixtures for the blacksmith’s
shop.

“We can get along,” said John, “with an anvil, bellows, two pairs of
tongs, hand hammers, sledges, and cold chisels.”

“Won’t you need a vice?” asked Charlie.

“It would be handy; but there won’t be any screws to cut. I can get
along without it.”

“What do these things cost?”

“An anvil will cost about fifteen dollars, a pair of bellows about
thirteen, and a good vice about twenty-five.”

“That’s a good deal of money, just for tools, when we’ve got so little.
We must pinch all we can on the hull, in order to be able to obtain the
sails and rigging. That will be a heavy bill, and must be all cash.”

“Yes; but I can do without a vice, make the hammers, tongs, and other
tools, and I think I can make the bellows; so there will be only the
anvil, the steel, and iron to buy.”

Captain Rhines sat and listened, as they were talking in low tones in a
corner, till he could bear it no longer; and taking Ben and Uncle Isaac
aside, he told them what he had overheard.

“It’s too bad, Ben, to let such boys as these struggle along so!
I’ll take the Perseverance, go to Portland or Boston, and buy them a
complete set of blacksmith’s tools. If we build vessels, we shall want
them.”

“Don’t you do it, Benjamin,” said Uncle Isaac; “for the life of you,
don’t you do it! You’ll do them more hurt than good. Hardship don’t
hurt boys. It didn’t you and I. They are doing first rate--making grand
calculations! It’s drawing out what’s in ’em. If James Welch had been
put to it as they are, it would have been better for him, and saved his
parents much misery.”

Ben siding with Uncle Isaac, the captain relinquished his purpose.

Perhaps most of our young readers have seen a pair of house
bellows,--some have not,--stoves and coal fires having consigned them,
for the most part, to oblivion; but they were a great institution
once--from the homely kitchen to the highly-ornamented and gilded
parlor ones.

Those boys who have not seen them can ask their grandmothers, which
will save us some detail; and, as we have so many “last things” to say
to you in this volume, it is quite an object.

A blacksmith’s bellows is double. The wood is six feet long, three
feet four inches wide. Instead of having merely top and bottom of
wood, they consist of three pieces of plank, and are double, having
two clappers. The upper piece is solid; the middle piece has a hole
and a clapper; the bottom, another hole with a clapper. The top and
bottom covers rise and fall by means of hinges at the end. The middle
piece is permanent, and the bellows are hung in a frame by iron gimbals
driven into the edge of the middle piece. They are worked by a long
lever attached to the handle of the bottom board, the space between
the boards being leather, which is distended by bows to prevent its
collapsing too much when empty. The smith puts weights on the top plank
to press it down, and force the air into the fire, and hangs another
on the handle of the lower one to bring it down, and open the bellows
to admit air. He lifts the lever, the bellows fill through the bottom.
The moment he brings it down, the air is forced into the fire, and
the upper portion of the bellows, where it is retained by the upper
clapper. When the lever is raised again to refill, the weights on the
upper cover are still pressing the air into the fire. Thus it is a
draught all the time.

They made their covers, middle piece, and clappers, hung them with
leather hinges, made the bows of ash, and in default of leather,
covered them with new canvas, that was left from the sails of the
Ark, closing the seams with pitch,--which they procured from the
woods,--mixed with charcoal dust.

They found an old bolt, cut it in two on the edge of an old axe, made
a fire heat, and pointed the ends on a stone for an anvil, and made
gimbals to drive into the middle piece to hang their machine.

“What under heavens shall we make a nose of?” said John. “That beats
me! If I had iron, I could make it; but there’s not a scrap more on the
island.”

The nose of a blacksmith’s bellows is tunnel-shaped, and at the
extremity enters an iron tube, called a tewel, which goes into the
forge, and lies just under the fire.

“We could make the tewel out of a gun barrel. I’ve got an old Queen’s
arm, at home, that’s spoilt.”

“Yes; but what shall we make the nose of? That must be broad-mouthed,
and twice as big.”

“Make it of clay, and burn it in the fire.”

“It would be breaking. The heat would crack it; and I don’t know how we
could fay it to the wood to make it tight.”

“Then make it of a piece of wood that has been soaking in salt water.
It will be some way from the fire. We can keep watch of it, and wet it
with a mop.”

“I don’t believe but we shall have to.”

“Why don’t you ask your brother Ben, or Uncle Isaac?”

“Let us make the frame to hang it on. Perhaps we shall think of
something.”

Before they had finished the frame, John exclaimed, “I’ve got it, Hen!
Just the thing! I’ve seen an old blunderbuss barrel, without any stock
to it, kicking round Uncle Isaac’s shop. It will make nose and tewel,
both in one. I know he’ll give it to me. ‘The lame and the lazy are
always provided for.’”

“What is a blunderbuss?”

“A short gun, bell-muzzled, and with an everlasting great bore, made to
fire a whole handful of slugs and balls. They don’t use them now.”

“Go ask Uncle Isaac. Then take the boat, and go after it. As you come
along, stop into Peter Brock’s shop, ask him to put it into his vice,
and start the breech-pin for me.”

When they had obtained the old gun barrel, they completed their
bellows, made a forge and forge-trough. They had no chimney--the gas
went out through a hole in the roof.

John put some coal on the forge, kindled the fire, and started the
bellows. They worked capitally.

“Hen,” said John, in high spirits, “that is what I call ‘raising
the wind’ in more ways than one. We were only two days making these
bellows, and one of them was a rainy day. That’s pretty good wages--six
dollars and fifty cents per day!”

John and Henry now took the Perseverance, and went to Portland. John
went directly to Mr. Starrett, who received him most cordially. He
told him all the circumstances from beginning to end, upon which Mr.
Starrett lent him an anvil that was rather small for his heavy work,
and told him that Captain Pote had just got home from the West Indies,
and brought a lot of old iron that he had bought there for little or
nothing, and would sell for one fourth the price he would have to give
at the warehouse. Probably he could pick out a great deal that would
answer his purpose; that it lay on the wharf just as it was thrown out
of the vessel.

John and Henry went to the wharf, and spent the whole day picking over
the heap. They found cold chisels, punches, sledges, hand hammers,
spikes, and ship’s bolts; eye bolts, ring bolts, studding-sail boom
irons, straps for mast circles and caps.

John bought what he thought would answer his purpose, and threw it
into the schooner. Mr. Starrett bought the rest of his iron for him
cheaper than he could have bought it himself, because he knew just what
description and quantity of metal were wanted. When it was all on board
the vessel, Mr. Starrett came and looked it over.

“John,” said he, “you will make a great saving by buying that old
iron. With very little labor, you will get the larger part of your
fastening out of it, a good deal of iron-work for the spars, and all
your thimbles. My boy, you will have a hard job with so few tools, to
do what you’ve got before you; but you’ll win through it. If you have
to hang up, and go to work to raise money, come to me. I’ll find you
work.”

John thanked his friend, and they separated. He arrived home, got his
iron into the shop, his anvil on the block, his tongs made, handles in
the hammers and sledges two days before the carpenters put the keel
together and wanted to bolt it. He had no tool to head spikes; so he
just turned them over the anvil, making a head on one side, like a
railroad spike. They looked queer, but answered the purpose just as
well. Persons do not know what they can do till they are compelled to
exert their faculties to the utmost. It was this rude training in the
school of stern necessity that has made this nation what it is.

We are to-day reaping the benefits of their trials, and shall continue
thus to do, if we do not, by prosperity, become effeminate. The
Pilgrims suffered terribly the first winter, because they came fresh
from the homes of Old England, with the habits of that country, and
were comparatively helpless. But suppose their children, born and
reared in this country, had been placed in just the same circumstances,
or a band of western hoosiers, how soon would they have built up log
shanties, found clams and lobsters on the beach, fish under the ice,
coons and bears in their dens, and when the spring opened, planted corn
on a burn? The Pilgrims had been reared among conveniences, never been
drawn out by necessity in that direction, and most of them died in the
seasoning, being too old to learn.

But we see how Charlie conforms to the necessities of his position.
Once put on the track, and encouraged by Ben and Uncle Isaac, he seems
not one whit inferior to John Rhines in contrivance or resources to
meet exigencies as they come along.

Charlie finished planking up the last day of December, and discharged
all his men, except Ricker. Planking up a vessel was slow, hard work in
those days, as they had none of the modern appliances to bring their
plank to the timber, and nothing better to bore the innumerable holes
through the hard timber than an old-fashioned pod augur, which must be
started in a hole cut with a gouge. They bored from inside outward,
because, the augur being destitute of a screw, it was easier.

There was no blacksmith work of any amount to be done till the
carpenters began to work in the spring.

Henry Griffin went to work with Ricker in the barn, sawing out ceiling
plank and other stuff. Charlie and John burnt coal enough to finish
the iron-work, cut the small spars, and hauled them out. The mast and
main boom were so large that Charlie was afraid to fall them till the
snow was deeper, for fear of breaking or injuring them; however, as he
knew the size of the spars, he made the caps, and John ironed them,
after which he learned to saw with a whip-saw: this liberated Ricker,
who was a most excellent broadaxe-man, having been accustomed all his
life to hewing timber. Charlie set him at work upon the spars, while
he himself, having plenty of seasoned stuff, built a long-boat and
yawl-boat for the vessel. In this way he could employ the two men,
John, and himself profitably: the wages were less in the winter; the
weather did not interfere with the sawing, which was done under cover.
Ricker, indeed, worked under cover in the shop with Charlie, when
it was stormy or severely cold, and helped him on the boats and the
windlass.

Charlie built a beautiful yawl-boat, putting in gratings at the bow and
in the bottom, with a fancy yoke of mahogany, using up the last of his
West India wood in the operation, and in sheaves for the blocks. When
she was done, he painted her handsomely.

“There,” said he; “they may laugh at the sloop, but I reckon they won’t
at the boat. Isaac shall go ashore in as good shape as the best of
them.”

Uncle Isaac had a lathe, and Charlie engaged him to make the blocks and
turn the sheaves in the course of the winter.

They next made the rudder. Nowadays, when vessels are steered
with wheels, the tillers are a straight stick of timber; but an
old-fashioned one required a stick of very peculiar form, something the
shape of the letter S; and what made it more difficult to get them,
was the fact that a great strain came on them, and they must be of
tough wood. Joe Griffin had engaged to hunt up a stick in the woods,
rough-hew it, and bring it to the island.




CHAPTER XVI.

SALLY COMES TO THE RESCUE.


Time now passed very pleasantly; there was a smaller family; they were
not exposed to the weather, and in the evenings enjoyed themselves
very much. Charlie employed himself in the study of surveying, and was
more or less occupied in making models of imaginary vessels and boats,
poring over an old English work on the sparring of vessels, which he
had borrowed of Mr. Foss. At that day labor was not divided, as it is
now; carpenters were both spar-makers and joiners, bored all the holes,
and put in the fastening, the blacksmith only riveting the bolts.

John occupied himself in contriving how to economize his iron to the
greatest possible extent, and in what method, with the means and
appliances at his disposal, he should make the rudder-irons, which,
for a vessel of the size of the sloop, was a heavy, difficult job.
There was a great deal more hard sledging connected with blacksmith
work then than at present. The smith can now purchase iron of almost
any size and shape he wants; at that time there was no round iron, and
the iron for small work must be drawn, or split up from large, square
bars; it was this that made the old iron peculiarly valuable to John;
it was of the right size, as the greater part of it had come out of old
vessels; he found a great many bolts that only needed straightening, or
a piece cut off the end.

One evening Charlie was studying, Ben reading a newspaper, Ricker
asleep in his chair, and Hen Griffin making a windmill for Ben, Jr.
John had been sitting for half an hour on a block in the chimney
corner, the tongs in his hands, with which he took up little pieces of
coal and squat them, without uttering a word. At length he flung down
the tongs, and, jumping upright, cried,--

“Ben! Ben! look here!”

“Well, I’m looking straight at you.”

“You know we are going to be desperately put to it to raise money
enough to buy sails and rigging, and are pinching all we dare to on the
hull and fastening on that account.”

“Yes.”

“You know how they make booms in a river to hold logs; they take long
sticks, and fasten them together with iron, and sometimes with withes
and ropes, and they hold acres of logs against the whole force of the
freshet; and don’t you know what a master-strain spruce poles, not more
than six inches through, will bear--how they will buckle before they’ll
break?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, what’s the reason we couldn’t make wooden shrouds by
bolting some tough spars to the mast-head and wales, and save shrouds
and chain-plates, which would be a _tremendous_ saving.”

“There wouldn’t be any give to them: when the mast sprung, it would
bring all the strain on the poles, and carry them away.”

“But,” asked Henry, “why couldn’t you put a dead-eye to the lower end,
set it up with a lanyard, just like any rigging? Then there would be
spring enough; or, if you didn’t like to bolt to the masthead, put rope
at both ends: you would _then_ save a good deal. I’m sure there would
be no danger of losing the spars by the stretching of the rigging.”

“They would be strong to bear an up-and-down strain, as strong as rope,
but would be liable to be broken by anything striking them, when set
up taut: suppose the boom should happen to strike them, or the yards,
anchor-stock, or jib-boom of another vessel hauling by in the dock?
They wouldn’t stand anything of that kind, like rigging.”

“You say she’s going to carry a topsail and top-gallant-sail; the
topmast backstays would protect them from the boom; and as for the
rest, you could carry spare ones in case of accident.”

“That might do; but wouldn’t the straps of your dead-eyes split the end
of the stick?”

“Treenail it.”

“Where could you get spars long enough, without having them two thirds
as large as the mast?”

“Make them in pieces,” said Charlie. “Split up a large tree with the
whip-saw: I can find a big ash that will make four, or a spruce or
yellow birch.”

“Well, you _can_ do it; but I should prefer rope.”

“To be sure, father; but if we are hard up, put right up snug to it,
we’ll do it, sure.”

When, afterwards, Ben told his father of this novel method of economy,
the captain laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“I wonder,” said he, “what they won’t think of next. I always thought
myself indifferently good for contrivance; but they go ahead of me.”

“They’ve made first-rate calculations, thus far, in everything.”

“I guess Isaac was right: he said difficulty would spur ’em up, and
draw ’em out. I should think it was doing it, if it has drawn that out
of ’em.”

While this conversation was going on, Sally was sewing with all her
might, improving the moments while the children were asleep: she had,
nevertheless, been an attentive listener. At length, laying down
her work, she said, “Charlie, I don’t suppose you would think very
highly of any advice or opinion coming from a woman in regard to these
affairs.”

“Yes, I would, mother; I would think a great deal of your opinion about
anything.”

“Well, then, I think I can help you about your sails.”

“_You_, mother!” cried Charlie, in astonishment.

“Yes, me. I think that I, and other women that I can find could weave
the _greater_ part, if not the whole, of the duck for your sails, if
we could get the flax, and a good deal cheaper than you can buy it:
perhaps it wouldn’t look so well, but I’ll be bound ’twould wear as
well.”

“You’ve done it now, Sally,” said Ben. “That is the most sensible plan
for saving I’ve heard yet. But do you know what an undertaking you’ve
laid out for yourself? Why, there’ll be over seven hundred yards of
cloth in the mainsail alone.”

“Did you ever know me set out to do anything I didn’t accomplish?”

“No; except this.”

“I shall accomplish this.”

“But,” said John, quite bewildered, “I didn’t know canvas was made in
looms, like other cloth.”

“All cloth is made in looms.”

“Yes; but I didn’t think sail-cloth was made in such looms as yours.”

“In England,” said Ben, “all the sail-cloth for their merchant and
naval service is wove in such looms, as no English vessel is allowed
to wear any other. If we were under England, as we were a few years
ago, Sally couldn’t make this cloth if she wanted to; it would have to
be made there; but they import the hemp and linen yarn from Russia and
other places. It used to be all spun by hand, on a little wheel; but I
understand of late they’ve got mills to go by water that spin.”

“But I shouldn’t think a woman could weave such heavy stuff.”

“Can’t they?” said Sally, going to a drawer, and taking out a piece
of bed-tick that she had woven with four treadles, and beat up thick.
“What do you think of that? Would any wind get through that?”

“Well, I’ll give up now; but still, I don’t see how so much cloth as
they use in England, and send over here, and, I suppose, everywhere
else, _can_ be made in such a small way.”

But this, which was entirely new to John, excited his wonder, and was
so difficult of belief, was no matter of surprise to Charlie.

“_Small way!_” he exclaimed: “a good many strands make a rope. O, you
don’t know much about England. Why, the people there are thicker than
flies around a dead herring, glad to turn their hand to anything to get
their bread, and thousands can’t get it; not because they are too lazy
to work, but can’t get the work to do, are helped by the parish, and
often die of hunger.”

“_Die of hunger!_ That’s awful.”

“No more awful than true, though. There are whole villages in
England--and I’ve heard my father say it’s just so in Ireland and
Scotland--where, from year’s end to year’s end, all that the greater
part of the people do is to raise, spin, and weave flax; those that
are able to, hire land; but the poor, that can’t hire land, why, the
merchants find the yarn, and give them so much a yard to weave it; and
old people, seventy and eighty years old, that can’t do anything else,
will do a little something at that; an old wife, that can’t get across
the floor without her crutch, and her head as white as a sheet, will
sit in the corner and croon a song, because hunger drives her to it:
men and women weave the year round.”

“_Men weave?_”

“Yes, indeed; hundreds and thousands of them never do anything else all
their lives--_couldn’t_ do anything else.”

“I declare! a man weaving, sitting down behind a loom, doing women’s
work!”

“Yes, sitting down behind a loom; and thank God for the privilege.”

“I guess they would keep me there a good while. I’d put on a petticoat,
and take a dish-cloth in my hand, and done with it. Only think of Joe
Griffin, Uncle Isaac, and our Ben weaving!”

“It is so there; and you go to one of their houses, knock at the door,
and a man will come to open it, with his beard stuck full of thrums and
lint.”

“So you see, John,” said Sally, “where sail-cloth comes from. You know
old Mr. Blaisdell?”

“Yes.”

“He was a weaver before he came to this country; and they say
sometimes, of a rainy day, when his son’s wife has a piece in the loom,
he’ll get in and weave like everything.”

“But, mother, the vessel would rot on the stocks before you could spin
and weave cloth enough for her sails: besides, where could you get the
flax?”

“I’ve planned it all out; for I’ve been thinking of it ever since you
set out to build the vessel, and will have the sails done before you do
the hull, I can tell you.”

“I should like to know how,” said her husband.

“I’m going to begin right off, while my family is small. I want Charlie
to go over to Fred in the morning, and tell him to buy all the flax
and linen yarn he can get; he can pay in goods, or half goods and half
money, and that will help him; the yarn will do for the light sails:
what we spin, we’ll spin a coarser thread, for the larger sails. Fred
can send potash to Boston, and buy the flax. I think there’s flax
enough round here: if not, there is in Boston; it is not long since a
vessel-load of it was sent from there to Ireland. I’ll risk Fred for
getting flax.”

“So will I,” said Charlie; “because he don’t have any opportunity to
turn in his work, as John and I do, and will jump at the chance.”

“But the spinning and weaving!” said Ben.

“There’s Sally Griffin--she’s only Joe and herself to take care of;
last time I saw her, she told me they had only one cow; that she
hadn’t half enough to do: she’ll weave a lot, and spin, too; so will
Hannah Murch, and they’ve got the flax; so will my mother, and our
Jane, Mary Rhines and Elizabeth. There’s Danforth Eaton’s wife hasn’t
chick nor child in the world, and old Mrs. Smullen’s a capital spinner,
and Mr. Blaisdell, a born weaver, who never did anything else till he
came to this country, is getting rather old for hard work; his wife,
too, and his son’s wife and daughters, are weavers. I know as well as
I want to that he wouldn’t like anything better than to weave till
spring work comes on, and every rainy day after; then there’s the
three Godsoe girls and their mother, living with their brother Jacob;
the girls take in weaving, and the old lady can spin; there won’t be
much spinning; we can buy most of the yarn. When we begin to build, I
will hire two girls, and one of them can weave most of the time in the
corn-house. I know of lots more I can find. I’m going over with Charlie
in the morning, and get Hannah Murch to help me hunt them up, and then
give it all into the hands of Fred: there will be no trouble; everybody
will be for it, because they see we are trying to start something to
help the place. Just calculate for yourself: there’s more than a year
to do it in; of that coarse cloth, a person would weave twelve yards
in a day--three hundred and twelve yards a month, at least. Old Mr.
Blaisdell alone would weave your mainsail in two months, or less; for
he would weave fourteen yards a day. I have reckoned up seventeen now,
and can find fifty. Now what do you think, Ben?”

“I think you’ll do it; for if you, Hannah Murch, and Uncle Isaac get
together, you’ll set the town on fire.”

“O, mother,” cried Charlie, “you are the best woman that ever was, or
ever will be. Now, mother, you didn’t think, when I told you that night
at milking that there would be a vessel built here before five years,
there would be one built before your own door in two, and you would
make her sails.”

“But you remember I told you, when it _did_ come to pass, I would send
a venture in her: I’ve got lots of hens, and I want some money to buy
an eight-day brass clock with, that shows the changes of the moon.”

“O, mother, we’ll raise lots of hens, and you shall have all the room
in the vessel you want.”

The next morning Sally went round among her old friends and
school-mates, who received her with open arms, and entered heart and
soul into her plan. Uncle Blaisdell was delighted, and told Sally he
would oversee the whole work.

“If you had all the canvas these old fingers have wove,” said he, “it
would make sails for a good many such vessels.”

Old Mrs. Yelf, contrary to all expectations, had recovered: Sally found
her sitting by the fire, and she was greatly interested.

“Sally, tell Fred to bring me the yarn. I’ll weave enough for a small
sail, if I die for’t. I shall glory in it, and an old lady’s blessing
shall go with it. They’re good boys; they have begun right; they’ve
sought the Lord in their youthful days, and to whatever they set their
hands they’ll prosper.”

“We’ve got the sails under way,” said Charlie, “and got our iron: we
shall want a good deal of tar, for she must have a brimstone bottom, or
the worms will eat her all up in two months at the West Indies.”

“We can make that,” said John.

“Make tar?”

“Yes, indeed: cut down pine trees, take the limbs where we have cut
timber and knees, and make a tar-pit. I know all about that.”




CHAPTER XVII.

CHARLIE’S THEODOLITE.


It was now the latter part of winter; the snow was deep; Charlie began
to think about cutting his mast, main boom, and bowsprit. He did not at
first contemplate having anything above the top-gallant sail; but when
Sally came home and related her conversation with Mrs. Yelf, Ben said,
“Charlie you must gratify the old lady; it would be bad luck and a sin
not to do so.”

“But, father, there is no sail that she could weave cloth enough for.”

“Well, then you must have one on purpose for her; have a flying royal;
there will be no braces, the sheets will make fast to the top-gallant
yard, it will furl right in with the top-gallant sail, the yard will
be underneath the top-gallant stay and when the yard hoists up, the
stay will go with it; it will be a little thing, not more than forty or
forty-five yards: she can do that well enough.”

The lower mast was no less than twenty-eight inches in diameter when
made, and eighty feet long. This required a tree of great size; there
was no such one left in the lot from which the boys were to cut their
timber, and they were obliged to buy one. The bowsprit, which was
shorter, and the boom, which, though seventy-five feet in length, was
much smaller, they could obtain on their own lot. There were trees
enough on the island of much larger size; but those enormous trees,
that would make a thirty-six inch mast for a man-of-war Ben didn’t like
to cut, now that the pressure of poverty was removed.

It would have been a great deal of work for Charlie to have gone on to
his own land, broken a road through the deep snow to the back end of
his lot to obtain it; then, to tow so large a stick six miles would
have been a great undertaking in the winter time.

“Charlie,” said Ben, “there’s a tree stands a couple of rods to the
north-east of the big pine that has the eagle’s nest on it, large
enough to make your mast. There’s a short crook in it near the top; if
it is long enough below that, I will sell it to you cheap, because the
crook spoils it for a mast for a ship of the line, though it is large
enough otherwise: let us go and look at it.”

When they came to view it, Ricker, who was a man of great experience in
the woods, thought it was long enough; Ben thought it was not; Charlie
didn’t presume to give an opinion, but his knowledge of surveying
helped him out of the difficulty. “I’ll measure it,” he said.

“You can’t climb it,” said Ben, “and there’s no scrubby tree to fall on
to it, to climb: how are you going to measure it?”

The ground around was level; Charlie made a mark on the tree where it
was to be cut off, then measured a distance from it equal to the length
of his mast, and drove down a stake; then cut two straight ash sprouts,
one two feet, the other one foot long, found the middle of the longest,
made a hole in it with the point of his jackknife, whittled the end of
the short one to a wedge, and stuck it into it. He now got down on his
hands and knees at the stake, held the short stick as nearly level with
the mark on the butt of the tree as possible, then sighted over the
ends of the two sticks; his eye struck the tree a short distance below
the crook.

“It’s a snug rub, but I guess ’twill go; cut it down. I’ll risk it.”

Ricker and John soon brought the great tree to the ground, when it was
found to be seven inches longer than required. These two ash sprouts
were Charlie’s theodolite, and answered his purpose as well as one that
would cost two hundred dollars.

“Well done, my boy,” said Ben, who had watched the operation with great
interest. “That’s a capital application of the principle that the two
sides of a right-angled triangle are equal.”

“I could have hit it exactly if I had brought a plumb line, to have
taken a true level of the base.”

The reason that Charlie made the perpendicular stick longer than the
other was, that he might get his eye down to sight at the trunk of the
tree; otherwise he must have dug a hole in the ground.




CHAPTER XVIII.

HARD-SCRABBLE.


In a few days after the occurrences related in the previous chapter,
Peterson came to Captain Rhines, declaring that he could by no means
consent to be passed by in the sail-making; that no one in the place
felt more interest in his young captain than himself; for had he not
taught him seamanship? and that his old woman could weave with the best
of them.

“Indeed, James,” said the captain, “Luce shall have all the cloth to
weave that she wants; you shall help make the sails and rig, and we
reckon upon you to calk her.”

Charlie continued to work with his small crew till the first of May,
when, the days being long and the weather warm, he recalled his
hands, and the work went on apace. Not having conveniences, as at
present, to bring the plank to the timbers, when they came to bend the
ceiling-plank at the bow and stern, they spiked two pieces of plank
across the butts of a couple of elms that grew side by side; then
taking the plank hot from the steam-box, they put the end of it under
one plank and over the others. Four or five men then took hold of it,
while Charlie struck on it with the edge of his broadaxe, whang! when
the men would bear down, and bend the plank, then he would strike in
another place. This was to make it bend by cutting it part way off,
just as joiners sometimes saw scarfs in a board when they want it to
bend, as in building a front-yard fence at the corner of a street, only
the joiner saws on the inside, and, when he bends his board, the scarf
closes up; whereas, they cut on the outside, and when the plank was
brought to, the cuts gaped, and the plank was no stronger for the wood
between.

They did not make any tar. Fred contrived a method to obtain it much
cheaper than they could have made it, and leave a handsome profit for
himself--a twofold advantage, as he was obliged to take the money
expended on the vessel from his business, which was a great detriment.
He needed every cent to buy goods, as his business was increasing, and
he would not buy on credit, although Mr. Welch was ready to trust him.

But as the lack of means tended directly to develop the mechanical
ability of John and Charlie, by compelling contrivance and effort,
thus did it sharpen the wits of Fred. He bought potash for half money,
half goods; fish for all store pay, or one fourth money, thus making
a profit on his goods; sent the potash and fish to Boston, sold them
for cash, and bought tow, cotton cloth, and shoes, for negro clothing.
He filled the Perseverance up with these articles, and a cheaper
quality of fish; paid Ben out of his store for the boat; went captain
himself, with Peterson for pilot and sailing-master, Sydney Chase and
young Peterson as crew; bartered his cargo in Carolina for tar, pitch,
turpentine, and corn, and came back to Boston; sold part of the corn,
and all the tar, pitch, and turpentine he did not want for the vessel,
for cash, bought a stock of goods to bring home with him, and ground
the corn in his own mill.

“That,” said Captain Rhines, delighted, “is what I call a calculation.”

The vessel was completed in August, and launched the 29th of September,
the very day Charlie was twenty-one. In addition to building the
vessel, they had, in the mean time, cleared all the growth from the
land on which they cut their timber, burnt over and fenced it for Ben;
also helped him cut his hay and hoe his corn. Built of pine, and now
well seasoned, she was as light on the water as a cork.

The whole town came to the launching, for all were interested in her,
even Parson Goodhue, with his new hat and wig; but he kept a respectful
distance from the gander. There was much diversity of opinion among
the owners in respect to a name. Some wanted to call her Charlie Bell;
but Charlie declared she looked too bad to be named for anybody. Some
wanted to call her the Pioneer, others, Enterprise.

“I’ll tell you what to call her,” said Joe Griffin. “You’ve had such
a hard scratch to build her, and ain’t done scratching yet, call her
Hard-Scrabble.”

This was unanimously assented to. It had, indeed, been a hard scrabble,
and the conflict was by no means ended. The boys feared the worst was
to come. She was to be fitted for sea.

Charlie was certainly right in saying that she looked too bad to be
named for anybody, though it was allowed on all hands that she was
an excellent model, true in all her proportions, and not a bunch or
a slack place could be found anywhere. Yet she was rough as rough
could be. Even then it was customary to plane the wales and bulwarks,
and paint them black, with a turpentine streak, and the spars were
generally painted black. But the wales of the Hard-Scrabble were just
as the adze left them, although with the narrow adze, used in those
days, the timber was left much smoother than after the wider ones now
in use. The men were also skilful dubbers. The deck beams, which are
now planed and smoothed with sand-paper, they left rough; but then they
dubbed them, without breaking their chip, the whole length of the beam,
leaving a succession of little ridges, which were thought very fine;
and there are not many workmen at the present day can do that: as for
bulwarks, she had none.

Aft she had a high quarter-deck, about twenty feet long, under which
were the accommodations, where a fireplace was built, the cooking done,
and all hands lived, the men being separated from the officers by a
bulkhead. When she was loaded, this would be the only dry place in her,
as the lower deck would be at the water’s edge, perhaps under water.

A pole, called a rough tree, was run along from forward to aft, and
fastened to stanchions to prevent falling overboard. The top timbers,
however, came up all along, and there was a short rail at the bows,
and all along the quarter-deck; also some heavy pieces of white oak,
made to run across the vessel in several places, with a mortise in the
ends, which slipped over the heads of the top timbers above the deck
load, giving great support to the upper works, as the waist was deep.
The deck was as rough as it came from the saw; not a board about the
cabin, inside or out, was planed, except where it was necessary to make
a joint.

As Charlie had predicted, there was not a brushful of paint on her,
except that the name was put on the bare white plank with lampblack
and oil, instead of chalk, as he thought would be the case. Her wales
looked the funniest. They could not afford pitch to go all over her, so
they only put it on the seams; and, as the plank were not painted, she
looked queer enough with a white stripe and a black one. They wanted to
economize pitch for the bottom, which must have a solid coat of pitch
and brimstone, to prevent the worms from eating her up in the West
Indies. Into this pitch they put some of the yellow ochre, which the
boys got on their excursion to Indian camp-ground. The knees were but
half bolted; there was not a butt-bolt in her; the butts were merely
spiked; spruce limbs took the place of bolts.

Captain Rhines said she would do well enough to go one voyage or two,
till she earned something, and they could put in fastenings when they
were better able.

She had neither figure nor billet-head, only a gammon knee. In short,
with her handsome proportions and fine model, she appeared like a
well-built man in most vile apparel.

The cloth for the sails now began to come in, and the bolts were
piled up in the corn-house. In consequence of all this hard work,
contrivance, and pinching economy in every direction, she stood them at
the wharf, with her mast in and spars made, twelve dollars per ton.

The canvas and remaining expense, which they were now able to estimate,
they found would be about one thousand five hundred dollars. Their
money was nearly all expended; but they had paid their bills as they
went along, and the vessel was in the water. They could now do but
little more in the way of saving, as they could not turn in their own
labor, but must have cash. They therefore put their heads together to
devise means for raising it.

Captain Rhines and Ben both offered them the money to fit her for sea;
but, to their astonishment, they refused it. The captain endeavored in
vain to prevail on them to permit him to lend them the money.

“Just think of it, John! Here is this vessel lying idle at the wharf,
and you are losing the interest of what she cost you, and it will be
another year before you can earn the money, and rig her. Before that
time, you might send her to the West Indies, and make her pay for
herself. Ben and I will charter and load her the moment she’s ready for
sea; we’ll let Seth Warren take her, and go out to the West Indies this
winter.”

“But, father, the cloth for the sails ain’t made.”

“There’s enough done for the mainsail: you wouldn’t want to go out
there till the middle of January, so as to come on the coast in good
weather; the cloth will be ready by that time. Ben, Peterson, and I can
go right to work on the mainsail.”

“But we built her for Isaac; he owns a quarter of her, and I shouldn’t
like to have him come home and find we had taken another into our
concern, and sent him off with his vessel; then, if the man should have
bad luck, he certainly wouldn’t like it.”

“Then I’ll go myself. I don’t think Isaac would object to my having
been in her, especially if he found she had paid for herself.”

Mrs. Rhines made a sign to John to remain firm; for of all things she
dreaded, it was her husband’s going to sea.

“Father,” said John, at length, “you are real kind and good; but we
solemnly agreed, when we were all together, to build this vessel
ourselves, and not to run in debt. I can’t break that pledge,
especially in the absence of one of the contracting parties. I don’t
think it would be right.”

“No more it wouldn’t. I didn’t know that, but thought it was only a
boyish notion of yours.”

“If we are _losing_ interest, we are not _paying_ interest: we don’t
owe for her.”

It required more money to rig her, in proportion to the cost of the
hull, than it would in ordinary cases, they had economized so much on
the hull, she being only half fastened, and no expense having been laid
out for finish or paint.

Fred calculated to raise his money by some smart stroke in business: he
had no other way. John and Charlie had many plans under consideration.
Charlie could build boats, John could go to work at Portland, or, as
they wanted to be together, Charlie could go to Stroudwater.

But it was now October. Isaac would be at home in a year: they could
not in that time earn money enough to fit her for sea, and they wanted
to be able to load her with lumber from Charlie’s land, as Ben did the
Ark.

After looking at the matter in every possible light, and puzzling their
heads to make something out of nothing, this committee of ways and
means determined to go and consult with Uncle Isaac.

After stating the case fully to him, Charlie said,--

“Suppose John goes to Portland, and I to Stroudwater, to work, and
while I’m gone this winter, get Joe Griffin to cut the wood off of
Indian Island, and put it on the bank, send it to Boston or Salem,
that, with what we could both earn, would, I think, with what we shall
save by having the canvas and sails made at home, fetch us out. If I
should ever go on my place to live, I should want a sheep pasture; and
that would make a nice one if it was cleared. I could keep sheep there:
in the winter they could live on kelp, rock-weed, and thatch round the
shores, with a very little hay, as father’s do on Griffin’s Island.”

“I shouldn’t want to do that: you’d have to give Joe fifty cents for
cutting and putting it on the bank. It would bring nine shillings
in Boston: that wouldn’t leave you more than two hundred and fifty
dollars, at the outside.”

“Yes; but it’s going to take me almost a year to earn that in a
shipyard, and I can be earning all the time while they are cutting the
wood.”

“If you cut the wood off that island, which lies right off the mouth
of your harbor, and shelters it from the winds, it will leave it much
exposed. It isn’t large enough to make much of a sheep pasture: you
can’t keep sheep there in winter; for, besides there not being dulse,
Irish moss, and kelp, as there is on Griffin’s, and the outer islands,
the bay freezes in the winter, and the wolves would go over on the
ice and kill them. I wouldn’t cut it off, and expose my harbor, for
anything.”

“Potash brings cash: couldn’t I cut the white oaks and rock maples at
the shore, and make potash?”

“What a way that would be!--to cut down good ship timber and sugar
trees, that would make keels for ships, burn them up for potash, and
that is the end of it. If we get to building vessels here, you will
want it all for ship timber, because it is right on the spot. Let the
folks back in the country, where ship timber isn’t worth anything, burn
it up for potash: that would be saving at the tap and losing at the
bunghole.”

“But I shall never build another vessel if I don’t get this one done,
and I want the money.”

“I see what you want,--to raise the money quicker than you can earn
it in the yard or shop, and be together, too. You’d be willing to do
almost anything to bring that about.”

“That’s it, exactly, Uncle Isaac,” said John.

“Well, then, listen to me. You’ve got money enough to buy the bolt-rope
for your sails--haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, start right off for Portland and Stroudwater as fast as
you can go. Don’t lose a minute. Send down the bolt-rope and twine for
Captain Rhines and Ben to make the sails with at their leisure. Be
back here by Christmas; and you, Joe Griffin, and myself will go back
to the Canada line, spend the winter, and hunt bears, beavers, otters,
and moose. If we don’t get furs enough to bring you out clear, and
something more, then my name ain’t Isaac Murch.”

The boys listened, with staring eyes and open mouths, till he
concluded, then making a rush, both caught him round the neck.

“Just what we’ve always been longing to do!” said Charlie. “Just what
we’ve been talking, dreaming about, and telling we meant to do some
time.”

The boy-nature, which had been in abeyance a long time, and kept down
by hard work and anxiety, was all up now, fresh and blithe as May.

“How glad I am we got stuck!” said Charlie. “Now we’ll make money, and
have a good time, both together. O, I wish Fred could go!”

“But will Joe go?” asked John.

“Will he eat when he’s hungry? He’s almost as well acquainted as I
am. He’s been logging and hunting up that way. He saw a hunter last
week, that came out of the woods because his folks were sick. He’s a
great friend of Joe’s, and told him of places where the beavers are
getting ready to build their houses, and where the moose are going to
make a yard, and said, as he couldn’t go into the woods this winter,
he would lend him his steel traps. I’ve got a few traps, and know
where I can hire a few more, and we must make up the number we lack
with dead-falls. I’ll make snow-shoes for you and John, and arrange
everything. We can’t start without snow, and therefore if there’s no
snow when you come home, we must wait till there is.”

“But,” asked John, “can’t we hunt round here?”

“Yes, indeed. Kill bears and wolves, and get the bounty--anywhere
within fifty miles.”

“Perhaps,” said John, “we shan’t have to come to the wooden shrouds,
after all.”

“I hope we shan’t. I didn’t think we should,” said Charlie.

Thus encouraged, the boys started off for Portland in exuberant
spirits, having first made an arrangement with Fred that he should
employ Ricker and the Eatons to cut logs enough on Charlie’s land to
make one hundred and seventy-five thousand of boards, begin to haul
them to the mill on the first snow, in order to have them seasoning, to
load the Hard-Scrabble.

“We thought Fred wouldn’t have so good a chance as ourselves,” said
Charlie, “because, not being a carpenter nor blacksmith, he couldn’t
turn in his work, but he’s turned in his goods. He sent those poor
hake, that nobody here could eat, out South to feed the negroes, and
got pitch, turpentine, and corn. He’ll pay for most of the flax, and
for the weaving, in goods. He’s taken a good many orders since we’ve
been building. He’ll pay the Eatons for cutting and hauling the timber,
and the mill men for sawing, from the store. He won’t get much out of
Ricker only his tobacco; so I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t have to
pay much money, after all.”

“I guess,” said John, “it will be you, and I, and Isaac that will have
to pay the money. His goods will come to more than our labor.”




CHAPTER XIX.

PLEASURE AND PROFIT.


It is the latter part of December, just before sunset. The snow, which
had fallen in successive storms since the first of the month, now
lay deep on the ground. Making their way in Indian file through the
forest are four persons, in whom we recognize Uncle Isaac, Joe Griffin,
Charlie, and John. They are each of them harnessed to a singular sort
of a vehicle, called in hunters’ phrase “toboggin,” by long thongs of
deer-skin, which are put across the breast, and secured to the neck by
another strap to prevent their slipping down, like the breastplate of
a horse. The vehicle consists of a cedar board, eight feet long and
eighteen inches wide, quarter of an inch thick, made perfectly smooth,
and the forward end bent up like the nose of a sled, some bars put
across to strengthen it, to which to fasten the load. This formed the
lightest sled imaginable, being so long, in proportion to its width,
as to receive but little obstruction from the snow. The forward part,
bent up, glided easily over the drifts or logs, and it was withal so
thin, that it bent, and accommodated itself to the inequalities of the
surface. Upon the sledges they carry their rifles, powder, balls, and
buckshot, steel-traps, blankets, and a small kettle, pork, bread, and
parched corn, a large file, whetstone, axe, and other necessaries,
including a frow (a large knife) for splitting shingles. They wear
moccasons and snow-shoes; in their belts a knife and hatchet. Each man
also has a horn of tinder, flint, steel, and brimstone matches.

The boys were, evidently weary with their unaccustomed work, and
Charlie cast many a furtive glance towards the setting sun, the light
of which shone red through the trees. It was also evident that even Joe
was not unaffected by fatigue; but upon the seasoned frame of Uncle
Isaac the journey apparently made no impression.

“There ought to be a brook somewhere about here,” said he. “Ah! I see
the place. It’s just beyond that hemlock, though the water itself is
all covered with ice and snow. We’ll camp there. We ought to have
camped two hours ago, but I wanted to reach this spot.”

This was the first experience of real camp and hunter’s life the boys
had ever known. To be sure they had camped out in summer, on Smutty
Nose and in other places; but now it was bitter cold, and the snow
two feet deep. They were also tired. Uncle Isaac, taking counsel only
of his own toughened sinews, had not made sufficient allowance for
the little practice they had ever known in snow-shoe walking. Their
shoulders ached with the cutting of the straps, and their feet from the
pressure of the snow-shoes. Their loads, light at first, grew heavier
every mile.

As they looked around upon the trees covered with snow, their loads
white with frost, realized that they were in a wilderness, no house
within thirty miles, they began to feel that the hunting, to which they
had looked forward with such rapturous anticipations, had its rough as
well as its romantic side. The place where they had halted was in a
heavy growth of hard wood, largely mixed with hemlock, which, in the
gathering twilight of the short winter day, with their long branches,
gave a peculiar black and gloomy appearance to the spot in the eyes of
Charlie and John; but not so with the others.

“What a glorious place for a camp!” said Joe, going up to a large
hemlock, which had been turned up by the wind the year before, which
made, with its great roots matted together and filled with frozen
earth, an impenetrable barrier against the north-west wind, blowing
keen and cold; “and here is something to warm us,” taking his axe from
the sled, and attacking with vigorous blows a large beech, that stood
with its dead, dry branches extended to the wintry sky.

Uncle Isaac and the boys now took off their snow-shoes, and with them
scraped off the snow around the stump to the ground; then, cutting
some crotched poles, set them up in the snow, trod it around to keep
them steady, then putting other poles into the crotches, rested their
ends on the top of the stump, thus forming rafters, and over them
threw brush, till they made it all tight, leaving a hole in the centre
for the smoke to go out; then covered the floor thickly with hemlock
branches, and flung their blankets on it. By this time Joe had the tree
cut up. They first carried the large logs into the camp, then brought
along the smaller limbs and dry twigs, adding them to the pile.

Meanwhile Uncle Isaac and John collected a whole armful of birch bark
from the trees, and kindled it. In a moment the fire, catching the
great mass of dry wood, streamed through the hole in the top of the
camp, and glancing upon the dark masses of hemlocks, lit up the faces
of the group, as they stood around the fire, with a ruddy glow, and
changed the whole character of the scene as by enchantment.

The next morning they broke camp, and travelled till noon, camped, and
rested during the remainder of the day. Next morning, being refreshed
by rest, and well seasoned to their work, they started before daylight,
and travelled through a dense forest till Saturday noon, when they came
to a place where fires had destroyed the growth of trees many years
before, and the land was overrun with bushes, alternating with clear
spots. Its northern edge was broken into gentle hills and vales.

While eating dinner, they espied some deer on the side of one of the
hills, browsing among the young growth that had come up after the fire,
and scraping away the snow with their feet to get at the dead grass.

A fresh breeze was blowing and roaring in the tree tops, which would
conceal the noise of their approach. It was evident that the deer did
not see them, as they had not yet emerged from the wood, and had
instantly lain down on seeing the deer. The wind was also blowing
directly from the animals, so that they could not scent them.

There were clumps of bushes, thickly matted, with large open spaces
between them. Those nearest to the deer were within gunshot; but the
difficulty lay in crossing the open spaces, as they would have to do so
in sight of the herd. But Uncle Isaac said if Charlie and John would
remain where they were, he and Joe would surprise them.

He then cut a parcel of pine boughs, and tied them all around Joe’s
head, Joe in turn doing the same for him; so that when they got down
on the snow, which was hard enough to bear them, they, at a distance,
resembled a bush. Then they crawled along, watching the deer, remaining
motionless when they saw them looking towards them; but when they
turned from them to feed, crawled on till they reached a clump of
bushes. Charlie and John watched them with breathless attention as they
entered the last clump of bushes. It seemed to them an age after they
disappeared from sight; still they heard nothing. The deer now began to
manifest distrust. The leader raised his head and snuffed the air. The
greater part of them began to move their tails violently, and left off
feeding. At that moment the report of the rifles was heard, the leader
fell down in his tracks, and another, after two or three leaps, fell
on his knees, when Joe, rushing to his side, drew his knife across his
throat.

They were now highly elated, as they had provisions enough for a long
time. Hanging the carcasses in trees, to prevent the wolves from
getting them, they pressed on, in order to reach a suitable place to
camp before night.

Long before dark, they arrived at a place pronounced by Uncle Isaac to
be just the thing: it was a great precipice of rock, that rose, for
the most part, perpendicular to the height of twelve or fifteen feet,
but in one place jutted over very much, forming quite a cave at its
base, filled with stones of no great size, that had fallen from the
precipice, and lay buried beneath the snow. They cut a lot of dry and
green limbs and bushes, and threw into this cavity, and then set them
on fire, which melted all the snow, and warmed the whole cliff. Then
they rolled out the scattering rocks, and had a floor on one side, and
a roof overhead of stone. They now cut some long poles, and leaned
them against the precipice, leaving a hole for the smoke, and covered
them with brush. There was a crack in the ledge, into which Uncle
Isaac drove a stake, and affixed a crotch to it, to hang the kettles
on. As the morrow was the Sabbath, an extra quantity of wood was to be
prepared; the camp being so high and large, they put a good portion of
it inside.

While Uncle Isaac and Joe were doing this, and making all snug, the
boys unloaded one of the sledges, and went back after the deer.

It was a glorious camp: the rock retained the heat received from the
fire; they had plenty of venison, and now rested, and laid plans for
the future. That night, at twelve o’clock, began a most furious snow
storm; but little did they heed it in their snug camp, with plenty to
eat, and a rousing fire. The snow drifting over the camp made it all
the warmer.

The storm continued two days, clearing off with a high wind, and they
remained in camp three days.

Just afternoon on the following Saturday, Uncle Isaac informed them
that they were in the vicinity of the river, upon a feeder of which
they expected to find the beavers. Joe told them there was an old
logging camp near by: they found the walls of the old camp (which was
built of very large logs) as good as ever; but the roof had fallen
in. The deacon’s seat, as it is called (made of a plank hewed from a
stick of timber, and which is always placed beside the fire in logging
camps), being well preserved with grease and smoke, still remained. It
was but a light labor for so many skilful hands to repair the roof,
scrape out part of the snow, and cover the remainder with brush.

After supper, during which Joe had been uncommonly silent, he sat
upon the deacon’s seat, his arms folded upon his breast, and looking
intently into the fire.

This was so contrary to his usual custom (as he was always the life of
the camp-fire, with his merry laugh), that they all gazed upon him with
astonishment, and Uncle Isaac was just about to ask if he was sick,
when he broke the silence by saying, “This camp seems very natural to
me; but it calls up many different feelings: every inch of this ground
is familiar to me, though I haven’t been on it, till I came here summer
before last with the surveyors, for ten years. I was just turned of
seventeen, a great, strapping boy, like John here, when Richard Clay,
who was foreman of the scout that was going into the woods, persuaded
my father to let me go with them. Father was very loath to consent;
he said I was too young for such work; that I was a great, overgrown
boy, and, though large and smart, had not got my strength, and it might
strain and hurt me for life; that he had known many such instances.
But Richard hung on, saying he would see that I did not overdo. The
gang was made up of our neighbors, and young men, with all of whom I
was acquainted, and I was crazy to go. Dick offered me high wages;
father was poor, and wanted the money; I coaxed mother, and got her
on my side; finally we prevailed, and wrung it out of father, and I
went. Well, as you may suppose, taking care of me didn’t amount to a
great deal. Dick wanted to get all the logs cut he could, and I wanted
no favors, and it was just who could do the most; but I was naturally
tough, though I had grown fast; for we were very poor when I was a boy,
and I had lived hard; my bones were made of Indian corn, which I shall
always think is the best stuff to make bones of.”

“That’s so,” said Uncle Isaac, by way of parenthesis.

Without heeding the interruption, Joe went on. “Well, as I was saying,
we were poor: father was clearing up his farm; I had a natural turn to
an axe, and had been used to falling and chopping ever since I was
fifteen years old, and, boy as I was, could hold play with most men.
Uncle Isaac, you knew Sam Apthorp?”

“O, yes, very well; and a fine young man he was.”

“Well,” continued Joe, “the Apthorps were our neighbors. John Apthorp,
Sam’s father, began his clearing at the same time with mine; they cut
their first tree the same day. Sam was several years older than I, and
a powerful, smart fellow. He took a great liking to me, and taught me
about hunting, trapping, and many other things, for he was a master
hunter; and as for me, I almost worshipped him: it was for the sake of
being with him that made me so anxious to go. Sam and I, Dick Clay, and
another by the name of Rogers, came up here in August to build a camp,
cut hay, and look out the timber. O, what a happy time that was to me,
though it was the worst and hardest work I ever did before or since! It
was all new to me, and wild. That swale below where we shot the deer
hadn’t any bushes on it then, for it was all covered with grass as high
as your shoulder; there is a brook runs through it, and the beaver had
dammed and flowed it, killing all the trees, I suppose, a thousand
years before; and then the Indians, or somebody else, had broken the
dam, killed the beaver, let the water out, and the grass had come
in; you can see the old dam there yet. Well, we came up to cut this
hay: it was hot--scorching hot--not a breath of wind; for it was all
surrounded with woods except a little gap, where the brook ran into the
river, and that was filled with alders, and sich like. The black flies
and mosquitos were awful: the only way we could live was to grease
ourselves; but that only lasted a little while, for the hot sun, and
the heat of our bodies sweating, would soon take it off, and then they
would come worse than ever. We came up in a bateau, cut the hay, and
stacked it up for our oxen the next winter. O, how natural everything
here looks! There is not a log I helped cut and roll up but has a
memory belonging to it. This seat we are sitting on Sam and I hewed
out; we cut the sapling within three feet of the door, and there are
our names, which he cut on it one Sabbath morning; right in that corner
we slept side by side for two long winters; many a rousing meal we’ve
eat, and many a merry evening we’ve spent around the fire; many’s the
deer we’ve shot and the beavers we’ve trapped together here. Poor Sam!
He had found a bear’s den, and we’d made a plan for all hands to leave
off work early in the afternoon, and go and take them. All the evening
before we were sitting round the fire, I on that seat and Sam in that
corner, stretched out on the brush, with his boots off, and his feet to
the fire. We were all laughing and talking, telling how we would get
them, and what we would do with them; and Sam said he would carry a cub
home, learn it to dance, and go to Boston with it, as he had read about
their doing in the old country, and make his everlasting fortune out
of it. Sam Chesley, our old cook, was rubbing his hands, and telling,
in high life, what steaks he’d fry, and how he would cook it; and we
agreed to cast lots for the skin, on expectation, before we had got the
bears, or even seen them. We little thought, in our happiness, what
was in store for us. The next day, about ten o’clock, Sam and I fell a
large pine; it had more top than such pines commonly have; it came down
between two big hemlocks, breaking their branches, and clearing the
way as it went. A large limb, that we didn’t see, lodged in the thick
top of the hemlock; and as Sam went under it, to cut off the top log,
the second blow he struck, down came the limb, as swift and silent as
the lightning, and struck him on the head and shoulders, crushing him
dead to the ground! He never spoke or moved; when I got to him he was
dead. It was only a week before we were to break camp, and go home. Sam
and I had often, during the last month, talked of the good times we
would have when we got home,--and then to bury him, without a prayer
or sermon, in the wilderness! We had nothing to make a coffin, and so
we took two barrels that we had emptied of pork, and put his head and
shoulders in one, and the lower part of his body in the other, and then
fastened them together, and buried him in his clothes, beneath that
great blazed pine that stands on the bank. It was the first real sorrow
I ever had. I had never seen or thought anything of death before, and
this almost broke me down. I was through here, as I told you, visited
the grave, and saw the camp, though I didn’t go into it; but it didn’t
make me feel as it does to sit here on this very bench where I have sat
with him, and see his name cut on it, and the very place where we used
to sleep--” And hiding his face in his hand, he burst into tears. There
was not a dry eye in the group.

“We didn’t stay but a week after this,” continued Joe; “we couldn’t
work with any heart, any of us; we never molested the bears, and were
glad to get away from the spot; nothing went right; we lamed one of the
oxen, one man cut himself real bad, and we had sad news to carry home;
for they never heard a word till we came in the spring.”

The next day being Sunday, they remained in camp.




CHAPTER XX.

CAMPING.


Monday morning it was splendid walking on the crust; they made a long
day’s march, travelling till dark. Making a fire at the root of a tree,
they flung some brush on the snow, and laid down in their blankets in
the open air to sleep. Continuing to follow the bank of the little
stream, they started some moose about ten o’clock in the day; the
crust would bear them, but not the moose, who broke through at every
step, staining the snow with their blood. In those days moose were
more abundant in Maine than any other part of New England. Pursuing
them till sundown, they succeeded in capturing one, and camped on the
trail. In the morning, resuming the pursuit, they soon came in sight of
the herd, but such is the power of this animal, that, notwithstanding
the advantage which snow-shoes gave the men, it was the middle of the
afternoon before they came up with them, and succeeded in killing four
more. Relinquishing the pursuit, which now promised to lead them in a
different direction from that in which they wished to go, they dressed
the moose, hung him on the trees out of the reach of wolves, and
wrapping themselves in the skins, laid down on the snow to sleep.

“Joe,” said Uncle Isaac, “how far do you judge we are from the spot the
young man told you of?”

“I reckon about a mile.”

“Well, I hunted over some of this ground twenty years ago, with the
Indians, off to the east’rd, and then again to the north’rd of us,
where there are many ponds, some of them having outlets one into the
other. Suppose, while we are cooking some breakfast, you put on your
snow-shoes and take a look, and, if you think best, we’ll make a
permanent camp somewhere hereabouts; and as we’ve got to live in it a
good while, we’ll make it well.”

In a short time Joe returned, saying, “I found the place, and there are
beavers enough.”

They immediately set about building their camp, and determined to make
it as home-like and comfortable as possible. It was made of logs, from
which all the knots and bunches were trimmed, and the crevices between
them stuffed with moss from the trees.

Since they had come on the snow with sledges, they were enabled to
bring a great deal more weight than if they had set out before the snow
came, as, in addition to the sledges, they also carried light packs,
and moreover intended to build canoes, and return in the spring by the
river.

Uncle Isaac, thoroughly versed in wood-craft, and always thoughtful,
had brought an auger, draw-shave, and a small saw on his sledge.

They split out cedar shingles, with the frow, four feet long, fastening
them to the rafters and purlins, with poles held down with wooden
pins and withes. Upon these they put brush to break the dash of the
rain, and prevent the rain and snow from being driven by force of the
wind under the shingles, as they intended it for a permanent camp, in
which to leave furs and provisions during their absence on trapping
and hunting excursions. They made a solid door of cedar plank, hung on
wooden hinges, a deacon’s seat, and a rack around the sides, covered
with hemlock and cedar brush, for bedsteads.

“We ought to have a stool or two,” said Uncle Isaac; “we want something
we can move round; we can’t move the deacon’s seat, and we can’t move
the fire.”

He cut down a spruce that had long straight limbs and cut some chunks
from the top three feet long, leaving a sufficient number of limbs on
each side for legs; he split the pieces in halves, and smoothed the
split side with a draw-shave.

“There,” said he, setting it up before the wondering boys, “there’s
a backwoodsman’s stool: them are legs won’t want any gluing, and if
anybody wants a cushion, they can put some moss on it.”

While Uncle Isaac was at work on the stools, Charlie, Joe, and John
were splitting out boards to make a table.

“The first stormy day that comes,” said Uncle Isaac, “I’ll make some
bark dishes, and the rest of you can make some spoons, and we’ll have
some shelves; it’s just as well to be comfortable. There’s just one
thing we do want desperately; that is, a fireplace, to keep the fire
from spreading all over the camp, taking up so much room, and also a
chimney, instead of a hole in the roof.”

“We can build a fireplace of green logs,” said Joe.

“Yes, but it will burn out in a short time.”

“I wonder if we couldn’t find some rocks or clay somewhere; or is
everything froze fast?”

“I don’t believe but by cutting a little ice, we could find stones,
and clay too, in the river. It don’t freeze hard here in the woods, as
it does out in the clear.”

The snow had come that year before the ground froze, and under the bank
of the stream they found clay and flat stones, of which they built a
fireplace, and the chimney of sticks of wood and clay.

“There’s no end to wants,” said Uncle Isaac; “now I want some
birch-bark dishes.”

“You’ll have to give that up,” said John, “for the bark won’t run.”

“Won’t it? I’ll make it run.”

He warmed a birch tree with hot water, and made the bark run as well as
in the spring.

“Now get me some spruce roots, Charlie, and in evenings and rainy days
we’ll make the dishes.”

As they expected to hunt and trap over a large extent of ground, they
travelled about ten miles farther on, and built a rough shanty in among
several ponds and small streams, where they expected to find beavers,
and placed in it some provisions; then they took the back track, seven
or eight miles from the permanent camp, and built another on the
bank of the river, where they expected to find otter and mink. They
dignified the middle one with the name of the home camp; that among the
lakes they called the shanty, and the other the river camp.

“We ought to have come up and done all this before snow came,” said
Uncle Isaac; “but now we must do the best we can; perhaps we shall
blunder into good luck; people do sometimes. There would have been a
hundred beavers where there is one, if it had not been for the French
and English.”

“Why so?” asked Joe.

“Because, when the French held Canada, they put the Indians up to
breaking the dams and destroying the beaver, to spite the English; and
now the English have got Canada, they do the same, to spite us. An
Indian, of his own accord, won’t destroy game, any more than a farmer
would destroy his seed-corn: when they break into a beaver house, they
always throw back the young ones, and part of the old, to breed; but a
white man takes the whole, because he’s afraid, if he don’t, the next
white trapper will.”

Beavers are industrious and provident, not, like other animals that
live by the chase and the slaughter of other creatures, subject to a
lack of food; they are protected in their houses from violence, and
are so prolific, that, notwithstanding the merciless warfare waged
upon them, by which they had been driven from the sea-coasts even
at that early day, they were still abundant in those wilds whither
our adventurers had followed them. The beaver is about three feet in
length, averaging in weight sixty pounds; its tail is a foot in length,
flat, and covered with scales; the feet and legs flat and short, with
a membrane between the toes; it has very strong and large cutting
teeth, the upper ones two and a half inches long, and the lower ones
three inches: with these teeth they will cut down a tree eight inches
through; and if a tree stands in just the right place, and they want
it very much, they won’t hesitate to cut it if it is a foot through.
When the beavers are two years old, they build houses, and set up for
themselves, as they don’t like to live on their parents. They breathe
air, and therefore cannot live a long time under water; neither can
they live without having constant access to the water; they are,
therefore, compelled to build in water so deep that it will not freeze
at the bottom; the entrance is under water: by diving beneath the ice,
they can get at the lily-roots on the bottom of the pond, and also
obtain access to holes in the bank, which they provide for retreat in
the event of being disturbed in their houses. They feed on the wood
and bark of trees, which they cut down and sink in front of their
houses, in order to obtain it in the winter.

Their houses are built of branches of trees, mud, and stones, from two
to six or eight feet in thickness, and, when frozen hard, bid defiance
to all attacks, save those of man. They have an elevated platform
in them, above the surface of the water, on which they sleep. They
break the ice every night, opposite their holes in the bank, for a
breathing-hole, thus keeping it open, that in pleasant days they may go
into the woods. They often build in a pond, but generally prefer to dam
a brook, and make their own pond; then, when they want wood to repair
their houses or dams, or for provision in winter, they can make a raft
up stream and, getting on to it, float down with the stream, steering
with their paws.

After completing their camp, and making all their arrangements, they
approached the spot, and perceived that the animals had dammed a large
brook. In the midst of the pond thus formed, surrounded by snow and
ice, which covered them nearly to their tops, were twelve large beaver
houses. All was still as death: the sun shone clear on the snow-covered
houses, beneath which, in a half-torpid state, the beavers were
reposing, most effectually sheltered from the cold and from beasts of
prey. Safe beneath the ice was their winter supply of food: all they
had to do when hungry was to go a few feet, and obtain it.

The party walked carefully over the ice, and Uncle Isaac pointed out to
the boys the breathing-holes in it.

“Well,” he said, by way of summing up, “I reckon there are not less
than a hundred beavers under this snow and ice, and likely to be more
than less.”

“A hundred beavers!” cried John, in amazement.

“Yes; there’s ten in a house, old and young, I’ll warrant--not less
than ten: I’ve seen twenty-five taken out of one house. They’re not
ours yet, my boy!” slapping John on the shoulder.

“Be they good to eat?” asked Charlie.

“Nothing better, especially the tails. I call a singed beaver a dish to
set before a king.”

“Why do they singe them?”

“You see, a beaver in the winter is as fat as a hog, and the fat lies
on the outside; you want the skin, just as you do the rind of pork; so,
if you can afford to singe the fur all off, and lose that, he will be
just like a scalded hog. I’m in hopes we shall get enough to be able to
singe at least one.”

In the course of the day they discovered three other beaver
settlements, two of them in ponds made by damming up a brook, and the
other in a large natural pond. They also discovered otter-slides and
fishing-holes, where the otters fished a great quantity of muskrat,
dens and tracks of minks along the river banks and brooks.

“Now,” said Uncle Isaac, “let us look for bears. I’ve seen signs, more
or less, for the last two or three miles.”

“What are the signs, Uncle Isaac?” asked Charlie. “I don’t see any.”

Uncle Isaac smiled, and pointed to a clump of oaks and beeches on the
side of the brook, the top limbs of which were all bent in, and many of
them broken off.

“What do you suppose bent and broke all these limbs?”

“Why, the wind, or the snow, I suppose.”

“But neither the wind or the snow would bend them in; it would bend
them down; but these are turned up, and bent in.”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Charlie. “What did?”

“Why, the bears.”

“The bears! What for?”

“Why, the bears live on acorns and beech-nuts; they go a-nutting, as
well as boys, climb up into the top of a tree, just like a cat, and,
when they’ve got as high as the limbs will bear, they sit down in the
crotch of a large limb, reach out their paws, and pull the smaller
limbs in, and eat off the beech-nuts and acorns; they will pull in and
break off a limb as big as my arm. There have been plenty of bears
round here late this fall. There are lots of them asleep under these
old windfalls, and in hollow trees, and we must find them, and mark the
trees; then we can get them when we like.”

They had not proceeded far in their search when Joe exclaimed, “I’ve
found one!”

He was standing at the foot of an enormous elm, which, being hollow,
had broken off about twenty feet from the ground.

“How do you know there is a bear there?” asked Charlie. “I don’t see
any.”

At this all laughed, when Uncle Isaac pointed out to Charlie a regular
line of grooves and scratches, extending from the bottom to the top of
the tree, left by the bear’s claws, where it had gone up and down; he
also told him that the bear went into his den in November, and remained
asleep, without eating or coming out, till spring, and that it was a
she bear, because they always lived by themselves, and in trees, if
hollow, or windfalls, if they could find them, to keep their young from
the wolves and the males; that if there was a bear there, she probably
had cubs, perhaps four, but at least two; perhaps eight, for if she had
two litters in one year, she would make a den close by for the first
cubs; both litters follow her the next summer, and the next winter all
live together. They generally weigh from three to four hundred.

They found many more dens under windfalls, and the roots of trees,
and sides of rocks, for the bear is so well protected by his thick
coat as to be nearly insensible to cold, and will content himself very
well, with a little brush for a bed, under the side of a root that has
been turned up, or a rock, though the female will seek out a hollow
tree. They discovered the dens either by scratches on the stubs, or by
noticing where the breath of the bear had stained and melted the snow.

Having marked all the places, in order to find them again, they
returned to the home camp.




CHAPTER XXI.

UNCLE ISAAC’S BEAR STORY.


After supper they sat around the fire consulting as to future
movements. Bears were very abundant in those days.

In 1783 no fewer than ten thousand five hundred bear-skins were sent to
England from the northern ports of America.

In 1805, eleven years subsequent to the date of our story, the number
had reached twenty-five thousand.

“It is going to be a great deal of work,” said Uncle Isaac, “to get
these beavers now. The ice is thick in the pond, the houses are seven
or eight feet thick, and frozen as hard as a stone. It will be hard
work to break them up--a great deal of ice to cut, and frozen dirt.
If we dull our tools, we’ve nothing but a file to sharpen them with.
I think we’d better make a lot of dead-falls and box-traps, and set
them for minks and sables, cut holes in the ice, and set steel-traps
for the beaver and otters; and while we are tending them, go into the
muskrats, coons, and bears, till the weather begins to get warmer; then
the sun will thaw the south side of their houses, and the ice in the
ponds, and we can get what beavers are left with half the work. What do
you think, Joseph?”

“I think just as you do; but we must have fish to bait the otter traps.
I have got hooks and lines in my pack. We can also make nets of willow
bark, and set them under the ice.”

“Yes, and we can set for foxes. If we could get a silver-gray, it would
be worth a lot of money.”

“I thought of that, and have brought some honey. That will tole them.
A fox loves honey as well as a bear; so does a coon, and a coon is out
every thawy day. I count heavy on bears. A bear’s pelt is worth forty
shillings; and we may find a yard of deer. Just as soon as we begin to
have carcasses of beaver and fish round, it will draw the foxes, and we
can trap and shoot them on the bait.”

Uncle Isaac now brought out his pack, and began to remove some of the
contents, laying them one by one on the table, while the boys looked on
with great curiosity. The first thing he took out was a bunch of the
largest sized mackerel hooks.

“What in the world did you bring them clear up here for?” asked John.
“There are no mackerel here.”

“They are to make a wolf-trap.”

“How do you make it?”

“O, you’ll see.”

He next took two slim, pointed steel rods, nearly three feet long, from
the outside of his pack, where they were fastened, as they were too
long to go inside.

“What are those?” asked Charlie.

“Muskrat spears,” said Joe. “That will be fun alive for you boys.”

The next articles were three little bottles filled with some liquid.

“What are these?”

“That’s telling,” said Uncle Isaac, laying another vial on the table.

John removed the cork, and smelt of it. “That’s aniseseed. What’s it
for?”

“To tole foxes and fishes.”

“What’s this?”--taking up another.

“That’s telling.”

“O, how it smells!--like rotten fish. What is it for?”

“To tole minks.”

“And this?”--taking up another.

“To tole beavers.”

“What is in this little bag?”

“If you must know, Mr. Inquisitive, it is some earth that I got from
the place where Joe Bradish kept some foxes, and that they laid on all
summer. I’m in hopes to get a silver or cross fox, with it.”

“Uncle Isaac, do give me some of that honey!--just the least little bit
of a taste!”

“Well, I’ll give you all just a taste; but I want it to tole foxes and
coons.”

He gave them all a little on the point of his knife.

As they were going to devote much of their time to hunting bears, it
was a matter of course that the habits and methods of taking that
animal should, to a great extent, afford matter for conversation around
the camp fire.

“A bear,” said Uncle Isaac, drawing up his knees, clasping his hands
over them, and resting his chin upon them, as his habit was when he was
about to tell a story, “is a singular critter.”

John threw some fresh fuel on the fire, and squatting down on the
ground, with both arms on the deacon’s seat, and his mouth wide open,
sat with his eyes riveted on the old hunter’s face, drinking in every
word, while Charlie and Joe Griffin disposed themselves in attitudes of
attention.

“I don’t,” continued Uncle Isaac, “bear any malice against a bear, as
I do against a wolf, though they have done me a deal of mischief in my
day, because they are not a bloodthirsty animal. A wolf will bite the
throats of a whole flock of sheep, just to suck their blood.”

“Why, Uncle Isaac,” said Joe, “didn’t a bear kill little Sally
Richards only last summer? and all they found of her was just her
clothes, feet, and shoes? He had eaten all the rest of her up, and was
gnawing her skull when they found and shot him; and wasn’t she my own
cousin?--pretty little bright creature as ever lived! I’m sure I should
think that was being bloodthirsty.”

“That was a she bear, and had cubs following her; and _then_ they are
savage; but at other times a bear will let you alone if you will let
him alone. They will always turn out for a man. A woman might pick
blueberries all day in a pasture with a bear, and if she let him alone
he would let her alone. But if they have young ones, or are starving,
or you pen them up, then look out! I’ve heard the Indians say that in
the fall, when they are fat and getting sleepy, you may put a stick
in their mouths and lead them anywhere; and my mother has picked
cranberries in a swamp with six bears, because she wanted the berries
before they eat ’em all up, and they never meddled with her. Then they
are such comical critters! Why, you can learn a bear anything. When I
was a boy, I used to have a cub ’most every winter; and when, by the
next fall, they began to be troublesome, and father would shoot them,
I cried as if my heart would break.

“There was one,” said he, stirred by the recollections of his youth,
unclasping his hands, rising up, turning round, then sitting down
again, “that I loved better than all the rest. I used to call him
Cæsar, after an old black slave who belonged to one of our neighbors.
Father was a great hunter, and so were all the old folks, for they
would have starved to death, when they first came, if it had not been
for their rifles, and powder was so scarce they could not afford to
waste shots. Well, one fall the frost cut off all the acorns, berries,
and cranberries, so there was not a berry to be found. The bears were
starving. They came down clear from Canada, and swarmed all along the
salt water after clams, lobster, flounders, and raccoons. O, I never
knew the strength of a bear till then! Captain Rhines was a young man,
and mate of a vessel then. My father, and a good many of the neighbors,
had sent out fowls, and butter, and cheese, as a venture by him, and
got molasses for it. Mr. Rhines, as he was then, had brought it down
from Salem with his things, landed it at our point, rolled it up on the
beach out of the tide’s way, and left it till the owners could haul
it off. It staid there a day or two. One morning father and Uncle Sam
Edwards went to haul it up, when they found the head of every barrel
smashed in, just as if it had been done with an axe. The bears, which,
as I told you, were as thick as hops, had done it with their paws,
and upset, eat, and wasted the whole of it. As they were going home,
lamenting their hard luck, they met a bear--drunk! John Carver had put
up a story-and-a-half log house the day before, and they had left a
pailful of new rum, sweetened with molasses, sitting on some boards in
the garret. This bear had smelt it, climbed up, and drank it all up.
How he got down I don’t know; but it operated so quick he couldn’t get
off, and there he was, all stuck over with molasses, where he had been
with the rest of them down to the shore. He had got it all over his
ears and breast, and the chips, where they had hewed the frame, all
stuck to him, and he was the queerest sight you ever saw! He couldn’t
walk, but would sit up and look at us, and then roll over on one side,
then get back again, and looked so comical, that notwithstanding their
sorrow for their loss, they all burst out laughing; and Uncle Sam
Edwards, who was a jolly, funny creetur himself, carried on so with
him, and made such queer observations, that father laughed till he had
to lie down on the ground. None of them had a gun, but they took the
stakes out of the sleds, which they had brought to haul the molasses
on, and pounded him on the head till they killed him. Uncle Sam, who
himself drank a good deal more than was good for him, said, when he
gave him the last blow, ‘You see now what stealing and hard drinking
will bring a bear to.’ After skinning him, they had a long consultation
as to whether he was fit to eat. Father said he didn’t want to eat
anything that died drunk; but Uncle Sam said he didn’t die of liquor,
for they had killed and bled him, and as for himself, he would eat
him; so said John Carver; but father said he wouldn’t; so they gave
father the skin, and they took the meat. Father carried the skin home,
and mother washed and combed out the fur, and in the cold nights that
winter she used to put it on my bed, and it is in our house yet.

[Illustration: UNCLE ISAAC’S BEAR STORY.--Page 253.]

“A bear is a master strong creature. To see what a rock they would turn
over that fall to get a lobster! It was great fun to see the bears
catch coons; they would go round till they saw two or three coons in a
tree; one bear would climb the tree, and the coons, seeing him, would
run clear up to the top, where the limbs were small, and wouldn’t bear
the weight of the bear; but the bear would follow as far as he could
go, then shake off the coons, and the ones below would catch them; they
would dig them out of holes, or crush up a log if it was rotten. They
are bewitched after anything sweet, especially honey, and if they find
a hive they will surely rob it.

“Old Mr. John Elwell, Sam’s father, had a hive of bees: they swarmed,
and took for the woods, and got on a tree; he followed them and hived
them. There were two maple trees, that grew within three feet of each
other; so he put a plank between them, and set a hive on it, meaning to
carry them home in the fall, when it was cold and the bees got stiff.

“One night he was going after his cows, and thought he would take a
look at the bees. He found the hive on the ground all stove to pieces;
every drop of honey licked clean out of it. The bears had got well
stung, for the bark was torn off the trees all around where they had
bitten them in their rage and anger. But a bear is so covered with fur,
that only a small part of him is exposed to the sting of the bees; and
no matter how much anguish it causes them, they will have the honey.

“They plagued us terribly that fall; you couldn’t get a wild grape,
nor a choke-cherry, for them, and it kept us at work all the fall
watching the cattle and corn, and setting spring-guns and dead-falls.
There was one old she bear that father swore vengeance against. We had
the sheep for safety in a log sheep-house in the yard, but she climbed
over the fence, tore off the roof, and carried away the old ram. She
had two white stripes on each side of her nose, and was well known;
she had been hunted again and again, and once had been wounded by a
spring-gun and tracked by the blood; but she could not be overtaken,
nor could her den be found. We had six hogs that year, that lived in
the pasture, and every day at low water went a clamming. We had put
them up for fear of the bears. One old sow was in a pen by herself,
fatting. We were going to kill her in a week. We had just fed the
cattle, and set down to supper, when we heard a terrible squealing, all
the hogs squealing as if to see which could squeal the loudest, and
the rooster crowing. We ran out. There was that old white-nosed bear,
with the sow hugged up in her fore paws, walking off on her hind legs,
just as easy as a man would walk with a baby. Father ran back, caught
the gun out of the bracket, but before he could load, the bear was in
the woods. It had got to be dark, and the old sow’s cries could no more
be heard. He raised the neighbors. They took firebrands and searched
the woods; but the ground was froze too hard to find the trail, and so
the bear got off with her booty. You may well think father was greatly
enraged, not only at the loss of his property, but he was greatly vexed
that so distinguished a hunter as he was should be thus insulted by a
bear. He did nothing else but scour the woods for that bear, and as
nearly all the neighbors had some cause of complaint against her, he
had assistance enough, but all in vain. He had set a steel bear-trap,
dead-falls, and spring-guns for her, but she was too knowing to be
caught. She sprung the steel-trap, which he had baited and covered
up in chaff, by going all round the bait and trap in a circle, and
thumping on the ground with her fore feet, coming nearer and nearer
till she jarred it off.

“On the last of that winter there came a great thaw, and took off
all the snow on the open ground. It was so warm the old bear came
out, and begun her depredations. Father went and borrowed three steel
bear-traps, set one in the middle, and baited it, and the others round
it, and put no bait on them, covered them up in dirt, and put a long
chain to them, with a grapple to it.

“The second night one of the outside traps was gone--chain, grappling,
and all. The bear, too cunning to go into the trap where the bait
was, had stepped into one of those that was covered up, while trying
to jar the other off. Father sent me right off for John Elwell, while
he loaded his gun and got ready. Uncle John came, and with him Black
Cæsar. Cæsar was a master powerful man, and as spry as a cat. I cried
and roared to go, but father refused, saying I might get hurt, and
there was no knowing how far they might have to go, nor when they
should get back; but Cæsar, with whom I was a great favorite, said
he would take care of me, and that he didn’t believe the bear could
carry that chain and grappling a great way. Finally father yielded.
There was no trouble in tracking the bear, for the grappling had torn
up the ground where it had hitched into the cradle-knolls and bushes.
Sometimes they lost the trail for a good while, when it was evident
that the bear had taken up the grappling, when it got fast, and
carried it; and father said she must be caught by her fore paws, as he
knew by her track that she walked on her hind legs, sometimes half a
mile--trap, grappling, and all. They followed her into the woods nearly
two miles, Cæsar helping me over the windfalls, and sometimes taking
me on his shoulder, till finally, at Millbrook, we lost her track
altogether. In vain they searched the woods. There was no sign of bear
or trap. Discouraged, they gave it up, and sat down on the bank of the
brook.

“Uncle John said she had got the grappling caught trying to swim the
river, and was drowned, and he hoped she was. They had all about come
to that conclusion, when I, who was playing on the bank, was attracted
by some beautiful white and yellow moss growing at the roots of a
black ash, and going to get some, saw the grappling hooked over
the main root of the ash. I instantly ran back, crying with fright,
and feeling in fancy the bear’s claws on my throat. It was the most
singular place for a den you ever saw. You might have gone within three
feet of it, and never suspected its existence.

“The stream, which had formerly flowed under a high bank, had shifted
its channel in some freshet, and the frost, working on the bank after
the water was gone, had thrown down a great rock, which, catching one
corner on the butt and the other on the roots of the big ash, was thus
held up, while the earth beneath crumbled away. Under this shelf, with
a very little work, the bear had made her den; and there she was, with
her right fore leg in the trap, on a bed of pine boughs, with the
grappling,--which she had not had time to bring in, we had followed
her so closely,--caught in the roots at the mouth, which, had it not
happened, we should never have found her. Father, with the greatest
satisfaction, put two balls through her head, and then, taking hold
of the chain, they dragged her out. When they found three cubs, you
may well think I was delighted. I hugged, kissed, and patted them,
and thought they were the prettiest things I ever saw in my life.
They were less than a foot long, had no teeth, and had not got their
eyes open. O, how I begged to carry them all home! Father wouldn’t
hear to it, but allowed me to have one, and take my choice. I took the
one that had a white face, like the old one, and cried well when they
knocked the others on the head. Cæsar carried the cub home for me, and
in gratitude I called him after him. How I loved that cub! I got some
cow’s milk, put it in a pan, and then put my finger in his mouth, and
he would suck it, and thus suck up the milk. We carried him out to the
barn, and tried to have him suck like a calf; but as soon as the cow
smelt him, she was half crazy with fear, kicked, roared, broke her bow,
and ran out of the barn. We never tried it again.

“He soon began to have teeth, and then would eat bread and potatoes,
and most anything, but sugar and molasses was his great delight. He
soon made friends with the dog and cat, and would play with them by the
hour together.

“In the summer he would catch mice, frogs, and crickets, and get into
mud-holes in the woods, and roll over till he was covered with mud; and
when the wild berries, acorns, and hazel-nuts came, he lived first
rate. In the first part of the spring he would eat the young sprouts
and tender leaves of the trees,--anything that was juicy,--and would
rob birds’ nests. As mother used to make me churn, I learned him to
stand on his hind legs and help me, which he would sometimes do for
half an hour, at other times but a few minutes. He would haul me on
the sled as long as he liked, but when he thought he’d done it enough,
there was no such thing as making him do any more. If I tried to force
him, he would take me up in his paws and set me on a log, or leave me
and run up a tree. He was very quick to imitate, and seeing me one
night carrying in the night’s wood, he took up a log in his paws,
and, standing on his hind legs, walked in with it, and laid it by the
fireplace. Ever after that he brought in all the night’s wood,--that
is, all the logs,--but he wouldn’t touch the small wood, seeming to
think that beneath him. He would take a log that three men couldn’t
move, and walk off with it. Indeed, I believe a bear is stronger on his
hind legs than in any other way, for they always stand up for a fight.

“It was no small help to have him carry in the great logs, three feet
through, that I used to have to haul on a sled, and the backsticks and
foresticks; but I hated to do chores as bad as any boy ever did, and
used to try to coax him with bread and molasses, and even honey, to
carry in the small wood, but it was no use. He would eat the bread and
honey, but wouldn’t touch the wood.

“I believe, if we’d only thought of it, we might have taught that bear
to chop wood; for a bear will handle his paws as well as a man his
hands. You throw anything to a bear, and he’ll catch it; and there’s
not one man to a hundred can strike a bear with an axe. He will knock
it out of his hand with a force that will make his fingers tingle.

“But the greatest amusement was in the summer nights. In the daytime he
would lay round and sleep; but as night came on, he grew playful and
wide awake. He would chase the dog, and then the cats till they would
run up into the red oak at the door, then follow them as far as the
limbs would bear him, pull them in, and catch them or shake them off.

“We kept him three years, and then had to kill him. It was a sad day
to me. It was the first real trouble I ever had, and I don’t know as I
could have felt any worse if it had been a human being. When I found it
was determined on, I went over to Uncle Reuben’s, and staid a week. I
think all our folks felt almost as bad as I did.”

“But what on earth did you kill him for, Uncle Isaac?”

“Why, we had to. He was always mischievous; but as he grew older, he
grew worse. He would dig up potatoes after they were planted in the
spring, and also in the fall; and he would break down and waste three
or four bushels of corn to get a few ears to eat, when it was in the
milk. Did you ever see how a bear works in a cornfield?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, he gets in between the rows, spreads his fore paws, smashes down
three or four hills, and then lies down on the heap and eats.

“He wouldn’t kill the hogs, but would chase them all over the pasture,
and into the water, and two or three were drowned. You couldn’t put
anything out of his reach, for there was no place he couldn’t climb to,
a door in the house he couldn’t open, nor scarcely anything he couldn’t
break. Though spry as a cat, he wouldn’t climb over a pair of bars, but
would take them down, and leave them, go ranging round nights, and let
the cattle into the fields. He would steal yarn, that was put out to
whiten, to make a bed of. He was the means of our keeping bees. He came
home one day in April with his nose all swelled up, and half blind. He
had found a swarm of bees in a hollow tree, and tried to get at them;
but the hole in the tree was so small that he couldn’t get his paw in,
and the bees stung him till he was glad to retreat, finding he could
get nothing. We tracked him in the snow that was still in the woods,
cut the tree down, and brought it home. He used to plague us to death
in sap time, drinking the sap and upsetting the trough, and we had to
chain him up. But the crowning mischief, and that which cost him his
life, was stealing butter.”

“Stealing butter!” said Charlie.

“Yes: father had long been sick of him, and threatened to kill him; but
mother and I begged him off. My sister Mary was going to be married;
mother was making and selling all the butter she could, to get her a
little outfit: it was hot weather, and she put some butter she was
going to send to market in a box, tied it up in a cloth, and lowered
it down the well, to keep cool. In the morning I saddled the horse to
go to market; mother went to the well to get the butter, but there was
no butter there. As soon as she could speak, for grief and anger, she
exclaimed, ‘That awful bear!’

”We went to his nest under the barn, and there was the box, licked as
clean as a woman could wash it. The wicked brute hauled it up, bit the
rope in two, and carried off the butter. That sealed his fate: mother
said she wouldn’t intercede for him any more, and I couldn’t say a
word, though I wanted to; and so ‘he died of butter.’

“I felt so bad that I never cared to have any pets after that.”




CHAPTER XXII.

RAID ON A BEAVER SETTLEMENT.


They now occupied every moment, from daylight and before, till in the
evening, in hunting bears, digging out coons, stretching and scraping
the skins, and trapping beaver and foxes.

The camp inside was hung around with skins, and outside the snow was
covered with the bodies of the different animals, which attracted the
wolves in troops, and the woods resounded with their howlings.

Uncle Isaac set a steel trap in a spring of water, and caught two
silver-gray foxes. He now took four of the large mackerel-hooks,
fastened them together, and wound them with twine, so as to form a
grappling, fastened a strong cord, made of twisted deer sinews, to
them, dipped them in grease, permitting it to cool after every dip,
till the hooks were all covered in the great bunch of grease, fastened
the rope to a tree, and kept watch. It was not long before a hungry
wolf swallowed the ball of grease, and, the hooks sticking in his
throat, he was caught. The steel traps, which were very scarce in
that day, and were all imported, were used for beaver, otter, and two
of them for foxes; the other animals were taken in dead-falls and
box-traps.

As they had a frow, to split out boards, and a saw, they made many
box-traps, putting them together with wooden pins, and in them caught
great numbers of minks and muskrats; they also killed many deer and
moose.

The traps for beaver were set in holes cut in the ice, and the bait
was scented, and made attractive with the composition in Uncle Isaac’s
vials. Another method was to dig a pit in the ground, make a road to it
with stakes, then hang a board between the stakes, so nicely balanced,
that, when the animal stepped upon it, it would turn, and let him into
the pit. In order to attract the game, the bait was dragged along the
ground, that it might leave its scent between the line of stakes, then
placed beyond the pit, that the animal, in following up the scent,
might step on the trap. The dead-falls were constructed by making an
enclosure of stakes, open at one end, inside of which a piece of wood
was laid on the ground crosswise, and fastened. They then fastened a
heavy piece of hard wood to a stake with a peg, so that it would play
up and down easily: this was called the killer, the end of which was
held up by a thong of deer sinew, which went over another crotchet
stake driven into the ground. Through this stake a hole was bored, to
admit a spindle; the string which held up the killer was fastened by a
flat piece of wood, one end of which went into a notch in the stake,
the other into a notch in the end of the spindle, like the spindle of
a common box-trap; another heavy piece of wood was then placed one end
on the ground, between two stakes, to keep it from rolling, the other
on the top of the killer, to give force to the fall. When the animal
touched the spindle to which the bait was fastened, both the killer and
the stick placed on to reënforce it came down, and caught him between
the killer and the piece on the ground.

In default of an auger, it could all be made with an axe, by using
double stakes and strings, or withes. These were made larger or
smaller, according to the size of the animal to be caught; they were
surrounded with stakes, and covered on top with brush, to keep the
animal from robbing them behind, or on top. For beaver, they set them
in the paths where they went to the woods, cut a piece of wood, flat
on the upper side, four inches wide, and bevelling on the under side,
so that it would rotate, canting it down on one edge, put that edge
under the end of the spindle, and strewed over it twigs and chips of
red willow and beaver root, rubbed with medicine, and when the beaver
put his mouth or paw on the board it canted, and, lifting the end of
the spindle, sprung the trap.

For raccoons, they set them at the ends of hollow logs, and in the
little runs that led down to the ponds and brooks; and for the otter,
at the places where they rubbed when they came out of the water, and
near their sliding places. For raccoons, they baited with frogs, and
chips of bears’ and beavers’ meat, with honey dropped on it; and for
otters, with fish which they caught through holes in the ice.

As the winter wore away, thaws became more frequent, and the coons and
beaver began to awake from their half-torpid state, they caught more
and more, getting ten or twelve beavers a night.

They now separated, part of them living in the house camp, and part
at the river camp and shanty, for the greater convenience of tending
the traps, which were scattered along a range of many miles, all
assembling at the home camp on the Lord’s day, when they had a meeting.
As the season was now approaching when the ice would begin to break
up, and the frequent rains had rendered the ice transparent, so they
could see the beavers and muskrats under it, they determined to attack
them in their houses. In the first place, they prepared and sharpened a
great number of stakes, and, cutting through the ice, drove them into
the bottom of the pond, around the houses, and around the holes in the
bank, thus fastening the beavers in; then tearing down the houses with
tools they had brought with them, they knocked the beavers on the head,
and flung them out on the ice.

Beavers and muskrats will swim under the ice as long as they can hold
their breath, then breathe it out against the ice: when it has absorbed
oxygen from the water, they will take the bubble in again, and go on;
the boys would follow them up, and, before they had time to take in the
bubble, strike with their hatchets over them, and drive them away from
their breath, when they would soon drown, and could be cut out.

They labored unremittingly, under the wildest excitement, stopping
neither to eat nor drink till nearly sundown, when, bathed in
perspiration, every house was in ruins, and the ice thickly strewn
with dead beavers: they then desisted.

“We are all as hot as we can be,” said Uncle Isaac. “The first thing to
be done is to put on our clothes, and make a fire to cool off by. We’ve
got about four tons of beaver carcasses here: it would take all night
to haul them to the camp; and if we leave them here, all the wolves in
the woods will be on hand, and not a hide of them be left by morning.
So I don’t see any other way than to build a camp, and stay here; and
we can have our choice, either to take them into the camp, or sit up by
turns, and watch them.”

“I say take them into the camp,” said Joe Griffin. “And here’s just the
place to build it, on this old windfall.”

“Now, Charlie,” said Uncle Isaac, “while we are building a camp, you
and John run to the home camp, and get the kettle, a birch dish, and
some tea.”

The rude shelter, sufficient for these hardy men, was soon completed,
the beaver brought inside, and a fire built. Uncle Isaac proposed, as
they had met with such luck, that they should have a beaver singed for
supper. “They could afford it,” he said, “though, of course, it spoilt
the skin.”

This was unanimously agreed to, when, picking out one of the youngest
and fattest, they cut off his tail, scalded and scraped off the scales,
then, holding the rest over the fire, singed off all the hair, and
scraped it clean with their knives. While Joe was turning the spit, and
John making tea, Charlie noticed Uncle Isaac picking out some of the
dryest of the wood, and piling it up a little distance from the camp,
and putting beneath it a parcel of birch bark, as if he was going to
light a fire.

“What are you going to do?” asked Charlie.

The old gentleman would give him no answer, only saying, with a knowing
look, that he would see before morning.

The beaver, being roasted, was placed in the birch dish. Sitting round
it, these hungry men, who had eaten nothing since long before the break
of day, made fierce onslaught with their hunting-knives. For nearly
half an hour no sound was heard but that of vigorous mastication, and
the crackling of the fire. At length Joe, after looking round upon his
companions and the great pile of game with a look of the most intense
satisfaction, and speaking thick, with a rib of beaver between his
teeth, broke the silence by saying “Haven’t we done it this time, Uncle
Isaac?”

“Yes, Joseph,” replied the old hunter, speaking with great
deliberation, and giving the name in full, a habit he had when much
pleased, “we certainly have. I’ve been trapping in the woods winters,
more or less, ever since I was a boy, with the Indians, and when the
beavers were a great deal more plenty than they are now; but I never
saw near so many taken at one time before.”

Some time during the night, John, who slept nearest to the door, was
awakened by a concert of sounds so horrible that it caused him to jump
right up on his feet, with a cry that awoke the rest, and, grasping Joe
by the shoulder, exclaimed, “For Heaven’s sake, what is it?”

“It’s wolves,” said Uncle Isaac. “I was calculating on them: they scent
the roast meat; the fire has burnt low, and that emboldens them. Throw
on some wood, Joe; they must be taught to keep their distance, or
there’ll be no sleep,” said he; and taking up a brand, he set fire to
the pile outside, which lighting up the forest, the wolves withdrew,
but still kept up their howling at a distance. It was now evident why
Uncle Isaac had prepared the pile of wood out doors.

“We were careless,” said he, “to let the fire get so low, and might
have paid dearly for it.”

“Why,” said John, “will they tackle men?”

“Yes, when there is a drove of them, and they are hungry: they are
cowardly, cruel creeturs; I hate ’em,” said he, as they stood gazing
on the gaunt forms flitting among the trees just beyond the line of
fire-light, licking their dry jaws, and snapping their tusks. One
old gray wolf, who seemed to be a leader, followed the track made by
dragging the bodies of the beavers to the very edge of the shadow cast
by the woods, so that his head and shoulders were distinctly visible.

“Only see the cruel varmint!” said Uncle Isaac; “see those jaws and
tusks, and that great red tongue. We ought not to waste powder, but
that fellow tempts a man too much: fire at him, John; aim for his eyes,
and I’ll finish him if you don’t.”

John, needing no second admonition, fired on the instant, when the
wolf, leaping forward, fell his whole length in the snow, and, rolling
over a few times, stretched out, quivered, and became motionless.

“I mean to skin him in the morning,” said John.

“Then you must put him in the camp; for if he lies there, nothing will
be left of him in the morning but bones.”

“Why, will the wolves eat each other?”

“Eat each other? Yes, just as quick as they’ll eat anything else.
There’s no Christianity in ’em. They will dig up a dead body in a
graveyard.”

“But how shall I get him?” said John, who, after this revelation, did
not feel much like trusting himself far from the fire.

Uncle Isaac seized a brand, and, waving it in the air, the wolves
retreated, and John took the dead wolf by the hind legs, and drew him
to the fire.

After replenishing both fires with fuel, they lay down again, and were
soon fast asleep, except John and Charlie, from whose eyes the events
of the evening and the howling of the wolves had effectually banished
sleep until near daybreak, when they too sank into a sound slumber.

They now broke into the other beaver houses, and, as the weather grew
warmer, tapped the maples, procured sap to drink, and made sugar; and,
as they could boil but little in their camp-kettle, they froze the sap.
This took the water out, and reduced the quantity, leaving that which
remained very sweet, and so much less in quantity to boil down.




CHAPTER XXIII.

BREAKING CAMP.


“There are just two things,” said Uncle Isaac, “for us to make up our
minds about. We’ve had great luck. We’ve got two silver-gray foxes,
which is an uncommon thing. I lay it to the honey that I fried the bait
in, the bloody neck of a moose that I dragged along the trail, and
the earth I got from Joe Bradish’s fox-pen. We’ve taken a great many
beavers, coons, minks, and otters, and the fur is all prime, for we
didn’t begin till the fur was good. It will be good about three weeks
longer, till May. If we go now, we can get out of the woods to the
nearest road, and haul our furs on the sledges, by going twice over the
road, or we can stay and trap as long as the fur is good, build canoes,
and, by carrying round the falls, take the furs and all our truck right
to our own doors.”

“I,” said Joe, “go in for staying till the very last minute, trapping
the very last beaver, and then taking to the water.”

The boys were clamorous for going by water.

“It will be nothing,” said Uncle Isaac, “to carry our canoes and furs
round the falls, to what it would to haul the sledges over the soft
snow; and then, when we get out of the woods, we shall find the snow
gone, have to leave them, and come after them with teams.”

Notwithstanding the excitement of this wild, fresh life in the woods,
the boys had by no means lost sight of the great object of their
efforts--the fitting away of the Hard-Scrabble.

“Uncle Isaac,” asked Charlie, “how much do you suppose these furs are
worth?”

“Well, I never like to crow till I have got out of the woods; but it is
remarkable, it is, our luck.”

“How much? Do tell us!”

“I don’t think you’ll have to make any wooden shrouds.”

“Shall we have enough to rig the vessel?”

“How much, Charlie, do you suppose these silver-gray fox-skins are
worth?” asked Joe.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Forty dollars apiece for the real silvers, and the silver-gray
twenty-five.”

“O, my! and the beaver-skins?”

“About six dollars apiece.”

Beaver fur, notwithstanding it was plenty, was in far more request than
at present, as it was then the only material for nice hats; but silk
has since taken its place, beaver being too heavy a fur for wearing.

“And the coons?” asked John.

“One dollar apiece. The bears about forty shillings.”

“Why, the bears alone will come to about ten pounds!”

“The otter?”

“The otter six dollars, and the fisher six.”

“Mink and muskrats?”

“About two shillings for a mink; muskrat, seventy-five cents.”

“I reckon,” said Uncle Isaac, “we’ve made nearly a hundred dollars
a month apiece, and shall be here a little short of five months. We
shan’t get many more beaver, but we shall get more otter, may get
another silver-gray fox, and lots of muskrats.”

“Then,” cried Charlie, jumping to his feet, “we’ve got enough.”

“Hurrah! yes,” said John; “and we’ve got all summer left to earn more
in.”

“How much do you calculate it’s going to take to fit her for sea?”

“Fifteen hundred dollars--three hundred seventy-five apiece.”

“It won’t take it. You’ve made too large a calculation, though it’s
an excellent plan to make a large calculation. You’ve gone upon the
supposition of paying the regular price for labor and canvas. It ain’t
going to cost you the trade price for canvas, by a great deal, nor
for making the sails, fitting the rigging, and putting it on. I tell
you, if we get home safe, you’ll have enough to give her the best of
rigging, cables, and anchors, and enough left to load, provision her
for a voyage, and pay the crew.”

Uncle Isaac now exerted all the craft he was master of to trap another
silver fox; but, notwithstanding all his arts, the essences and other
attractions he used, his efforts were for a long time fruitless. At
length he built a booth, and, having first removed every vestige of
offal from around the camp, he roasted a beaver, and besmeared it with
medicine, then dragged the bloody neck of a deer just killed around the
bait, and into the woods, and lay in wait several nights. He finally
shot his fox, which he knew was in the vicinity, as he had seen him
several times, which was the occasion of his taking so much pains.

Having accomplished this to his heart’s content, and exclaiming, “What
will Sam and Captain Rhines say to that!” he avowed he would not bait
another trap, but instantly set himself to hunting for canoe birch.
He was not long in finding one--though at the present day they are
so rare that the Eastern Indians have pretty much abandoned the use
and construction of canoes--of sufficient size, bare of branches for
several feet, and free from cracks and knots, and, with his knife and
a sharp wedge, carefully peeled the bark from the trunk. It was a slow
process, requiring great care, for this canoe, which was designed to
carry most of the furs and provisions, was to be thirty-four feet
long. In this labor all united, under the direction of Uncle Isaac.
They next procured long strips of cedar, split with the frow from a
straight-grained log,--four of them,--which were to form the gunwales,
an inch thick and two inches wide, also a large number of strips for
linings, an inch thick and two inches wide, strips of ash for ribs,
half an inch thick and two inches wide, and spruce roots soaked in hot
water for thread. When all these materials were procured, they were
carried to a level piece of ground near the camp. While the boys, with
their knives, were shaping and smoothing the sheathing and timbers,
and stripping the spruce roots into thread, Uncle Isaac, aided by Joe,
modelled the canoe. They set up four stakes in the ground, two at each
end, nearly as far apart as the canoe was to be long, and laid the bark
on the ground between them, with the side that went next to the wood
outside, the ends brought together and put between the stakes, then
bound four of the cedar strips together by pairs in several places
with roots, then bound the ends together to form the gunwales, and
fastened them to the stakes. The ribs were then laid across the bark
on the ground, the longest in the middle, and decreasing gradually
towards each end. Stones were placed upon the middle of these to keep
them down, the ends were then successively bent up and tucked between
the gunwale strips, and fastened very near together. Other strips
were then placed outside of these, lengthwise, and where they lapped,
nicely bevelled, forming an outside covering, like the planks of a
vessel. They were to keep the ribs in their places, and strengthen the
structure.

Uncle Isaac now elevated each end by putting a stone under in two
places, to give a proper curve. He then went all over his work, pulling
up or shoving down the ribs that were placed between the gunwales,
and thus shaping her to suit his eye, till, being satisfied with his
efforts, he fastened several of the ribs securely to the inner rail
strip to preserve the shape, and bringing up the bark, fitted it
between the strips, and sewed it with roots, through both the bark and
the ribs.

A number of bars were now put across, their ends brought against the
rail, and sewed to it. The seams in the bark, at the ends and along
the sides, were sewed, and then payed over with spruce gum mixed with
charcoal dust.

The boys enjoyed themselves much at this work, as it was the very
thing they had resolved to do in their summer holiday, with which the
building of the Hard-Scrabble had so rudely interfered.

“I calculate to give these canoes to you boys; so I suppose you want
them made in style.”

“Of course, Uncle Isaac,” said Charlie, “because, you know, we shall be
asked who made them.”

Uncle Isaac boiled the moss of a tree in water in which the roots of
wild gooseberries had been boiled, and made a red dye. In this he
colored porcupine quills; others he colored blue and green, with other
barks and roots, the names of which he would not tell, and ornamented
the canoe and stained the paddles. The canoe was thirty-four feet long,
four and a half wide, and nearly three deep.

“I’ll warrant her to carry twenty-five hundred,” said Uncle Isaac.

They now built a smaller one, and packing their furs, furnished
themselves with moose meat, smoked and dried, for provision on the way,
turned their backs on the woods, and arrived safely at home in hoeing
time, where Uncle Isaac found his crops and cattle in fine order, all
his affairs having been intrusted to Ricker during his absence.

When they started for home, John said to Charlie, as he took up his
paddle, “I’ve had woods enough to last me for a long time, and shall be
contented to go to work.”

“I am only sorry,” said Charlie, “that I couldn’t find a bear’s cub
that I could take home with me.”




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE HARD-SCRABBLE WEIGHS ANCHOR.--CHARLIE GETS MARRIED.


During their absence Captain Rhines and Ben had filled Fred’s store
with goods, to be sold on half profits, which enabled him to furnish
his portion of the money without any detriment to his business.

Isaac having left a draw-bill, Mr. Welch had sent to Captain Rhines the
money that belonged to him. The sails were done, and the boards to load
the sloop were sawed. Letters had been received from Isaac, stating
that he should not be at home till March. Thus they had abundance of
time.

Captain Rhines took the furs to New York in the Perseverance, sold them
there for a high price,--there was a great foreign demand, and furs
were up,--and bought the rigging.

They found the vessel was so buoyant that the lumber they had cut would
not load her. Captain Rhines advised them to carry part of a deck-load
of spars.

John went to Portland, and Charlie began to clear a portion of his
place large enough to set a house, and for a small field, it being just
the time of year to fall trees while the leaves were on.

As Charlie was in hopes to have use for his timber in ship-building, he
did not wish to burn it up, and therefore cleared but a small portion.

Ben and Charlie worked together. One week they worked on Elm Island,
and the next on Pleasant Point. There was also another attraction at
Elm Island--_a baby_. The time passed pleasantly with Charlie. The
cherry and apple trees he had planted in the garden were in blossom;
and, though he had outgrown his playthings in some measure, he had by
no means outgrown his love for the children, who, falling heirs to all
these treasures, enjoyed them with the highest relish.

The vessel was rigged in the course of the summer by Captain Rhines and
Ben, and the rigging thoroughly stretched in the hot weather.

When John arrived at Portland, he found that Mr. Starrett had bought
the cables and anchors of a vessel cast away at Gay Head, larger
somewhat than the Hard-Scrabble, but nearly new. They were sold at
auction for a reduced price; also a dipsey-lead and line, chest of
tools, and compasses.

When the snow came, Charlie cut and hauled out spars enough to complete
the deck-load of the vessel; but, although they piled them up ten feet
above deck, they could not bring her deck to the water, she was so
buoyant.

Captain March, as we must call him now, came home just as they were
completing the lading.

John came home to see Isaac off, and to settle up the business. The
crew were shipped, as in the Ark, for nominal wages and a privilege.

Sally had a liberal allowance of room given to her for a venture.

Peterson went before the mast, and his boy went as cook. Isaac
persuaded Joe Griffin and Henry to go with him, Joe as mate. The rest
of the crew were made up of the neighbors’ boys.

When they came to settle accounts, they found that the cost of outfit
had been brought down to a thousand dollars, instead of fifteen
hundred, as they estimated at first. There were several reasons for
this. The canvas cost them much less than it would had they bought it
at a warehouse. Captain Rhines had bought the rigging in New York,
where he was well acquainted, cheap. Mr. Starrett had bought the
cables and anchors for two thirds price, and would take no commission.
Captain Rhines and Ben charged very low wages for making the sails,
fitting and putting on the rigging, and the boys could not make them
take any more.

“We’ve got the advantage of you now, boys,” said the captain. “You
wouldn’t let us lend you money, but you can’t make us take more for our
work than we like.”

On this account they were able to settle all their bills, provision the
vessel for the voyage, load her, and even have something left, which
exceeded their most sanguine expectations.

Isaac, whose proportion had all been paid in cash, had remaining but
four dollars. John had nine shillings of the money resulting from his
venture in the Ark, and the proceeds of hunting, although he had some
wages due him in Portland. Fred, who had paid nearly every dollar
of his proportion in orders, except what the cargo cost, could have
advanced seventy-five dollars more without detriment to his business;
while Charlie was better off in respect to ready money than either of
them. There was sufficient reason for this. His wages as master workman
had been more than the rest, and he had worked all the time in the
winter making the spars, rudder, and windlass, and building the boats.
He had also furnished the timber and spars for the cargo of the vessel.
Fred could not pay this in orders; so he and the others had to pay
Charlie one hundred and fifty dollars apiece in money, which left him
better off than they, as he had his farm and a fourth of the vessel,
while Isaac’s goods were the greater part on commission, and belonged
to Captain Rhines, Ben, and Uncle Isaac.

It was a pleasant morning when the vessel weighed anchor, a fair wind,
a little quartering, just right to make every sail draw; and all the
population that could get there were assembled around the banks of
Captain Rhines’s Cove. They had a singular fashion before, and for many
years after, the revolution,--even till 1812 and later,--of rigging
vessels into topsail sloops, and even sent them to the East Indies.

The old sloop Messenger, of Portland, and Stock, of Boston, owned by
the Messrs. Parsons, were of this class.

The Hard-Scrabble presented a novel sight on that morning, and well
did her appearance correspond to her name. As the sun shone upon her
sides, wherever they were out of water, it revealed a streak of black
and a streak of white, where the black pitch and white wood alternated.
Her sails, though well made, of good material, and setting well, were
the color of flax, not being bleached. Her lower mast was rather short
in proportion to the top, top-gallant, and royal masts. The mainmast
was set well aft, and raked a good deal. The bowsprit and jib-boom were
long. She had a spritsail yard and double martingale. The fore-braces
led to the end of the bowsprit, the others to the end of the jib-boom.
In bad weather they had preventer-braces that led aft to the rail. She
carried fore-topmast staysail, jib, and flying-jib. She had no sail on
the lower yard, because, when they built her, they did not think they
could afford it. Had they known how they were coming out, Charlie would
have done it.

All the paint on her was the lamp-black and oil with which her name was
put on, and a little more, where Ben had painted it on the brunt of her
topsail. She was stowed so full of lumber that the men could only heave
forward of the windlass, and it was piled so high that the mainsail
was obliged to be reefed, and a false saddle put on to keep the boom
up; while in glaring contrast to the rest of the structure was the
beautiful boat, which Charlie had built to show what he could do, gayly
painted, on the davits, and for which he had made a mast and sail.

In the warm sunshine, under lee of a high ledge that sheltered them
from the wind, were seated Captain Rhines’s folks, Uncle Isaac and his
wife, Ben and Sally, the boys, and old Mrs. Yelf, who was gazing with
great complacency upon the royal her old fingers had woven,--a labor of
love,--as it swelled out in the fresh breeze, and also Tige Rhines, a
few paces in front, a most interested and observant spectator.

As she faded from view, and the forms of Isaac and Joe, standing on the
quarter, could no longer be recognized, the boys turned their eyes upon
each other in silence.

“Well, boys,” said Uncle Isaac, at length, laying his hand upon
Charlie’s shoulder, “it’s been a hard scrabble; but you’ve done it, and
she’s gone to seek her fortune and yours. May the Lord be with them!”

“You’ve done it, too, without the old folks,” said the captain; “and
that, I suppose, makes it the sweeter.”

“No, we haven’t, Captain Rhines,” said Fred. “I never should have been
able to have built my part of her without the old folks.”

“I shouldn’t have had anything,” said John, “if it hadn’t been for the
folks that built the Ark, and carried my venture,--went into the woods,
and showed me how to hunt and trap.”

“I’m sure,” said Charlie, “I never should have had anything, or been
anything but a poor, forlorn castaway, if it had not been for father
and mother, Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, and Joe,--yes, and everybody
round here. And wasn’t mother the means of making the sails?”

“You may try as hard as you like to make out that you are not good for
much,” said Ben; “but you’ll have hard work to make us, or anybody
else, believe it.”

“Well, father, it makes boys smart to have friends to love them,
encourage, and show them; tell them they are smart, and say ‘stuboy,’
to have plenty to eat, and see a little chance to do something for
themselves, and folks trying to make them happy. If a boy has got
anything in him, it must come out.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Isaac. “And if there ain’t anything, it can’t come
out.”

After the rest had gone, the boys sat watching the vessel till she
mingled with the thin air.

“Now, I’m glad we’ve done as we did,” said Charlie. “We might have
hired the money of father, or Captain Rhines, have sent the vessel off,
and, perhaps, paid for her, and paid them; but suppose she had made
nothing, or been lost--then we should have been in debt, and felt mean
enough; now she is ours, and paid for; if she is lost, we owe nobody:
we’ve learned a good deal, and are young enough to earn more money.”

“What are you going to do now, John?”

“Going back to Portland.”

“I suppose I ought to go to Stroudwater. Mr. Foss wants me: he’s going
to build two vessels.”

“I know what he wants to do,” said Fred.

“What’s that?”

“Get married.”

“Well, so I do, awfully.”

“Then,” said John, “why don’t you do it?”

“Yes,” said Fred. “It’s a leisure time now: the snow is about gone, and
we’ll all turn to and put you up a log house in no time.”

“That’s it, Charlie. Come, you are the oldest; set a good example: I’ll
raise the crew. Fred wants to follow suit.”

“I’m a good mind to build a log house before I go to Portland;” which
resolution was the result of many previous conversations with Mary
Rhines, in which they had determined to begin, as Ben and Sally, Joe
Griffin and his wife, had done. The boys took good care not to let
his resolution cool, but instantly set off, post-haste, for Captain
Rhines’s, where they found Ben, Sally, and Uncle Isaac, and, taking
them aside, commended the affair to them. Uncle Isaac needed no
prompting, and in a fortnight the house was built, differing in no wise
from Joe’s, except that it had a chimney and glazed windows, which
Captain Rhines declared they should have: he said the bricks and the
windows would do for another house.

John now started for Portland, and Charlie for Stroudwater, in order
to earn all he could before settling down. He was never satisfied
unless he could be making some improvement. In Portland (on his way to
Stroudwater) he saw a vessel that had put in for a harbor. It was built
for a privateer in the war, and of a most beautiful model.

He ascertained her proportions, and, after he went to work at
Stroudwater, amused himself with trying to imitate her with a block
of wood, making a half model, and got so much interested that he went
into Portland to compare his work with the original, till he got it as
accurate as possible; then he put a stem, keel, and stern-post on,
and painted it, intending to give it to Bennie for a plaything, and,
putting it up on a brace in the shop, thought no more about it; but one
stormy day, sitting in the shop, and thinking about the proportions of
a vessel he had been at work upon, his eye fell upon the model. A new
idea was instantly suggested; he leaped from his seat, took square and
compass, divided the model accurately into pieces an inch in thickness
from stem to stern, then took a fine saw, and sawed it all up. He then
planed a board smooth, fastened the keel, stem, and stern-post of his
model on to it, placed inside of them the blocks corresponding to the
forward, after, and midship frames, and several others between them, and
fastened them to the board; he found he could, by placing his square
on these blocks, obtain a water-line along her side, follow the model,
shape his vessel accurately, and know just what kind of a vessel he was
going to have when he was done. Here was an end to his sweeps on the
beach, tumbling in timbers, and guessing, to a great extent. He had got
a skeleton model, the latest improvement till the present one of close
models.

While he was contemplating his work, Mr. Foss came along: he showed it
to him. The old carpenter saw it in a moment.

“Charlie,” said he, “you’ve made a great improvement. I undertook to
learn you, and you have learned me. That’s a great thing: that’s going
to save money, time, and timber. With the rising line and shortening
line, you can model and build a vessel, and know what you are going
to do. I’ll give you the dimensions of this vessel we are getting the
timber for, and I want you to make a model of her.”

“I will try it.”

Charlie modelled, and was successful. He returned home in June, and
was married. He found that the trees which he had girdled in the fall
had leaved; but the leaves were most of them small and withering. He
had drawn a cordon, many rods in width, all around the buildings, and
especially round the little peninsula, in the midst of which towered
the great elm, sparing a handsome tree every now and then, so that
after the girdled trees had fallen down, and been removed, they might
be out of the reach of fires.

Charlie had been married but a few weeks when the young pair made their
appearance at Elm Island.

“Mother,” said Charlie, “do you remember one night, when I first bought
my place, I came home from there, you asked me what was the matter,
and I put you off?”

“Yes; I saw you’d been crying, and that was what made me ask you.”

“I had been thinking about old times, and my mother. I wanted then, and
I want now, as I have got settled on my place, to go to St. John, and
get her body, and have her buried under an elm there is there. It is a
lovely spot: it was almost the first thing that came into my mind when
I saw the place, and that was what I had been crying about. When she
died, I followed her to the grave in rags, no one to go with me but the
Irish woman of whom we hired the room: she was a good-hearted woman,
poor herself, but did what she could for us. Many a crust has she given
me; and if she is living, I’ll let her know I haven’t forgotten it.
Mother, now that I have a home of my own, I can’t rest any longer to
have her lie in that miserable corner, among the worst of creatures,
the place all grown up with bushes. I want to bring her here.”

“I am sure I would, Charlie.”

“Do you think father would go with me?”

“Go! to be sure he would. The Perseverance is out fishing now, but she
will be in soon; she is only hired for one trip. I tell you what you
do, Charlie: after haying, bring Mary over here, and leave her; you
and Ben take the schooner, and go. When you get back, we’ll all of us
attend the funeral, have the minister preach a sermon, and everything
done as it should be; but two is not enough: there ought to be three.”

“We can run into Portland, and get John. I would rather have him go
with us than anybody else.”

The noble boy accomplished his object, and deposited the ashes of
the mother so dear to him in the spot he had chosen. It was a sweet
resting-place: the branches of the majestic tree, green in the first
verdure of summer, almost swept the grave; the brook murmured gently as
it rounded the little promontory; the ground-sparrow built her nest,
and reared her young, upon the turf that covered it; and the low-voiced
summer winds breathed requiems over the sainted dead.

Often, on Sabbath evenings, as Charlie, with his young wife, visited
the spot, did he lift up his heart in gratitude to Him who had given
him a home, friends, and land of his own, and enabled him to pay the
last tokens of affection to the mother he so dearly loved. Gratifying
the tastes he had acquired in his native land, and aided by his wife,
he surrounded the spot with flowers and shrubbery.

Charlie’s marriage, so far from involving him in any additional
expense, increased his facilities for acquiring; for he had married
one who was indeed a helpmeet. Captain Rhines would have furnished his
daughter abundantly; but she, like John, preferred to earn it herself.

“I never saw such children as mine are,” said the captain. “They won’t
let me do anything for them.”

“Wait, father,” said Mary, “till we get a frame-house, and our land
cleared. We may burn this up, and it is good enough for that: besides,
father, I know how Charlie feels; he abhors the idea of marrying on; he
will feel a good deal better to get under way himself: you know, you
can give me any time, if you want to. Charlie, John, and Fred are all
alike about being helped.”

The very first thing Charlie did after he got into his house was to
set a bear-trap; the next, to make a loom and all the fixtures for
Mary. Some years before, her father had given her a pair of sheep, and
now she had quite a flock, and had made blankets and other articles
for housekeeping before her marriage; her mother had furnished her
with flax, and the hum of her wheel kept time with the strokes of
Charlie’s hammer, as he worked on his boats. He brought over a host of
hens from Elm Island; but ducks and geese he didn’t dare to bring, the
foxes were so plenty and destructive; but he calculated to trap them,
and did hope the bears would get into his corn. O, how he did want to
go into farming, down with trees, put in the fire, and raise corn and
grain! But then he wanted to save his shade trees, and had a contract
to build a lot of boats for vessels that were building in Portland.
This paid better than farming, and must be done right off; therefore he
must defer the gratification; so he hired Ricker to help him, and set
to work upon his boats. Thus employed we must leave him, to follow the
fortunes of Captain Murch, in the Hard-Scrabble.




CHAPTER XXV.

STRIKING WHILE THE IRON’S HOT.


The Hard-Scrabble had a good run off the coast, holding the wind to the
edge of the Gulf Stream; proved herself an excellent sea boat, and,
although so deep loaded, a good sailer. It was evident that, light, she
was faster than ordinary.

France and England were then at war. Napoleon’s star was just rising
above the horizon, and our young captain found he had arrived at the
rich Island of Martinique in a most favorable time. But few American
vessels were there, barracks were building for troops, boards were
wanted, and there was a great demand for small spars, as masts for
drogers, booms for French men-of-war that came in there to refit after
the conflicts that were constantly occurring between the hostile fleets.

Isaac sold his boards for forty dollars per thousand, and obtained a
hogshead of molasses for a small spar which cost little more than the
expense of cutting.

“I wish I had loaded her with spars,” said Isaac to his mate.

“You’ll make money enough,” said Joe, “as it is: you ought to be
satisfied. But I wish I’d brought spars for a venture.”

Isaac now bought iron, and thoroughly bolted his knees, and, heaving
the vessel out, butt-bolted the plank, and painted her upper works. The
fastening was put in by him and his mate; for Isaac was possessed of
all the native ingenuity of his uncle for handling tools.

“Now, Mr. Griffin,” said he, “we need not fear to put the molasses in
her, and we’ll see if we can’t bring her scuppers to the water.”

Just as they were ready to take in molasses, a French man-of-war came
in, that had been disabled in an action with an English frigate. As
she lay in the offing, the commander sent his lieutenant aboard the
Hard-Scrabble, to see if she had brought any spars that would make him
a main-yard. The lieutenant informed Isaac that they had broken the
spar nearly off in trying to escape from the enemy, but that they had
fished, and made it answer a temporary purpose; that they must have a
spar, if it could be procured, no matter what the price.

“Where is it injured?” asked Isaac; “in the slings?”

“No; well out on the quarter: it was a poor stick; there were some
large knots in it, and it broke square, without splintering; that is,
it cracked, though it didn’t come in two.”

Isaac replied that he would come on board in the course of an hour, and
see the captain.

“What is the use to go aboard?” said Joe; “you haven’t got a thing but
a spar you’ve saved for a derrick, and haven’t brought anything that
would make him even a royal mast.”

“I ain’t so sure of that. Come down below, Joe.” When they were by
themselves, he said, “Joe, suppose I should offer him the mainmast;
could you and I get her home?”

After reflecting a moment, he replied, “Go ahead, captain: it will be
summer time; we shall have southerly winds, and we’ve got provisions
enough.”

“But what will the crew say? We’ve no right to disable the vessel, and
run the risk of losing her, and their lives, without their consent.”

“If you’ll give me authority to offer them a hogshead of molasses
apiece, I’ll make ’em willing, and more than willing.”

Joe went forward, got the men together, and broached the matter. They
not only made no objection, but received the proposition with cheers.

“We’ll put it all into Fred’s store, boys,” said Henry Griffin, “and
let him sell it for us on commission--sweeten him well.”

Isaac lowered the boat Charlie had made,--whose rowing and sailing
qualities attracted the attention of all in the harbor,--put four oars
in her, and went on board the man-of-war in good shape.

There was a very kindly feeling existing at that time between us and
the French, who had aided us in the struggle for independence.

The French commander received Isaac with all the politeness of his
nation. Isaac went aloft, and looked at the spar. It was just as the
lieutenant had stated. When he came down, he said,--

“Captain, I haven’t any spars; didn’t bring any but small ones; but
I’ll sell you my mainmast.”

“But if you sell your mast,” cried the Frenchman, in astonishment, “how
are you to get home?”

“That is my own lookout.”

“What strange people you Americans are! But is it large enough?”

“It’s eighty feet long and twenty-eight inches through.”

“That is long enough,” said the Frenchman. “It is a very little shorter
than the old yard, but will answer, as the sail does not haul out. It
is more than large enough.”

“It is a very good stick--worth two of your old one.”

“But to take your mast out of your vessel you will ask a great price.”

“If you will take it out,--for I have no purchase sufficient,--give me
your old spar and a thousand dollars, you may have it.”

“A thousand dollars!” interrupted the lieutenant. “That is more than
your whole craft is worth.”

“Perhaps so to you, but not so to me. Besides, I risk my life, and that
of my men, and my cargo, by disabling my vessel.”

“I must have the spar, and I’ll give you the money,” said the captain.

He invited Isaac to take wine with him, which he declined.

“I’ve seen strange things to-day,” said the Frenchman. “A captain that
would sell the mast out of his vessel, and wouldn’t drink a glass of
wine.”

In the intercourse which grew out of this trade, the Frenchman noticed
Isaac’s boat,--his own had been riddled with shot,--and he wanted to
buy her.

“There’s not a boat in this harbor,” said Isaac, “that can pull or
sail with her. I’ll sell her. I’ll sell anything but my country and my
principles. If you want her enough to give me one hundred dollars for
her, take her.”

The Frenchman took her. The boatswain’s crew of the man-of-war brought
the yard alongside, and took out the mast.

Isaac and Joe got the spar on board, sawed it off square where it
was cracked, then took a whip-saw and split it into halves the whole
length, turned the halves end for end, and put it together again, thus
bringing the joint in another place, and making the spar just as long
as it was before, and then treenailed it together.

A yard is differently shaped from a mast, being biggest in the middle.
By their turning the halves, although the length was the same, there
was a slag in the place of the joint, and a bunch at the ends. They
filled up the slag with plank, the bunch at the bottom helped out the
step of the mast, and that at the top to form the masthead. They then
put on the hounds and the old trestle-trees. Joe, who was no mean
blacksmith, hooped the whole with iron, above and below the wake of the
mainsail. They now put in the mast, and set up the rigging.

As the mast was so much smaller than the other, they did not dare
to send up the top and top-gallant masts; but they gave additional
strength to the masts by putting the topmast backstays and also the
headstays on to the head of the lower mast, thus leaving the stays of
the two masts on one, to compensate for the smaller size of the spar.
They were not afraid now to carry a whole mainsail and fore-staysail.
They also sent up the fore-yard, and bent the topsail on it for a
square-sail.

In order that she might not look stunt, Joe made a light spar to take
the place of a topmast, to set colors on. They put the top-gallant
rigging and backstays on it, and the flying-jib for a gaff-topsail.
Thus they had nearly as much sail as before, and all the large sails,
without cutting a foot of rigging or a yard of canvas.

“It takes us ‘Hard-Scrabble boys’ to do things,” said Joe, when the
whole was completed. “Hurrah for the Hard-Scrabble!” and jumping on to
the windlass-bitts at one bound, and slapping his hands against his
sides, he crowed most lustily.

Mails were now established by Congress, and communication was more
easy. The boys were impatiently awaiting news from Isaac. They did not
manifest the patient endurance of Ben while the Ark was gone, but were
running to the office every mail day.

At length word came from John that Captain Crabtree had arrived,
bringing news that Isaac had sold his lumber for forty dollars per
thousand, got a hogshead of molasses for a spar, sold Charlie’s boat
for one hundred dollars, and Sally’s venture for ninety-six, and had
agreed to sell his mast to the captain of a French frigate for a
mainmast for a thousand dollars, and was coming home under jury-masts,
and that Crabtree came away then.

When Mr. Welch heard of it, he declared he should have a ship when he
got back if he had to buy one for him.

“You can’t have him,” said Captain Rhines. “You ought to have held on
to him when you had him. He belongs to the boys.”

“But the boys can’t build him an Indiaman.”

“Can’t they? I’d like to know what they can’t do! Besides, they’ll have
good backers. I’ve been in both kinds of business, and it’s my opinion
there’s more to be made in West India than there is in East India
business, at any rate while this war lasts, though it may not have so
large a sound and be quite so genteel, which goes a great ways with
_some people_.”

“Especially if you can raise your own cargoes, build your own ships,
make your own rigging, and weave your own sails,” added Mr. Welch,
laughing.

In a few days they had a letter from Isaac, telling the particulars,
saying that they were ready to take in cargo; and he wanted Charlie
to have a mast all made and ready to go in when he got home, and a
load of spars for men-of-war, lower masts, yards, and smaller spars;
that he would take a few large ones on deck, and go to Cadiz,--for the
Spaniards were in the war, and spars were high there,--and would load
back with salt. He said all hands were well, the vessel tight, sailed
and worked first rate; and he had got a bag of coffee for old Mrs. Yelf.

“I can get the mast fast enough on Elm Island,” said Charlie, “roll it
into the water, and tow it over; but how does he think I’m going to
haul those heavy spars on bare ground, enough to load that sloop?”

“I’ll tell you how,” said Ricker. “You know that place where the brook
goes right through a gap in the ledge?”

“Yes.”

“Well, make a pair of gates to open and shut in that gap, dam the
water, and flow it back, till the brook is deep enough to float the
timber, then twitch and roll it into the pond, float it down to the
gates, open them, and down it will go into the cove, right alongside
your vessel. I know all about that work. I never did much else.”

“That will be just the thing,” said Charlie, “for some of the largest
trees grow within half a gunshot of the pond.”

“You’ll have to stir yourselves,” said Captain Rhines. “The way he’s
rigged that vessel, according to his letter, he won’t be much longer
than common on the passage.”

“I wish Joe Griffin was here,” said Charlie.

“I guess he’s done you more good where he is.”

Charlie obtained men, got his gates made, his mast cut and made, and
part of the spars cut, when the sloop arrived in Boston.

When she was again ready for sea, she presented quite a different
appearance. They finished her cabin, put a billet-head on her, painted
her hull and spars, put studding-sail booms on her yards. The decks
were worn smooth, and the sails bleached white. She had a square-sail,
and looked like another vessel.

Pluck and principle win the day. The cargo which they carried out in
this rough craft, built of white pine, and half fastened, amounted to
eleven thousand seventy-five dollars, bought their homeward cargo, and
left them three hundred dollars in cash. The mast Isaac sold to the
Frenchman paid all the expenses of the voyage within fifty dollars,
and, after selling their molasses, left them cash and sales twenty-six
thousand six hundred and five dollars, six thousand six hundred
fifty-one dollars and twenty-five cents apiece, Charlie having one
hundred dollars more, the price of the boat, half of which he gave to
Joe, Captain Rhines, and Ben, put glass windows in the meeting-house,
and clapboarded it. Uncle Isaac and others built a steeple. The boys
gave a bell, and Isaac brought a bag of coffee and a barrel of sugar
for Parson Goodhue.

During the fall and winter Charlie cut spars enough to freight the
sloop again, and built a few boats.

The Hard-Scrabble returned, having made a profitable voyage; and,
as the spring opened, Charlie had leisure to attend to farming. He
planted among the trees, whose naked branches flung no shadow, and
whose dead limbs and seasoned trunks, continually dropping, afforded an
inexhaustible supply of dry fuel.

At leisure intervals he hewed out timber for a house and barn frame;
and, as he now had money, hired Ricker, and, after the harvest was
gathered in the fall, cut down and burned up all the dry trunks of the
trees, when the ground was wet, and there was no risk of the fires
running.

He now had a large belt of cleared land between the grove--behind which
he had resolved to place his permanent buildings--and the great elm and
forest, also many beautiful trees scattered here and there over the
slope trending to the shore.

“It has made some work,” said he, “to save these trees; but they are a
life-long source of beauty and happiness.”

As the next spring opened, he was about to attack the forest in
earnest, when his plans were entirely changed by a communication from
Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac.




CHAPTER XXVI.

PROGRESS.


Charlie now possessed what in those days was considered a handsome
property.

As the spring came on, he made sugar, and determined to cut and burn
the growth of white maple, birch, and ash that covered the flat, that
he might have field pasturage, and indulge his taste for farming. But
his plans were brought to a sudden termination, and the land was to be
cleared in a manner quite different from that which he had anticipated.

About four o’clock one afternoon, as he and Ricker were grinding their
axes, in preparation for the morrow, Ben, Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac,
and Fred landed in the cove. As Charlie went to meet them, Fred held up
a letter.

“We’ve come to set you to work,” said Captain Rhines. “We were afraid
that, living here by yourself, with plenty of money, you would get
rusty and lazy.”

“I was afraid I should myself, and so am getting ready to go into the
woods. Come, go into the house, all of you.”

The letter was from Isaac. He was at Cadiz, waiting for a cargo of salt.

“He says he wants a larger vessel; that the demand is for large spars
for men-of-war, lower masts, yards, and bowsprits; that he can’t carry
them in that vessel, and that the few he did carry he had to run over
the rail forward and aft, and he liked to have lost his vessel going
out by one getting adrift.”

“How large a vessel does he want, Captain Rhines?” asked Charlie.

“Seven hundred tons,--a proper mast ship,--large enough to carry
real whoppers, one hundred and eight feet long and thirty-six inches
through, with a port at each end big enough to drive in a yoke of oxen.”

Neither Charlie, nor even Fred, who thought the Hard-Scrabble a monster
for size, seemed startled by this.

“Is he in a hurry for her?”

“No; he said he wanted you to be thinking about it; and he will let the
masts alone, and take fish, boards, and staves to Madeira, or some of
the Danish islands.”

“I will go to cutting the timber to-morrow. I’d rather cut it into
ship-timber than burn it. It won’t be fifty rods from the yard. As I am
clearing, I can save what I come across, and set up the vessel in the
fall, if he is in no hurry. Who’ll be the owners?”

“Mr. Welch, Ben, Uncle Isaac, myself, and you ‘Hard-Scrabble boys.’
There’s eight of us. We’ll all own alike. Give her a hard-wood floor,
white oak top, buy the timber of you, and take her at the bills.”

“I’m agreed. What’s the dimensions?”

“I’ve got them here. Isaac has seen an English mast ship out there, and
sent home her proportions. But you must build a two-story frame-house
first to lodge your men. You’ll want fifty or sixty men before you get
through.”

“I can get along with a log house--make it bigger. Some can sleep in
the barn in warm weather. I want something else a great deal more than
I do a frame-house.”

“What is that?” asked Ben.

“A saw-mill right on this brook, where I can saw all my deck, ceiling,
outboard plank, and waterways.”

“That’s a fact,” said Uncle Isaac. “I go in for a mill. I’ll build in
it, and work on it.”

“I hope you won’t have a wooden crank,” said Fred.

“Nor tread back with the foot,” said Ben, “like this old rattle-trap on
the river.”

“There’s water and fall enough,” said Captain Rhines; “and we’ll
have an iron crank if we send to England for it, and all the modern
improvements. I move that Charlie, Ricker, Yelf, and Joe Griffin go
to work hewing the timber; and that we send Uncle Isaac off to the
westward to learn the new improvements, and come home and build it.”

Having agreed upon all these matters, they separated; and that is what
became of Charlie’s farming that year.

The pond, of which the brook was an outlet, furnishing a steady supply
of water, not affected by droughts, offered a splendid mill privilege.
The dam was almost built by nature, and the labor of constructing the
whole was greatly lessened, as the timber grew upon the spot.

Instead of going to work upon the mill, Charlie, who knew that the
moment it was noised abroad that a mill was to be built on the outlet
to Beaver Pond, the price of timber land in the immediate vicinity
would rise, started off to Portsmouth, where the proprietor lived, and
bought the whole lot, between him and Joe Griffin, which was heavily
timbered with pine and hard wood. It was not the desire of speculation
that influenced him: he wanted ship-timber, spars, and lumber, and
didn’t want to strip all the forest from his home farm. Charlie loved
the trees: a bare and barren landscape had no charms for him.

Uncle Isaac did not go to the westward to see the new improvements, but
to Thomaston, where General Knox (with whom he was acquainted, having
served under him in the war of independence) was building mills, and
making all kinds of improvements.

The general, who was a noble, hospitable man, received Uncle Isaac most
cordially, took him to his house, and gave him every facility in his
power. He looked over the mills, made his observations, and took plans
of the machinery, came home, and went to work.

Ricker now proved a most valuable man: he had been accustomed to mill
work, and knew how to take care of a saw. Since his reformation, he had
renewed his engagement, broken off by his loose habits. He went home,
got married, took charge of the mill, and went to sawing out plank for
the vessel.

Charlie built a first-rate frame blacksmith’s shop, with a brick
chimney. John came home, bringing a complete set of tools.

Fred was fully occupied in getting fish ready to send in the
“Hard-Scrabble” to Madeira, and exceedingly interested in some timber
Ricker was sawing to order in the mill, and a cellar Uncle Sam Elwell
was stoning not far from his store.

It was snapping times now all round, everybody on the clean jump from
morning to night. The mill was going night and day, and the short click
of the saw rang in the still midnight through the old woods, that had
before echoed only to the war-whoop of the red man, or the blows of the
settler’s axe.

The younger portion of the community were wide awake, ready for
anything, and a spirit of emulation was rife among them. Walter
Griffin, Fred’s clerk, kicked out of the traces at once; he went to
Fred, and said, “Mr. Williams, I must leave.”

“Leave!” cried Fred, in amazement. “What for?”

“I want to go to sea.”

Fred more than liked Walter: he loved him; he was a splendid boy,
industrious, trustworthy, and smart; but his wrist-joints were three
inches below the sleeve of his jacket, for his mother couldn’t make
clothes as fast as he grew.

“Why, Walter, I didn’t dream of your ever leaving me. I want you, when
you are older, to go into business with me. Don’t you like me?”

The tears came into the boy’s eyes in a moment.

“_Like_ you, Mr. Williams! My own father ain’t nearer to me: you’ve
done everything for me; but, Mr. Williams, I never was made to weigh
flour, measure molasses and cloth; it don’t agree with our kind of
people. I can’t stand it; I shall die: indeed I can’t.”

“But you wouldn’t leave me now, when I have so much to do?”

“Not by any means, sir. I don’t want to go till the big ship is done.”

“I think you’ll miss it, Walter.”

“I don’t, sir. I don’t see why I can’t do as well at sea as Isaac
Murch. I’ll leave it to Uncle Isaac.”

“Uncle Isaac, he’s always ready to shove any boy ahead.”

“Didn’t you like to have him shove you ahead when you was a boy, sir?”

That was a thrust which Fred knew not how to parry, and he was silent.

“Don’t feel so bad, Mr. Williams. My brother William is only eighteen
months younger than I am; he would like to come in here, and would get
well broke in before I shall want to go.”

“But he’s a Griffin, too,” said Fred, despondingly, “and will clear out
just as he becomes useful.”

When the ship was ready for sea, half the boys in the neighborhood
wanted to go in her. Isaac took four, and several young men, who had
been some in coasters, as ordinary seamen.

She was called the Casco.

Fred was married to Elizabeth Rhines the day before she sailed, the
wedding being somewhat hastened, in order that Isaac might be present.

This was a most eventful year. Uncle Isaac, one Saturday night, created
surprise enough by riding down to the store with his wife in a wagon,
the first one that had ever been seen in the place.

“You’ve got yourself into business, Isaac,” said the captain. “Either
you or Charlie have got to make me one this winter.”

“Then I must do it, Benjamin; for Charlie’s got enough to do this
winter to take care of that baby.”

Seth Warren assumed command of the Hard-Scrabble, that still continued
to make money for her owners, who built more vessels, and acquired
property, of which they made a most praiseworthy use, in affording
employment to others, and doing all in their power to promote the
welfare of society; and the prosperity and happiness of hundreds
resulted from that pile of boards Captain Rhines navigated to Cuba; and
fleet and beautiful vessels, visiting the most distant seas, were the
successors of the Hard-Scrabble.




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=All Aboard=; Or, Life on the Lake.

=Now or Never=; Or, the Adventures of Bobby Bright.

=Try Again=; Or, The Trials and Triumphs of Harry West.

=Poor and Proud=; Or, The Fortunes of Katy Redburn.

=Little by Little=; Or The Cruise of the Flyaway.

Boys and girls have no taste for dry and tame things; they want
something that will stir the blood and warm the heart. Optic always
does this, while at the same time he improves the taste and elevates
the moral nature. The coming generation of men will never know how much
they are indebted for what is pure and enobling to his writings.--_R.
I. Schoolmate._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




OLIVER OPTIC’S

STARRY FLAG SERIES.

SIX VOLS., ILLUST. PER VOL., $1.25.

=The Starry Flag=; Or, The Young Fisherman of Cape Ann.

=Breaking Away=; Or, The Fortunes of a Student.

=Seek and Find=; Or, The Adventures of a Smart Boy.

=Freaks of Fortune=; Or, Half Round the World.

=Make or Break=; Or, The Rich Man’s Daughter.

=Down the River=; Or, Buck Bradford and his Tyrants.

These books are exciting narratives, and full of stirring adventures,
but the youthful heroes of the stories are noble, self-sacrificing, and
courageous, and the stories contain nothing which will do injury to the
mind or heart of the youthful reader.--_Webster Times._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




OLIVER OPTIC’S

WOODVILLE STORIES.

SIX VOLS., ILLUST. PER VOL.,, $1.25.

=Rich and Humble=; Or, The Mission of Bertha Grant.

=In School and Out=; Or, the Conquest of Richard Grant.

=Watch and Wait=; Or, The Young Fugitives.

=Work and Win=; Or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise.

=Hope and Have=; Or, Fanny Grant among the Indians.

=Haste and Waste=; Or, The Young Pilot of Lake Champlain.

Oliver Optic is the apostolic successor, at the “Hub,” of Peter Parley.
He has just completed the “Woodville Stories,” by the publication of
“Haste and Waste.” The best notice to give of them is to mention that a
couple of youngsters pulled them out of the pile two hours since, and
are yet devouring them out in the summer-house (albeit autumn leaves
cover it) oblivious to muffin time.--_N. Y. Leader._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.




REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG’S

ELM ISLAND STORIES.

Six vols. 16mo. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.25.

  1. Lion Ben of Elm Island.
  2. Charlie Bell.
  3. The Ark of Elm Island.
  4. The Boy Farmers of Elm Island.
  5. The Young Shipbuilders of Elm Island.
  6. The Hardscrabble of Elm Island.

“There is no sentimentalism in this series. It is all downright
matter-of-fact boy life, and of course they are deeply interested in
reading it. The history of pioneer life is so attractive that one
involuntarily wishes to renew those early struggles with adverse
circumstances, and join the busy actors in their successful efforts to
build up pleasant homes on our sea-girt islands.”--_Zion’s Herald._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




_Wonderful Stories._

JUTLAND SERIES.

Four vols. Illustrated. Set in a neat box, or sold separate. Per vol.,
$1.50.

=The Sand Hills of Jutland.= By Hans Christian Andersen. 16mo.
Illustrated.

=Yarns of an Old Mariner.= By Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke. Illustrated by
Cruikshank. 16mo.

=Schoolboy Days.= By W. H. G. Kingston. 16mo. Sixteen illustrations.

=Great Men and Gallant Deeds.= By J. G. Edgar. 16mo. Illustrated.

Four books by four noted authors comprise this series, which contains
Adventures by Sea and Land, Manly Sports of England, Boy Life in
English Schools, Fairy Tales and Legends,--all handsomely illustrated.

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




_Illustrated Natural History._

YOUNG HUNTER’S LIBRARY.

By MRS. R. LEE. Four volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.50.

=The Australian Wanderers.= The Adventures of Captain Spencer and his
Horse and Dog in the Wilds of Australia.

=The African Crusoes.= The Adventures of Carlos and Antonio in the
Wilds of Africa.

=Anecdotes of Animals,= With their Habits, Instincts, &c., &c.

=Anecdotes of Birds, Fishes, Reptiles=, &c., their Habits and Instincts.

This is a very popular series, prepared for the purpose of interesting
the young in the study of natural history. The exciting adventures of
celebrated travellers, anecdotes of sagacity in birds, beasts, &c.,
have been interwoven in a pleasant manner. This series is not only very
interesting but is decidedly profitable reading.

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




_The Great West._

THE FRONTIER SERIES.

Four vols. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.25.

  Twelve Nights in the Hunters’ Camp.
  A Thousand Miles’ Walk Across South America.
  The Cabin on the Prairie.
  Planting the Wilderness.

“The romance surrounding the adventurous lives of Western pioneers and
immigrants has suggested nearly as many stories as the chivalric deeds
of knight-errantry. These tales of frontier life are, however, as a
rule, characterized by such wildness of fancy and such extravagancy
of language that we have often wondered why another Cervantes did not
ridicule our border romances by describing a second Don Quixote’s
adventures on the prairies. We are pleased to notice, that in the new
series of Frontier Tales, by Lee & Shepard, there is an agreeable
absence of sensational writing, of that maudlin sentimentality which
make the generality of such tales nauseous.”--_Standard._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.




MISS LOUISE M. THURSTON’S

CHARLEY ROBERTS SERIES.

To be completed in six vols. Illustrated. Per volume, $1.

  How Charley Roberts Became a Man.
  How Eva Roberts Gained Her Education.
  Charley and Eva’s Home in the West.

(_Others in Preparation._)

In presenting the above new series the publishers believe that they are
adding to that class of juvenile literature whose intrinsic worth is
recognized by those who have at heart the good of the young.

“They are pleasantly written books, descriptive of the struggles and
difficulties of Charley and Eva in attaining to manhood and womanhood,
and they are well adapted to stimulate a noble ambition in the hearts
of young persons.”

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




“Varied and Attractive.”

VACATION STORY-BOOKS.

Six vols. Illust. Per vol., 80 cts.

  Worth not Wealth.
  Country Life.
  The Charm.
  Karl Keigler.
  Walter Seyton.
  Holidays at Chestnut Hill.

       *       *       *       *       *




ROSY DIAMOND STORY-BOOKS.

Six volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., 80 cts.

  The Great Rosy Diamond.
  Daisy, or The Fairy Spectacles.
  Violet, a Fairy Story.
  Minnie, or The Little Woman.
  The Angel Children.
  Little Blossom’s Reward.

These are delightful works for children. They are all very popular, and
have had a wide circulation. They are now presented in a new dress. The
stories are all amusing and instructive, exhibiting human nature in
children, and teaching some very important practical lessons.

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




MAY MANNERING’S

HELPING HAND SERIES.

Six volumes. Illustrated. Per volume, $1.

  Climbing the Rope.
  Billy Grimes’s Favorite.
  The Cruise of the Dashaway.
  The Little Spaniard.
  Salt Water Dick.
  Little Maid of Oxbow.

“‘May Mannering’ is the _nom de plume_ of an agreeable writer for
the young folks who possesses more than ordinary ability, and has a
thorough comprehension of the way to interest children.”--_Philadelphia
Item._

“We like the spirit of these books exceedingly, and cordially commend
it to the notice of Sabbath School Libraries.”--_Ladies’ Repository._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.

       *       *       *       *       *




“Fascinating and Instructive.”

THE PROVERB SERIES.

BY MRS. M. E. BRADLEY AND MISS KATE J. NEELY.

Six vols. Illust. Per vol., $1.

  Birds of a Feather.
  Fine Feathers do Not make Fine Birds.
  Handsome is that Handsome does.
  A Wrong Confessed is half Redressed.
  Actions speak louder than Words.
  One Good Turn deserves another.

“Each volume is complete in itself, and illustrates, with a story of
most fascinating and instructive interest, the proverb taken for its
title. These are just the kind of books that we like to see in a family
or Sunday-school library. They will be read by persons of all ages with
deep interest, and afford instructive and entertaining conversation
with the children.”--_S. S. Journal._

=LEE & SHEPARD=, Publishers, Boston.


[Transcriber’s Note:

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]





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