LIBRARY
 
 I.
 
 
 lEl & SHEnUID BOSTi
 
 STORIES. 
 
 LION BEN 
 
 ELM ISLAND 
 
 BT 
 
 REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG, 
 
 AUTEOE OF "8PABTACU8 TO THE G L ADI ATOES," 
 "GOOD OLD TIMES," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 LEE, SHEPARD & DILLINGIIAM, 49 GREENE STREET. 
 1875.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1868, by 
 
 LEE AND SHKl'AKI), 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts 
 
 ELECTROTTPK) AT IHI 
 
 BOBTOS STEREOTYPE FOCNDRT, 
 
 19 Spring Lane.
 
 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. 
 
 Others in preparation.
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 IF the writer ever tasted unalloyed happiness, 
 it has been when exciting to manly effort a noble 
 boy, whose nature responded to the impulse as a 
 generous horse' leaps under the pressure of the 
 knee. 
 
 Hours and years thus spent have brought their 
 owii reward. The desire to meet a want not as 
 yet fully satisfied, to impart pleasure, and, at the 
 same time, inspire respect for labor, integrity, and 
 every noble sentiment, has originated the stories 
 contained in the " Elm Island Series," in which we 
 shall endeavor 'to place before American youth the 
 home life of those from whom they sprung ; the 
 boy life of those who grew up amid the exciting 
 scenes and peculiar perils and enjoyments incident 
 to frontier life, by sea and land ; in fine, that type 
 
 (5)
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 of character which has transformed a wilderness 
 into a land of liberty and wealth, and replaced the 
 log canoe of the pioneer by a commerce, the mar- 
 vel of the age ; to the intent that, as insects 
 take the color of the bark on which they feed, they 
 also may learn to despise effeminacy and vice, and 
 sympathize with, and emulate, the virtues they 
 here find portrayed.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. ELM ISLAND 9 
 
 II. THE RHINES FAMILY 25 
 
 III. TIGE RHINES 39 
 
 IV. BEN'S COURTSHIP 60 
 
 V. SALLY TELLS HER MOTHER ALL ABOUT IT. . G4 
 
 VI. BEN BUYS ELM ISLAND 70 
 
 VII. CAPTAIN RHINES RIDING OUT A GALE BE- 
 FORE THE FIRE 77 
 
 VIII. BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. ... 88 
 
 IX. Too GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE 107 
 
 X. THE SURPRISE PARTY 115 
 
 XI. THE CHRISTENING 122 
 
 XII. THE PULL-UP 127 
 
 XIII. INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES. . 135 
 
 XIV. BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC, AND is COM- 
 
 FORTED 145 
 
 XV. ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT 153 
 
 XVI. BEN OUTWITTED, AND UNCLE IgAAC ASTON- 
 ISHED 164 
 
 (7)
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 XVII. THEY MARRY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. . 172 
 
 XVIII. THE BRIDAL CALL 184 
 
 XIX. AN UNGRATEFUL BOY 193 
 
 XX. PETER CLASH AND THE WOLF-TRAP. . . . 201 
 
 XXI. WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. . . 210 
 
 XXn. BEN'S NOVEL SHIP 224 
 
 XXIII. PETE, IN QUEST OF REVENGE, COMES TO 
 
 GRIEF. . , ... 245
 
 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ELM ISLAND. 
 
 IN one of the most beautiful of the many ro- 
 mantic spots on the rugged coast of Eastern Maine 
 lived Captain Ben Rhines. The country was just 
 ' emerging from the terrible struggle of the revolu- 
 tion, and the eastern part of the state had settled 
 very slowly. The older portion of the inhabitants, 
 now living in frame houses, had been born and 
 passed their childhood in log camps. 
 
 Captain Rhines's house stood at the head of a 
 little cove, on the western side of a large bay, 
 formed by a sweep in the main shore on the one 
 side, and a point on the other, called (from the 
 name of its owner, Isaac Murch) "Uncle Isaac's 
 Point." 
 
 A small stream, that carried a saw and grist 
 mill, found an outlet at the head of it, while the
 
 10 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 milldam served the inhabitants for a bridge. A 
 number of islands were scattered over the surface 
 of the bay, some of them containing hundreds 
 of acres; others, a mere patch of rock and turij 
 fringed with the white foam of the breakers. 
 
 At a distance of six miles, broad off at sea, in a 
 north-westerly direction, lay an island, called Elm 
 Island, deriving its name from the great numbers 
 of that tree which grew on its southern end. 
 
 As we shall have a great deal to do with this 
 island, it is necessary to be particular in the de- 
 scription of it. It was about three miles in length, 
 rocks and all, by two in width, running north-east 
 and south-west, and parallel to the main land. 
 From the eastern side, Captain Raines's house and 
 the whole extent of the bay, and Uncle Isaac's 
 Point, were visible. Nature seemed to have lav- 
 ished her skill upon this secluded spot. 
 
 The island was formed by two ridges of rock 
 forming the line of the shore, the intervening valley 
 dividing the island nearly in the middle. These 
 ridges sloped gradually, on their inner sides, into 
 fertile swales of deep, strong soil. The shores 
 were perpendicular, dropping plump down into the 
 ocean, being in some places forty feet above the 
 level of the water. They were rent and seamed
 
 ELM ISLAND. 11 
 
 by the frost and waves ; and, in the crevices of the 
 rocks, the spruce and birch trees thrust their roots, 
 and, clinging to the face of the cliff, struggled for 
 life with waves and tempests. 
 
 The island would have been well nigh inacces- 
 sible, had not nature provided on the south-western 
 end a most remarkable harbor. The line of per- 
 pendicular cliffs on the north-west ran the whole 
 length of the island, against which, even in calm, 
 weather, the ground-swell of the ocean eternally 
 beat. The westerly ridge, which was covered with 
 soil of a moderate depth, gradually sloped as it ap- 
 proached the south-western end, till it terminated 
 in a broad space occupying the whole width be- 
 tween the outer cliffs, and gradually sloping to the 
 water's edge. This portion of the island was bare 
 of Avood, and covered with green grass. The east- 
 ern ridge terminated in a long, broad point, covered 
 with a growth of spruce trees, so dense that not a 
 breath of wind could get through them, and, curv- 
 ing around, formed a beautiful cove, whose precipi- 
 tous sides broke off the easterly sea and gales. 
 
 Into the head of this cove poured a brook, which, 
 Jike a little boy, had a very small beginning. It 
 came out from beneath the roots of two yellow 
 birch trees that grew side by side in a little stream
 
 12 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 not more than two inches deep. As it ran on, it 
 was joined by two other springs, that came out 
 from the westerly ridge. The waters of these 
 springs, together with the rains which slowly 
 filtered through the forest, made quite a brook, 
 which was never dry in the hottest weather. 
 
 At certain periods of the year the frost-fish and 
 the smelts came up from the sea into the mouth of 
 this brook. The cove, also, -was full of flounders 
 and minnows, eels and lobsters, and abounded in 
 clams. The fish attracted the fish-hawks and 
 herons, who filled the woods with their notes. 
 Sometimes there would be ten blue herons' nests 
 on one great beech. The fish-hawks attracted the 
 eagles, who obtained their principal living by rob- 
 bing the fish-hawks. The wild geese, coots, whis- 
 tlers, brants, and sea-ducks also came there to drink. 
 This was not the natural habitat of the large blue 
 heron, their food not being found there to any 
 great extent, as the shores were too bold, and the 
 waters too deep ; their favorite feeding grounds 
 are the broad shallow coves, where they can wade 
 into the water with their long legs, and catch little 
 fish as they come up on the flood tide ; but they 
 prefer to go after their food, rather than abandon 
 this secluded spot, where they are secure from al]
 
 ELM ISLAND. la 
 
 enemies, and where the tall trees afforded these shy 
 birds such advantages for building their nests. As 
 for the fish-hawks, who dive and take their food 
 from the water, it was just the place for them. 
 
 There was also on the eastern side of the west- 
 ern ridge a swamp, a most solitary place, so thickly 
 timbered with enormous hemlocks and firs, mixed 
 with white cedar, that it was almost as dark as 
 twilight at noonday. Here dwelt an innumerable 
 multitude of herons, where they had bred undis- 
 turbed for ages. Much smaller than the great blue 
 heron, they built their nests in the low firs and 
 cedars ; and as they fed upon frogs, grasshoppers, 
 mice, tadpoles, and minnows, they were not obliged 
 to leave the island for their food : they were per- 
 fectly at home and happy. 
 
 They belonged to that species called, by nat- 
 uralists, ardea nycticorax. The inhabitants called 
 them squawks and flying foxes, from the noise 
 they made. Like all the heron tribe, they are ex- 
 tremely quick of hearing, and feed mostly in the 
 morning and evening twilight, half asleep through 
 the day among the branches of the firs, standing 
 on one leg. They make shallow nests of sticks, 
 and lay three or four green eggs. You may walk 
 through their haunts : all is still as death, appar-
 
 14 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 ently not a heron on the island, while thousands 
 of them are right over your head, and all around 
 you, listening to every step you take, the slightest 
 noise of which they will hear, when you do not 
 notice it yourself.. Crack goes a diy stick under 
 your foot; you catch your toe under a spruce root, 
 and tumble down ; instantly the intense stillness 
 of the woods is broken by a flapping of wings and 
 rustling of branches, succeeded by quaw, qixaw, 
 squawk, squawk, producing a chorus almost deafen- 
 ing. The sound they emit, which is a union of 
 growl, bark, and scream, comes from their throat 
 with such suddenness, breaking upon the deep si- 
 lence of the woods, like the whirr of the partridge, 
 that it will make you jump, though you are pre- 
 pared for it and accustomed to it. Then you will 
 see them, after flying to a safe distance, light on 
 the tips of the fir limbs, holding themselves up 
 with their wings on the bending branch, like a bob- 
 olink on a spear of herds-grass, from which they 
 will in an instant crawl down into the middle of 
 the tree, sitting close to the trunk, where it is im- 
 possible to see them. You must therefore shoot 
 them when they are on the wing, or at the mo- 
 ment they light. 
 
 They will bear a great deal of killing, and even
 
 ELM ISLAXD. 15 
 
 make believe dead. I knew a boy once who shot 
 four squawks, and after beating them with an iron 
 ramrod, left them tied up in his pocket-handkerchief 
 at the foot of a tree while he was clambering up 
 after eggs : when he came down, two of them had 
 crawled out of the handkerchief and run away. 
 They will show fight, too, when they are wounded, 
 bite and thrust with their bill, and scratch terribly 
 with their claws. As if to compensate for the hor- 
 rible noise they make, the full-grown male is a very 
 handsome bird. The top of the head and back 
 are green, the eyes a bright, flashing red, and just 
 above them a little patch of pure white. - The bill 
 is black, the wings ai*e light blue, the back part 
 and sides of the neck lilac, shading on the fi-ont 
 and breast to a cream color, and the legs yellow. 
 From the back part of the head depend three 
 feathers, white as -snow and extremely delicate, 
 rolled together, and as long as the neck. 
 
 The mouth of the little brook of which we have 
 spoken was a very busy place when the fish-hawks 
 were fishing, or carrying sticks to build their nests, 
 and screaming with all their might, the herons fish- 
 ing for minnows, squawks catching frogs, the wild 
 geese making their peculiar noise, the sea-fowl div- 
 ing, the ducks quacking, and the fish jumping from
 
 16 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 the water in schools. It shows how God provides 
 for all his creatures, for though there are thou- 
 sands of these islands scattered along the coast 
 of Maine, on the smallest of them, and some that 
 are mere rocks, you will find springs of living 
 water. 
 
 On this island was a spring, that whenever the 
 tide was in was six feet under water; but when 
 the tide ebbed, there was the spring bubbling up 
 in the white sand, as good fresh water as was ever 
 drank. 
 
 Old Skipper Brown said he knew the time when 
 it was a rod -up the bank ; that when he used to go 
 fishing with his father, he had filled many a jug 
 with water out of it ; but the frost and the sea had 
 undermined the bank and washed it away, till the 
 tide came to flow over it. 
 
 There is another thing in relation to this little 
 harbor, of great importance ; for though the high 
 rocks and the thick wood sheltered the little cove 
 from all but the south and south-west winds, yet it 
 would have been (at any rate the mouth of it) very 
 much exposed to the whole sweep of the Atlantic 
 waves in southerly gales ; and though the cove was 
 so winding that a vessel in the head of it could not 
 be hurt by the sea, yet it would have been very
 
 ELM ISLAND. 17 
 
 hard going in, and impossible to get out in bad 
 weather, had it not been for a provision of nature, 
 of which I shall now speak, consisting of some rag- 
 ged and outlying rocks. 
 
 One of these was called the White Bull, deriv- 
 ing its name from the peculiar hoarse roar which 
 the sea made as it broke upon it, and also the white 
 cliffs of which it was composed. It was a long 
 granite ledge, perpendicular on the inside, and far 
 above the reach of the highest waves. On the sea- 
 ward side it ran off into irregular broken reefs, 
 covei-ed with kelp, the home of the rock cod and 
 lobster, and the favorite resort of all the diving 
 sea-fowl, who fed on the weeds growing on the 
 bottom. 
 
 In the centre of these reefs was a large cove. 
 Between this rock and the eastern point of the 
 island was another, of similar shape, but smaller 
 dimensions, called the Little Bull : they were con- 
 nected by a reef running beneath the water, against 
 which the sea broke, in storms, with great fury; and 
 even in calm weather, from the ground swell of the 
 ocean, it was white with the foaming breakers. 
 
 On the western side was a long, high, narrow 
 island, called, from its shape, the "Junk of Pork," 
 with deep watei all around it, and covered with 
 2
 
 18 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 grass. The two ends of this island lapped by th* 
 western point of the White Bull and the western 
 point of the main island, thus presenting a com- 
 plete barrier against the sea. The whole space be- 
 tween the main land and these outlying rocks and 
 islands was a beautiful harbor, the bottom of which 
 was clay, and sand on top, thus affording an excel- 
 lent hold to anchors. 
 
 There were two passages to go in and out, ac- 
 cording as the wind might happen to be, with deep 
 water close to the rocks. This harbor was a favor- 
 ite resort of the fishermen, who came here to di 
 
 * O 
 
 clams in the cove, and catch menhaden and herring 
 for bait ; they also stopped here in the afternoons 
 to get water, and make a fire on the rocks, and take 
 a cup of tea, before they went out to fish all night 
 for hake ; they also resorted to it in the morning to 
 dress their fish and make a chowder, and lie under 
 the shadow of the trees and sleep all the afternoon, 
 that they might be ready to go out the next night. 
 The bottom of the cove oil the White Bull wag 
 of granite, sloping gradually into deep water, and 
 smooth as ice. Beneath this formation of granite 
 was a blue rock of much softer texture than gran- 
 ite. The sea, in great storms, rolled the fragments 
 of blue stone back and forth on this granite floor,
 
 ELM ISLAND. 19 
 
 and wore away and rounded the corners, making 
 them of the shape of those you see in the pave- 
 ments of the cities. The action of these stones for 
 hundreds of years, on this granite floor, had worn 
 holes in it as big as the mouth of a well, and two 
 or three feet in depth. Sometimes a great square 
 rock would get in one of them, too big for the sum- 
 mer winds to fling out, and the sea would roll it 
 round in the hole all summer, wear the corners off, 
 and then the December gales would wash it out. 
 Among the quartz sand in the bottom of this cove 
 you could pick up crystals that had been ground 
 out of the rocks, from an eighth of an inch to an 
 inch in diameter. 
 
 It was a glorious sight to behold, and one never 
 to be forgotten, either in this world or the next, 
 when the waves, which had been growing beneath 
 the winter's gale the whole breadth of the Atlantic, 
 came thundering in on these ragged rocks, break- 
 ing thirty feet high, pouring through the gaps be- 
 tween them, white foam on their summits and deep 
 green beneath, and when a gleam of sunshine, 
 breaking from a ragged cloud, flashed along their 
 edges, displaying for a moment all the colors of 
 the rainbow. But when in the outer cove of the 
 White Bull the great wave came up, a quarter of
 
 20 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 a mile in length, bearing before it the pebbles, 
 some weighing three hundred pounds, others not 
 larger than a sparrow's egg, all alive and moving in. 
 the surf, and rolling over each other on the smooth 
 granite bottom, how* solemn to listen to that awful 
 roar, like the voice of Almighty God ! 
 
 Amid all this commotion, the little harbor, pro- 
 tected by its granite ramparts, was tranquil as a 
 summer's lake. The surface of it was indeed 
 flecked with the froth of the breakers that drifted 
 in little bunches through the gaps of the rocks, 
 and there was a slight movement caused by the 
 last pulsation of some dying wave; but that was 
 all, and way up in the cove there was no motion 
 whatever. 
 
 It may be interesting as well as instructive, hav- 
 ing the old traditions of the island to guide us, to 
 consider the manner in which this picturesque and 
 most useful harbor was formed. 
 
 Captain Rhines said his father told him, that 
 when he was a boy (nearly seventy years before 
 the date of our tale) these outer rocks were all 
 connected with the main island. Between the 
 eastern end of the island and the Little Bull, and 
 between the Little Bull and the White Bull, was a 
 strip of clay loam, covered with a growth of fir,
 
 ELM ISLAND. 21 
 
 hemlock, and spruce ; and between the White Bull 
 and the Junk of Pork, and the western point of 
 the main island, were sand-spits mixed with stones, 
 and salt grass growing on them. What is now the 
 harbor was then a swamp, into which the brook and 
 all the rain-water from the higher portions of the 
 island drained. In the middle of this swamp was 
 a pond, margined with alder bushes, cat-tail flags, 
 and rotten logs. In high courses of tides the salt 
 water came into it, and this brackish water bred 
 myriads of mosquitos. 
 
 When people went on there, they had to pick 
 a smooth time, and go right on the top of the tide, 
 and haul their boat over a sand-spit into the swamp. 
 It was impossible to land, or get away from there, 
 when it was rough. Captain Rhines went on there 
 once a gunning, in December, and had to stay a 
 week. Having no axe to build a camp, he turned 
 his boat bottom up to sleep under, and getting fire 
 with his gun, cooked and ate sea-fowl ; but he got 
 awful tired of them. 
 
 He said, moreover, that the land on the outside 
 kept caving off every spring when the frost came 
 out, and falling into the sea, till there was only a 
 little strip of land, with three old hemlocks upon 
 it, left; and he used to pity them as they stood
 
 22 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 there shivering in the gale, their great roots stick- 
 ing out drying in the wind, and dripping with salt 
 spray, for he knew they were doomed, and must go. 
 
 At length there came a dreadful high title and 
 south-east gale; the sea broke in and swept the 
 whole soil off, and in the course of ten years turned 
 it into a clam bed. It was the greatest place to 
 get clams, for a clam chowder, that ever was in 
 the world. He said that it kept gradually scour- 
 ing out and deepening, till it became a first-rate 
 harbor. 
 
 This island was owned by a merchant of Boston, 
 in whose employ Captain Rhines had sailed for 
 many years, who gave him liberty to pasture it 
 with sheep, as a recompense for taking care of and 
 preventing squatters from plundering it of spars 
 and timber. As sheep are very fond of sea-weed 
 and kelp, they would make a very good living on a 
 place like this island, where most of our domestic 
 animals would find pretty hard fare. 
 
 An island like this of which I have spoken is a 
 very pretty spot to describe or visit ; but I should 
 like to ask my young readers if they think they 
 could be happy in such a place, especially after 
 they have enumerated with me the things, those 
 we suppose to be living there would be deprived
 
 ELM ISLAND. 23 
 
 of, and which they often imagine they could not 
 live without. 
 
 There was not a road on the island, nor a side- 
 walk, only foot-paths ; not a horse, a store, church, 
 school-house, post-office, museum, or toy-shop ; not 
 a piano, nor any kind of musical instrument, ex- 
 cept the grand diapason of the breakers ; no circus, 
 caravan, soldiers, nor fireworks; no confectionery 
 nor ice-creams. 
 
 The island stood alone in the ocean ; and though 
 you could land at any time when you could get 
 there, yet there were weeks together in winter, 
 when, in case of sickness or death, not a boat could 
 live to cross from the main land ; they were com- 
 pletely shut out from all the rest of the world. 
 But you say, perhaps, these people must have been 
 very poor. 
 
 O, not at all. If you mean, by being poor, that 
 they had not much money, or horses, or carriages, 
 or rich dresses, and servants to wait on them, why, 
 then they were poor ; but if you mean by the term 
 poor, such poverty as you see in the cities or in the 
 large country towns, where you may see aged 
 women in rags begging from door to door ; chil- 
 dren with their little bare feet as red as the 
 pigeons' with the cold, picking the little bits of
 
 24 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 coal out of the ashes that are thrown out of the 
 stores and houses ; gathering pieces of hoops and 
 chips around the wharves and warehouses to carry 
 home to burn ; with the tears running down their 
 little cheeks, crying, " Please give me a cent to buy 
 some bread," O, there was no such poverty as 
 that there : they never knew what it was to want 
 good wholesome food, and good coarse warm cloth- 
 ing to keep out the frost and snow. 
 
 " But how did they get it, if they had not much 
 money to buy it ? " 
 
 " Get it ? Why, they worked for it ; and if any 
 one had called these island people beggars, they 
 would have broken his head, or flung him over- 
 board." 
 
 You may think as you like, my young friends ; 
 but people did live on this island, and were happy 
 as the days are long, though they had their trials 
 and " head flaws," as we all must.
 
 THE KHINES FAMILY. 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE RHINE S FAMILY. 
 
 IN order that you may know all about them, we 
 will resume the thread of our story, and trace the 
 history of Captain Rhines and his family. 
 
 The captain was a strong-built, finely propor- 
 tioned, " hard-a-weather " sailor, not a great deal 
 the worse for wear, and seasoned by the suns and 
 frosts of many climates. In early life he had ex- 
 perienced the bitter struggle with poverty. 
 
 His father came into the country when it was a 
 wilderness, with nothing but a narrow axe, and 
 strength to use it. His first crops being cut off by 
 the frosts, they were compelled to live for months 
 upon clams, and the leaves of beech trees boiled. 
 There were no schools ; and the parents, engaged in 
 a desperate struggle for existence with famine and 
 the Indians, were unable to instruct their children. 
 Fishing vessels from Marblehead often anchored in 
 the cove near the log camp, and little Ben, anxious 
 to earn somewhat to aid his parents in their pov- 
 erty, went as cook in one of these vessels when so
 
 26 LTON" BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 small that some one had to hang on the pot for 
 him. lie was thus engaged for several summers, 
 till big enough to go as boy in a coaster. Dur- 
 ing the winters, arrayed in buckskin breeches, I. - 
 dian moccasons, and a coon-skin cap, he helped his 
 father make staves, and hauled them to the landing 
 on a hand-sled. 
 
 At nineteen years of age he went to Salem, and 
 shipped in a brig bound to Havana, to load with 
 sugar for Europe. He was then a tall, handsome, 
 resolute boy as ever the sun shone upon, without a 
 single vicious habit; for his parents, though poor, 
 were religious, and had brought him up to hard 
 work and the fear of God. 
 
 He was passionately fond of a gun and dogs, 
 and what little leisure he ever had was spent in 
 hunting and fowling. As respected his fitness 
 for his position, he could "steer a good trick," 
 had learned what little seamanship was to be ob- 
 tained on board a fisherman and coaster, but he 
 could not read, or even write his name. 
 
 The mate of the vessel conceived a liking for 
 him the moment he came over the ship's side, and 
 this good opinion increased upon acquaintance. 
 They had been but a fortnight at sea, when he said 
 to the captain, " That long-legged boy, who shipped
 
 THE KHIXES FAMILY. 27 
 
 for a green hand, will be as good a man as we have 
 on board before we get into the English Channel ; 
 he will reeve studding-sail, gear, already, quicker 
 than any ordinary seaman. I liked the cut of his 
 jib the moment I clapped eyes on him. If that boy 
 lives he'll be master of a ship before many years." 
 
 " I hardly see how that can be," replied the cap- 
 tain, "for he can't write his own name." 
 
 " Can't write his own name ! Why, that is im- 
 possible." 
 
 "At any rate he made his mark on the ship's 
 articles, and he is the only one of the crew who did." 
 
 "Well," replied the mate, "I can't see through 
 it ; but he's in my watch, and I'll know more about 
 it before twenty-four hours." 
 
 That night the mate went forward where Ben 
 was keeping the lookout. 
 
 "Ben!" 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 " Where do you hail from ?" 
 
 "Way down in the woods in Maine, Mr. Brown." 
 
 "What was you about there ?" 
 
 "Fishing and coasting summers, and working in 
 the woods in the winter." 
 
 " Why didn't you ship, then, for an ordinary sea- 
 man, and get more wages ? "
 
 28 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 "Because, sir, I was never in a square-rigged 
 vessel before, and I didn't want to ship to do what 
 I might not be able to perform." 
 
 "I see you made your 'mark' on the brig's 
 articles. Were you never at school ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " There's no such thing where I came from." 
 
 " Couldn't your parents read and write ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Then why didn't they learn you themselves ?" 
 
 "There were a good many of us, sir, and they 
 were so put to it to raise enough to live on, and 
 fight the Indians, they had no time for it." 
 
 The mate was a noble-hearted man ; all his sym- 
 pathies were touched at seeing so fine a young 
 man prevented from rising by an ignorance that 
 was no fault of his own. He took two or three 
 turns across the deck, and at length said, 
 
 " I tell you what it is, youngster : I'll say this 
 much before your face or behind your back : you're 
 just the best behaved boy, the quickest to learn 
 your duty, and the most willing to do it, that I 
 ever saw, and I've been following the sea for nearly 
 thirty years ; and before I'll see an American boy 
 like you kept down by ignorance, I'll do as I'd
 
 THE EHINES FAMILY. 29 
 
 T>t Jone by turn schoolmaster, and teach you my- 
 sett" 
 
 Mr. Brown was as good as his word. "While the 
 rest of the crew in their forenoon watch below 
 were mending their clothes, telling long yarns, or 
 playing cards, and when in port drinking and frol- 
 icking, Ben was learning to read and write, and 
 putting his whole soul into it. He stuck to the 
 vessel, and Mr. Brown stuck to him. When he 
 shipped the next voyage as able seaman, he wrote 
 his name in good fair hand. 
 
 They went to Charleston, South Carolina, to 
 load with pitch, rice, and deer-skins, for Liverpool. 
 The vessel was a long time completing her cargo, 
 as it had to be picked up from the plantations. 
 Ben improved the time to learn navigation. From 
 Liverpool they went to Barbadoes. While lying 
 there, the captain of the ship James Welch, of Bos- 
 ton, named after the principal owner, died. The 
 mate taking charge of the ship, Ben, by Mr. 
 Brown's recommendation, obtained the first mate's 
 berth. He was now no longer Ben, but Mr. Rhines, 
 and finally becoming master of the ship, continued 
 in the employ of Mr. Welch as long as he followed 
 the sea. He then married, built a house on the 
 site of the old log camp, and surrounded it with
 
 30 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 fruit and shade trees, for, by travel and obser- 
 vation, he had acquired ideas of taste, beauty, and 
 comfort, quite in advance of the times, or his 
 neighbors. He then took his parents home to live 
 with him, and made their last days happy. 
 
 Although he was compelled by necessity thus 
 early to go to sea, he had a strong attachment to 
 the soil, and would have devoted himself to its 
 cultivation in middle life, had he not met with 
 losses, which so much embarrassed him, that he 
 was compelled to continue at sea to extricate him- 
 self. 
 
 Captain Rhines's fine house, nice furniture, and 
 curiosities which he brought home from time to 
 time, excited no heart-burnings among his neigh- 
 bors, because they knew he had earned them by 
 hard work, and did not think himself better than 
 others on account of that. 
 
 Thus, when he became embarrassed, instead of 
 saying, " Good enough for him," " He will have to 
 leave off some of his quarter-deck airs now," every- 
 body felt sorry for him, and told him so. 
 
 Indeed, everything about the Rhines family was 
 pleasant, and excited cheerful emotions. The eld 
 house itself had a most comfortable, cosy look, as it 
 lay in the very eye of the sun, with an orchard
 
 THE KHINES FAMILY. 31 
 
 before it, green fields stretching along the water, 
 sheltered on the north-west by high land and for- 
 est. The shores were fringed with thickets of 
 beech and birch, branches of which, at high tide, 
 almost touched the surface of the water. 
 
 Some houses are high and thin, resembling a 
 sheet of gingerbread set on edge ; they impress 
 you with a painful feeling of insecurity, as though 
 they might blow over. Such houses generally 
 have all the windows abreast, so that when the 
 curtains are up, and the blinds open, you can look 
 right through them. They seem cold, cheerless, 
 repellent ; you shrug your shoulders and shiver as 
 you look at them. But this house was large on 
 the ground, and looked as if it grew there, with an 
 ell and long shed running to the barn, a sunny 
 door-yard, a spreading beech before the end door, 
 with a great wood-pile under it, suggestive of rous- 
 ing fires. 
 
 There was a row of Lombard y poplars in front 
 of the house, and a large rock maple at the corner 
 of the barn-yard, which the children always tapped 
 in the spring to get sap to drink and make sap 
 coffee. There was a real hospitable look about the 
 old homestead ; it seemed to say, " There's pork in 
 the cellar, there's corn in the crib, hay in the barn,
 
 32 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and a good fire on the hearth : walk in, neighbor, 
 and make yourself at home." 
 
 But the popularity of Captain Rhines among his 
 neighbors had a deeper root than this. A great 
 many of the young men in the neighborhood had 
 been their first voyage to sea with him ; he had 
 treated them in such a manner, had taken so much 
 pains to advance them in their profession, that they 
 respected and loved him ever after. 
 
 When it was known in the neighborhood that 
 Captain Rhines was going to sea, the question was 
 not, how he should get men, but how he should 
 get rid of them, there were so many eager for the 
 berth. 
 
 It would have done your heart good to have 
 seen the happy faces of the men grouped together 
 on that ship's forecastle, waiting, like hounds strain- 
 ing in the leash, for the order to man the windlass ; 
 not an old broken-down shellback among them, but 
 all the neighbors' boys, in their red shirts, and duck 
 trousers white as the driven snow, which their 
 mothers had washed. 
 
 As each one of them had a character to sustain, 
 was anxious to outdo his shipmate, and the greater 
 portion of them were in love with some neighbor's 
 daughter, and expected to be married as soon as
 
 THE RUIXES FAMILY. 83 
 
 they were master of a ship, it is evident there was 
 very little to do in the way of discipline. It was 
 a jolly sight, when there came a gale of wind, to 
 see them scamper up the rigging, racing witL each 
 other for the " weather-earing." 
 
 Captain Rhines, though a large and powerfully 
 built man, was a pygmy to his son Ben. Ben 
 measured, crooks and all, six feet two inches in 
 height, weighing two hundred and thirty pounds. 
 He was possessed of strength in proportion to his 
 size, and, what was more remarkable, was as spry 
 as an eel, and could jump out of a hogshead with- 
 out touching his hands to it. His neighbors called 
 him "Lion Ben." He obtained the appellation 
 from this circumstance. 
 
 One day when the inhabitants of the district 
 were at work on the roads, they dug out a large 
 rock. Ben, then nineteen years of age, took it up, 
 carried it out of the road, dropped it, and said it 
 might stay there till they raised another man in 
 town strong enough to take it back. 
 
 He was now twenty-six years of age, of excel- 
 lent capacity, and good education for the times, 
 his father having sent him to Massachusetts to 
 school. It was very difficult to provoke him ; but 
 when, after long provocation, he became enraged, 
 3
 
 34 LIOX BEN OF ELM ISLAXD. 
 
 his temper broke out in an instant, .and he knew 
 no measure in his wrath. His townsmen loved 
 him, because he used his strength to protect the 
 weak, and were at the same time excessively proud 
 of him, as in all the neighboring towns there was 
 not a man that could throw him, or that even 
 dared to take hold of him. 
 
 He had a large chair made on purpose for him 
 to sit in, and tools for him to work with ; and if 
 anybody lent a crowbar to Captain Rhines, they 
 always said, " Don't let Ben use it," as in that case 
 it was sure to come home bent double, and had to 
 be sent to the blacksmith's to be straightened. 
 
 He was passionately fond of gunning, and would 
 risk life and limb to shoot a goose or sea-duck. 
 Though he had followed the sea since he was sev- 
 enteen years of age, yet he was greatly attached 
 to the soil, and when at home loved to work on 
 it. It was a curious sight to see this great giant 
 weeding the garden, or at work upon his sister's 
 flower-bed. 
 
 He was a generous-hearted creature ; when any- 
 body was sick or poor he would get all the young 
 folks together, make a bee, get in their corn, do 
 their planting, or cut their winter's wood for them, 
 lie had often done this for the widow Hadloek,
 
 THE RHINES FAMILY. 35 
 
 who was their nearest neighbor. The widow Had- 
 lock's husband, a very enterprising sea captain, had 
 died at sea, in the prime of life, leaving his widow 
 with a young family, a farm, a fine house well fur- 
 nished, but nothing more. The broken-hearted 
 woman had struggled very hard to keep the 
 homestead for her children, and the whole family 
 together. Being a woman of great prudence, in- 
 dustry, and judgment, with the help of good 
 neighbors, she had succeeded. Her oldest son was 
 now able to manage the farm, and the bitterness 
 of the struggle was past. 
 
 The tax-gatherer came to the widow for the 
 taxes. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Jones," said the widow, "you tax 
 me altogether too much ; I have not so much 
 property." 
 
 "O, Mrs. Hadlock," said he, "we tax you for 
 your faculty." 
 
 Notwithstanding all the sterling qualities we have 
 enumerated, the personal appearance of Ben Rhines 
 was anything but an exponent of his character. 
 There was such an enormous enlargement of the 
 muscles of the shoulders, and his neck was so short, 
 that his head seemed to come out of the middle 
 of his breast. The great length of his arms was
 
 36 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 exaggerated by the stoop in bis shoulders : tbougb 
 his legs and hips were large, yet the tremendous 
 development of the upper part of the body gave 
 him the appearance of being top-heavy. 
 
 From such a square-jawed fellow you would 
 naturally expect to proceed a deep bass voice ; but 
 from this monstrous bulk came a soft, child-like 
 voice, such as we sometimes hear from very fat 
 people; and unless he was greatly excited, the 
 words were slowly drawled : the entire impression 
 made by him upon a stranger was that of a great, 
 listless, inoffensive man, without penetration to per- 
 ceive, or courage to resist, imposition. 
 
 But never was the proverb, "Appearances are 
 deceitful," more strikingly verified than in this in- 
 stance. That listless exterior, and almost infantile 
 voice, concealed a mind clear and well informed, 
 and a temper, that when goaded beyond the limits 
 of forbearance, broke out like the eruption of a 
 volcano. 
 
 In his position as mate of a vessel it became his 
 duty to control men of all nations. Being well 
 aware that his appearance was calculated to invite 
 aggression, he took singular methods to escape 
 it. He knew that his temper, when it reached 
 a certain point, was beyond his control. He also
 
 THE KHI3TES FAMILY. 37 
 
 knew his strength ; and as the good-natured giant 
 didn't want to hurt anybody when milder methods 
 would answer the purpose, he would come along 
 just as the ship was getting under way, the men 
 at the topsail halyards, and reaching up above all 
 the rest, bring them down in a heap on deck, caus- 
 ing those that were singing to bite their tongues. 
 Sometimes when two or three sailors were heaving 
 with the handspikes to roll up a spar to the ring- 
 bolts, singing out and making a great fuss, he 
 would seize hold of the end of it, and heave it into 
 its bed apparently without any effort, while the men 
 would wink to each other and reflect upon the 
 consequences of having a brush with such a mate 
 as that. 
 
 By proceeding in this way, though he had taken 
 up one or two that had insulted him beyond en- 
 durance, and smashed them down upon the ground, 
 kicked a truckman into the dock who was beating 
 his horse with a cordwood stick, he never struck 
 but one man in his life, which happened in this 
 wise. 
 
 Ben was on board a ship in port, with only a 
 cook and two boys, the captain having gone home, 
 and the rest of the crew being discharged. He 
 hired an English sailor to help the boys trim some
 
 38 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 ballast in the hold ; they complained that he kicked 
 and abused them. 
 
 Ben told them to go to work again, and he would 
 see about it. After dinner he lay down in his berth 
 for a nap, when he was disturbed by a terrible out- 
 cry in the hold, and, going down, found the sailor 
 beating the boys with a rope's end. He asked him 
 what he was doing that for ; the man said "they 
 wouldn't work, and were saucy to him. Ben re- 
 plied that the boys were good boys, that he had 
 always known them, and that he mustn't strike the 
 boys. The bully asked him if he meant to take it 
 up. Ben replied that he didn't wish to take it up, 
 but he mustn't strike the boys. 
 
 The sailor then threatened to strike him ; upon 
 which Ben stood up before him, and folding his 
 arms on his breast, in his drawling, childish way, 
 told him to strike. The man struck, when Ben in- 
 flicted upon him such a terrible blow, that, falling 
 upon the ballast, he lay and quivered like an ox 
 when he is struck down by the butcher. 
 
 " O, Mr. Rhines, " exclaimed the terrified boys, 
 "you've killed him, you've killed him !" 
 
 "Well," he replied in his quiet way, "if I've 
 tilled him, I've laid him out."
 
 TIGE BHINES. 39 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 
 TIGE BHINES. 
 
 THEEE was another member of the family whose 
 qualities deserve especial mention the great New- 
 foundland dog. 
 
 We have already alluded to the captain's fond- 
 ness for the race : there was always a dog in his 
 father's family. Often had old Lion furnished them 
 with a meal, or detected the ambush of the lurking 
 Indian. As though to round and complete the 
 sum of kindly associations clustering around this 
 pleasant household, even Tiger partook of the good 
 qualities of the family. Captain Rhines said that 
 he wouldn't have a dog that would make the neigh- 
 bors dislike to come to the house ; but as for Tiger, 
 he was both a gentleman and a Christian. 
 
 The breed of dogs to which he belonged are 
 both by nature and inclination fitted for the water, 
 and as insensible to the cold as a white bear. Their 
 skin is greasy ; there is a fine wool under their long 
 hair which turns water; when they come ashore
 
 40 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 they give themselves a shake or two and are nearly 
 dry. They are also -partially web-footed ; they do 
 not swim like common dogs, thrusting their paws 
 out before them like a hog, but spread out their 
 great feet and strike out sidewise like a boy. 
 
 The way in which the captain made the ac- 
 quaintance of Tige was on this wise : One of his 
 last voyages was to Trieste ; he met in the street 
 a fine-looking dog carrying a basket full of eggs ; 
 greatly pleased with the appearance of the animal, 
 he turned to look after him, when, as he passed a 
 stable door, a dog as large as himself attacked him 
 in the rear. He bore it patiently till he came to a 
 house, when, putting down his eggs, he turned 
 upon his persecutor, and gave him such a mauling 
 that he was glad to escape on three legs, and cov- 
 ered with blood. The captain followed the dog to 
 a menagerie, where he ascertained that it was the 
 dog's daily duty to bring eggs to feed the mon- 
 keys ; that he had flogged the other a day or two 
 before, who thought to avenge himself by attacking 
 him at a disadvantage. 
 
 The captain succeeded in buying the animal, 
 though he never dared to tell what he gave for him. 
 
 " Were I not pushed for money," said the show- 
 man, after the bargain was concluded, "I never
 
 TIGE RHINE S. 4\ 
 
 would have parted with him ; he will protect youi 
 person and your property ; you never will be sorry 
 that you bought him, though I shall often regret 
 that I was obliged to sell him." 
 
 Captain Rhines soon found that the showman 
 had spoken the truth. He could leave the most 
 valuable articles on the wharf, and trust them to 
 his keeping. 
 
 So well was his disposition known, that not a 
 child in the neighborhood feared to come to the 
 house by night or day. He would permit any per- 
 son to inspect the premises, but not to touch the 
 least thing. 
 
 They might, in the night time, knock at the door 
 as long as they pleased ; but if they put their hand 
 on the latch, he would knock it off with his paw, 
 and show his teeth in a way that discouraged fur- 
 ther attempts. When the little children came who 
 could not knock loud enough to be heard, he would 
 bark for them till he brought somebody to the door. 
 
 There was nothing so attractive to Tige as a 
 baby on the floor, nor anything in which he so 
 much delighted as to follow them around, and 
 with his great tongue lick meat and gingerbread 
 out of their fists. No wonder his master said he 
 was a gentleman and a Christian ; for though ho
 
 42 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 would tear a thief in a moment, these little tots 
 would get on him as he lay in the grass, stuff his 
 mouth and nose full of clover heads to hear him 
 sneeze, and, when tired of that, lie down on him 
 and go to sleep. 
 
 Next to playing with babies, his favorite employ- 
 ment was fishing. In a calm day, when the water 
 was clear, he would swim off to a dry ledge, called 
 Seal Rock, in the cove before the house, dive down, 
 and bring up a fish every time. 
 
 The fish always worked off on the ebb tide, and 
 came up on the flood. Tige knew as well when it 
 was flood tide, and time to go floundering, as did 
 John Rhines, his bosom friend and constant com- 
 panion. Tige always went to meeting, and slept 
 on the horse-block in fair weather, and under itf in 
 foul. 
 
 The good women said, they did wish Tige Rhines 
 would stay at home, for when they had fixed the 
 children all up nice to go to meeting, they were 
 sure to be hugging him, and he would slobber them 
 all over, lick their hair down about their eyes, and 
 chew their bonnet " ribbins n into strings. 
 
 Captain Rhines hired Sam Hadlock to help him 
 hoe. When he went home Saturday night, he hung 
 up his hoe in the shed, as he expected to work
 
 TIGE KHINES. 43 
 
 there the next week, but, finding his mother's corn 
 was suffering to be hoed, went back to get it. The 
 family had gone to bed, and Tige wouldn't let him 
 touch it, though they were great friends, and he 
 was the next neighbor. He was going into the 
 house without knocking, for they didn't fasten 
 doors in those days; but the instant he put his 
 hand on the latch, the dog knocked it off with his 
 paw, and he was obliged to knock till Ben came 
 and got the hoe for him. 
 
 A more singular proof of his sagacity occurred 
 soon after. They had a fuss in the district with 
 the schoolmaster, and a lawsuit grew out of it. 
 Captain Rhines's daughter was summoned as a 
 witness by the master. He came one evening to 
 see her about it, when the rest of the family were 
 from home. Tiger thought, as she was alone, all 
 was not right; so he waits upon the master to the 
 door, and when she opened it, stood up on his hind 
 legs, and put his fore paws on the master's shoul- 
 ders, and without offering to harm him, kept him 
 there. They had to do their talking over Tiger's 
 shoulder; but when it was finished, he made no ob- 
 jection to his departure. 
 
 In the cove before the house was a beach of fine 
 white sand, without a stone in it, which when wet
 
 44 LION BEN OF EL3I ISLAND. 
 
 was as hard as a floor. The children were never 
 tired of playing on this spot. The upper portion, 
 which was only occasionally wet by the tide, was 
 dry and the sand loose, while the lower part, which 
 the water had recently left, was hard and smooth 
 to run on, thus affording them a variety of amuse- 
 ments. Some would run races on the beach, chase 
 the retreating waves, and then scamper back, 
 screaming with delight, as the wave broke around 
 their heels. 
 
 Others sailed boats, waded in the water after 
 shells, and if they could get Tige, they would spit 
 on a stick and fling it as far as they could into the 
 water, and send him in to fetch it out, while those 
 who were learning to swim would catch hold of his 
 tail and be towed ashore. While all this was go- 
 ing on at the water's edge, another party on the 
 upper portion would be rolling over on the hot, 
 clean sand, and building forts, and digging wells 
 with clam shells ; others still, under the clay bank, 
 were making mud puddings and pies, and roasting 
 clarns at a great fire made of drift-wood. 
 
 Parents did not like very well to have the chil- 
 dren, especially the little ones, play there so much, 
 fur fear of their getting drowned ; and the larger 
 ones could not well be spared from work to go
 
 TIGE KHINES. 45 
 
 \vith them; but they could not find it in their 
 hearts to forbid them, they had such a good time 
 of it. So, once or twice every week during the 
 summer, a group of little folks would come to the 
 captain's, and one of them, making her best " courte- 
 sy," would say, 
 
 '" Captain Rhines, me, and Eliza Ann Hadlock, 
 and Caroline Griffin, and the "Warren girls, are go- 
 ing down to the cove to play, and my marm wants 
 to know if Tige can go and take care of us." 
 
 Tige, who knew what the children wanted as 
 well as they did themselves, would stand looking 
 his master in the face, wagging his tail, and saying, 
 as plain as a dog could say, " Do let me go, sir." 
 
 Captain Rhines, one afternoon, set a herring net 
 in the mouth of the cove. These nets are very 
 long, and are set by fastening the upper edge to a 
 rope, called the cork-rope. On this rope are strung 
 corks, or wooden buoys made of cedar, which keep 
 it on top of the water. It is then stretched out, 
 and the two ends fastened to the bottom by 
 " grapplings." To each end larger buoys are fas- 
 tened ; weights are then attached to the lower 
 edge, so that it hangs perpendicular in the water. 
 The fish run against it in the dark, and are caught 
 by their gills.
 
 46 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 It is the nature of Newfoundland dogs to bring 
 ashore whatever they see floating. Tige went down 
 to the Seal Rock floundering, and saw the buoys 
 bobbing up and down in the water ; away he swims 
 to bring them ashore. Finding them fast to the 
 bottom, what does he do, but with his sharp teeth 
 gnaws off the cork-rope and set them adrift ? till 
 there were not enough left to float the net, and it 
 sank to the bottom. He then carried all the floats to 
 the Seal Rock and piled them up, and thinking he 
 had done a meritorious act, lay down to rest him- 
 self after his labors. 
 
 The next morning Captain Rhines and Ben went 
 to take up their net. They thought some vessel 
 must either have run over it and carried it off on 
 4ier keel or rudder, or else that so many fish were 
 meshed as to sink it. They grappled and brought 
 it up, when, to their astonishment, there was not a 
 fish in it, the cork-rope cut to pieces, the two large 
 buoys and about two thirds of the net-buoys 
 gone. 
 
 But as they pulled home by the Seal Rock there 
 was every one of the missing floats, with the 
 marks of Tiger's teeth in the soft wood. Captain 
 Rhines was in a towering passion, because it was 
 not only a great deal of work to grapple for the
 
 TIGE RHINE S. 47 
 
 net, but the cork-rope, which was valuable in those 
 days, was all cut to pieces. 
 
 He sent John up to the house after Tige, and 
 got a big stick to beat him. The beach was cov- 
 ered with children of all ages. They left their 
 sports and ran to the spot. John Rhines begged 
 his father not to lick the dog, while the children 
 began to cry; but the captain was determiried. 
 " Father," said Ben, " I wouldn't beat him ; if you 
 beat him for bringing these floats ashore, he won't 
 go after birds when you shoot them." Upon this, 
 the captain, who was an inveterate gunner, flung 
 away the stick ; and the children, drying up their 
 tears, took Tige off to frolic with them. 
 
 The miller's daughter, three years and a half old, 
 had a speckled kitten ; a brutal boy drowned it in 
 the mill-pond. The little creature went down to 
 look for her kitten, and fell in. Just then Captain 
 Rhines and Tige came to the mill with a grist. 
 The child had gone down for the third time. He 
 jumped from the horse, and threw in a stone where 
 he saw the bubbles come up. Tige instantly fol- 
 lowed the stone, and brought up the child with 
 just the breath of life in it. 
 
 The overjoyed mother hugged the child, and 
 then hugged Tige. The miller gave him a brass
 
 48 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 collar, with an account of this brave act engraved 
 upon it. 
 
 Ever after this he had a warm place in the affec- 
 tions of the whole community, and was almost as 
 much beloved and respected as his master. 
 
 The sentiments of the young folks, in respect to 
 Tige, were put to the test the next summer. A boy 
 came there in a fishing vessel, who was full of 
 pranks, had never received any culture, knew noth- 
 ing of the history of Tige, and perhaps, if he had, 
 would not have cared ; to gratify a malicious dis- 
 position, he put some spirits of turpentine on him, 
 causing him great agony. The enraged children 
 enticed the boy to the beach, and while he was in 
 swimming, carried off his clothes, and, having pre- 
 pared themselves with sticks, fell upon him as he 
 came out of the water, and beat him to a jelly. 
 
 A few days after the event just narrated, Captain 
 Rhines was sitting in the door after dinner, when he 
 saw little Fannie Williams, the miller's daughter, 
 coming into the yard. She was evidently bent on 
 business of importance, for, though passionately 
 fond of flowers, she never looked at the lilies, hol- 
 lyhocks, and morning glories, on each side of her, 
 but walking directly up to him, and putting both 
 hands on his knees, said, with the tears glistening
 
 TIGE RHINE S. 49 
 
 
 
 in her little eyes, " You won't whip Tige, will you, 
 if he does do naughty things?" 
 
 " God bless the child ! " said the captain, taking 
 her in his lap and kissing her, "have you come way 
 down here to ask me that ? " 
 
 "Nobody knowed it, and nobody telled me to 
 come ; I corned my own self, 'cause he shan't be 
 whipped. Fannie loves Tige." 
 
 " You've good reason to love him, for if it had 
 not been for him you'd been a dead baby now. I 
 never will whip him, nor let anybody else." 
 
 The captain then took her by the hand, and led 
 her into the orchard, where he picked up some 
 pears, and put in a basket ; he then culled a bunch 
 of flowers as large as she could carry, and putting 
 the handle of the basket in Tige's mouth, sent him. 
 home with her. The little girl, with her fears qui- 
 eted, trudged along, putting her flowers to Tige's 
 nose for him to smell of, telling him he shouldn't 
 be licked, 'cause Captain Khines said so. 
 4
 
 50 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 BEN'S COURTSHIP. 
 
 BEN had never been to sea with his father. 
 Captain Rhines didn't believe it was a good plnn 
 for relations to be shipmates ; he didn't want his 
 son to be " ship's cousin," but to rise on his own 
 merits, as his father had done before him ; and if he 
 couldn't do that, then he might stay down. But 
 Ben had proved himself to be a man of capacity. 
 The owners were all willing, and his father wanted 
 him to take the ship and let him stay at home. 
 
 Ben gladly accepted the offer, and was making 
 preparations to go ; but there was a matter of great 
 importance for him to settle, before he left home. 
 Ben loved Sally Hadlock, though he had never 
 dared to tell her of it. 
 
 She had a great many admirers among the young 
 men, and he- felt that it was risking altogether too 
 much to go on a long voyage, and run the venture 
 of Sally's being snapped up by some of them be- 
 fore his return. The greatest source of apprehen-
 
 BEN'S COUIITSIIIP. 51 
 
 sion in his mind was the fact, that he heard she 
 had said, she never could, nor would, marry a man 
 that followed the sea. 
 
 Her father and oldest brother were lost at sea. 
 Sally could never forget the agony of her mother 
 when her father's sea chest came home, nor the 
 trial of those bitter years, during which she and 
 her mother had struggled along, and kept the fam- 
 ily together until the younger children grew up. 
 
 Sally Hadlock was a poor girl, but she was as 
 pretty as a May morning. Though she knew 
 scarcely a note of music, she could warble like a 
 bird, and, as the neighbors said, "she was fhcu- 
 lized." Everybody loved and respected Sally for 
 her kindness to her mother, and because she was 
 as modest as she was beautiful, and as lively as a 
 humming-bird. Her mother idolized her, as well 
 she might. 
 
 Never was the widow so happy as when, over a 
 good cup of souchong, she descanted upon the fine 
 qualities of her daughter, utterly regardless of 
 Sally's blushes, and whispered, " O, don't, mother." 
 "Yes," the old lady would say, shoving her spec- 
 tacles up on her cap, and stirring slowly her tea, 
 " I'll put my Sally, though I say it that shouldn't 
 say it, for taking a fleece of wool as it comes from
 
 52 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 the sheep's back, and making it into cloth, against 
 any girl in the town ; and then she always has 
 such good luck making soap, and such luck with 
 her bread ! she beats me out and out in hot biscuit. 
 You see this table-cloth ; well, she spun the flax, 
 and bleached the thread, drew it into the loom, 
 and wove it, all sole alone." 
 
 Sally was not without some dim perception of 
 Ben's attachment to her. She knew that he was 
 very fond of her brother Sam; and that if he 
 wanted to borrow anything they had, he would 
 always come himself, both to get it and to bring it 
 home. 
 
 When he came home from sea, he always 
 brought presents for the widow Hadlock. Many 
 of them, though very beautiful, didn't seem alto- 
 gether adapted to an old widow; and then her 
 mother would say, " Sally, these things are very 
 beautiful, but I shall never put off my mourning 
 for your dear father ; they would be very becoming 
 to you." 
 
 Ben went to singing-school, in the school-house. 
 A young man had recently come into the village 
 from Salem, as a singing-master. He had a way 
 that took mightily with the girls. This excited a 
 general antipathy to him among all the young men
 
 BEN'S COURTSHIP. 53 
 
 in the place, who, since his advent, found them- 
 selves at a discount with the ladies. Latterly, his 
 attentions had been directed particularly to Sally 
 Hadlock, as the prettiest girl in the village. 
 
 The house being crowded one evening, Ben had 
 gone into the seat usually reserved for the singers. 
 The singing-master, who was an empty coxcomb, 
 with nothing but good looks to recommend him, 
 ordered him out. Ben, with his usual good nature, 
 would, have obeyed ; but the tone was so contempt- 
 uous, and the place so public (probably Sally's 
 presence might have had something to do with it), 
 that it stung ; Ben replied that he sat very well, 
 and remained as he was. 
 
 This drew the eyes of all upon him, as expecting 
 something interesting. In a few moments his tor- 
 mentor returned, and assured him, if he did not 
 move, and that quick, he. would be put out. Upon 
 this, Ben rose up to his full height, and looking 
 down upon the frightened man of music, said, " I 
 don't think there are men enough in this school- 
 house to put me out." 
 
 This sally was received with a universal shout 
 by the audience, who not only had not the least 
 doubt of the fact, but also rejoiced in the discom- 
 fiture of the puppy.
 
 54 LION TJEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Sally was very much grieved at the master's 
 insulting treatment of Ben, who had done so much 
 for her mother. It is said that all women are hero- 
 worshippers. 
 
 When she saw him so completely frightened out 
 of his impertinence, and made ridiculous, noticed 
 the forbearance of Ben, who might have squat him 
 up like a fly between his fingers and thumb, she 
 became conscious of a tenderer feeling for her old 
 schoolmate, who that night went home with her 
 and her mother for the first time. 
 
 Ben now determined to make bold push, and 
 go and see Sally Sunday night, though he knew 
 she, and everybody else, would know what it meant. 
 It seems very singular that Ben Rhines, who had 
 been half over the world, and in a privateer, should 
 be afraid to go over to the widow Hadlock's before 
 dark ; but he was : so he broke the matter to his 
 most intimate friend, Sam Johnson, who offered to 
 go with him the next Sunday night. 
 
 It was a pleasant Sabbath afternoon, in August, 
 about four o'clock. Captain Rhines had been sit- 
 ting in his arm-chair reading the Apocrypha, and 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Ben was sitting at the window, all dressed up, 
 quite nervous, waiting for Sam.
 
 BEN'S couKTSHip. 55 
 
 Sam came at length, and asked Ben if he wanted 
 to go into the pastures and get a few blueberries. 
 Ben assented, when, to their astonishment^ old 
 Captain Rhines roused up and inquired, " Where 
 are you going, boys ? " 
 
 "We're just going out to get a few blueberries.* 
 
 " Well, I don't care if I go, too." 
 
 Here was a dilemma ; but love helps wit. They 
 found a thick bush for the old gentleman to pick, 
 crawled away on their hands and knees to a safe 
 distance, then got on their feet, and ran for the 
 widow Hadlock's. 
 
 The old captain having hallooed for them long 
 after they were in the widow's parlor, finally went 
 home. Just as they expected, they were asked to 
 stop to supper. 
 
 After supper, Sally and her mother went out to 
 milking, while Ben and Sam leaned on the fence to 
 look at them. The old speckled cow, which Sally 
 had milked ever since she was a girl, acted as if 
 bewitched : she switched Sally's comb out of her 
 head with her tail, and finally put her foot in the 
 milk-pail. 
 
 While alt this was going on, Sam Johnson unac- 
 countably disappeared. Ben could do no less than 
 offer to carry in the milk for them ; was invited to
 
 56 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 spend the evening ; and the old lady, excusing her- 
 self on account of ill health, slipped off to bed, and 
 Ben and Sally were left together. 
 
 In due time Ben asked Sally if she liked him 
 well enough to marry him. 
 
 Now Sally was a good, sensible New England 
 girl : she didn't faint nor scream, but she blushed a 
 little, and finally consented to marry him, on con- 
 dition that he should give up going to sea, and stay 
 at home with her. 
 
 The reader must bear in mind that this is not a 
 love scene of a sensation novel, but conversation 
 of people, who, loving each other sincerely, looked 
 upon married life as a sacred obligation, in which 
 they put their whole heart, and expected to find 
 their sole happiness. 
 
 Ben did not therefore reply that he loved Sally 
 to distraction, that he could not exist a moment 
 without her, and that he would never dream of 
 going to sea again ; but, after some considerable 
 hesitation, he at length moved his chair nearer to 
 Sally, and looking up full in her face, said, " Sally, 
 you and I have known each other from the time 
 we made bulrush caps together in your mother's 
 pasture, when we were children, till now ; and I 
 think you know me well enough to know that I
 
 BEN'S COURTSHIP. 5T 
 
 am a man of few words, and would never ask a 
 Ionian to marry me unless I really loved her, and 
 intended to support her, for you know that must be 
 thought of. 
 
 "As for going to sea, though I have been fortu- 
 nate, and risen in my profession faster than any 
 young man in town, faster, perhaps, than I ought, 
 for I was mate of a ship before I was twenty, 
 though I have no reason to be afraid of men, and 
 can handle the roughest of them like children, and 
 care nothing for hardship, yet I never liked the 
 sea. O, how I have longed, on some East India 
 voyage, to see an acre of green grass, or hear a 
 robin sing ! I don't like to feel that people obey 
 me just because they are afraid of me, and to go 
 stalking round the decks like some of those giants 
 we read of in the old story books. I do love the 
 land better than the sea. I love the flowers ; I 
 love to plough and hoe ; I love to see things grow. 
 I'm as loath to go to sea as you can be to have me ;" 
 and he put his arm around her neck and kissed 
 her; "but the seaman's life is my profession. I 
 have spent many of the best years of my life, em- 
 ployed the time that might have been devoted to 
 learning a trade, or some other business on shore, 
 in fitting myself for it. I now have a ship offered
 
 58 LION BEX OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 me : this affords me at once the opportunity of 
 reaping the fruits of my past labor, and supporting 
 a wife ; besides, Sally, we are both poor. You may 
 think it strange, that, as I have been officer of a 
 vessel for some time, I should not have laid up 
 something ; but my father became involved some 
 years ago, and I felt it my duty to help him out ; 
 and I am neither sorry for it nor ashamed of it. 
 This was the reason I did not dress better, because 
 I felt that I ought to economize, for the sake of the 
 best parents ever a boy had. I suppose many peo- 
 ple, who knew I was earning a good deal of money, 
 thought I was mean, or spent it in some bad way ; 
 and perhaps you did." 
 
 "No, Ben," replied Sally; "I knew better than 
 that. I knew that, if you didn't, like a snail, put 
 everything on your back, you were always ready 
 to help any one who needed it ; and no person can 
 go on long in a bad course without those who love 
 them finding it out." 
 
 " You see how it is, Sally, if I take this ship, I 
 am at once in circumstances to be married, with 
 the prospect of a comfortable living. To be sure, 
 I could work on the land, for I was a farmer till I 
 was seventeen ; but then I should have to run in 
 debt to buy it. There is not much money to be
 
 BEN'S COUIITSHIP. 59 
 
 got off a farm ; it always took about what father 
 earned to pay the hired help, the taxes, and family 
 expenses, and he soon had to go to sea again for 
 more." 
 
 Poor Sally listened, as Ben thus placed before 
 her the " inevitable logic of facts." 
 
 She looked first this way, and then that, and 
 finally laid her head on Ben's shoulder, and cried 
 like a child. 
 
 Ben was greatly distressed : he knew not what 
 to say, and remained for a long time silent ; at 
 length he said, " There is a way that I have thought 
 of, but I didn't like to mention it, for fear " Here 
 he hesitated. 
 
 " For fear of what ? " cried Sally, lifting her head 
 from his shoulder, and looking at him through her 
 tears. 
 
 "Why, for fear, if I should do it, and you should 
 marry me on the strength of it, and we should be 
 poor, see hard times, and people should look down 
 on us, that then you might perhaps feel " And 
 here he stopped again. 
 
 "Feel what?" 
 
 "Why," stammered Ben, finding he must out 
 with it, "feel that if you had only married some 
 of these young men that I know have offered
 
 60 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 themselves to you, and that had rich fathers, in- 
 stead of poor Ben Rhincs, you wouldn't have 
 needed to have brought the water to wash your 
 hands." 
 
 " When I marry," replied Sally, bluntly, " I shall 
 not marry anybody's father, but the boy I love. 
 Now, let's hear your plan, Ben." 
 
 " You know," he replied, more slowly than he had 
 ever spoken before in his whole life, " the island off 
 in the bay that father has had the care of so many 
 years ? " 
 
 "What, Elm Island?" 
 
 That's it." 
 
 "Yes, indeed ! I've been there a hundred times 
 with our Sam and Seth Warren, after berries." 
 
 " It's the best land thafr ever lay out doors, cov- 
 ered with a heavy growth of spruce and pine, fit 
 for spars ; many of them would run seventy feet 
 without a limb. I think old Mr. Welch would sell 
 it on credit to any one he knew, and that anybody 
 might cut off the timber, and have the land, and 
 wood enough to burn, left clear. It would make a 
 splendid farm, and a man might pick up consid- 
 erable money by gunning and fishing; but," said 
 Ben, his countenance falling, " what a place for a 
 woman ! No society, no neighbors, right among the
 
 BEN'S COURTSHIP. 61 
 
 breakers ; and sometimes, in the winter, there'll be 
 a month nobody can get on nor off. It would be a 
 good place to get a living, and lay up money ; but 
 no woman would go on there, and a man would 
 be a brute to ask her. J'm sorry I said anything 
 about it." 
 
 " There's one woman will go on there," replied 
 Sally, " and not repent of it after she gets there 
 either; and that woman's Sally Iladlock. I hold 
 that if a girl loves a man well enough to marry 
 him, she'll be contented where he is, and she won't 
 be contented where he isn't. As to the society, I 
 had rather be alone with my husband than have 
 all the society in the world without him. I had 
 rather be on an island with my husband, working 
 hard, and carrying my share of the load, than to be 
 in the best society, and have every comfort, and 
 at the same time know that my husband is beating 
 about at sea, in sickly climates, perhaps dying, with 
 nobody to do for him, in order to support me in 
 luxury and laziness, or in circumstances of comfort 
 which he cannot enjoy with me ; and I say that 
 any woman, that is a woman, will say amen to it. 
 We may have a hard scratch of it at first, and have 
 to live rough ; but I have always been poor ; it's 
 nothing new to me. What reason on earth is
 
 62 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 there, bating sickness or death, why we should not 
 get along? I've always maintained myself, and 
 helped maintain my mother and family. You have 
 maintained yourself, paid your father's debts, and 
 more too, for you have helped my mother lots." 
 
 " Yes, but I was going to sea then," put in Ben. 
 
 "It is strange, then," continued Sally, without 
 heeding the interruption, "that we two, who have 
 supported ourselves and other folks, can't support 
 our own selves. I see how it is, Ben ; this island 
 can be bought very cheap, on account of the dis- 
 advantages of living on it ; that you can pay for it 
 by your own labor, and see no other way of getting 
 your living on the land. Is that it, Ben ? " 
 
 " That is it." 
 
 " Well, then," replied this noble New England 
 girl, reddening to the very roots of her hair, and 
 her eyes flashing through her tears, " I will marry 
 you, and go to that island with you ; we will take 
 the bitter with the sweet ; we will suffer and enjoy 
 together. If you love me well enough to give up 
 a ship, and go on to that island to live with me, I 
 I love you well enough to go on it and be happy 
 with you. I thank God, that if he has given me a 
 handsome face, as they say, he has not given me an 
 empty head nor an idle hand to go with it. I have
 
 BEN'S COURTSHIP. 63 
 
 worked, and saved, and denied myself for my 
 mother and brothers, and have been right happy 
 and well thought of in doing it. I can do the same 
 for my husband ; and if any think less of me on 
 that account, I shan't have them for next door 
 neighbors to twit me of it. My home is in my 
 husband's heart, and where his interest and duty 
 lie." 
 
 Ben thought she never looked half so beautiful 
 before, and imprinted a fervent kiss upon the lips 
 that had uttered such noble sentiments. The day 
 was breaking as they separated.
 
 64 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SALLY TELLS HER MOTHEE ALL ABOUT IT. 
 
 SALLY slept in the same room with her mother. 
 The old lady waked, and finding Sally's bed not 
 tumbled, called loudly for her daughter. "When 
 she came, her mother said, " Why, Sally, your bed 
 has not been tumbled this live-long night ; how 
 flushed you look! your hair is all of a frizzle, 
 and you've been crying : what is the matter with 
 you ? " 
 
 Poor Sally, nervous and excited after the night's 
 conflict, made a clean breast of it. 
 
 " Mother, I've said I'd have Ben, that is, if you 
 are willing," and, burying her face in the pillow, 
 she burst into a flood of tears. The good old lady 
 was not so much troubled by tears as Ben had 
 been, but, putting her arms round her daughter, 
 said, " That's right, dear ; cry as much as you please ; 
 it'll ease your mind, and do you good;" and, 
 wrapped up in her own reflections about an event she 
 had long foreseen, patiently waited till Sally should
 
 SALLY TELLS HER MOTHER ALL ABOUT IT. 65 
 
 think best to speak. Finding Sally not inclined to 
 break the silence, she said, " I think you could not 
 have done better than to be engaged to Ben ; and 
 I'm sure you could not have done anything so 
 pleasing to me ; that is, if you love him, for that is 
 the main thing. 
 
 " I've always told you it is very wrong for a girl 
 to marry a man whom she doesn't love ; it isn't 
 right in the sight of God, and always leads to 
 misery. Ben isn't so good-looking as some young 
 men, nor rich in .this world's goods ; but he has 
 good learning and good manners : he is of a good 
 family ; can do more work than any three young 
 men in town ; and for all he is such a giant, never 
 gives a misbeholden word to any one. You've 
 known him from childhood. It's a great deal bet- 
 ter to marry him with only the clothes to his back, 
 and the good principles that are in hini, than to 
 marry some one who is rich and handsome now, 
 may die a drunkard, and perhaps, some time, throw 
 up to your poverty." 
 
 "O, I know all that, mother; but there's some- 
 thing else, which, perhaps, I ought not to have 
 done without asking you. I've promised to go and 
 live on Elm Island, right in the woods, and among 
 the breakers ; " and then she told her mother every 
 5
 
 66 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 word that she and Ben had said, from beginning to 
 end, throwing in, as a sweetener, a circumstance 
 which she knew would have great influence with 
 her parent ; "but then, you know, he has promised 
 never to go to sea any more." 
 
 She was most agreeably disappointed when the 
 widow, after a little pause, replied in her mild way, 
 "I not only approve of what you've done, but 
 should have been very sorry if you had done other- 
 wise. Your grandmother, girl, was born in old 
 Rowley, Massachusetts, was brought up to have 
 everything she wanted, and knew nothing of hard- 
 ships; but she married your grandfather because 
 she loved him, though he was a poor man. They 
 came down here, and took up this farm when it 
 was all woods. I've stood in the door of our old 
 house, and seen eleven wolves come off Birch Point 
 and go on the ice to Oak Island : one of them had 
 lost his leg in a trap, and could not keep up with 
 the rest, and they would squat down on the ice and 
 wait for him. They burnt up their first house in 
 clearing the land, and had to live in a brush camp 
 till they built another. I've heard mother say, a 
 hundred times, that the happiest years of her life 
 were those hard years ; that the anticipation of 
 living easier by and by, and having a good farm,
 
 SALLY TELLS HER MOTHER ALL ABOUT IT. 67 
 
 was better than the good farm when they got it ; 
 that there was nothing in her well-to-do life after- 
 wards to compare with the satisfaction of looking 
 back to those hard times when she had the strength 
 to endure those hardships. Then her face would 
 light up, her eyes kindle, and the color come into 
 her old cheeks ; and as I looked at her, I used to 
 hope that I should live to see such pleasant hard- 
 ships, to be glad of and tell about when I was old. 
 " Well, Sally, I've had troubles, and bitter ones ; 
 the sea has been a devourer to me ; but not hard- 
 ships^ because I married and lived at home ; but 
 you have the chance, girl, to know something about 
 it. Don't be afraid of being poor; people here 
 don't know what poverty is. Go to Liverpool, if 
 you want to see what real poverty is, as I have 
 been many a time with your poor father, who is 
 dead and gone. A man with a farm is sure of a 
 living, and a good one, too ; the farmers feed the 
 world, and they are great fools if they don't lick 
 their own fingers. Two thirds of the merchants 
 fyil ; a great many seamen die at sea, and it's a 
 dog's life at best. The sailor is only anxious when 
 the wind blows ; but the wind blows all the time 
 for the poor wife at home, and her pillow is often 
 wet with tears.
 
 68 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " The last time I was in Rowley, I saw rich men's 
 sons, whose fathers scorned your grandfather be- 
 cause he was a farmer, going about killing hogs 
 and cutting wood for folks. For a farmer to kill 
 his own hogs, or to change work with his neigh- 
 bors to kill theirs, then they help him kill his, or to 
 cut his own wood, is a very different thing from 
 what it is for people, who felt as large as they did 
 once, and, in their pride and prosperity, looked 
 down on every one that labored, to have to do it 
 for a living. Your grandmother said, it used to 
 make her blood run cold to see them come into 
 the house of God with such an air, getting up and 
 sitting down two or three times, flaunting with 
 their ' ribbins,' and chattering like a striped squirrel 
 on the side of a tree. I was up there the year be- 
 fore Sam was born ; and now to see how they live ! 
 just the least little scriffm of bread and butter, or a 
 little pie ; the least little piece of meat, about as 
 big as your hand, which they run to the butcher's 
 to get, for they never have anything in the cellar ; 
 then, instead of doing as we do, cutting it thick, 
 and telling everybody to help themselves, they cut 
 it into little slices and help them, for fear, I sup- 
 pose, they should take too much ; and then so many 
 compliments to so little victuals ! But they put it
 
 BALL? TELLS HER MOTHER ALL ABOUT IT. 69 
 
 on their backs, Sally ; that's what they do with it ; 
 they put it on their backs. As they have no hearty 
 victuals and hard work to give them color, they 
 paint their faces, and look out of the windows, as 
 Jezebel did : they spend most all their time look- 
 ing out of the windows." 
 
 Sally rejoiced to find that, when following the 
 inclinations of her own heart, she had done just 
 right ; and with a face from which every trace of 
 tears had vanished, replied, "I thought I knew 
 your mind, mother ; but I must go and get break- 
 fast, for I thought I heard Sam getting up."
 
 70 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BEN BUTS ELM ISLAND. 
 
 BEN went to Boston to see the old merchant, 
 whom he knew very well, having often seen him 
 at his father's when he was on his summer visits. 
 The good merchant, who had heen a poor boy, and 
 earned his property by his own industry, and was 
 both too wise and too good to value himself by his 
 wealth, received Ben so kindly, that he told him 
 all his heart ; what he wanted the island for, of the 
 promise he had made to Sally, and all about it. He 
 commended .Ben ; told him he knew Sally's father 
 (that he had sailed for him), and her mother, too ; 
 she was of good blood ; there was a great deal in 
 the blood. He told him he would have a happy 
 life ; that he had always regretted he had not 
 been a farmer himself. He had worked night and 
 day, amassed a large property, educated his family, 
 and looked forward to the time when they would 
 be a source of happiness to him ; but his children 
 were indolent, knew he had wealth, and had no
 
 BEN BUYS ELM ISLAND. 71 
 
 desire to do anything for themselves ; he feared 
 they would spend his money faster than he had 
 earned it. "Indeed, Ben," replied the merchant, 
 with a sigh, "I would much rather take your 
 chance for happiness, and a comfortable living in 
 this world, than that of either of my sons." 
 
 Ben was utterly amazed. He had thought, when 
 looking upon that splendid furniture, and wealth 
 and taste there displayed, that people in such cir- 
 cumstances must be extremely happy ; but, as he 
 was not deficient in shrewdness, he learned a les- 
 son that effectually repressed any desire to murmur 
 at his own lot. 
 
 The merchant then said to him, " 3Ir. Rhines, if 
 you were buying this island on speculation, I should 
 charge you a round price for it, as the timber is 
 valuable, easy of access by water, the taxes are 
 merely nominal, and your father prevents it from 
 being plundered ; but as you are buying it to make 
 a home of, and I know what you have done for 
 your father, for he told me himself, I shall let 
 you have it at a low rate, and any length of time 
 you wish to pay for it in." 
 
 As they parted, he encouraged Ben by telling 
 him that a Down-caster would get rich where 
 body else would starve.
 
 72 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 It was now the month of October. Ben pro- 
 posed that they should be married ; Sally should 
 live with her mother during the winter, while he 
 went on to the island, cut a freight of spars, dug a 
 cellar before the ground froze, and made prepara- 
 tions for building in the spring. But Sally declared 
 she would as lief have Ben at sea as have l^n on 
 this island, running back and forth in the cold 
 winter; that after a man had been at work a whole 
 week, he didn't want to pull a boat six miles, and 
 be wet all through with spray ; that there would 
 be a great many days, when, if he was off, he could 
 not get on, and if he was on, he could not get off, 
 and there would be a great deal of time lost. Man 
 and wife ought not to be separated ; 'twas no way to 
 live ; she would go to the island and live with him. 
 
 u Live where, Sally ? " inquired Ben. 
 
 " Why, with you. I suppose you will live some- 
 where won't you ? " 
 
 " Well," replied Ben, with a comical look at his 
 great limbs, "I can live anywhere a Newfoundland 
 dog can ; but I shouldn't want you to, nor should I 
 consent to it. I expect to take some hands with 
 me, build a half-faced cabin, good enough for us to 
 live in, cut spars and timber, build a house next 
 Bummer, and move in the fall."
 
 BEN BUYS ELM ISLAND. 73 
 
 " It'll cost you a good deal to build this house." 
 
 " Why, yes. I can get the frame on the island, 
 and the stuff for the boards and shingles. I shall 
 have to buy bricks, and lime, and nails, and hire a 
 joiner." 
 
 " What does't cost to build a log house ? " 
 
 " Next to nothing, because we can build them of 
 logs that are fit for nothing else." 
 
 " Are they warm ? " 
 
 " "Warmest things that ever you saw. The 
 boards on a house are only an inch thick, but you 
 can have the logs three feet thick, if you like." 
 
 " Are they tight ? " 
 
 " They can be made as tight as a cup." 
 
 " I don't think, then, a Newfoundland dog would 
 be likely to suffer much in your shanty." 
 
 " I was telling how a log house could be made. 
 I don't expect to take much pains with mine." 
 
 " Would not all this timber that you are going 
 to make frame, boards, and shingles of, fetch a good 
 price in the market ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, it would nearly all make spars." 
 
 " Then you should build, instead of a half-faced 
 cabin, a real log house, ' three feet thick,' if you 
 like, and ' as tight as a cup.' I'll go on with you ; 
 it'll be a great deal better than to take turns in
 
 74 LION" BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 cooking, ami live like pigs, as men always do when 
 they live together. I've heard you say you had 
 rather eat off a chip, and then throw it away, than 
 eat off a china plate, and have to wash it when you 
 were done; then there would be no time lost. 
 When you came in from your work you would 
 have your meals warm, and we would have a real 
 sociable time in the evening." 
 
 " O, that will never do." 
 
 " But it will do, Ben ; you've just said that a 
 log house was warm and comfortable." 
 
 " Indeed it is," chimed in the old lady, who, with 
 her spectacles above her cap, and her hands upon 
 her knees, sat leaning forward, her whole soul in 
 her face, while -the favorite cat, who for twenty 
 years had spent the evening in her patron's lap, 
 stood with one paw upon her mistress's knee, and 
 the other uplifted with an air of astonishment at 
 being prevented from securing her accustomed 
 place, "indeed it is. Mother used to say this 
 house never began to be so warm or so tight as 
 the old log house." 
 
 " O, dear, Sally ! " exclaimed Ben, greatly trou- 
 bled ; " I thought 'twas bad enough to take you on 
 to the island to live at all, and now you insist on 
 living in a log house. What will folks say ? They
 
 BEN BUYS ELM ISLAND. 75 
 
 will say, there's Sally Hadlock, that might have had 
 her pick of the likeliest fellows in town, and never 
 have had to bring the water to wash her hands, 
 has taken up with Ben Rhines, and gone to live in 
 a log shanty on Elm Island." 
 
 " Look here, Ben," replied Sally ; " suppose my 
 father had been a fisherman, and lived on Elm 
 Island ; wouldn't you* have come on there and lived 
 with me, though all the young fellows in town had 
 said, There's Ben Rhines, that might have been 
 master of as fine a ship as ever swum, has taken 
 up with old Hadlock's daughter, and gone to live 
 on Elm Island?" 
 
 " To be sure I would." 
 
 " Well, then," said Sally, coloring, " I hope you 
 don't want me to say, right here before mother, 
 that I'd rather live on Elm Island, in a log house, 
 with the boy I love, than with the best of them in 
 a palace. I want to bring the water to wash my 
 hands. I don't believe that God made us to be 
 idle, or that we are any happier for being so." 
 
 " That's right," shouted the old lady, in ecstasies, 
 rising up and kissing her daughter's cheek; "that's 
 the old-fashioned sort of love, that will wear and 
 make happiness, and its all the thing on this earth 
 that will ; it will bear trial ; it is a fast color, and
 
 76 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 won't fade out in washing. Most young people 
 nowadays want to begin where their fathers left 
 off, and they end with running out all that their 
 fathers left them. You're willing to begin and cut 
 your garment according to your cloth, and you will 
 prosper accordingly."
 
 CAPTAIN RHINES RIDING OUT A GALE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CAPTAIN RHINES BIDING OUT A GALE BEFORE 
 THE FIRE. 
 
 THE morning succeeding Ben's return from Bos- 
 
 O C7 
 
 ton gave tokens of a coming storm. 
 
 "Ben," said Captain Rhines, "we're going to 
 have a gale of wind ; here's an old roll coming 
 from the east'ard, and the surf is roaring on the 
 "White Bull. Let us take the canoe, slip over to 
 Elm Island, and get a couple of lambs, before it 
 comes on. I'm hankering after some fresh ' grub.' " 
 
 When, having caught the lamb, they were pull- 
 ing out of the harbor, the old gentleman, resting on 
 his oar, looked back upon the mass of forest, and 
 said, "What a tremenjus growth here is! here are 
 masts and yards, bowsprits and topmasts, for a ship 
 of the line ; and there's no end of the small spars 
 and ranging timber ; a great deal of it, too, ought 
 to be cut, for it has got its growth, and will soon 
 be falling down. It is first-rate land, and would 
 make a capital farm after it's cleared. I wish old
 
 78 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 father Welch had to give it to me ; he never would 
 miss it. 1 I believe my soul all he keeps it for is for 
 the sake of coming down here once in three or 
 four years, and going over there gunning 'long 
 with me." 
 
 At noon the gale came on with great violence. 
 The captain took advantage of the stormy after- 
 noon to kill a lamb, and have a regular "tuck out" 
 on a sda-pie. Under his directions, Mrs. Rhines 
 lined the large pot with a thick crust, put in the 
 lamb and slices of pork, with flour, water, and 
 plenty of seasoning, and covered the whole with a 
 crust, which Captain Rhines pricked full of holes 
 with his marline-spike. 
 
 In addition to this were pudding, pies, and fried 
 apples; coffee, which was seldom indulged in at 
 that day ; and last, but not least, a decanter of 
 Holland gin beside his plate. When they had de- 
 spatched this substantial repast, the family, eight in 
 number, all drew up around the fire. The old 
 house shook with the violence of the gale ; the 
 Tain came down in torrents ; the roar of the surf 
 was distinctly heard in the intervals of the gusts, 
 while the blaze went up the great chimney in 
 sheets of flame. 
 
 The old seaman flung off his coat, kicked off his
 
 CAPTAIN" EHINES RIDIXG OUT A GALE. 79 
 
 boots, and sitting clown in the midst of this happy 
 circle, while the cheerful light flickered around his 
 weather-beaten form, animated by as noble a heart 
 as ever throbbed in human breast, cried, as he lis- 
 tened to the clatter without, "Blow away, my 
 hearty; while she cracks she holds; let them that's 
 got the watch on deck keep it ; it's my watch be- 
 low ; eight hours in to-night." 
 
 He then sat some time in silence, with his hands 
 clasped over his knees, and locking into a great bed 
 of rock-maple coals. Rousing up at length, he laid, 
 his hard hand on his wife's shoulder, and, with an 
 expression of heartfelt happiness on his rugged fea- 
 tures, that was perfectly contagious, said, "Mary, I 
 do believe I've never had one hardship too many. 
 When I think how poor I began life; what" my 
 parents suffered before they got the land cleared ; 
 why, I've seen my poor father hoe corn when he 
 was so weak from hunger that he could scarcely 
 stand. There were times when we should have 
 starved to death, if it had not been for the old dog 
 (stooping down and patting Tige's head, who lay 
 stretched out before the fire, with his nose on his 
 muster's foot). How glad I felt as I carried them 
 the first dollar I ever earned! and how glad they 
 were to get it ! Well, as I was saying, when I hear
 
 80 LIOX BEX OF ELM ISLAXD. 
 
 the wind whistle, and the sea roar, as it does now, 
 I can't help thinking how many such nights on 
 ship's deck, wet, worn out, listening to the roar of 
 the surf, and expecting the anchors to come home 
 every minute; next 'vige' perhaps in the West 
 Indies ; men dying all around me, like sheep, with 
 the yellow fever and black vomit. When I look 
 back, and feel it's all over, that I've got enough to 
 carry me through, can do what little duty I'm fit for, 
 among my comforts, and surrounded by my family, 
 I don't believe I ever could have had the feelings 
 I've got in my bosom to-night, before this comfort- 
 able fire, if I hadn't been through the cold, the 
 hunger, the dangers, and all the other miseries 
 first;" and he rolled up his sleeves in the very 
 wantonness of enjoyment, to feel the grateful 
 warmth of fire on his bare flesh. 
 
 " I don't wonder you do feel so, husband," re- 
 plied his wife ; "as you say, you've enough to carry 
 you through, as far as this life is concerned ; but 
 there is another life after this, and, perhaps, if we 
 get to the better world, that also will seem sweeter 
 for all the crosses we take up, and the self-denial 
 we go through in getting there. I've often told 
 you, Benjamin, that you lack but one thing; for 
 surely never woman had a kinder husband, or
 
 CAPTAIN KHINES RIDING OUT A GALE. 81 
 
 children a better father, than you have always 
 been." 
 
 " God bless you, Mary ! " exclaimed the old sea- 
 man in the fulness of his heart ; " I've never been 
 half so good a husband as I ought, and must often 
 have hurt your feelings ; for I'm a rough old sea- 
 dog; never had any bringing up, but grew up just 
 like the cattle. 
 
 " I never see John Strout but it puts me in mind 
 of his oldest brother, George. We both of us 
 shipped for the first time, as able seamen, in the 
 same vessel ; we were about of an age ' townies ; ' 
 both in the same watch, full of blue veins and vit- 
 riol, and were forever trying titles to see which was 
 the best man. It was hard work to tell, when the 
 watch was called, whose feet struck the floor first, 
 his'n or mine. If he got into the rigging before I 
 did, I'd go up hand over fist on the back-stay. I've 
 known him to go on the topsail yard in his shirt- 
 flaps to get ahead of me. We aliens made it a 
 p'int to take the weather earing, or the bunt of a 
 sail, away from the second mate, who was the 
 owner's nephew, and put over the head of his 
 betters." 
 
 " Was that the reason, father," said Ben, " you 
 wouldn't let me go to sea with you ? " 
 6
 
 82 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " Yes," he replied. "I've seen enough of these 
 half-and-half fellers put in to command before they 
 are fit for it, just to lose better men's lives, and de- 
 stroy other people's property." 
 
 "I think you have the right of it, father. I 
 don't believe I shall ever be sorry that I came in 
 at the hawsehole, instead of the cabin windows." 
 
 " One terrible dark night, in the Gulf," continued 
 the old man, " all hands were on the yard trying 
 to furl the fore-topsail ; my sheath-knife was jammed 
 between my body and the yard, so that I couldn't 
 get at it ; I reached and took his'n out of the 
 sheath, which he wore behind, and used it; but 
 when I went to put it back again, he was gone ; 
 when or how he went, nobody ever knew. I was 
 young then, and new at such things. We had 
 allers been together. I couldn't keep it out of my 
 mind, and didn't want to stay in the vessel after 
 that, for everything I took hold of made me think 
 of him." 
 
 " Don't you think, husband," said his wife, " that 
 we ought to think where our blessings come from, 
 and not to think it's all our own work ? " 
 
 '"hough Captain Rhines had a rugged temper of 
 his own when roused, with only the education he 
 Lad picked up at sea, and the culture acquired by
 
 CAPTAIN EHINES KID1I\G OUT A GALE. 83 
 
 friction as he was knocked about in the world, yet 
 he was perfectly moral, and temperate for that day ; 
 that is, he was never intoxicated. He had a great 
 respect for religion, especially his wife's, she being 
 a woman of admirable judgment and ardent piety. 
 She was not in the practice of reproving every un- 
 guarded expression, and annoying him with exhor- 
 tations ; telling the ministers her anxieties and 
 fears about him, and urging them, to talk to him 
 on the spot, whether they were in a frame to con- 
 verse, or he to listen. She was satisfied he knew 
 where her heart was, that she prayed earnestly for 
 him, and let it rest at that, save when, as on the 
 present occasion, he put the words in her mouth. 
 
 "Well, wife," he replied, willing to change the 
 subject, "you've got religion enough for both 
 of us." 
 
 " No, husband, that must be every one's own 
 work." 
 
 " That ain't all, neither. How many years was 
 I going to sea, just coming home to look in to the 
 door, and say, 'How are you all?' then off again, 
 leaving you to manage farm, family, and hired help ! 
 Why, I had scarcely any more care of my family 
 than an ostrich has of her eggs. It seems so much 
 more happy to be with them now, on that very
 
 84 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 account! I'm half a mind to believe what I then 
 thought to be the worst trial of all, was a blessing, 
 too. I only wish that great critter over there in 
 the corner," pointing to Ben, " could get half so 
 good or good-looking a wife as his mother is ; but 
 he's so homely, and there's so much of it, I'm. 
 afraid there's not a ghost of a chance for him." 
 
 At this there was a general titter amongst the 
 young folks. Ben could hold in no longer, but 
 astonished his parents by telling them what he had 
 done, and what he meant to do. 
 
 " By heavens, Ben ! " exclaimed his father, spring- 
 ing to his feet, " you've been fishing to some pur- 
 pose ; I'd moor head and stern to that girl, and lie 
 by her as long as cables and anchor would hold." 
 
 " I don't know how to build a log house," said 
 Ben ; "and they've been out of use so long round 
 here, I don't know anybody that does." 
 
 " I do. Isaac Murch ; he helped tear down our 
 old log house, when I was a boy. I suppose you 
 know he is the most ing'nious critter that ever 
 lived. I believe he could make a man, if he should 
 set out for it ; and I don't know but he could put 
 a soul in him after he was done. Your grand- 
 father was old and childish, and hated to have the 
 house torn down ; so I got Isaac to make a model
 
 CAPTAIN RHINE S RIDING OUT A GALE. 85 
 
 of it, to please him. I know that he could make 
 one exactly like it, if he had a mind to. I really 
 think I should come to see you a good deal oftener 
 if you were living in the old house, or one that 
 looked just like it." 
 
 " But, father, he wouldn't work out." 
 
 " He'd do most anything to accommodate you or 
 Sally Hadlock; for, when her father was living, ho 
 and Isaac were like two fingers on one hand. I 
 believe he thinks as much of the Iladlock children 
 as he does of his own. There's no knowing how 
 much he's done for those children first and last." 
 
 The next day Ben rode over to Isaac's, who, 
 with his wife, gave him a warm welcome. 
 
 " By the way," said she, " are you engaged to be 
 married to Sally Iladlock ? At any rate, I heard 
 so, and it come pretty straight ; own up like a man ; 
 murder will out." 
 
 " If it is so, I hope it's nothing to be ashamed of." 
 
 "Ben Rhines, if you've got Sally Iladlock, it's 
 the best day's work you ever did in your life." 
 
 " I don't know what you'll say when I tell you 
 the rest of it." He then informed them that he 
 had bought Elm Island, and was going to live 
 on it. 
 
 " But, Ben, is Sally willing to go on that island
 
 86 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 to live ? I'm sure I should be frightened to death 
 to live there." 
 
 "'Twas her own plan. She wouldn't hear to 
 my going to sea ; and when I said I didn't know 
 of any way to live ashore, unless I bought that 
 island, she said 'twas just the thing. I was intend- 
 ing to build a frame house next summer; but she 
 says, ' Build a log house, go right into it, and build a 
 frame house when you're better able ; ' and declares 
 she'll live in a log house, and nothing else. I had 
 money enough, that I got privateering, to have 
 bought the island, and built the house on't ; but I 
 felt it my duty to help my father out of his diffi- 
 culties." 
 
 " Goodness ! gracious ! goodness me ! " exclaimed 
 Hannah Murch, holding up both hands. " Ben 
 Rhines, are you a wizard, to bewitch the girls after 
 this fashion ? Such offers as that girl has had, to 
 my sartin knowledge! She loves you. Ben, and 
 you may be sure of that to begin with. Well ! 
 well ! well ! this beats all the story books." 
 
 " She's just right," said Isaac. " She knows that 
 Ben gives up the cap'in's berth to plense her; that 
 he'll have a hard scratch of it, and she means to 
 scratch, too. You're just right, both of you." 
 
 " Now, Uncle Isaac," said Ben, " this house must
 
 CAPTAIN KHINES BIDING OUT A GALE. 87 
 
 go right up. Will you go on with rne and another 
 man, and 'boss' the job?" 
 
 " I will, Ben ; and I won't turn my back to any 
 body for building a log house." 
 
 " To-day is Thursday. I should like to begin 
 Monday, if you can come." 
 
 "Well, I don't know anything to hender ; if you 
 haven't got anybody looked out to help you, I think 
 you'd better get Joe Griffin ; he's a strapping stout 
 feller, handy with an axe, or any kind of tools. I 
 know he'll go; and if you say so, I'll bring him 
 along with me, and we'll be at the landing at sun- 
 rise, or thereabouts." 
 
 During Ben's absence, the 4 widow Hadlock put 
 on her changeable silk, which her husband bought 
 in foreign parts, and her best cap, and taking her 
 knitting-work, went over to Captain Rhines's. 
 When she came back, she reported that it was all 
 right, and the Rhineses were as much pleased with 
 the match as she was.
 
 88 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 
 
 MONDAY morning came, and in the little cove, 
 abreast of Captain Rhines's door, lay moored a 
 "gundelow," containing some hay, an ox cart, 
 plough, scraper, pot and tea-kettle, and provisions, 
 raw and cooked. Just as the sun rose, Ben came 
 down the hill with a yoke of oxen, and an axe on 
 his shoulder weighing fourteen pounds. Joe Grif- 
 fin made his appearance on foot, and Isaac Murch 
 on horseback, with his wife (who had come to take 
 the beast back) riding behind him on a pillion. It 
 was a bright October morning; the fields were 
 white with frost, which was just beginning to melt 
 as the sun rose. 
 
 " Halloa !" cried Joe, as he caught sight of Ben's 
 head over the rising ground ; " this is the weather 
 for the woods ; the frost puts the grit in." 
 
 Hannah Murch, saying that she was going to see 
 Sally IJhines, that is to be, and would meet them 
 at four o'clock Saturday afternoon, rode ofF.
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 89 
 
 They put up a boat's sail in the forward part of 
 the "gundelow," and, as the wind was fair, made 
 good progress. Ben steered, while the others 
 stretched themselves at full length upon the hay. 
 
 Joe was half asleep, when he felt his leg grasped 
 by Ben, who motioned him to crawl to him as 
 easily as possible. 
 
 "There's a flock of coots to leeward; steer her 
 right down on them, and when they rise I'll give 
 it to them." 
 
 He carefully lifted a board, under which lay a 
 gxm, with an old flint lock, with a stocking leg over 
 it to keep off the damp of the sea and the mist of 
 the morning. Ben crawled forward behind the 
 
 O 
 
 hay, where he lay with his finger on the trigger. 
 The unsuspicious fowl kept diving and chasing 
 each other over the water : at length they seemed 
 to take alarm, and began to huddle together. 
 
 " They're going to rise, Ben," whispered Joe. 
 
 " Well, let them rise." 
 
 Coots, when they are fat, cannot well rise from 
 the water, except against the wind. As they rose 
 and flew towards the " gundelow," exposing their 
 most vital parts to a shot, f.vo fell dead, and four 
 wounded. 
 
 " There's our supper to-night, at any rate," sai<7
 
 00 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Ben ; " and were we in anything else than this 
 Tel have those wounded ones." 
 
 They reached the island, and luffing round its 
 eastern point, ran the "gundelow" on the beach ?tr 
 the mouth of the cove. Joe, making a leaping-pole 
 of an oar, sprang ashore. " Throw us a rope, and 
 you go astern, and I'll haul her in." While Joe 
 pulled on the rope, Ben stepping overboard, put his 
 little shoulders to the stern of the "gundelow," 
 and shoved her so high up on the beach that Isaac 
 Murch stepped out without wetting his feet. 
 
 " I say, Ben," exclaimed Joe, " suppose you take 
 an ox under each arm, and bring them out. I 
 never was here before, but if this ain't just the 
 handsomest place I ever set eyes on. Such a nice 
 little harbor to keep a craft ; and a brook, and this 
 little green spot in the lee of the woods ; then such 
 a master growth of timber ; there's a pine that'll 
 run seventy feet -without a limb. I say it's great, 
 I do." 
 
 Let us glance a moment at the character and 
 capacities of these three men, as they stand to- 
 gether on the beach of this little gem of the wild 
 Atlantic coast. 
 
 They represent the yeomanry of the nation. 
 They are of the old stock; not technically religious
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 91 
 
 men, and yet no word of profanity, or disrespect to 
 religion, finds utterance or countenance from them. 
 That which, in their estimation, is of the greatest 
 importance, is to have something which they have 
 earned with their own hands. Look at them, as 
 they stand there at the water's edge, and know 
 them. Physically considered, they are noble spe- 
 cimens of manly vigor and power. 
 
 What would some of the effeminate dandies that 
 throng our streets, or the scions of nobility in the 
 old world, be good for on that wild sea-beach ? 
 But these men can live there, and cause others to 
 live, and turn the wilderness into a garden. 
 
 Isaac Murch is five feet eleven inches in height, 
 fifty-three years of age, without a gray hair on his 
 head, of powerful, compact frame, with a world of 
 intelligence and kindness in his face, and some- 
 thing about him that, without the least assump- 
 tion, caused his neighbors to respect his opinion, 
 and look up to him as a leader. His early advan- 
 tages for learning were very slight ; but since ho 
 has been in easy circumstances, lie has improved 
 strong natural capacities by reading am' obser- 
 vation. 
 
 Joe Griffin was twenty-two a boy, r.: 1 Isaac 
 Murch called him ; and a great red-cheeked, corn-
 
 92 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 fed boy he was, too; six feet in his stockings, and 
 weighing a hundred and eighty pounds; loose- 
 jointed, big-boned, thin in the flanks, not long- 
 legged, but getting his length between his shoulders 
 and his hips. He is of less capacity, and more 
 interested in physical matters. He can read and 
 write, cipher as for as the " rule of three," and cast 
 interest; but he has a knack of handling tools that 
 comes by nature. As the neighbors say, he has an 
 eye, that is, he can judge of proportions, and, 
 with his great clumsy fingers, do anything with 
 wood that he likes ; but his great ambition is, to 
 go ahead and do the work. He's smart, and knows 
 it, and likes to have other people know it. He 
 don't calculate to let anybody go ahead of him 
 with a scythe, or chop into the side of a tree, or 
 put hay on to a cart, quicker than himself. Indeed 
 there were very few that could; for he was not 
 only strong, but tough, and possessed infinite tact, 
 laying out his strength to the best advantage. 
 
 Let us consider the type of labor presented to 
 us. Here are three live Yankees, in whom all the 
 shrewd, inventive genius of the race has been stim- 
 ulated by necessity, all of them, from early life, 
 having been flung upon their own resources. 
 
 They are helping one of their number to build a
 
 BEEAKIXG GROUND OX ELM ISLAND. 93 
 
 house for himself and his young wife to live in. 
 One of them has already passed through that ex- 
 perience of life which their employer is about to 
 enter. The other expects to, for he also intends 
 to be married, and have a home and land of his 
 own. They therefore go about their work with 
 interest and sympathy. 
 
 How different are these men from what is gen- 
 erally termed help ! They are hired, to be sure ; 
 but the sentiment which inspires their labor is en- 
 tirely different from that feeling of drudgery, under 
 the influence of which the tenantry of Europe, or 
 even the Irish servants in this country, perform 
 their work. 
 
 Isaac Murch is an independent, wealthy farmer, 
 a mechanic by nature, who has acquired the 
 property he holds with his own hands, and would 
 scorn to be a hired servant, like an Irish navvy ; 
 but for accommodation, he will hire some one to 
 get in his own harvest, and in the cold, frosty 
 nights, when he might be comfortable at home in 
 the blankets, he will go on to Elm Island, sweat 
 and work, live rough, and sleep on the ground, to 
 build a house for his neighbor; for neighbor meant 
 something in those days. 
 
 As for Joe Griffin, he's counting every dollar,
 
 94 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and looking forward to the day when he shall have 
 a home of his own, and plough his own acres, and 
 is ambitious to earn his wages. 
 
 How superior are the results of such labor, to 
 that of the man who has no ambition of ever being 
 anything more than a servant, and only exercises 
 his ingenuity in getting through the day, and shirk- 
 ing all the work he can ! They knew that Ben had 
 nothing but his hands to help himself with, and 
 couldn't afford to pay them for watching the shad- 
 ows ; besides, they had a reputation to sustain, of 
 which they were sufficiently proud. They knew 
 very well that everybody within a circle of ten 
 miles would know what they were about before 
 night, and what remarks would be made about 
 them at the blacksmith's shop, the grist-mill, and 
 around the firesides. 
 
 u Well, now, if there ain't a team Isaac March, 
 Ben Rhines, and Joe Griffin ! Pine trees '11 have 
 to take it now, if they've got Isaac Murch to lay 
 out the work, and Ben and Joe to back him up. 
 AY on't they hare a good time, though, seeing which 
 is the smartest?" 
 
 "Wai, sartainly," exclaimed old Aunt Molly 
 Bradish, "Joe Griffin has met his match for 
 once; he can't do anything with Ben Rliiuus,
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 95 
 
 he'd pull up a pine tree by the roots, if he took & 
 notion." 
 
 "Joe can't, of course, take hold of a log to lift 
 with Ben, nor anybody else in this world," said 
 Seth Warren; "but I'll bet he'll chop into the side 
 of a tree as quick; he strikes so true, he wouldn't 
 miss a clip once in a fortnight. I saw him cut a pig 
 of lead in two, down at the mill ; and though he 
 struck ten times, he hit so true that you could see 
 but one mark of the axe." 
 
 "Wai," replied Aunt Molly, "there's this to be 
 said of Ben Rhines, that is not to be said of every- 
 body : I took him in my arms when he was born, 
 and have lived a near neighbor to him from that 
 day to this, and I never knew or heard of his using 
 his strength to harm a fellow-critter, except they 
 desarved it most outrageously. I've seen little 
 snipper-snappers impose upon him, and all the 
 same as spit in his face, and he never let on that 
 he heard them. Sally's my own niece, and I set my 
 eyes by her; but I couldn't wish her better luck 
 than to marry Ben. He's helped everybody ; I 
 should think somebody might have sprawl enough 
 to get up a 'bee' and help him." 
 
 They also knew that, when they went to meet 
 ing, Sunday, everybody would want to know how
 
 SO LION BEX OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 much they'd done. Added to this was the pride of 
 emulation, which leads men of any pluck to exert 
 themselves in the presence of each other. This is 
 a kind of labor that can exist nowhere but in a 
 free country, is the result of its institutions, from 
 which proceed the motives, and a thousand subtle 
 influences which beget it. 
 
 The island well merited Joe's encomium. On 
 the eastern side, adjoining the brook, was a large 
 space, having a slight elevation, covered with green 
 grass, extending back to the middle ridge, which, 
 at its extremity, terminated in a perpendiculai 
 ledge, which, eloping gradually on the eastern 
 side, and disappearing, crossed the brook, where it 
 again came to the surface, forming a natural dam, 
 about two feet in height, with a little fissure in the 
 middle, worn by the passage of the water. Over 
 this, the stream fell with a pleasant murmur, min- 
 gling very sweetly with the deeper tone of the 
 breakers. On either side of the brook were two 
 enormous elm trees, united by a great root, flat on 
 the surface, which bridged the brook a very little 
 above the fall. Under this root, which was as large 
 as a man's body, the water had a free passage, ex- 
 cept in the spring and autumn, when the brook 
 was swollen by melting snows and rains. Then
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 97 
 
 tlie old root was half buried in water. The high 
 tides came over this natural dam; and in the brack- 
 ish water were great quantities of smelts and frost 
 fish ; and eels also ran up through Jtho fissure in the 
 ledge. The summit of the high ledge was covered 
 with white birches, the great forked roots, rough 
 and black with whorls and blisters, running along 
 the very edge of the rocks, while their limbs, 
 stretching themselves towards the sun, fell in great 
 masses over its edge. 
 
 They are very much mistaken who suppose that 
 no one can appreciate natural beauty, or hold com- 
 munion with the beautiful forms of nature, and 
 grow by it, who has not graduated at a university 
 and read Homer. 
 
 Joe Griffin appreciated the beauty of this spot, 
 and felt it to his heart's core ; and so did big Ben, 
 though they could not express it in artistic lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Ben, in consultation with uncle Isaac, had de- 
 termined to hew his logs for their whole length 
 only on two sides, which, as it was late in the year, 
 and they were pressed for time, would save much 
 labor; but at the ends, and where the doors and 
 windows were to be, to hew them to a "proud 
 edge." This would give good joints at the ends, 
 7
 
 98 LIOK BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and make the house as tight as though it was all 
 square timber. 
 
 "Where are you going to set your house?" in- 
 quired Uncle Isaac. 
 
 " Here," said Ben, walking up to the slope above 
 some elms that grew close together, and sticking 
 down a crowbar; "I want my house under the lee 
 of the woods and the hill, and my garden under 
 that warm ledge." 
 
 " ITow large will you have it on the ground ? " 
 
 u Thirty-six by thirty-nine." 
 
 "Jerusalem ! " exclaimed Joe ; " that's a big house 
 for two people, and a little yellow dog with white 
 on the end of his tail, to live in ; hope you won't 
 be crowded." 
 
 " Log houses," said Uncle Isaac, " last some time ; 
 perhaps he thinks there'll be more of them before 
 it rots down." 
 
 "At first," said Ben, "and perhaps for some 
 years, it'll have to be house, barn, corn-house, work- 
 shop, and everything." 
 
 " You'll have your cellar under half of it ; how 
 high will you have it?" 
 
 " I never have thought anything about that." 
 
 <* Well, I'd drop the beams down, and have it a 
 story and a half; that great chamber '11 be the best
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 99 
 
 part of the house ; 'twill make you a splendid corn- 
 house ; that's the way your grandfather's was, and 
 many a bushel of corn I've shelled in it. If I'm 
 boss, as you, Ben, are strong enough to hold the 
 scraper alone, you and Joe can take the plough, 
 and go to ploughing and scraping out the cellar, 
 and I'll go to the woods and pick out and cut the 
 trees." 
 
 " The sun is getting low," said Ben ; " it is time 
 we were making calculations for sleeping to-night, 
 whether in the 'gundelow,' with a sail over us, or 
 in a bush camp." 
 
 " I go in for the bush camp," said Uncle Isaac. 
 
 " And I'm the boy to build it," said Joe ; " takes 
 me to do that." 
 
 " Go ahead, Joe, and build it, and we'll get the 
 wood for the fire." 
 
 "Without a moment's hesitation, Joe went into 
 the edge of a little clump of bushes, and in a few 
 minutes cut out a space about twelve feet square, 
 leaving an opening between two trees, where he 
 went in, of about three feet. As fast as he cut the 
 trees, he thrust them back, and jammed them in 
 among the others, making a thick wall ; he then 
 wove two or three small trees in on the side to 
 keep them from falling in. He then cut three or
 
 100 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 four small beech limbs, twisted them into withes, 
 bent down the tops of three or four trees on the 
 sides, tied them together with the withes, thus 
 forming the roof; then getting the boat's sail, 
 threw it over the top, and a. little brush over that, 
 ' to break the force of the rain. He then strewed 
 Borne hemlock brush on the floor to sleep on. 
 
 " I'll risk any rain-storm driving us out of that," 
 said Joe, contemplating his edifice with great satis- 
 faction. 
 
 " I must have a door," said Joe, " or these plaguy 
 oxen and sheep '11 be in there when we ain't, and 
 bother us." 
 
 You may think this a difficult matter, but Joe 
 never wasted a thought on't. He took three spruce 
 poles, as long as the height of the opening, drove 
 them into the ground, and wattled them with birch 
 limbs ; he then fastened a pole across each end, and 
 one in the middle, leaving the middle one protrud- 
 ing about four inches on the right side ; that was a 
 latch. He now took a little hemlock, peeled the 
 bark off, and drove it into the ground on the left 
 side ; this was the door-post. He made hinges of 
 withes, which slipped easily round the smooth pole. 
 On the right hand tree grew a limb, slanting up- 
 wards ; this he cut off about three inches from the
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 1U1 
 
 tree; then lifting the door, he threw it into the 
 angle, and it was shut and latched. 
 
 He drove two crotch-poles into the ground, just 
 before the door, and put another across ; he then 
 cut a limb with a side branch growing out of it, 
 and hooked it over the pole ; cut a deep notch in 
 the lower end of it, to receive the bail of the pot, 
 and hung it on. 
 
 Uncle Isaac and Ben now came with a whole 
 cart full of dry wood, which they had picked up, 
 and a fire was kindled. It was not long before the 
 flavor of the coot stew saluted their nostrils. 
 
 " O, that smells good," said Joe ; " I'm savage 
 hungry." Seizing his axe, he cut some great chips 
 out of the side of a tree, which he hollowed out, 
 and giving one to ea'ch, said, " There's the plates ; 
 they don't need any washing ; you can shie them 
 into the fire when you're done ; there's enough 
 more where they come from." 
 
 The stew was now taken from the fire, and these 
 hardy men, who had shown so much capacity for 
 labor during the day, manifested no less for eating. 
 When the solid contents of the stew had disap- 
 peared, Joe exclaimed, " I think it's too bad to lose 
 all this good gravy in the pot." He went to the 
 beach and got three clam-shells ; these they stuck
 
 102 LION BEX OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 in the end of split sticks, and soon despatched the 
 contents of the pot. 
 
 Well," said Uncle Isaac, as they stretched them- 
 selves around the blazing fire, " we've got on here, 
 made a beginning, and got to housekeeping; and 
 that will do pretty well for one day. We couldn't 
 expect to make much show to-day ; but to-morrow 
 we shall get to work betimes, and bring more to 
 pass." 
 
 " I'm sorry I forgot to bring a drag," said Ben ; 
 " we've nothing to haul the rocks on." 
 
 " That's a thing we must have," said Uncle Isaac ; 
 Til make one right off." 
 
 "You can't make it to-night," said Ben. 
 
 " The dogs I can't. Joe, cut that little red oak ; 
 you can do it in three minutes. Make a blaze, Ben, 
 to see to work by ; then run to the ' gundelow,' and 
 bring up that plank I saw there." 
 
 By the time Ben returned with the plank the 
 tree was down. 
 
 " Now, Joe," said Uncle Isaac, " you can take one 
 side of the tree, and I will the other, and see if 
 you can keep up with your grandfather. You, Ben, 
 may saw up that plank into pieces three feet long, 
 and make some wooden pins." 
 
 By nine o'clock the drag was made.
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND 103 
 
 "There," said Uncle Isaac, "that hasn't killed 
 anybody ; 'twould have been an awful waste to have 
 taken good daylight for that. I'm not sure but 
 'twould have been a sin ; and we've plenty of time 
 left to sleep." 
 
 Thursday was occupied in framing together the 
 sills, and laying the lower floor, in order that they 
 might have it to stand on while rolling up the 
 logs. It was left rough, because'Uncle Isaac said it 
 would wear smoother than if 'twas planed. 
 
 " I hope," said Joe, " it won't be like old Uncle 
 Yelf's floor. lie had a floor of hemlock boawls, 
 rough from the saw ; they had a heap of grand- 
 children, every one of them barefoot. Go in there 
 when you would, for a fortnight, there'd be old 
 granny with her darning-needle, and a great young 
 one's foot up in her lap, a-picking out the splinters, 
 while the young one, with both hands on the floor, 
 was screaming bloody murder. By the time she'd 
 picked the splinters out of his feet, there'd be as 
 many more in his hands." 
 
 Saturday forenoon was spent in hauling logs, and 
 rolling them up on skids, preparatory to hewing. 
 
 Just as they had finished dinner, Joe suddenly 
 cried, "What's that in that bushy spruce on the 
 edge of the bank ? "
 
 104 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " I don't see anything," snid Ben. 
 
 " Nor I, now ; but I know there was something 
 there, and I believe it's there now." 
 
 " Perhaps it's a coon," said Uncle Isaac. 
 
 "A coon? How could a coon get on to this 
 island?" 
 
 " How could he get here ? How could the squir- 
 rels and woodchucks get here ? God Almighty 
 put 'em here." 
 
 Going to the tree, Joe peered a long time among 
 the branches ; at length he exclaimed, " Here lie is : 
 get your gun, Ben ! " 
 
 " I shot away the last powder I had to kindle 
 fire this morning; but we'll stone him down." 
 
 They pelted him with stones in vain, the thick 
 limbs causing them all to glance. 
 
 u Climb up and get him, Joe." 
 
 "Climb up yourself, Ben; they say their bite's 
 rank ' pizen.' " 
 
 "I'll have that coon," said Ben, "if it takes all 
 day. Cut the tree down, Joe." 
 
 As it fell, the coon leaped from it ; and though 
 the stones fell thick and fast around him, he ran up 
 the bank and under the logs. Then began a most 
 exching race, the men rolling the logs here and 
 there, and striking at him between them, till finally
 
 BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND. 105 
 
 he broke cover, and ran for the woods, with the 
 frhole scout at his heels. Ben overtook him just 
 as he was running up a tree, and, catching him by 
 the tail, flung him over his head : he landed on 
 Joe's back, who, having a mortal terror of the bite 
 of a coon, roared with agony ; but the creature, too 
 frightened to bite, rolled off his back to the ground, 
 and passing Uncle Isaac, who was so full of tickle 
 that he could not lift a finger to stop him, ran un- 
 der the timber again. As he was now too far gone 
 to try another race for the woods, he hid under a 
 log, one end of which lay upon a block, and the 
 other on the ground. 
 
 Ben saw his eyes shine, and kicked the log off 
 the block ; as the coon attempted to run out, it fell 
 on his tail and held him fast. There he sat, cap- 
 tive but undismayed, showing his white teeth, and 
 frothing at his mouth with pain and rage. 
 
 "How are you, coonie?" said Joe, taking off his 
 hat and making a low bow ; " by the chances of 
 war you are now our prisoner ; we are cannibals, 
 of the cannibal tribe, and eat all our captives ; you 
 must die for the good of the tribe ; " and thus say- 
 ing he knocked him on the head. 
 
 "I'll get mother to bake him to-night," said Ben; 
 " come over to-morrow, Joe, and help eat him."
 
 106 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " Boys," said Uncle Isaac, " don't you think we 
 look well skylarking at this rate ? and to-day is Sat- 
 urday, too ; now we must put in hard enough to 
 make up for it." 
 
 They labored till dark, as if their lives depended 
 on it. 
 
 "I thought you were going to leave off earlier 
 Saturday night," said Hannah Murch, as she met 
 them at the landing. "I've been waiting here 
 more 'n two hours in the cold. I was afraid some 
 accident had befallen you." 
 
 Ben held up the raccoon. 
 
 " I see how it is ; you've been cooning, and had 
 to work later to make it up. Isaac, I do wish you 
 would ever leave off being a boy." 
 
 " Well, you're the first woman I ever heard of 
 that wanted her husband to grow old."
 
 TOO OOD A CHANCE TO LOSE. 107 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TOO GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE. 
 
 persuaded Joe Griffin to go home with him, 
 stay all night, and help eat the coon. Though one 
 of the most kind-hearted creatures that ever lived, 
 Joe's proclivity for practical jokes was both in- 
 stinctive and inveterate. If the choice lay between 
 making a mortal enemy for life and a good joke, he 
 could not prevail upon himself to forego the joke. 
 He was very shrewd withal, and would extricate 
 himself from difficulties, and accomplish his ends 
 by pleasantry,' where others would be compelled to 
 fight their way out, or miss of their object. 
 
 One autumn, the blacksmith, having great quan- 
 tities of axes to make for the loggers, hired Joe a 
 couple of months, as there was a great deal of 
 striking with the sledge, and his apprentice was 
 young and light. The smith was a very driving 
 man, but kept his men well, and was very hospita- 
 ble. He was obliged to be absent occasionally to 
 deliver his axes. At such times his wife, who was
 
 108 LION BEN OF KLM ISLAND. 
 
 penurious in the extreme, kept the boys very short. 
 Joe, knowing that his master did not approve of 
 this, resolved to put n stop to it. They worked 
 evenings. One night the smith came home full of 
 grit, as he had been riding and resting, and pre- 
 pared to forge an axe. Placing a hot iron on the 
 anvil, he cried, " Strike, Joe, strike." Joe struck a 
 few feeble blows, when exclaiming, "It's going! it's 
 going! it's all gone!" dropped his sledge on the- 
 floor, and seemed ready to faint away. 
 
 "What's gone?" cried the smith, in a rage at 
 having lost his heat. 
 
 " That water porridge we had for supper." 
 The master then took them to the house, and 
 gave them a hearty meal. 
 
 Once more the iron was laid upon the anvil ; 
 
 Joe struck tremendous blows, making the sparks 
 
 fly all over the shop, crying, "It's coming! it's 
 
 coming ! it gives me strength ! I feel it ! I feel it ! " 
 
 " What's coming, and what do you feel ?" 
 
 " That good beefsteak I had for supper." 
 
 Joe could talk like anybody under heaven, and 
 
 look like them too. ITe could talk more like Uncle 
 
 Sam Yelf than Uncle Sam could himself. This 
 
 gift, howeveV, he used very sparingly, for he could 
 
 lake a joke as well as give one ; felt that 'twas
 
 TOO GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE. 109 
 
 mean to turn the peculiarities of others into ridi- 
 cule, and in a way in which they could not re- 
 taliate. 
 
 Yelf had a sort of hitch in his voice, which was 
 very ludicrous, but, like many people who have an 
 impediment, could sing distinctly and shout tre* 
 mendously ; he was also very hot in his temper. 
 Sometimes, when they met at the store, Joe would 
 begin to talk with him, and just like him. 
 
 The old man would fly in a passion in a moment, 
 begin to sputter, and Joe would "take him off," 
 while no human being could help laughing. It was 
 fine sport for the young folks, and the more so on 
 account of its rarity, as it was but seldom that 
 Joe could be persuaded to do it, and was sure to 
 give the old man some tobacco soon after. He 
 could also imitate the cry of any beast, wild or 
 tame, to perfection, from a moose to a muskrat ; 
 and of birds, except the squawk ; Joe said the 
 squawks were too many for him. 
 
 This power was of great value to him in hunt- 
 ing. He could call a moose or muskrat within 
 range, by imitating the notes of either. 
 
 In the evening Ben went over to the widow 
 Hadlock's. He was in the habit of making a 
 bootjack of the crane ; standing on one leg, and
 
 110 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 steadying himself by the mantel-piece, he put the 
 other foot into the crotch of the crane, and pulled 
 off his boot. Joe had often seen him do this, and 
 laid his plans accordingly. After the family were 
 all asleep, Joe got up, and with a crowbar pulled 
 out the dogs that held the crane, and then put 
 them back again in such a manner that the least 
 touch would loosen them, and bring crane arid 
 all on to the floor. He then took a cow-bell 
 from a cow's neck in the barnyard, and putting 
 some stones in an old tin pail, hung them and a 
 bottle of sour milk on the crane, and went back 
 to bed. 
 
 About twelve o'clock Ben came. He felt round 
 for a candle, expecting to find it where his mother 
 usually left it on the mantel-piece ; but Joe had 
 taken very good care to remove both candle and 
 matches; so, feeling for the crane, he clapped in his 
 foot and pulled ; down came the crane on to the 
 floor. Ben went over backwards, full length on 
 the floor, with a force that shook the whole house 
 from garret to cellar; the cow-bell and tin pail 
 rattled ; the sour milk ran all over Ben ; his mother 
 awaked from a sound sleep, and screamed murder ; 
 and old Captain Rhines came rushing out in his 
 night-shirt, with a pistol in each hand, blazed away
 
 TOO GOOD A CITAXCE TO LOSE. Ill 
 
 at the sound, putting one bullet through the win- 
 dow, and the other into a milk-pan of eggs, 
 which stood upon the dressers, while the children, 
 roused by the frantic screams of the mother and 
 the pistol shots, came shrieking from their beds. 
 
 " Don't shoot any more, father," cried Ben ; " it's 
 me." 
 
 " My God ! " exclaimed Captain Rhines, feeling 
 the milk, which, by hanging over the fire, had be- 
 come warm, as it touched his bare feet, and mis- 
 taking it for blood ; "have I shot my own son ?" 
 
 "No, father," said Ben; "it's some of that 
 confounded Joe Griffin's work. I'll fix him." He 
 ran up stairs to take summary A'engeance. In this 
 he was disappointed, for the moment Joe heard the 
 crash, he slid down on a pole, which he had previ- 
 ously placed at the window, and ran home. 
 
 We must remember that Ben had been court- 
 ing ; had on his best broadcloth, purchased on the 
 last voyage, and in which he was to be married. 
 
 Broadcloth suits in those days were limited to a 
 very few. The minister had a coat and breeches 
 for Sabbath ; so of a few of the seafaring people and 
 their families ; but the clothing of the people in 
 general was both manufactured and made up at 
 home, there being no such thing as a tailor.
 
 112 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Here, then, was Ben's best suit, made in Liver- 
 pool by a professional tailor, soaked with sour milk, 
 and covered with ashes ; his light buff waistcoat 
 all over smut, from the pot, crane, hooks, and tram- 
 mels, that fell over him. Thus, though Ben's tem- 
 per was not easily roused, and soon subsided, he 
 was now thoroughly mad, and, hud he caught Joe, 
 would probably have crippled him for life. Per- 
 haps some such thought crossed his mind, as he 
 said to his father on coming down, " lie's gone, and 
 I'm glad of it ; but I'll be even with him before 
 f>now flies." 
 
 Aunt Molly B radish's declaration that Ben 
 Rhines had helped everybody that needed help, 
 and that she should think somebody might give 
 him a lift, was not lost. Seth Warren happened 
 to be in there, and heard the old lady's remarks. 
 Seth was a kind-hearted, jovial fellow, who had 
 been many a time with Ben on his errands of 
 mercy, and loved any kind doings. lie went di- 
 rectly to the store, where, as he expected, he found, 
 as it was Saturday night, a good portion of the 
 young men of the place assembled. lie took them 
 aside, and said, "You know what a good fellow 
 Ben Rhines is ; how he has always been getting up 
 4 bees' to help everybody that was behindhand:
 
 TOO GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE. 113 
 
 now, what say for going on to the island next 
 week, the whole crew of us, and giving him a lift 
 with his house ? " 
 
 Seth's proposition was received with acclama- 
 tions. " Now, boys," he continued, " you know 
 how such things always leak out, and that spoils 
 the whole. Now,, don't say a word about it to 
 neither sister, mother, or sweetheart, till they have 
 gone back to the island Monday morning, and then 
 we can talk as much as we please, and they cannot 
 possibly get wind of it." 
 
 This was solemnly assented to. 
 
 " I," said Seth, " will go over and sleep with Joe 
 Griffin Sunday night, and, without letting him sus- 
 pect anything, find out how far they've got along 
 with their work, that we may know when our help 
 will be most needed." This he did, when Joe 
 told him what he did the night before at Captain 
 Ilhines's. 
 
 " What do you suppose Ben '11 do to you ? He'll 
 murder you after he gets you on to the island. I 
 shouldn't want to be in your shoes." 
 
 " Poh ! he won't, neither ; he's like a 1 bottle of 
 beer, soon up and soon over. I think it is like 
 enough he'll throw me overboard; if he does, I 
 don't care j I'd be willing to be ducked twenty
 
 114 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 times for the sake of the fun I had that night, and 
 for the better fun I shall have thinking about it 
 and telling of it." 
 
 The next morning Seth accompanied Joe t6 the 
 shore ; but no sooner was the gundelow fairly offj 
 than getting on the horse with Hannah Murch, 
 who had come to bring her husband, he let out the 
 whole matter to her. Hannah, by no means back- 
 ward in the good work, told everybody she met on 
 the road, and went to the school-house and told the 
 mistress. 
 
 The result of this was, that thirty-five young men 
 agreed to go, among whom were ten ship-carpen- 
 ters from Massachusetts, who were there cutting 
 ship timber, with their master workman, Ephraira, 
 Hunt ; also, Sam Atkins, from Nevvburyport, who 
 was at home on a visit. 
 
 The girls, under the direction of Hannah Murch, 
 were to cook and furnish the provisions, while 
 John Strout engaged to set them on in his fishing 
 schooner, the Perseverance, an Ipswich pink-stern, 
 of sixty tons.
 
 THE SURPRISE PARTY. 115 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SURPRISE PARTY. 
 
 "WEDNESDAY morning the axes were flying mer- 
 rily, as Ben and his crew were busy at their timber, 
 when they were startled by a tremendous cheer, 
 and, to their utter amazement, beheld thirty-five 
 men, in military order, emerging from the woods, 
 led on by Seth Warren, with a three-cornered 
 cap, in which were the tail feathers of a turkey, 
 with a skein of yarn for a sash, and shouldering 
 an adze. Each man was armed, some with 
 broad-axes, others narrow-axes, saws, augers, and 
 other tools. 
 
 When Seth had marched his men up in front of 
 the cellar, he commanded them to stand at ease. 
 
 It is impossible adequately to describe the amaze- 
 ment of the party on the island. Joe stood leaning 
 on his axe, with his mouth wide open ; Uncle Isaac 
 held his hat before him with both hands, as if for a 
 shield; while Ben, who had, under the first im- 
 pulse, started forward to meet Seth, unable to get
 
 116 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 any farther, stood with both hands in his pockets, 
 the picture of astonishment and doubt. 
 
 " Now, Ben," exclaimed Seth, with a magnificent 
 flourish of his hand, and very much at his ease, 
 while his eyes were dancing in his head with sup- 
 pressed glee, as he noticed the completeness of the 
 surprise, " did you suppose there were never to be 
 any more ' bees,' and that folks wan't going to help 
 each other any more, because you are going to be 
 married, and have got through with it ? I tell you, 
 you've learnt us the trade, and we've come to prac- 
 tise, and help the fellow that has set us so good an 
 example ain't we, boys ? " 
 
 Seth's speech was received with a cheer. Poor 
 Ben, feeling that he must say something, and not 
 knowing what to say, presented a most ludicrous 
 picture. His great body swayed to and fro ; he 
 stood first on one foot and then oil the other, to 
 the great delight of his friends, who were in high 
 glee at this evidence of the thoroughness of the 
 surprise. 
 
 At length the great creature, who would have 
 faced a battery without winking, blurted out, 
 " Neighbors, I 'm sure, I don't know what I've 
 done to deserve all this kindness," and burst into 
 tears.
 
 THE SURPRISE PARTY. 117 
 
 " Don't know what you've done ? " replied Seth, 
 anxious to cover Ben's confusion; "Z should like to 
 know what you haven't done. Who raised a scout, 
 and built Uncle Joe Elwell a barn, after his'n was 
 struck by lightning ? " 
 
 " Who," said John Lapharn, "got in the widow 
 Perry's harvest, and cut all her winter's wood, after 
 her husband was killed stoning a well ? " 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed John Strout, the skipper of 
 the Perseverance, "who was it took care of me 
 when I had the smallpox in Jacmel, and everybody 
 else, even my own relation, run away from me ? " 
 
 " Well," replied Ben, whose modesty revolted at 
 such a display of his virtues, " I didn't do any more 
 than my duty." 
 
 "That's just what we're going to do," replied 
 Seth. 
 
 "And that's where you're right," said Uncle 
 Isaac, putting on his hat. " Come on, boys ; if 
 you're so anxious to work, I'll give you enough of 
 it to start the grease out of you." 
 
 "Let you alone for that, uncle," said a voice 
 from the crowd. 
 
 "Who's that? As I'm alive it's my nephew, 
 Sam Atkins. Where did you drop from, Sam ? " 
 
 " Why, you see, uncle, we were waiting for 

 
 118 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 timber at Newburyport, that is to come in a vessel ; 
 and as Jacob Colcord was coming down in his 
 schooner, I thought it would be a good time to 
 make a visit home." 
 
 " You couldn't have done a better thing ; you're 
 just the boy I want. Now, Master Hunt, if you'll 
 be good enough to line these timbers for these boys 
 to hew, I'll be doing something else." 
 
 Sam Atkins, who was well assured his uncle 
 would not overlook his capabilities, sat on a log 
 whittling. After he had set all the rest to work, 
 Uncle Isaac came to him, and laying his hand upon 
 his shoulder, said, " Sam, I've got a nice job for 
 you ; I want you to frame the roof; you'll find 
 tools in my tool-chest. There are the rafters, and 
 they will have the ridge-pole and purlins hewed by 
 the time you will want them." 
 
 As soon as a good number of sticks were hewed, 
 they began to roll them up > while Uncle Isaac, Joe 
 Griffin, and two of the ship carpenters, cut the 
 dovetails. By twelve o'clock they had the timber 
 for the walls hewed, and the walls raised to the 
 chamber, and the beams and sleepers for the cham- 
 ber floor hewed, and Sam and his crew had the 
 roof framed. 
 
 In order to make the surprise to Ben complete,
 
 THE SURPRISE PARTY. 119 
 
 Jhey had anchored the schooner behind the woods, 
 on the north-east end of the island ; but they now 
 brought her round, aud anchored her in the cove, 
 and brought ashore their provisions jugs of coffee 
 all made, with the sweetening boiled in ; cheese 
 and doughnuts, bread and butter, beef, pork, and 
 lamb, all cooked, which the girls had provided ; and 
 a good deal more raw, which they meant to have 
 the fun of cooking themselves. 
 
 They laid some boards on logs, and thus made 
 their tables. 
 
 After dinner, they lay on the grass and talked 
 and laughed, while the older ones smoked, and had 
 a jolly good time. 
 
 At length Uncle Isaac said, putting his pipe in 
 his waistcoat pocket, " Boys, do you calculate on 
 having a frolic in the house to-night?" 
 
 " Yes, we do," replied a score of voices. 
 
 " Then it's high time you were laying the cham- 
 ber floor." 
 
 " You old drive," said Joe, speaking thick, with 
 the ribs of a sheep between his teeth, "didn't you 
 know old Captain Hurry is dead ? cast away, going 
 down to Make Haste ? Can't you give a feller time 
 to eat ? That's been the way ever since I've been 
 here, boys. I'm getting quite thin."
 
 120 LICIT BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 "He don't show it much," said Uncle Isaac, 
 pointing to Joe's fat cheeks ; "he has had an hour 
 and a half, and eaten almost a whole sheep." 
 
 As nothing was planed except the edges of 
 the floor boards, and what was absolutely neces- 
 sary to make the joints, the work went on 
 " smoking." 
 
 " Ah," said Uncle Isaac, stopping to draw a long 
 breath, while the sweat dropped from the end of 
 his nose on to the axe handle, " that's the time of 
 day, my bullies ; all strings are drawing now." 
 
 In a short time Joe sung out that the floor 
 beams were all laid, cross sleepers in, and they 
 wanted something to do to keep them from freezing. 
 
 " Well, lay the rough floor, and be quick about 
 it ; the boards are all jointed, and we shall be at 
 your heels with the upper one." 
 
 By the time Joe and his crew had laid half of 
 the loose floor, the ship carpenters began to lay 
 the other one over it, and they finished nearly at 
 the same time. . 
 
 There were two courses of logs above the floor 
 beams, so that the house was a story and a half in 
 height. The logs being hewn on two sides, then 
 smoothed with an adze, the window frames fitted 
 close, the walls two feet or more in thickness, and
 
 THE SURPRISE PARTY. 121 
 
 very few windows, the house was almost as tight 
 as though it grew there. 
 
 " Hand that timber right up here," shouted Uncle 
 Isaac, from the chamber floor, " and clap the roof 
 on. That'll be enough for one day ; there's reason 
 in all things." 
 
 As there were half a dozen men to a rafter, the 
 timber went up in a few moments.
 
 122 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CHRISTENING. 
 
 " HALLOA, Uncle Isaac ! " shouted Joe from the 
 house-top, "this ridge-pole won't fit; you didn't 
 make it right." 
 
 " Yes, I did. I never made a bad joint in my 
 life." 
 
 " Well, it won't fit, anyhow. Master Hunt says 
 'twont." 
 
 " O, if I could only get a little spirit to rub on 
 it," said Uncle Isaac, in great perplexity, " I'll bet 
 'twould fit ; but I'm sure I don't know how I can 
 get it on this island." 
 
 " There's some aboard the schooner," said John 
 Strout; and, as it was passed up the frame, Joe 
 announced that the ridge-pole fitted first rate. 
 
 " Now, boys, the frame is up, and must be named. 
 Who shall name it?" 
 
 " Seth Warren," was the cry; "he got up the 
 scrnpe." Seth, all at once, became extremely diffi- 
 dent, and required as much urging as a distinguished
 
 THE CHRISTENING. 123 
 
 man at Commencement dinner, but finally was pre- 
 vailed upon, at a great sacrifice of his own feelings, 
 to gratify his friends. With a bottle of rum in his 
 right hand, and astride the ridge-pole, he gave vent 
 to the following effusion : 
 
 Here, in the woods, yet out at sea, 
 
 Where robins sing amid the surf, 
 Where ivy clasps the moss-grown tree, 
 
 And flowers are breaking from the turf, 
 
 We've reared, where house ne'er stood before, 
 Nor reaper bound the swelling grain, 
 
 A dwelling-place, amid the roar 
 
 Of waves, that break to break again. 
 
 Good luck to those who here shall live, 
 
 Prosperity their path attend, 
 With every blessing Heaven can give 
 
 Health, competence, till life shall end. 
 
 To them its wealth may ocean yield, 
 
 The herds their milky tribute pour; 
 Rich harvests crown the fertile field, 
 
 A bouncing baby grace the floor. 
 
 So strong a man ne'er held a plough, 
 
 A seaman tried, a shipmate true ; 
 So sweet a girl ne'er milked a cow, 
 
 Or bleached her linen in the dew
 
 124 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 This goodly house yet lacks a name ; 
 
 Good people all, I pray you tell, 
 How I most worthily the same, 
 
 This afternoon, may christen welL 
 
 We'll not forget, where'er we roam, 
 When thirty-five young stalwart men, 
 
 And Uncle Isaac, reared the home 
 Of old Elm Island's Lion Ben. 
 
 I name it, then, the " Lion's Den ; " 
 
 When we are dead these walls shall last, 
 
 To tell of times when men were men, 
 And keep the record of the past ; 
 
 When worth, not wealth, won woman's heart, 
 
 While she her lighter burden bore ; 
 At wheel and loom performed her part, 
 
 And added to the common store. 
 
 As he concluded, he dashed the bottle on the 
 ridge-pole, and flung the neck high in the air. 
 Seth was frequently interrupted with applause ; 
 but, when he finished, there was a complete storm 
 of cheers. 
 
 "I call that the cap-sheaf," said Uncle Isaac; 
 "there's some chaw to that; it's raal sentimental; 
 none of your low blackguard stuff, such as they 
 generally have to raisin's. I think we ought al]
 
 THE CHRISTENING. 125 
 
 join together, and get Squire Linscott, the town 
 dark, to copy them are varses, and buy a gilded 
 frame, and have 'em hung over Ben's fireplace ; 
 then our grandchildren will know about it, for we 
 haven't done anything on this island we're ashamed 
 of, and don't mean to." 
 
 It was universally agreed that after such an ef- 
 fort a man must be thirsty ; and a large pail of milk 
 punch appeared from the schooner. Seth, as the 
 poet of the day, received the first draught ; then 
 Uncle Isaac and Master Hunt, and so it went 
 round. 
 
 " It is not near night yet," said Seth, who was 
 greatly pleased with his successful effort; "what do 
 you say for boarding the roof and ends ? there is 
 snch a swarm of us that we can do it in less than 
 an hour." 
 
 "I think we have done enough," said Uncle 
 Isaac ; " but I'm in for it if you are." 
 
 They accordingly boarded the roof and the ends. 
 
 "Now," said Seth, "for some fun." 
 
 The chips were all cleared out of the house, and 
 the floor swept with spruce boughs ; it made a 
 noble hall ; not a thing in it, and almost square. 
 Uncle Isaac, rolling a log in front of the house, 
 sat down to smoke, contemplating his workmanship
 
 126 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 with the greatest complacency. His thoughts were 
 also occupied in preparing for the morrow. He 
 was desirous of making the most of this godsend, 
 but did not want the boys to feel that he and 
 Ben were trying to get all they could out of them. 
 They had come to work, but for a good time as 
 well. This was the secret of his influence over the 
 boys. He had not outlived his youthful feelings ; 
 knew theirs, and liked to frolic as well as they did. 
 Knowing that Seth and Joe were leaders of the 
 rest, and would do anything in reason for Ben, the 
 wise old man determined to create a public senti- 
 ment, and then follow the leadings of it; so he 
 took them aside, and told them this plan, of which 
 they highly approved, and which Seth was to pro- 
 pose at the proper time, and Joe to advocate. 
 Seats were now made along the walls ; a great 
 quantity of pitch knots were piled up on the foun- 
 dation of the chimney, and set on fire. This made 
 such a light, that the very heads of the nails in the 
 floor were visible, while the smoke went out of the 
 hole left in the roof for the chimney.
 
 THE PULL UP. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE "PULL UP." 
 
 " As we can't have any kissing without the girls," 
 said Joe, "let's play 'Pull up.'" 
 
 The handle of one of the axes was knocked out, 
 and the game began. It was a most severe test of 
 strength. Two of the company, sitting upon the 
 floor, and putting the soles of their feet together, 
 took hold of the axe-handle, and endeavored to 
 pull each other up. If either broke his hold he 
 was adjudged beaten. Victory in this game de- 
 pends not merely upon weight, as it might seem at 
 first, but upon strength in the hands, a.'.rl power of 
 endurance. A man may be very heavy, and have 
 great strength in his arms, and not be strong in his 
 fingers to retain his hold upon the axe-handle. 
 
 The young men would sit there and pull, with 
 their teeth set, and the perspiration streaming down 
 their faces, and their eyes almost starting from their 
 sockets. When they were pretty equally matched, 
 one would raise the other from the floor an inch or
 
 128 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 two, and then lose it again, as his opponent made 
 desperate efforts, and recovered the ground, their 
 friends meanwhile encouraging either party; and 
 as the weakest men were brought on first, and af- 
 terwards the strongest and most equally matched, 
 the game became, towards the close, most intensely 
 interesting. 
 
 Joe Bradish had pulled up four of his opponents, 
 and being a very conceited fellow, strutted about 
 the floor, and challenged the crowd to pull him up. 
 The challenge would not have remained long un- 
 accepted, but the contest had now become limited 
 to a few of the strongest men, who, knowing they 
 were to be pitted against each other, were saving 
 themselves for the final struggle. 
 
 Uncle Isaac saw how it was ; and, as he wished 
 to see how the sport would go on, and to teach the 
 braggart a little modesty, he rose up, threw off his 
 outer garment, and accepted the challenge. His 
 proposal was received with shouts of laughter. 
 
 " I'm sorry he's done it," said Seth to Joe Griffin, 
 " though I can't help laughing. I should be sorry 
 to see him pulled up before this crowd, for I know 
 it would mortify him ; he is just as much of a boy 
 as any of us." 
 
 " He won't be pulled. Uncle Isaac, I can tell
 
 THE PULL UP. 129 
 
 you, is an nil fired strong man ; it don't lay in Joe 
 Bradish's breeches to pull him up." 
 
 " I know that ; but he's getting in years." 
 
 "He can't wrestle and jump quite as well as he 
 could once ; but he can lift as much, and pull up 
 as well, as ever he could. Joe Bradish will get 
 a good lesson ; he'll never hear the last of it a8 
 long as he lives." 
 
 " Well, boys," said Uncle Isaac, " fling on some 
 pitch knots ; if I am going to be beat, I want every- 
 body to see it." 
 
 " What did I tell you ? " said Joe, giving Seth a 
 poke in the ribs ; " the old man knows what he's 
 about." 
 
 The two champions sat down. 
 
 " Say when you're ready, Joe," said TJncle Isaac. 
 
 " Ready," says Joe. 
 
 TJncle Isaac was not only strong, but of very 
 quick strength ; and before the words were well 
 out of the other's mouth, he pulled him over his 
 head, into Joe Griffin's arms, who was eagerly look- 
 ing over Uncle Isaac. 
 
 " It ain't fair," said Joe, his face as red as fire; "I 
 wasn't ready." 
 
 " You said you was." 
 
 Well, I thought I was; but I wasn't." 
 9
 
 130 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 "Try it again," was the cry. They sat down. 
 Uncle Isaac waited patiently till Joe had spit on 
 his hands, and said he was completely ready, when 
 lie pulled him up just as easily as before. 
 
 " I thought you was some, Joe," said Uncle Isaac ; 
 "but you ain't nothing." 
 
 John Strout, a large, muscular man, whose occu- 
 pation as a sailor had the effect to concentrate 
 strength in the fingers and chest, had pulled up all 
 who opposed him. The call was now for Joe Griflin, 
 as no one thought of pulling with Rhines. Joe 
 
 came forward at the summons. Severe was the 
 
 
 struggle ; and, as these were the last antagonists, 
 
 the interest was proportionally great. Joe finally 
 pulled John from the floor, but the blood spun 
 from his nose in consequence of his efforts; and 
 John was so exhausted that he could scarcely stand. 
 
 " I could not have done it, John, if you had 
 taken hold of me when you were fresh, for an ounce 
 more would have broken my hold." 
 
 Uncle Isaac now gave the wink to Seth, who 
 said, loud enough for everybody to hear, " I think 
 it's a pity, now we're here, that we couldn't shingle 
 the house, and build Ben a hovel to put his cow in, 
 and hang the doors ; then all he would have to do 
 would be to get married."
 
 THE PTTLL UP. 131 
 
 " Well, we would do it, if we had the shingles 
 to do it with wouldn't we, boys ? " said Joe Griffin. 
 
 " Yes," was the reply from twenty voices ; " and 
 we'll build the hovel and hang the doors, at any 
 rate ; we've got all the materials for that." 
 
 " Well, boys," said Uncle Isaac, " since you are 
 so free-hearted, I'll tell you what I've been think- 
 ing of, for I feel about nineteen, since I pulled up 
 Joe Bradish. I've been thinking I should like first 
 rate to have a clam bake." 
 
 " A clam bake ! a clam bake ! " was the cry. 
 
 "But then, you see, we have no hoes to dig 
 clams with ; and we want some eggs, potatoes, and 
 apples to bake with them. Now, I've got a whole 
 lot of hemlock bark on the edge of the bank on 
 my point, where you can go to it with the gunde- 
 low enough to cover three such houses. I'll 
 lend it to Ben, and when he peels bark next June 
 he can pay me ; and I've got nails likewise. If we 
 can get an early start in the morning, we can do 
 the whole, clam bake and all. The bark is all piled 
 up, so that it is flat, and will lay first rate ; it will 
 make as tight a roof as shingles, and last seven or 
 eight years, and by that time Ben can make his 
 own shingles. Some of you can load the gumle- 
 low, and some can get the hoes and nails ; aud
 
 132 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 tell Hannah to give you some corn that grows 
 in the western field, it's a late piece the frost 
 hasn't touched it yet, it's just right to roast; 
 and also get all the apples, eggs, and potatoes you 
 want." 
 
 Uncle Isaac's plan met with a hearty approval ; 
 and they brought in some brush, and lay down to 
 sleep. 
 
 The next morning, at daybreak, John Strout, with 
 a strong party, started after the bark, taking a jug 
 of coffee and a cold bite with them. 
 
 The others went to work making preparations 
 to cover the roof of the house, and build the hovel. 
 Uncle Isaac gave Joe Griffin a gang, and set him 
 to build the hovel. Sam Atkins, with the ship car- 
 penters, went to work upon the doors, while the 
 rest put up the staging upon which to work while 
 covering the roof. 
 
 The hovel was built of round logs, notched to- 
 gether, with a roof on one side, what is called a 
 half-faced cabin, just high enough to clear the 
 cattle's backs, and large enough to hold a cow and 
 yoke of oxen. Nothing was hewed except the 
 poles that made the floor, which were flatted on 
 the upper side ; and the openings between the logs 
 filled with clay and mortar.
 
 THE PULL UP. 133 
 
 The crew now arrived with the bark, when, who 
 should come with them, but Uncle Sam Yelf and 
 Jonathan Smullen ! Yelf was seventy, Smullen 
 seventy-five. The old men wanted to share in the 
 clam bake, have a little milk punch, and, above all, 
 to witness the wrestling : they had both been cham- 
 pions of the ring in their day. 
 
 All hands, except the carpenters, now joined in 
 putting on the sheets of bark ; they were lapped 
 like shingles, and, being four feet in length, were 
 laid with great rapidity. 
 
 " There are more of you here than can work to 
 advantage," said Uncle Isaac ; " some of you, dig 
 clams." 
 
 In the mean time the carpenters hung the doors. 
 The hinges and latches were all made of wood. 
 The latch was lifted by a leather string, which was 
 put through a hole in the door above it, and hung 
 down on the outside. Thence came the phrase, 
 "the latch-string out," to denote open doors and 
 hospitality ; since, when it was pulled in there was 
 no entrance. 
 
 "What on airth," said Uncle Isaac, "has become 
 of Sam Atkins? I haven't set eyes on him this 
 whole forenoon." 
 
 While the rest were preparing for the clam bake,
 
 134 LION BEX OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 he went everywhere looking for Sam. A great fire 
 was now built in the hollow of a ledge, till the 
 rocks were red hot. Into this were put the clams, 
 together with eggs, potatoes, and corn with the 
 husk on ; the whole was then covered with sea- 
 weed, to keep in the steam while they were 
 cooking. 
 
 There was a short log left in the building of the 
 house, and, in order to pass the time away, while 
 waiting for the dinner, they dug it out, and made 
 a hog's trough : thus Ben's first article of furniture 
 was a hog's trough. 
 
 The clams formed the first course ; eggs, corn, 
 apples, and cheese, the second ; concluding with 
 milk punch, which passed from hand to hand in a 
 tin quart. 
 
 If ever there was real enjoyment, it was to be 
 found among that frolicsome throng of young men, 
 conscious that they had done a noble act, and, in 
 aiding a neighbor, had found the purest happiness 
 for themselves.
 
 INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES. 135 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES. 
 
 As Ben had shown no disposition to retaliate for 
 the joke played upon him, had never mentioned it 
 to any one, or ever alluded to it, Joe supposed 
 that, with his usual good nature, he had forgot- 
 ten it. 
 
 Ben, on the contrary, had resolved to pay Joe in 
 his own coin, with usury, whenever a fitting oppor- 
 tunity presented itself. 
 
 Some weeks before he had mown some tall grass, 
 which grew on the beach, made it into hay, and 
 enclosed it with a brush fence, to protect it from 
 the sheep. Adjoining the stack was a honey-pot. 
 Honey-pots are mires, sometimes twenty feet or more 
 in depth, composed of a blue, adhesive mud, which, 
 by the constant soaking of some hidden spring, 
 and the daily flow of the tide, is kept in a half 
 fluid state, except upon the surface, where the 
 clay, being somewhat hardened by the sun at low 
 water, is stiff, and will bear a man to walk
 
 186 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 over it quickly ; but, if he stands a moment, down 
 he goes. 
 
 Joe, who had never been on the island before, 
 was ignorant of the existence of this mire. Ben, 
 while the rest were asleep the night before, had re- 
 moved all the sand and drift stuff*, and scraped the 
 hard clay from the surface of the honey-pot, till 
 it would hardly bear a dog. 
 
 While the boys were stretched upon the grass, 
 laughing and talking after dinner, Ben asked Joe 
 to help him bring some hay on the poles for the 
 oxen. When two persons carry hay on poles, the 
 one behind cannot see where he steps, but must 
 follow his leader, who picks the road for him. Ben 
 went as near to the edge of the honey-pot as he 
 dared. The moment he got a little by, he turned 
 short off, bringing Joe right into the middle of it. 
 In he went, carried down both by his own weight 
 and that of the load, clean to his breast, when Ben, 
 twitching the poles away, sat down on the bank to 
 laugh at him. 
 
 <f Q, Ben," cried Joe, "we're square now; help 
 me out." 
 
 Ben took out his knife, and began to whittle. 
 
 Getting frightened, as he found himself gradu- 
 ally sinking, Joe roared for help, drawing the whole
 
 INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES. 137 
 
 party to the spot. This was just what Ben wanted. 
 He knew that Joe had told everybody in the neigh- 
 borhood of the trick he put on him, and it was his 
 turn now. 
 
 The moment Joe saw Uncle Isaac, he cried out, 
 " Do help me ; I'm going down." As there was 
 now real danger of his smothering in the mud, Ben 
 ran the poles under his arms. Joe made desperate 
 efforts to extricate himself by means of the poles, 
 but the mire so sucked him down, that he only 
 succeeded in getting out his shoulders. 
 
 At this juncture Tige came rushing along, and, 
 seizing him by the collar, endeavored to lift him 
 out; but sinking down into the slime, which Joe's 
 struggles had wrought into a complete porridge, 
 his mouth and nose were filled with mud and 
 water : giving a vigorous snort, he completely plas- 
 tered Joe's face and eyes with it, who, not being in 
 the most amiable of moods, hit him a cuff on the 
 side of the head. Tigc, enraged at being thus re- 
 warded for his good intentions, was going to bite 
 him, when Ben pulled him away by the tail. 
 
 " Pity I wan't a dog," whined Joe ; " then there'd 
 be some feeling for me." 
 
 He now appealed again to Uncle Isaac ; but the 
 old mail had thought the matter all over, and come
 
 138 LIOX BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 to the deliberate conclusion that it was time Joe's 
 wings were clipped ; that, if not checked, he would 
 become unbearable ; that there could be no bet- 
 ter time to administer reproof, and one stringent 
 enough to be remembered. 
 
 ** You know, Joseph," said he, in a severe tone, 
 " that the trick you plnyed last week on Ben was 
 not by any means the first you've played on him 
 and others. Who was it put on a bear-skin, got 
 down on all fours, followed the widow Hadlock 
 when she was going home from my house through 
 the woods, and growled, and frightened the poor 
 woman so that she was sick for three months, and 
 the whole town turned out the next day to kill 
 the bear?" 
 
 " I cut all her winter's wood, to pay for it." 
 
 " Who," said Joe Riggs, " stopped up the chim- 
 ney, when the young folks had a New Year's party 
 in the chamber over the store, and put peas on the 
 stairs, so that Seth Warren fell from top to bottom, 
 and broke his leg ? " 
 
 "Joe Griffin," cried Seth. 
 
 u He'd done the same to me, if he'd had the 
 chance, and wit enough." 
 
 " It makes my heart ache, Joseph," said Uncle 
 Isaac, "to see a young man in your situation hi
 
 INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES. 133 
 
 such an unreconciled frame of mind ; we never 
 should do wrong to others because they have done, 
 or would do, wrong to us. So far from manifest- 
 ing any contrition, you justify yourself in your evil 
 courses. Instead of resignation under trial, you 
 appear to me to be 'gritting your teeth,' and 
 thrashing about like unto a seal in a herring net." 
 
 " Who was it," asked John Strout, " when Mose 
 Atherton was all dressed up, going to walk round 
 the head of the bay, to see Sally Bannister, offered 
 to show him a shorter cut over the marsh, and led 
 him into a honey-pot, then went to John Godsoe's, 
 told them there was a man's hat on Moll Graffam's 
 honey-pot, and he guessed somebody must be in 
 trouble ? When. Godsoe's people got there, the 
 tide was flowing around him, and the water up to 
 his chin." 
 
 Joe made no reply to this. 
 
 "Don't be sullen, Joe, for you must perceive 
 we're measuring you by your own bushel. I begin 
 to fear it may become our duty to leave you here 
 till you're in a more submissive frame of mind." 
 
 " O, Uncle Isaac, you won't leave me in this 
 mire, six miles from any human being, to perish ? " 
 
 "Not to perish, young man, but to repent. Let 
 me see : to-day's Thursday j we can give you a little
 
 140 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 light foo'l, and leave you over the Sabbath ; it's a 
 good day, and should bring serious reflections. 
 The water don't come up here, except when it's a 
 storrn. I don't see any signs of a storm do you, 
 boys?" 
 
 The others didn't see much signs of one ; some 
 thought that 'twas a little " smurry." 
 
 u Reflection is profitable, Joseph. Monday we 
 might find you more reconciled." 
 
 " Til do anything you want me to, if you will 
 only take me out." 
 
 " That is better. Will you promise not to play 
 any more tricks upon any of this company, or any- 
 body else?" 
 
 " Don't make him lie," said Ben ; " he can't help it." 
 
 " Well, then, will you promise not to play any 
 more upon any one here, and say that you are 
 sorry for what you did to Ben ? " 
 
 I will." 
 
 u Then we will take you out ; and I trust it will 
 be a warning to you in future. Boys, build up a 
 fire ; he must be half perished with cold." 
 
 Ben got some boards, and laying them two-thick 
 upon the surface of the honey-pot, w r alked to the 
 place, and pulled him out ; and a miserable plight 
 he was in.
 
 INJURED PEOPLE TTAVE LONG MEMORIES. 141 
 
 " Jump into the water, Joe," said John Strout, 
 " and wash yourself; and I will go to my chest in 
 the schooner and get you a shift of clothes." 
 
 Joe washed the mud off in the water, and then 
 stood by the fire till John came with the clothes : 
 then, putting them on, he washed his own, and 
 hung them on a tree to dry. 
 
 "Joe," said Uncle Isaac, " did you see anything of 
 Sam Atkins in that honey-pot? for I'm blest if I 
 know what has become of him." 
 
 " Here he comes," said Joe ; and, sure enough, 
 he was now seen coming up from the shore, with 
 something on his shoulder. 
 
 " What is that, Sam ?" asked Uncle Isaac. 
 
 "A cradle for that bouncing baby Seth told 
 about." He had got out the stuff unnoticed by the 
 rest of them, and then went on board the schooner 
 and put it together. This was examined by all, 
 and caused abundant jests at Ben's expense. 
 
 It was now proposed that they should end the 
 day with a ring wrestle, both at close hugs and 
 arms' length. While the wrestling was going on, 
 the two old gentlemen, for whom a comfortable 
 seat had been provided near the fire, sat looking on, 
 criticising the proceedings, and entering into every 
 detail with intense interest.
 
 142 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 The presence of these distinguished veterans, 
 with their great bony frames, for they had been 
 men of vast pith and power, and famed through 
 all the region, acted as a mighty incentive to the 
 young men. 
 
 " I think, Uncle Jonathan," said Yelf, ''you and 
 I have seen the day we could show these boys 
 some things they haven't learned yet. Do you re- 
 member that wrastle we had when Captain Rhines's 
 house was raised there was stout, withy men 
 around these bays in them days ; how you threw 
 Sam Hart, that came forty miles to wrastle with 
 you, and said God Almighty never made the man 
 that could heave him ? But he found the man 
 didn't he?" giving his friend a nudge in the ribs 
 with his elbow. 
 
 " They said," replied Smullen, " he was so mor- 
 tified because he'd bragged so much, that he went 
 home and hung himself. Ah, my toe was so sartin 
 in those days, when I put it in ! You know I had 
 a particular trip with my left foot." 
 
 " Hoora ! " said Uncle Sam, as John Strout 
 crotch-locked Sam Pettigrew, and threw him ; " a 
 fair fall that, and no mistake. Both shoulders and 
 both hips on the ground." 
 
 The plaudits of the veterans were like fuel to
 
 INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES. 143 
 
 the fire. The yonng men exerted themselves to 
 the utmost in the presence of such competent 
 judges. 
 
 At length their nged blood began to circulate 
 more briskly, under the combined influence of the 
 warm fire, milk punch, and old associations. 
 
 " Uncle Sam," said Smullen, " what do you say 
 to me and you trying a fall ; we've had hold of one 
 another afore to day ? " 
 
 "Agreed," was the reply; "but it must be at 
 arm's length. I've had the rheumatics so much 
 that my back's got kinder shackly." 
 
 The young people laughed till the tears ran 
 down their cheeks as they stepped into the ring, 
 their upper garments removed, heads bare, and the 
 white locks flowing round their shoulders. Uncle 
 Yelf, producing his snuff-box, a sheep's bladder, 
 after taking a pinch, offered it to Smullen, and 
 the contest began. 
 
 They exhausted every feint known to the art, 
 and it was soon evident to the young people that 
 these veterans possessed a skill unknown to them, 
 and that it was only in the strength of youth they 
 were lacking. 
 
 Beside them was an elm, that separated at the 
 root into two parts. Between the forks Smullen
 
 144 LION BEX OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 threw Yelf with such force, that he was firmly 
 wedged, and had to be pulled out. 
 
 " Well," said Uncle Sam, "he ought to throw 
 me ; he's the oldest." 
 
 Just before sunset they took leave of Ben, and, 
 with hearty cheers, made sail. 
 
 It was a current saying, in respect to Uncle 
 Isaac, that he could keep more men at work, bring 
 more to pass, with less fuss, and have everybody 
 good-natured, than any man in the district ; and 
 nobly had he justified the general verdict.
 
 BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC. 145 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC AND IS COM- 
 FORTED. 
 
 THE party on the island sat by the camp fire, 
 listening to the voices of their departing friends, 
 till they died away in the distance. 
 
 " Who are you going to get to build your chim- 
 ney, Ben ?" asked Uncle Isaac. 
 
 "Joe Dorset." 
 
 " I never'd get him ; a poor man can't afford to 
 hire him ; he came from Newburyport, and he'd be 
 always heaving out, and telling how much better 
 they have things in Massachusetts ; growling about 
 the stuff he has to work with, and can't do any- 
 thing without merchantable brick." 
 
 " I don't know anything about him," said Ben, 
 "only I've heard he is an excellent workman." 
 
 " Well, so he is ; but when you've said that 
 
 you've said everything. He'll have a great many 
 
 long stones to tell, that'll eat up his own time, and 
 
 hinder other people. I like to hear a good story 
 
 10
 
 146 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 myself, and tell one too ; but I always do it after 
 work, and not to hinder work, in my own time, and 
 not my employer's; besides, he's so lazy ! He went 
 fishing one year with John Strout, and he was so 
 long hauling up a codfish that a dogfish eat him all 
 uj), and left nothing but the bare hooks to come to 
 the top of the water." 
 
 "Who shall I get?" 
 
 " Get Sam Elwell.' 
 
 " He ain't a mason." 
 
 " No, but he's a plaguy sight better for your pur- 
 pose ; he's a natural stone layer took it up of his 
 own head ; he'd build you a chimney out of the 
 stones, right here on the island, that'll carry the 
 smoke first rate, and that's all you want of a chim- 
 ney ; and he'll do it in quarter of the time. Then 
 the chirnney'll compare with the house, and they'll 
 be all of a muchness." 
 
 At this period of the conversation Joe flung 
 himself upon the brush, and was soon sleeping 
 soundly. 
 
 " Uncle Isaac, now that we are alone, I want to 
 tell you how I feel. It docs seem to me that it's 
 bad enough to bring Sally into a log house at all,, 
 and that I ought, in reason, to have had panel 
 doors in it ; more thau two windows in the whole
 
 BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC. 147 
 
 in a broadside, with a good brick chimney and oven 
 laid in lime mortar." 
 
 " Plank doors, tongued and cleated, are the warm- 
 est. Panel doors in a log house would look like 
 a man with a beaver hat on and barefoot. You 
 can cut out a window whenever you like, and the 
 less holes the warmer." 
 
 " But the chimney," persisted Ben ; " what will 
 she say to that ? and how can she get along with- 
 out an oven ? " 
 
 " Sally is one that looks into the realities of 
 things ; and if she has made up her mind to live 
 on this island, depend upon it she has considered 
 the matter all round, is looking forward to some- 
 thing better, and that will keep her from being 
 discouraged, however severe things may appear at 
 first. I don't suppose as how an oven can be made 
 of stone ; but I'll tell you what I will do take up 
 the bricks in my butt'y floor, and lend 'em to 
 you ; it's altogether too late for you to get bricks 
 this fall." 
 
 "Well, I hope 'twill all turn out well; but I 
 know in my soul that she's no more idea of what 
 living in a log house is, than she has of London." 
 
 " I know a great deal more about Sally Hadlock 
 than you do, though you are engaged to be married
 
 148 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 to her, because I know her people, and there's a 
 great deal in the blood. She is the living picture 
 of her grandmother Hannah, my wife was named 
 for, who came down here when it was a howling 
 wilderness, fought hunger and the Injuns, and beat 
 'em both. Handsome as she is, and gentle and 
 good as she seems and is, she's got the old iron 
 natur of that breed of folks, who had much rather 
 earn a thing than have it gin to 'em. She's had 
 nothing to call out that grit yet ; but you'll find 
 out what she's made of when she conies to be 
 put to't." 
 
 tt There's one thing that troubles me, that per- 
 haps you haven't thought of. If I was going to 
 take her into a new settlement, where everybody 
 lived in log houses, and all fared alike, it would be 
 another thing ; but I am going to bring her where 
 she can look right across the bay, and see the smoke 
 of her mother's chimney, and all her friends and 
 folks living in nice frame houses. Now, if she's 
 unhappy, and keeps it to herself on my account, 
 and grief is gnawing at her heartstrings, 1 can't 
 bear that." 
 
 u Benjamin," said Uncle Isaac, solemnly, who 
 saw his friend was really distressed, " what I'm go- 
 ing to say to you now I say candidly, and what
 
 BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC. 14U 
 
 I know to be a fact. I'm a married man, Ben, and 
 know what a woman is. When a woman really 
 sets her heart on a man, he is almost like God Al- 
 mighty to her ; and the more she can put herself 
 out for him, the more contented she is ; that is, if 
 she's morally sartin he loves her. Now, Sally loves 
 you with her whole soul, for she might have had 
 her pick of half the young men in town, and she 
 knows it. She is also sure that you love her, or 
 you would never have given up the business pros- 
 pects that you had, and undergo all that you must 
 undergo on this island just on her account ; there- 
 fore the more hardships she's called to suffer 'long 
 with you, the lighter hearted she'll be ; yes, she'll 
 take pride in't. O, Benjamin, these rich folks, Avho 
 never know what it is to strive and contrive to get 
 along, don't taste the real honey of married life ; 
 they don't know what's in one another, and don't 
 love one another as those do who have to fight for 
 a living. Why, they can't ; they haven't had to 
 lean on each other, and be so necessary to each 
 other." 
 
 Well, I never thought of that before." 
 " Of course you haven't ; I expect you'll have 
 the happiness of finding that out. I tell you, Han- 
 nah and I take lots of comfort Sabbath nights,
 
 150 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 when we ain't tired, talking over all we've been 
 ihrough together. And then sometimes I get the 
 Bible, and read them are v arses, where it says, ' She 
 seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with 
 her hands ; she will do him good, and not evil, all 
 the days of her life.' I can't help giving her a 
 kiss, and saying, 'Well, wife, I never should 've got 
 through it if 't hadn't been for you.' " 
 
 This last sally of the noble old philosopher of 
 the woods completely silenced Ben, who promised 
 he'd never harbor another doubt in respect to the 
 matter. 
 
 " There's another thing, Benjamin ; don't try to 
 slick it over any, but make it full as bad as 'tis. 
 If she expects the worst, and then finds it a great 
 deal better 'n she expected, 'twill make her more 
 contented. There's a great deal in the first feel- 
 ing and the first look of a thing, especially to a 
 woman." 
 
 The next day Ben and Joe were employed in 
 hauling stone for the chimney, and making clay 
 mortar. Uncle Isaac cut a red oak, and hewed out 
 a mantel-bar, to form the top of the fireplace ; It 
 was twelve feet in length, and no less than nine 
 inches square, as it was to support a great weight 
 of stone. Though of wood, it was so fur from the
 
 BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC. 151 
 
 fire, on account of the great height and depth of 
 the fireplace, that it could not well burn ; besides, 
 it was always the custom, whenever they ha;l a 
 great fire, to wet the mantel-bar the last thing be- 
 fore going to bed. 
 
 He then cut a hole through the floor, in what 
 was to be the front entry, to pour potatoes through 
 into the cellar (because the cellar was under the 
 south part of the house), and made a door to 
 cover it. 
 
 The house would seem to my readers but a poor 
 place to live in. There were but four windows be- 
 low, and these being put on the corners, to admit 
 of making others between them when they should 
 be able, gave to the house a funny look. The 
 house consisted of but two rooms below, separated 
 by a rough board partition, in which were two 
 doors of rough boards, hung by wooden hinges. 
 The chamber was reached by a ladder; the boards 
 of the floors were rough, and full of splinters, just 
 as they came from the saw. Against the wall in 
 the north-west corner, with shelves and closets 
 nicely planed, were some dressers to hold dishes. 
 In the cellar was a square arch of stone, into which 
 Uncle Isaac put shelves, and to which he made 
 doors. He then made a cross-legged table, all in
 
 152 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 one leaf, and a settle to place before the fire, with 
 a back higher than the top of a person's head, to 
 keep off the draughts of air that went up the great 
 chimney. 
 
 They went off Saturday, well satisfied with what 
 they had accomplished.
 
 ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT. 
 
 THE moment Uncle Isaac landed, he set out for 
 Sam Elwell's. Going along, he saw Yelf's horse 
 feeding beside the road, with the bridle under his 
 feet, and, a little farther on, his master lying in a 
 slough hole, to all appearance dead, but, as it 
 turned out, only dead drunk. He pulled him out, 
 and, as he was unable to stand, set him against the 
 fence to drip, while he caught the horse; his gray 
 hairs and face were plastered with mud ; his nose 
 had bled ; the blood was clotted upon his beard, 
 and soaked the bosom of his shirt. 
 
 " How came you in this mud hole ? " 
 
 " Why, you see, Isaac, the mare went in to drink ; 
 the bridle slipped -out of my hand ; I reached down 
 to get it, kind o' lost my balance, and fell right 
 over her head, and hit my nose on a rock. I think, 
 Isaac, I must have taken a leetle drop too much." 
 
 His friend scraped the mud from him as well as 
 he could with a chip, put him on the mare (for
 
 154 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Yelf could ride when altogether too drunk to 
 walk), and left him at his own house, which lay in 
 the direction he was going. 
 
 "That's a bad sight," said Uncle Isaac to him- 
 self, as he went on, "and it's one that's getting 
 altogether too common. I remember the time 
 when he was content with his three glasses a clay, 
 and perhaps a nightcap ; but now he can't stop till 
 he stops in a ditch. There ain't a man in this 
 town but what drinks spirit, myself among the 
 rest, and most of them more than's good for 'em. 
 I don't see why people can't use liquor with mod- 
 eration, and without making a beast of themselves. 
 If it was only these old, worn-out ones, like Yelf, 
 'twould n't be so much matter ; but it's amongst the 
 young folks ; and even boys get the worse for 
 liquor. It's natural they should ; for if men sail ves- 
 sels, boys.'ll sail boats. It's time something's done, 
 though what can be done I'm sure I don't know. 
 What an awful thing it would be, if, one of these 
 days, Ben or Joe Griffin should pick me out of a 
 ditch, and carry me home to my family looking like 
 that! I'll think about it, and talk with Hannah this 
 blessed night." He was aroused from his medita- 
 tions by hearing the voice of Sam at his own door. 
 
 He was about the age of Isaac, but a much
 
 ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT. 155 
 
 heavier man, being very thick set, with a stoop in 
 his shoulders. His hands were of great size, full 
 of cracks ; his fingers crooked, from constant work- 
 ing with stone hammers and drills ; many of the 
 nails jammed off, and his face as hard as the stones 
 he worked on. He was also a man of very few 
 words, Avhile Isaac liked to talk ; yet they had been 
 close friends from boyhood, took great delight in 
 each other's society (if it could be called society 
 whci-e one talked and the other listened), and al- 
 ways got together, and worked together, whenever 
 they could. They were both passionately fond of 
 gunning. Isaac was the quicker shot ; but Sam 
 could scull a float steadier and faster than any man 
 along the shore. He could also lay brick well, but 
 was possessed of a remarkable gift for working upon 
 rocks. He knew just how to take hold of a great 
 rock to move it, and could do a better quality of 
 work than they ever had occasion for in that rude 
 state of society, where nobody had hammered door- 
 steps but Captain Rhines, widow Iladlock, and a 
 few others. He knew all about the nature and 
 grain of rocks, could dress underpinning, or make 
 a millstone out of a boulder in the pasture. 
 
 He had just come home from a long job, and 
 was taking his tools out of the cart
 
 156 LION BEX OF EL3I ISLAND. 
 
 "Let them bo," said Isaac; "I've got another 
 job for you : " as he spoke he pulled the clevis-pin 
 out of the tongue. 
 
 Sam, without a word, unyoked the oxen, and 
 went into the barn to feed them, while the other 
 tied them up. 
 
 Isaac, without any invitation, followed Sam into 
 the house. The table was in the floor, and Sam's 
 wife had just put on the victuals. " Set along," 
 said Sam, motioning Isaac to a chair. That's the 
 way they lived. If they chanced to be in each 
 other's houses about meal time, they always 
 stopped. If they met on the road, or were at 
 work together in the woods, or had been off gun- 
 ning, they always went to the house that was 
 nearest. Their wives never wonied about them, 
 for they knew where they were, and were as good 
 friends as their husbands. 
 
 " Sam," said Isaac, " did you ever see a fireplace 
 and chimney built of stone ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You didn't?" 
 
 " I've seen stones set up in a log camp to build a 
 fire against, with a 'cat and clay' chimney built 
 over them; but 'twas a make-shift till they could 
 get bricks."
 
 EXCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT. 157 
 
 "Could it be done?" 
 
 " They say Necessity's the mother of Invention. 
 I suppose it might, by putting in the proper stone." 
 
 " Well, Ben Rhines has got his house up, can't 
 get bricks this fall, and don't know what to do. 
 He was going to get Joe Dorset to build his chim- 
 ney ; but I told him I knew you could build a good 
 fireplace and chimney out of the rocks on the 
 island, if you had a mind to. 
 
 "Dorset don't know anything about rocks," 
 growled Sam. 
 
 " Now, let me tell you about the stone. There's 
 a granite ledge on the western p'int that lays in 
 thin sheets, that you can break up with your stone 
 hammer." 
 
 " Granite's first rate for a chimney, but 'twont 
 do for a fireplace." 
 
 " Then there's a kind of gray stone, with white 
 streaks in it, but softer than granite." 
 
 " That's a bastard soapstone ; that'll do for a 
 fireplace." 
 
 Well, can you do it ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 Will you ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Enough said. Now, I'm bound Sally shall have
 
 158 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 an oven ; and I'm going to take up my butt'ry floor 
 to make it of." 
 
 " You needn't do that. I can make as good an 
 oven of that stone as ever a \vcman baked bread 
 in. It'll crack some, but not half as bad as gran- 
 ite. It'll hold heat wonderfully." 
 
 "You beat all, Sam. I told Ben I knew you 
 could build a chimney without a brick in it ; but I 
 never dreamt of your building an oven." 
 
 " Who am I to have to tend me, and help handle 
 these big stones ? " 
 
 " That pretty little Ben Rhines and Joe Griffin, 
 to say nothing of myself." 
 
 When Sam went on to the island and saw the 
 tone, he rubbed his hands, and chuckled, and talked 
 to himself, and appeared overjoyed. 
 
 " What a queer old coon he is ! " said Joe ; " any- 
 body'd think he'd found a gold mine, instead of a 
 pile of rocks." 
 
 There was but one fireplace, and that was in the 
 kitchen ; but the hearths were laid in the two front 
 rooms for two more, whenever they should be 
 parted off and finished. 
 
 This fireplace was made of three large stones, 
 which Uncle Sam cut and fitted together without 
 any mortar. It was five feet to the mantel-bar,
 
 ENCOUBAGING NATIVE TALENT. 159 
 
 eight between the jambs, and of proportionate depth. 
 This monstrous cavern was the fireplace. Such a 
 master was Uncle Sam of his business, that when 
 he saw a rock in the pile that he wanted, he would 
 threw a little stone at it, and Ben or Joe would 
 bring it to him. 
 
 But it was upon the oven that Uncle Sam dis- 
 played his genius. He found a place where a large 
 portion of this bastard soapstone ledge had cracked 
 and fallen out into the sea, leaving a smooth per- 
 pendicular face. He told Ben this rock was rent 
 when Christ was crucified. From this ledge he 
 split off just such large, flat slabs as he wanted, 
 made them perfectly smooth, squared the edges, 
 and of them built his oven in the form of a stone 
 box, having top, bottom, and sides of perfectly 
 smooth stones; for he threw sand and water on 
 them, and putting on another great stone, as big as 
 he and Uncle Isaac could lift, he got Ben to scour 
 them, while he stood by and threw on sand and 
 water, till they were perfectly smooth. He now 
 put them together, leaving a space of a foot or 
 more at the sides and ends. The covering stone 
 was made to project on every tide, so as to enter 
 into the body of the chimney, in order that, if it 
 should crack, it could not fall down. He now built
 
 160 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 a roaring fire in it. By and by the great stone on 
 top, and one on the side, cracked with a loud noise. 
 
 " Crack away," said Uncle Sam ; " crack all you 
 want to." 
 
 He then took some clay mortar, filled all the 
 space round the sides, worked it into all the cracks 
 and joints, and, after it was thoroughly dry, made 
 another great fire, and baked it all into brick. It 
 would never crack any more, because the fire had 
 already opened all the bad places in the soapstone, 
 and these were filled with clay mortar, which was 
 now burned into brick. 
 
 When the chimney was up to the chamber floor, 
 he made what was called an eddy ; that is, he 
 brought the chimney right out into the chamber. 
 Across it he put three beech poles, called lug-poles : 
 these were to hang anything on which it was de- 
 sired to have smoked. He also made a stone shelf 
 in one corner to put an ink-bottle on, or anything 
 that was to be kept from freezing. There was so 
 much fire left on the hearth at night that these 
 great chimneys never got cold. Uncle Isaac then 
 made a tight door, to keep the smoke from coming 
 into the chamber. 
 
 " Ben," said Uncle Sam, " are you going to have 
 a crane ? "
 
 ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT. 161 
 
 " No ; I can't afford it." 
 
 " Then I'll put in another lug-pole." 
 
 It was the custom to fasten a chain to this to 
 hang the pot on. 
 
 " That's right," said Uncle Isaac, delighted with 
 the effect of his teachings; "a withe is just as 
 good ; I'll give you a piece of chain to put on the 
 end of it. When you go up in the spring with 
 a load of spars, you can buy iron, and have a 
 crane made." 
 
 " I," said Joe, " will make it for you ; I'm black- 
 smith enough for that." 
 
 "Now," said Sam, "I want just one thing 
 some lime to lay the stone in after I get above the 
 roof, and collar the chimney." 
 
 There was a large lot of clam shells on the 
 shore, where the fishermen had shelled clams for 
 bait. These he burned into as handsome white 
 lime as ever you saw. Uncle Sam, though a man 
 of but few words, possessed a very kind heart, 
 and was much attached to Sally ; hence the great 
 pains he bestowed upon the chimney and oven. 
 He now, therefore, as the chimney stood right 
 out in the room, and was not concealed by any 
 woodwork, took some of the lime and white- 
 washed it, and also the arch in the cellar. Uncle 
 11
 
 162 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Isaac now made a fire to try it. It was found to 
 carry smoke splendidly, upon whidi he praised 
 it in no measured terms. Sam was evidently 
 much pleased with the encomiums of his friend ; 
 and, that both might have cause for satisfaction, 
 Joe then told Sam about Uncle Isaac's pulling up 
 Bradish. 
 
 The last thing Uncle Sam did was to split out 
 two large stones for doorsteps. After they were 
 placed, he said to Ben, " These stones are the best 
 of granite ; and when you build a frame house, if 
 I ain't dead, or past labor, I'll dress them for you, 
 and they'll make as handsome steps as are in the 
 town of Boston. 
 
 " Well, Ben," said Uncle Isaac, as they left the 
 island, " that's a log house ; but it's a very different 
 one from those in which your father and I were 
 born and brought up: they were no better than 
 your hovel. We had no cellar, but kept our sass 
 in a hole in the ground out doors. My poor 
 mother never had an oven while she lived, but 
 baked everything on a stone, or in the ashes. She 
 raised a rugged lot of children, for all that, who 
 live in good frame houses, and have land of their 
 own now ; but then it's harder for you than 'twas
 
 ENCOUB AGING NATIVE TALENT. 163 
 
 for us, because ice were all alike, and had never 
 seen anything better ; while you are going to live 
 in a log house, right in sight of those who live in 
 better ones. But you will be supported, Ben, and 
 will be prospered."
 
 164 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BEN OUTWITTED, AND UNCLK ISAAC ASTONISHED. 
 
 SALLY and Ben now began to make preparations 
 for housekeeping. She had a little money, earned 
 by her labor, and she persuaded Ben to go in a 
 schooner that was bound to Salem, and make some 
 purchases for her. No sooner was Ben out of sight, 
 than Sally started for Uncle Isaac's. She found 
 him alone in the barn. 
 
 " Uncle Isaac," said she, " will you do something 
 forme?" 
 
 " Anything in reason, Sally." 
 
 " Could you get me over to Elm Island, and not 
 any soul know it?" 
 
 u I suppose I might." 
 
 "Well, will you?" 
 
 " But what do you want to go there for?" 
 
 " I'll tell you. I'm determined to live there, and 
 be contented and happy, and make my husband 
 happy ; but I know it will be" very different from 
 anything that I have ever seen, or can imagine."
 
 BEN OUTWITTED. 165 
 
 " You'll find it a rough place, Sally." 
 
 " I'm afraid that when I go on with Ben I might 
 oo kind of surprised, and by looks, if nothing else, 
 show it, and hurt Ben's feelings." 
 
 " That you might burst out crying ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, you go down to the point, and hide in 
 the bushes till I come." 
 
 In a short time Uncle Isaac came. Sally got in, 
 and lay down in the bottom of the boat ; he cov- 
 ered her over with spruce boughs, and pulled for 
 the island. It was a bright, sunshiny morning. 
 He rowed right into the mouth of the brook, and 
 on to the beach. As Sally felt the boat touch the 
 bottom, she flung off the covering, and, rising up, 
 looked around her. 
 
 " What a beautiful spot ! " was her involuntary 
 exclamation, as she gazed, enraptured, upon the 
 dense foliage of the maple and birch, rich with all 
 the tints of autumn, and listened to the ripple of 
 the brook that fell over the rocks before her. 
 Then, clapping her hands, she burst into a clear, 
 ringing laugh, as her eye rested upon the house 
 her future home. Uncle Isaac was confounded. 
 At first he thought it was an hysterical affection, 
 and concealed grief and disappointment ; but, as
 
 166 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 he looked into her eyes, he saw that it was heart- 
 felt. He was in the position of a sailor, who, hav- 
 ing braced his yards to meet a squall, is caught 
 aback by the wind coming in an opposite direction. 
 All the way to the island he had been preparing 
 himself for the task of consolation, and arranging 
 his arguments for that purpose, never for a mo- 
 ment doubting but Sally, with all her resolution, 
 would at first be somewhat disheartened. 
 
 " Uncle Isaac," cried Sally, " did that house grow 
 there ? See, the bark is on it. What on earth is 
 the chimney made of?" 
 
 Then she burst out again into peals of laughter, 
 so joyous that Uncle Isaac joined with her, and 
 laughed till his sides ached. 
 
 " Why, Uncle Isaac, Ben told me it was a most 
 desolate-looking place, all woods and rocks ; that 
 the house was right on the shore, and that in great 
 storms the sea roared awfully, and the spray would 
 fly on to the windows. He never said a word 
 about the brook. I do love brooks so much ! I 
 mean to have my wash-tub, in summer, right under 
 that yellow birch ; you see if I don't. Such a nice 
 place to spread out linen thread and cloth to 
 bleach ; and things look so much whiter when they 
 are f.pread on the grass ! Why, here is a piece of
 
 UNCLE ISAAC ASTONISHED. 167 
 
 grass almost large enough for a field ; such a sunny, 
 sheltered spot^too ! the woods and the hill break off 
 every bit of wind. What a nice place, under that 
 ledge, to plant early potatoes, peas, and beans, and 
 have currant bushes! But I'm dying to see the 
 house ; do let us go in ; what a nice doorstep 
 this is ! " 
 
 As they opened the door and went in, Uncle 
 Isaac watched Sally's face in vain to detect any 
 trace of disappointment or sorrow. 
 
 She is fire-proof, just like her grandmother, 
 thought he. 
 
 " I supposed log houses were stuffed between the 
 logs with clay and moss ; mother said so ; but I 
 couldn't put the point of my scissors between 
 these logs." 
 
 " So they were," said he ; " but this is an im- 
 proved one. Ben means, when he is able, to make 
 this room into two, and have a fireplace in each ; 
 and a couple of nice rooms they will make." 
 
 " I am glad he didn't do any more. Now, I want 
 to see the kitchen ; I care the most about that. 
 This is a splendid one ; what nice dressers and 
 drawers ! but where is the oven ? Why, it's stone ; 
 ain't it a beauty ; how smooth it is ! " said she, put- 
 ting in her head and shoulders, and feeling all
 
 168 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 around it with her hands. " I don't see how folks 
 can make such nice things of stone. I wish we 
 had a candle." 
 
 She was, if possible, more delighted with the 
 chamber than anything else. 
 
 " How high it is ! " she said ; " what a capital 
 place this would be to spin and weave in ! Well, 
 now I've seen the whole." 
 
 " No, you haven't ; " and here he opened the door 
 in the side of the chimney, and let her look in. 
 
 "Why, what in the world is this for?" 
 
 u This is a smoke-house ; you see it's on one side 
 of the chimney, so that there won't be heat enough 
 go in there to melt the hams or fish. All you have 
 to do, when you want to smoke anything, is to 
 hang it up on these lug-poles, and the common fire 
 you have every day will smoke it. It'll be a nice 
 place for Ben, when he has an ox-yoke, wooden 
 bowl, or shovel to season or toughen. Now I want 
 you to see the cellar." 
 
 He pulled from his pocket a horn filled with 
 tinder, and striking a spark into it with a flint and 
 steel, kindled a piece of pitch-wood, and they went 
 down. 
 
 " O, my ! if here isn't an arch ; what a nice place 
 that will be to keep my milk, when I get it."
 
 UNCLE ISAAC ASTONISHED. 169 
 
 " Now we've got a light, let's look into the oven." 
 
 " I know that oven will bake well," said Sally ; 
 " it looks as though it would. Now, I think this is a 
 real nice place, and that -Ben has made a good 
 trade ; and, if we have our health, we can pay for 
 it well enough. Only think how much we've saved 
 by living in this house, which is good enough for 
 young folks just beginning, and better than many 
 have. Why, it ain't a month since the trees were 
 growing, and now it's all done. Didn't he make a 
 good trade, Uncle Isaac ? " 
 
 " He made a better one when he got you, you 
 little humming-bird," said Uncle Isaac, who was 
 brim full, and could no longer restrain himself; pat- 
 ting her on the head, " you would suck honey out 
 of a rock." 
 
 " I'm much obliged to you, you good old man. 
 I'll tell you what we'll do (that is, when we are 
 able) ; you shall come over here with Aunt Han- 
 nah, and bring all your tools, and we'll part off the 
 front rooms, and have a front entry, ceil up the 
 kitchen, have Uncle Sam to build fireplaces in 
 the front rooms, and Joe Griffin to make fun for us. 
 I'll make you some of those three-cornered biscuit 
 and custard puddings you like so well. In the 
 evenings we'll have a roaring fire; you can tell
 
 170 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 stories, and we will sit and listen, and knit. Ben 
 says this is the greatest place for gunning that ever 
 was ; and you can bring on your float and gun, and 
 you and Uncle Sam can* gun to your heart's con- 
 tent. Ain't I building castles in the air ? " cried 
 Sally, with another laugh, that made the house 
 ring ; " but we must go off, or we shall be caught." 
 A little breeze had sprung up, and Uncle Isaac 
 putting up a bush for a sail, they landed on the 
 
 
 
 other side without detection. 
 
 He said he never wanted to tell anything so 
 much in his life, as he did to tell Ben how much 
 Sally was delighted with the island ; but he reso- 
 lutely kept it to himself. 
 
 As it would be difficult getting off in the winter, 
 Ben carried on provisions, hay for a cow, and for 
 oxen that he might get occasionally. He put the 
 hay in a stack out of doors. He bought the hay 
 of Joe Griffin's father, and Joe was to deliver it on 
 the island. Being disappointed in respect to the 
 man who was engaged to help him, he took old 
 Uncle Sam Yelf, as better than nobody. There 
 was a long easterly swell ; the scow rolled a good 
 deal, and, the hay hanging over the side and get- 
 ting wet, she began to fill. At some distance from 
 them Sydney Chase and Sam Hadlock were fishing.
 
 UNCLE ISAAC ASTONISHED. 171 
 
 "Shall I holler, Mr. Griffin?" said Yelf, who was 
 terribly frightened, and had a tremendous voice. 
 
 Yes." 
 
 What shall I holler?" 
 
 Holler fire." 
 
 " Fire ! fire ! fire ! " screamed Yelf! 
 
 As their neighbors rowed up, they could not 
 help laughing to see two men up to their waists in 
 water, and one of them crying fire. 
 
 " I thought," said the old man, "I'd holler what 
 I could holler the loudest."
 
 172 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 
 THEY MARRY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. 
 
 THE wedding was at the widow Hadlock's ; but 
 Captain Rhines made the infnre, as 'twas called, 
 which was an entertainment given the day after 
 the wedding at the house of the bridegroom. To 
 this were invited all who had aided in building the 
 house, including the girls who prepared the victuals; 
 and a merry time they had of it. 
 
 It was very hard for Sally and her mother to 
 part. Since the death of her father, and while 
 the other children were small, Sally had been her 
 mother's great dependence ; and, ns they came to 
 the edge of the water, the widow lifted up her 
 voice and wept. 
 
 Sally, with her eyes full, strove to comfort her 
 mother. 
 
 " Well, I ought not to feel so, I know ; but it 
 sort o' brings up everything, and tears open all the 
 old wounds. May God bless you ! you've been a 
 good child to me in all my trials, and, I doubt not,
 
 THEY MAKRY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. 173 
 
 you'll make a good wife. There's a blessing prom- 
 ised in the Scriptures to those who are dutiful to 
 their parents. Keep the Lord's day, Sally, as 
 you've been taught to do, and seek the one thing 
 needful." 
 
 Ben had chosen a sunny, calm morning, that the 
 impressions made upon Sally's mind might be as 
 pleasant as possible, not dreaming that she had al- 
 ready visited the island, and been all over the 
 house. Nevertheless, as he sat down to the oars, 
 his old fears began somewhat to revive ; but Prov- 
 idence ordered matters in a much better manner 
 than he could have done, to render Sally's first 
 impressions of the island both pleasant and per- 
 manent. 
 
 "When he left it the last time, knowing that Sally- 
 would return with him, he had crammed the great 
 fireplace with dry wood, and pushed under the fore- 
 stick the top of a dry fir, with the leaves all on, and 
 covered with cones full of balsam. They were well 
 on their way when a black cloud rose suddenly 
 from the north-west, denoting that the wind, which 
 had been south for some days, was about to shift, 
 with a squall. 
 
 " We are two thirds over now," said Ben ; " we 
 shall bp head to the sea, and soon get under
 
 174 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 the lee of the island ; 'tis better to go ahead than 
 to go back." 
 
 " I wish we were there now," said Sally to her- 
 self, as she thought of that sheltered spot behind 
 the thick woods, that no wind could get through. 
 
 " Sit down in the bottom of the canoe, Sally ; if 
 the water flies over you, don't move." 
 
 When the squall struck, the wind seemed to 
 shriek right out, and in an instant raised a furious 
 sea, drenching them with water from head to foot. 
 Sally uttered not a word, but sat perfectly still, 
 though the cold spray flew over and ran under her, 
 wetting her through and through. 
 
 The little boat, managed with consummate skill 
 and strength, rode the sea like an egg-shell. It 
 began to grow smoother as they approached the 
 high woods on the island, when Ben, exerting his 
 strength, drove her through the water, and they 
 were soon at the mouth of the brook, where it was 
 as smooth as a mill-pond. Jumping out, he dragged 
 the carioe from the water, and, taking Sally out, 
 stood her, all dripping, on the beach. 
 
 " What a calm place," she exclaimed, " after that 
 dreadful sea! O, you wicked Ben, how could you 
 tell me 'twas such an awful place ? " 
 
 " You're shaking with the cold ; let's go where
 
 THEY MAEKY, AND GO ON TO TIIE ISLAND. 175 
 
 there's a fire;" and catching her up, he run into the 
 house with her ; then striking fire, he lighted the 
 fir top under the forestick ; in an instant the bright 
 flame flashed through the pile of wood, and roared 
 up the chimney, diffusing a cheerful warmth through 
 the room. Ben pulled up the great settle ; Sally 
 stretched herself upon it, her wet garments smok- 
 ing in the heat. 
 
 " Isn't this nice ? " she said, as, safe from danger, 
 she basked in the warm blaze. I shall always love 
 this great fireplace after this, as long as I live." 
 
 Ben was delighted. He knew by experience the 
 power of strong contrasts, for the whole life of a 
 seaman is made up of them, and that nothing 
 could have made the island seem so much like 
 home to Sally, as there finding safety when in dan- 
 ger, and warmth when shivering with cold. 
 
 They now went over the house together ; and 
 Sally made Ben completely happy by telling him 
 she would have been thankful for a house not half 
 so good. We see in this well-matched and hardy 
 pair the representatives of those who laid broad 
 and deep the foundations of our free institutions, 
 and whose strength was in their homes. 
 
 They flung themselves with alacrity upon these 
 hardships, which were to procure for them a heri-
 
 176 LIOX BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 tage of their own, the product of their own ener- 
 gies, confident in their own resources, and the 
 protection of that Being whom they had been 
 educated to believe helps those who help them- 
 selves. 
 
 They were now on an island, in the stormy At- 
 lantic, six miles-from the nearest land, which, with 
 the exception of a little strip of grass along the 
 beach, was an unbroken forest. 
 
 Here they had commenced married life, in the 
 face of a long, hard winter. 
 
 It may seem to many of our readers idle to talk 
 about happiness in relation to people in such cir- 
 cumstances. They, perhaps judging from their 
 own feelings, wonder how they could pass their 
 time. 
 
 In the first place, they had health and strength, 
 were not troubled with dyspepsia, and hence did 
 not look at life through green spectacles. They 
 took pride in overcoming obstacles, and feeling 
 that they were equal to the emergency. They had 
 plenty to do from the time they rose in the morn- 
 ing till they went to bed at night ; not a moment 
 to brood over and dread difficulties ; and a June 
 dny was too short for all they found to do in it. 
 Finally, they loved each other, had an object to
 
 MARKY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. 177 
 
 look forward to, had never known any of those 
 things which are considered by many as necessary 
 to happiness, and thus neither pined after nor 
 missed them. 
 
 Sally had plenty of bed-clothes, which she had 
 made herself; also beautiful table-cloths and towels 
 of linen, figured, that she had spun, woven, and 
 bleached ; and tow towels., coarse sheets, and table- 
 cloths for every day. One little looking-glass, about 
 six inches by eight in, size, graced the wall, with a 
 comb-case, made of pasteboard, hanging below it. 
 They had one really beautiful piece of furniture, 
 which her father had brought from England a 
 mahogany secretary, with book-cases and drawers, 
 and inlaid with different kinds of wood, contrast- 
 ing strangely with the rough logs against which it 
 rested. They had chairs with round posts, and bot- 
 toms made of ash-splints ; mugs, bowls, a tea-pot, 
 and pitchers of earthen ware ; and pewter plates, 
 from the largest platter to the smallest dishes and 
 porringers ; also an iron skillet. Ben had a shoe- 
 maker's bench, awls and lasts, and quite a good set 
 of carpenter's tools. 
 
 Sally now put all the earthen and new pewter 
 ware upon the dressers, which made quite a show. 
 
 " I declare, Ben, I've forgotten my candle-moulds, 
 12
 
 178 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and we've got no light. Here's a lamp, but not a 
 drop of oil or wick in it." 
 
 " I'll shoot a seal, I saw three or four on the 
 White Bull when we came o.ver, then to-uiorrow 
 you can try out the blubber." 
 
 Ben was better than his word, for .before night 
 he shot two. 
 
 There was one piece of property that Sally valued 
 more than anything else, because 'twas alive, and 
 there was such a look of home about it. 
 
 The widow Hadlock had a line-backed cow, that 
 gave a great mess of milk. Sally had milked her 
 ever since she was large enough to milk ; indeed, 
 she milked her that memorable night when Ben 
 and Sam Johnson went blueberrying in the* widow's 
 parlor. 
 
 They raised a cnlf from her, which was marked 
 just like the old cow, and Mrs. Hadlock had given 
 it to S;illy. The creature, having been brought up 
 with a large stock of cattle, missing her mates, had 
 been very lonesome on the island, and roared and 
 moaned a great deal. As Sally opened the door to 
 throw out some water, the heifer came on the gal- 
 lop, and, putting her feet on the door-stone, rubbed 
 her nose against Sally's shoulder, and licked her 
 face. The tears came into Sally's eyes in a moment.
 
 THEY MARRY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. 179 
 
 u You good old soul," said she, putting her arms 
 round her neck, half a mind to kiss her, "do 
 you know me, and were you glad to see me ? I 
 wish I had an ear of corn to give you." 
 
 After this the cow made no more ado, but went 
 to feeding, perfectly contented with the knowledge 
 that her old mistress was present. As night came 
 on, Sally made the discovery that they had no milk- 
 pail; but Ben was equal to the emergency: he 
 cut down a maple, cut a trough in it, drove the 
 cow astride of it, while Sally milked her into this 
 novel pail. That evening Ben dug out a pine log, 
 put a bottom in it, and a bail, then drove two hoops 
 on it, and made a milk-pail. 
 
 The next day Sally tried out the seals, while 
 Ben went into the swamp and got some cooper's 
 flags, which he cut into short pieces, for lamp- 
 wicks. 
 
 Fowling, for a person in Ben's situation, was not 
 merely a source of pleasure, but of profit, as the 
 feathers sold readily for cash, the bodies were good 
 for food, and could be exchanged at the store for 
 groceries, or with the farmers for wool and flax, 
 which Sally made into cloth. 
 
 Ben had a h'ttle yellow dog, with white on the 
 end of his tail, that would play. Sea-fowl possess
 
 180 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 a great share of curiosity, which leads them to 
 swim up to anything strange, in order to see what 
 it is. They would often swim in to a squirrel, play- 
 ing in the bushes at the water's edge, to see what 
 he's about. The gunners take advantage of this 
 trait in their character ; they teach a little dog to 
 play with a stone on the beach : he'll roll it along 
 the ground, stand up on his hind legs with it in his 
 fore paws, and when he gets tired of it, his mas- 
 ter'll throw him another from his ambush. The 
 birds swim in to see what he is doing, and are 
 killed, and the little dog swims off and brings them 
 ashore. All dogs cannot be taught this, only those 
 who have a genius for it. 
 
 Tige Rhines would pick up birds right in the 
 surf, or in the dead of winter, but could never be 
 taught to play ; he was too dignified. 
 
 It is impossible for one destitute of a taste for 
 fowling to conceive of the intensity which the pas- 
 sion will acquire by indulgence. Ben was so eager 
 for birds, that he would lie on a ledge till Sailor 
 froze his ears and tail. There were a great many 
 minks on the island, whose furs were valuable : 
 these Sailor would track to their holes, when Ben 
 would smoke them out. 
 
 The widow Hadlock had brought up her family
 
 THEY MARRY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. 181 
 
 to cherish n great reverence for the Lord's day. 
 Ben had been trained by his mother in the same 
 way; but, after leaving home, he, like most sea- 
 faring men, carried a traveller's conscience, and did 
 many things on that day which would not have 
 met her approval. 
 
 One Sabbath morning a whole flock of coots 
 ewam into the mouth of the brook to drink ; 'twas 
 a superb chance for a shot. Ben, without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation, took down his gun from the 
 hook, and was just going out the door, when Sally 
 laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 "Ben, where are you going?" 
 
 " To shoot those coots ; I never saw such a 
 chance for a shot in my life. I shouldn't wonder 
 if I could knock over twenty with this big gun." 
 
 " Why, Ben, you must be out of your head ; do 
 you know what day 'tis? would you go gunning 
 011 the Lord's day ? " 
 
 " No, I wouldn't go a-gunning ; but when they 
 come right iu under my nose, asking to be shot, I'd 
 shoot them." 
 
 " "Well, I never would begin by breaking the 
 Lord's day ; 'tis not right, and we shall not pros- 
 per ; if we've not much else, let us, at least, have a 
 clear conscience. What do you think your father
 
 182 LION" BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and mother would say, if they heard you had fired 
 a gun on the Lord's day ? " 
 
 " It wouldn't trouble father much ; he would do 
 the same himself; but 'twould mother, and I see it 
 does you." 
 
 He took his ramrod, and thumped on the side of 
 the house ; the coots took to flight in an instant. 
 
 " There goes the temptation," said he. " I didn't 
 know before that you was a professor of religion." 
 
 " No more I ain't, nor a possessor either ; wish I 
 was ; but I mean to keep the Lord's day ; I'll do 
 that much, any way." 
 
 " I know you're right, Sally ; but you must make 
 some allowance for a feller who has been so long at 
 sea, and couldn't keep it, if he would, as people can 
 ashore. Suppose a hawk was carrying off a chicken 
 on the fhbbath wouldn't you let me shoot it ?" 
 
 " No, I'm sure I wouldn't ; but if an eagle was 
 carrying off a baby, I would." 
 
 This was the first and only time Ben ever took 
 the gun down on the Sabbath. They made it a 
 flay of rest. 
 
 They had some good books, and one Sally's 
 mother had given her, which she was very fond of 
 reading, called "Hooks and Eyes for Christian's 
 Breeches." It was a queer title, but a very good
 
 THEY MARRY, AND GO ON TO THE ISLAND. 183 
 
 book. In those days people did not wear suspend- 
 ers, but kept their breeches up by buttoning the 
 waistband, or by a belt. Where people were well- 
 formed, and had good hips, they would keep up 
 very well ; but when they were all the way of a 
 bigness, or were careless and didn't button their 
 waistbands tight,- they would slip down; so some 
 had hooks and eyes to keep them up, and pre- 
 vent this by hooking them to the waistcoat. Thus 
 this book was designed for those slouching, care- 
 less Christians who needed hooks and eyes to their 
 breeches, and were slack ia their religious duties.
 
 184 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 THE BRIDAL CALL. 
 
 PARENTS and friends of the new-married pair 
 had watched with no small anxiety their progress 
 through the squall. During the height of it, they 
 could see the canoe when it rose upon the top of a 
 wave ; as it disappeared in a trough of the sea, the 
 widow clasped her hands convulsively, and gave 
 them up for lost. 
 
 " They are safe," cried Captain Rhines, drawing 
 a long breath ; " they've got under the lee of the 
 island. John, run to the house and get my spy- 
 glass." 
 
 With the aid of the glass he saw them land, and 
 Ben carry Sally to the house in his arms. 
 
 " She's fainted with fright, poor thing ; it's a 
 rough beginning for her," said the widow. 
 
 " He only wants to get her to the fire ; there's 
 nothing the matter with her but a good soaking." 
 
 Twas now the Indian summer, with calm moon- 
 light nights.
 
 THE BRIDAL CALL. 185 
 
 " Wife," said Captain Rhines, " I expect Sally's 
 mother is dying to know how she got on the island 
 that morning. If we don't go now, we shan't bo 
 able to go this winter ; it'll be too rough by and 
 by. John, run over there, and ask her if she would 
 like to go and see Sally." 
 
 " Can I go, too, father ? " 
 
 " Yes, I want you to help row ; so do your 
 chores, tie up the cattle, and bear a hand about it." 
 
 Sally had washed her supper dishes, and Ben 
 was pulling off his boots, when the door was 
 opened, and in walked the party. It was a most 
 joyful surprise to the new-married couple. 
 
 " Why, mother ! " exclaimed Sally, kissing her 
 again and again ; " I was thinking the other day 
 whether you would ever venture to come on to 
 this island ; and now you're here so soon, and in the 
 fall of the year, too ! " 
 
 "Indeed, Sally, you know I never lacked for 
 courage, only for strength. You must needs think 
 I had a strong motive." 
 
 But, of all the group, none seemed more de- 
 .ighted than John. He stared at the log walls, 
 looked up the chimney, capered round the room 
 with Sailor, and finally getting up in Ben's lap, put 
 both arms round his neck, and fairly cried for joy.
 
 186 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " How should you like to live on here, Johnnie ? " 
 said Ben. 
 
 " O, shouldn't I like it ! you'd better believe." 
 
 " I shot two seals the other day, on the White 
 Bull ; and within a week I've killed fifty birds, of 
 all kinds." 
 
 " Won't you ask father to let me come on and 
 stay a little while, and go gunning ? O, I do miss 
 you so ! " 
 
 "I shouldn't wonder if there were ducks now 
 feeding on the flats ; take my gun ; she's all loaded." 
 
 The moment Sailor saw the gun taken down, he 
 was all ready : so perfectly was he trained, that 
 when it was not desirable he should play, he would 
 lie still till the gun was fired, and then bring in the 
 game. 
 
 " How I should like to be on here in the day- 
 time ! " said John. " Do you know, Ben, I was never 
 here in all my life before ? " 
 
 " Why, Sally," said her mother, " how did you 
 get over in that dreadful squall ? We were all 
 watching you, and felt so worried! Wasn't you 
 frightened almost to death ?" 
 
 " No, mother, I wasn't much frightened ; but I 
 was terrible cold, and wet all through. I never 
 saw anything look so good, in all my life, as this
 
 THE BRIDAL CALL. 187" 
 
 great fireplace did, for Ben made a roaring fire in 
 it; and I'm just as happy and contented as I 
 can be." 
 
 In the midst of this conversation the door 
 opened, and in walked Uncle Isaac. 
 
 " It was such a pleasant night," said he, address- 
 ing the captain, " I told Hannah we'd take a run 
 down to your house ; and when I found you'd come 
 over here, I thought I'd take your gunning float 
 and follow suit." 
 
 " Why didn't you bring Hannah with you ? " 
 inquired Sally. 
 
 " Well, I wanted to ; but she ain't much of a 
 water-fowl, and was afraid to come in a tittlish 
 gunning float, and said she'd stay and visit Captain 
 Rhines's girls ; but she sends her love to you, and 
 says if she'd known I was coming, she'd sent you 
 over a bag of apples." 
 
 " How this does carry a body back ! " said the 
 widow ; " it don't seem but t'other day since I was 
 living in a log house ; and how much I've been 
 through since then ! " 
 
 They then went all over the house, and down 
 cellar. 
 
 " Well, Isaac," said Captain Rhines, "you've done 
 yourself credit in building this house ; I knew you
 
 188 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 would. Tisn't much like the house I was born in ; 
 that wasn't tighter than a wharf, except while it was 
 stuffed with mo& and clay ; and some of that was 
 always falling out. I've gone to bed many a night, 
 and waked up in a snow drift, because the wind 
 had blown the clay out, and the snow in ; but I 
 thought, when I was coming up from the shore, and 
 saw it standing here in the moonlight, that it was 
 as much like the one father built, after his boys got 
 big enough to be of some help to him, as two peas 
 in a pod : just as many windows, just as high, and 
 with a bark roof; but it ain't much like it other- 
 ways ; for the timber wan't hewed only the bark 
 and knots taken off where it came together ; but 
 this is as tight as a churn. And then that fire- 
 place ; I wouldn't believed it possible." 
 
 "Well," said Uncle Isaac, tt l did the best I 
 could ; but I think Sam beat the whole of us. I 
 should be glad to swap my fireplace and chimney 
 for that, and give a yoke of oxen to boot," 
 
 a Do you know, Isaac, there's nothing carries me 
 back to my boy days like that old chamber? It's 
 the very image of ours ; it seems to me as if I was 
 setting there now, on a rainy day, astraddle of a 
 tub, shelling corn on the handle of mother's frying- 
 pan, with my thoughts running all -over the world,
 
 THE BRIDAL CALL. 189 
 
 longing to go to sea, and contriving how I should 
 get father's consent." 
 
 . A loud mewing was now heard in the corner of 
 the room. 
 
 "I declare to man," said the widow, "I've been 
 so taken up with old times, I forgot. See here, 
 Sally," opening her basket and taking out a kit- 
 ten, " I thought she'd be company for you. You 
 know them speckled chickens, Sally, that the old 
 top-knot hen hatched out." 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " Well, the hawks carried off three of 'em; and 
 I meant to brought the rest over to you, but $am 
 said they wouldn't lay much this winter; you'd 
 have to buy corn, and you'd better have 'em in the 
 spring. But I've brought you over a pillow-case 
 full of flax." 
 
 " I," said Mrs. Rhines, " brought you over some 
 wool." 
 
 " And I," said Captain Rhines, " a barrel of cidei 
 and some vegetables, to go with your coots and 
 salt beef." 
 
 " While I," said Uncle Isaac, " am all the one 
 that's come empty-handed ; but I know what Fll 
 do ; Til give you a pig, and Ben can get him next 
 time he comes off."
 
 190 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 John now came in, bringing five ducks, that he 
 had shot. 
 
 "He's just like the rest of us, Ben," said his 
 father: "I believe it runs in the breed of us to 
 fihoot." 
 
 " Let him come over here, and stay a day or two, 
 and gun with me." 
 
 u He's too good a boy," patting him fondly on 
 the head ; "I couldn't get along without him." 
 
 "That is just the reason," said his mother, "that 
 he ought to be gratified once in a while. It's a 
 great deal better he should be here with Ben, than 
 with some of the boys he goes with ; I should feel 
 much easier about him than I do when he's with 
 them in boats, and gunning. I'm -always afraid 
 they'll shoot one another, or be drowned." 
 
 " Well, it's just as his mother says; I'm at home 
 eo little, I don't interfere with her concerns ; she's 
 cap'n ; I'm only passenger." 
 
 " But you're going to be at home all the time 
 now ; and I should like to give up my authority." 
 
 " By the way, Ben, I've had a letter from Mr. 
 Welch ; he says large, handsome masts, bowsprits, 
 and spars are in great demand ; that he can find a 
 market in Boston and Salem, in the spring, for all 
 you can send him."
 
 THE BEIDAL CALL. 191 
 
 " I'm going to cut small spars directly, father ; 
 but I want snow to fall the large ones on, else I 
 shall have to bed them with brush, for fear of 
 breaking them." 
 
 " He says that the war in Europe is throwing all 
 the carrying trade into the hands of neutrals ; that 
 now we've got our government going, it'll be snap- 
 ping times ; and that while they're all fighting like 
 dogs over a bone, we can run off with the bone ; 
 and if I want to tiy a voyage, he has a vessel 
 for me." 
 
 " Well, you're not going," said his wife ; " you've 
 been enough, and you've done enough. If Ben 
 could afford to give up going to sea, in the prime 
 of life, for the sake of Sally, I'm sure you can, in 
 your old age, for the sake of Mary ; and you be- 
 long to me for the rest of your life." 
 
 " Old ! " said the captain, dancing over the room ; 
 " I don't feel a bit old. I should like a little cash, 
 just to fix up the buildings a little, buy that timber 
 lot that joins the rye field; and then" with a 
 comical look at his wife "I should like to do a 
 little more for the minister. I should be so thank- 
 ful, sometimes, if somebody would come in that 
 could talk about anything else than some old horse, 
 or cow, or sheep that's got the mulligrubs!"
 
 192 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " Father," said John, as they were preparing to 
 go, " why can't I stay now ? " 
 
 " Because, child, I want you to help me row." 
 
 " Let him stay," said Uncle Isaac, who, from in- 
 stinct, always took the part of the boys ; " I'll go 
 over with you." 
 
 " But there's my float over here, and I want to 
 go gunning to-morrow." 
 
 " We'll take her in tow," said Uncle Isaac. 
 
 With mutual good wishes they now separated, 
 leaving John in high glee at the result, with Ben, 
 for a visit.
 
 AN UNGRATEFUL EOT. 193 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AN UNGRATEFUL BOY. 
 
 IT may seem very singular to some of our read- 
 ers, that Captain Rhines, whom we have spoken of 
 as having a strong attachment to the soil, should 
 express a willingness so soon to leave it. But this 
 will not seem at all remarkable to any seafaring 
 man whose eye may chance to glance over our 
 pages. 
 
 He had in early years been prevented from grat- 
 ifying this inclination. On the other hand, his life 
 from boyhood had been spent at sea, in company 
 with seafaring men, and amid excitement and 
 peril. The habits of years are not easily to be 
 overcome ; and as age had made no impression 
 upon his iron constitution, after being at home a 
 few months, an almost irresistible longing came 
 over him, at times, to be once more among the very 
 perils he had so congratulated himself upon having 
 escaped, and to hear some talk except about barley 
 and butter. 
 
 13
 
 194 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 He also, the moment he came home, began to 
 make improvements as he said, made things look 
 "ship-shape." But this required money, and he 
 missed the cash he was accustomed to receive at 
 the end of a voyage ; besides, a trip to the West 
 Indies seemed to the old sailor as mere recreation, 
 which would enable him to carry out some of his 
 farm produce as a venture, and get his sugar, 
 molasses, coffee, and rum. Had he abandoned 
 the sea at Ben's age, before its habits had ripened 
 into a second nature, it would have been another 
 matter. 
 
 John remained on the island a week. On his 
 return he received a warm welcome from Tige, 
 who met him at the shore, and almost wagged 
 his tail off, he was so glad to see him. He 
 had been perfectly miserable without John, for 
 they were inseparable companions. Not know- 
 ing how otherwise to express his joy, he began 
 to take up sticks in his mouth, and run about 
 with them. 
 
 "Here, old fellow," said John; "if you want 
 something to do, take these birds and carry them 
 to the house, for our dinner." 
 
 " John," said his father, " have you had as good a 
 time as you expected ? "
 
 AN UNGRATEFUL BOY. 195 
 
 " 0, father, I never had such a good time in all 
 my life ! You know the brook ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Well, it's the greatest place for frost-fish you 
 ever did see. The sea-fowl come in there to drink, 
 and there is the best chance to creep to them be- 
 hind the wood. You never saw such a good dog 
 to play as Sailor is ; you throw him a stone, and 
 he'll play half an hour with it. What's Tige been 
 about, father, since I've been gone ? " 
 
 " Well, when he wan't down on the beach watch- 
 ing for you, barking and whining, he was smelling 
 all round the barn and orchard, and going up in 
 your bedroom : he has rooted the clothes of your 
 bed a dozen times, to see if you was in it ; and 
 every night he has slept on your old jacket." 
 
 The opinion expressed by John's mother, that 
 'twas much better he should be on the island than 
 in the company of some of the boys he went with, 
 grew out of the following circumstances : 
 
 During the past summer, a boy by the name of 
 Peter Clash ran away from a Nova Scotia vessel, 
 that came in for a harbor. Old Mr. Smullen had 
 taken him in, out of charity. This boy was eigh- 
 teen years of age, and belonged in Halifax, where, 
 having the run of the streets and wharves, he
 
 196 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 learned all kinds of vice. He was of a malicious 
 disposition, and intolerably lazy. 
 
 He soon made the acquaintance of all the boys 
 in the neighborhood, but consorted chiefly with 
 Fred Williams, the miller's son, John Pettigrew, 
 Isaac Godsoe, Henry Griffin, and some others. 
 
 None of these boys would have been disposed to 
 engage in any mischief beyond mere fun, or that 
 was injurious to any one's person or property, if 
 left to themselves ; they also had but little leisure, 
 as, when not at school, they were at work ; but 
 Peter, who did very much as he pleased at old 
 Uncle Smullen's, had a great deal of spare time, 
 when he both planned mischief and persuaded the 
 others to aid him in the execution. He had been 
 in the place but a month, when he manifested his 
 mean, cowardly disposition by a trick that he 
 played upon his benefactors. 
 
 The old people had fed, clothed, and sheltered 
 him when he had no place to put his head, for 
 which the little labor he performed was by no 
 means an equivalent, as he generally contrived 
 to be out of the way just when his help was 
 needed. 
 
 In those days nobody thought of hauling up a 
 year's stock of wood, and having it cut and dried ;
 
 AN UNGRATEFUL BOY. 197 
 
 but they picked it up as they wanted it, and hauled 
 it home on a sled, as wheels were by no means 
 common in those clays. The old folks were in the 
 habit of getting on the sled, and riding out in the 
 woods with Peter, helping him load, and then 
 riding back. 
 
 Peter had found a large hornet's nest in a heap 
 of beech limbs; so he drives the sled right over it, 
 and stops the cattle ; when the enraged insects, 
 who were of the yellow-bellied kind, and the most 
 cruel of stingers, attacked the old people, and 
 stung them terribly, as they were too feeble to get 
 quickly away. 
 
 It was, thought the old gentleman would never 
 see again. They then turned upon the oxen, 
 who, frantic with fear and agony, ran into the 
 woods, tore the sled in pieces against the trees, 
 and ran into the water, where they would have 
 been drowned but for Joe Bradish and Captain 
 Rhines. 
 
 Peter pretended that he didn't know the hornets 
 were there, and the kind old people believed him ; 
 but it came out afterwards that he had done it on 
 purpose. 
 
 He used also to torment small boys, whenever 
 he could get u good opportunity.
 
 198 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 It was the influence of these boys which Mrs 
 Rhines feared ; but she apprehended danger where 
 none existed. Peter, John despised : as to the 
 others, they were too much below him in point of 
 intelligence and force of character to exert any 
 influence over him. 
 
 He was now in his fifteenth year, very large of 
 his age, beautifully proportioned, with his father's 
 gray eyes and dark hair; excelled in wrestling, 
 swimming, and all kinds of boy's sports, and bade 
 fair almost to rival Ben in strength. He had an 
 eye that you could look right into, as you can look 
 down into the depths of a clear spring. The whole 
 expression of his face was so manly and frank, it 
 was felt at once to be an index of his character. 
 According to Fred Williams, John Rhines was 
 just as full of principle as he could stick ; and the 
 boys never thought of proposing to him any plan 
 which their consciences told them was of doubtful 
 morality. John was less accessible to temptation, 
 for the reason that he loved out of doors, and the 
 stimulus his nature craved was of a healthy char- 
 acter. He delighted in evei-ything that required 
 great physical force and endurance ; and we can- 
 not but think that the wrestling, jumping, pulling 
 up, and rough out-door sports of that period,
 
 AN UNGRATEFUL BOY. 199 
 
 though a man's leg was broken now and then, or 
 somebody killed outright, were infinitely prefer- 
 able to the effeminate amusements of the present 
 day, which turn boys into coxcombs and men- 
 milliners, and destroy both soul and body. Noth- 
 ing was more agreeable to him than the pleasure 
 derived from contrasts between great extremes. 
 Those pursuits which promised neither peril nor 
 hardship possessed for him very little attraction. 
 
 He loved to fly thi'ough the water in a boat, 
 with all the sail she would suffer, while the spray 
 came by bucketfuls on to the side of his neck, 
 and then, rounding a densely-wooded point, run 
 her into a calm, sunny nook, among the green 
 leaves, exchanging the dash of the cold spray and 
 the shrill whistle of the wind for the warm sun- 
 shine and the song of birds. 
 
 His father used to say he believed that John 
 would pound his finger for the sake of having it 
 feel better when it was done aching ; not consid- 
 ering that the boy inherited his own temperament, 
 and that he had manifested the same disposition, 
 when, basking in the warmth of a blazing fire, fillet] 
 to repletion with sea pie and pudding, he told his 
 wife how much the recollection of his past perils 
 added to his present happiness.
 
 200 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 To complete the sura of John's attractions, his 
 voice was naturally modulated to express every 
 shade of feeling ; as Uncle Isaac said, " it came 
 from the right place, and went to the right 
 place."
 
 PETER CLASH AND THE WOLF-TRAP. 201 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PETER CLASH AND THE WOLF-TRAP. 
 
 CAPTAIN RHINES was called to Boston on ac- 
 count of some business with Mr. Welch, and John 
 was kept from school to take care of matters at 
 home. 
 
 One pleasant morning, his mother having given 
 him the day, he had made up his mind to go gun- 
 ning and fishing, taking his dinner with him, Sam 
 Hadlock having agreed to do what was necessary 
 in his absence. 
 
 As he was about to set out, Fred Williams came 
 along, with his dinner-pail in his hand, on his way 
 to school. 
 
 " Where are you going, John ? " 
 
 K Frost-fishing and gunning." 
 
 "I'll go with you; 'tis too pleasant to go to 
 school." 
 
 " I wouldn't play truant, Fred." 
 
 " Father won't know it ; our girls ain't going to- 
 day ; so there's nobody to tell."
 
 202 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " But you'll know it yourself, Fred." 
 
 I don't care." 
 
 " If you won't play truant, I'll go some Saturday 
 with you." 
 
 " Saturdays father makes me work in the mill ; 
 he thinks I don't want to play, as other boys do." 
 
 John could not persuade him to go to school ; so 
 they started off together. They spent the forenoon 
 in gunning. At noon they made a fire on the rocks, 
 made some clay porridge, then took a sea-fowl and 
 dipped into it, feathers and all, coating it completely 
 with clay ; they then dug a hole in the ground, fill- 
 ing it partly with stones, which they made red hot ; 
 on these they put the bird, then threw back the 
 loose earth. After a proper time they took it out, 
 and peeled off the clay, which brought the feathers 
 and skin with it, leaving the carcass clean and well 
 cooked. 
 
 John had brought pepper, salt, and butter, and 
 they had plenty of bread and meat in their dinner- 
 pails. Tige wouldn't touch the bird ; so they gave 
 him the meat. 
 
 How good this is ! " said Fred, with the wing of 
 a sheldrake in his mouth ; "how glad I am I didn't 
 go to school ! " 
 
 John made no reply, for his mouth was fullj
 
 PETEK CLASH AND THE WOLF-TKAP. 203 
 
 neither did he approve of playing truant. They 
 now went to Uncle Isaac's brook, fishing. The 
 frost-fish swim up into the mouth of little brooks, 
 where the water is only about two or three inches 
 deep, and are very slow in their movements in cool 
 weather. The boys caught them by fastening a 
 cod-hook to a stick, three or four feet long, and 
 hauling them out. They set out on their return in 
 good season, that Fred might get home at the 
 proper time, and escape detection. 
 
 As they came to the landing, John jumped out 
 to haul the boat ashore, while Fred pushed with 
 an oar ; the boat, striking a rock, stopped so sud- 
 denly, that he fell down into the bottom of her, 
 and stuck one of the hooks into his thigh. The 
 remorseless steel buried itself in the flesh beyond 
 the barb. There was the miserable boy, with both 
 hands behind him, holding himself up, afraid either 
 to get up or sit down, as he could not move an inch 
 without taking with him the great stick to which 
 the hook was fastened. John, reaching carefully 
 under him, cut the string which fastened it to the 
 hook, letting it fall off. 
 
 Fred now prostrated himself on the beach, while 
 John proceeded to examine ; he pulled a little. 
 
 " O-w-w ! you hurt me ! "
 
 204 LMHT BB3T OF EI-M IrULSTD. 
 
 K If s over the barb ; I can't pull it oat without 
 almost killing yon." 
 
 " My father 7 !! kill me quite, if he finds out I've 
 played truant ; father's awful when he rises. O, I 
 wish Fd gone to school." 
 
 " I should think yon would." 
 
 tt lt must come out somehow; can't you cut 
 it out?" 
 
 Ill try ; but itTl hurt." 
 
 tt I can't help it ; but be as easy as you can." 
 
 John had been shelling clams with his knife the 
 day before, and that forenoon he'd used it as a 
 screw-driver, to tighten the flint in his gun ; but he 
 whet it on the sole of his boot, and began to cut. 
 
 " O, dear ! what shall I do ? Boo-oo ! cut away, 
 John ! I shall die ! I shall die ! I wish Fd gone to 
 school! Murder! murder!! murder!!!" 
 
 " Fred," cried John, flinging away the knife, his 
 eyes filling with tears, u I can't bear to hurt you so." 
 
 u Father"!! hurt me worse ; hell rip it right out, 
 and lick me into the bargain." 
 
 u There's a file in the canoe, they have to sharpen 
 hooks ; perhaps I can file it ofE" 
 
 tt Do, John ; do." 
 
 Jo.*! as the voices of .the children were heard 
 going home from school, John succeeded in filing
 
 PETEK CLASH AND THE WOLF-TKAP. 205 
 
 it off. Fred jumped up, his mouth full of gravel, 
 where ( he had bitten the beach in his agony, and 
 ran home. He didn't sleep mueh that night. The 
 sawing of the flesh with a dull knife produced irri- 
 tation, and by morning it began to fester. It hurt 
 him to walk, it hurt him to move, and it hurt him 
 to sit still. All day long he sat on the edge of his 
 seat, and didn't go out at recess to play. When he 
 got home, he found his cousin John Ryan had 
 come to spend the night. As he was a general 
 favorite, the children all wanted him to sit next 
 them at the table. They were all standing up 
 around the table, wrangling about it, when the 
 miller, who had a grist to grind before dark, and 
 was in a hurry for his supper, lost all patience. 
 
 " Down with you will you, somewhere ? " cried 
 he to Fred ; " you're big enough to behave," and 
 pushed him slap down into a chair. 
 
 " O !" screamed Fred, jumping upright, bursting 
 into tears, and clapping both hands to the ag- 
 grieved part. 
 
 It all came out now ; but in consideration of 
 what he had suffered, and had yet to undergo, he 
 escaped a' whipping. His mother bound some of 
 the marrow of a hog's jaw on the wound, and, 
 after a while, the hook came out.
 
 206 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Fred promised John Rhines solemnly that he 
 not only would never play truant again, but in all 
 respects try to become a better boy; yet the wound 
 was scarcely healed before he was again engaged 
 in mischief. 
 
 Captain Rhines had a fish-flake on the beach, 
 just above high-water mark. Uncle Isaac had 
 been making fish on it, and they were nearly 
 cured. 
 
 He cherished a bitter antipathy to the Tories, 
 and, like all the people on the sea-coast of Maine, 
 was inclined to dislike the inhabitants of Nova 
 Scotia, among whom they sought refuge after they 
 were driven from the colonies. This prejudice ex- 
 tended itself to Peter Clash, and was greatly 
 strengthened by his treatment of his benefactors ; 
 he therefore never treated him with the cordiality 
 he did the other boys. This Pete highly resented. 
 He persuaded Fred, Jack Pettigrew, Ike Godsoe, 
 and some others, to go with him in the evening, 
 take the fish from the flakes, and throw them on 
 the beach. It was a very difficult matter to per- 
 suade the boys to do this, for they all loved and 
 respected Uncle Isaac ; besides, he was not a per- 
 son to be trifled with. After going once, all, except 
 Fred, Jack, and Ike, refused to go again ; and after
 
 PETEE CLASH AND THE WOLF-TRAP. 207 
 
 Pete and his satellites had gone, Henry Griffin and 
 the others went back and replaced the fish. Pete, 
 with his crew, continued the sport, and enjoyed a 
 malicious pleasure, as, hid in the bushes, they saw 
 him picking up the fish, many of which, getting 
 in the tide's way, were spoiled. 
 
 Uncle Isaac set a wolf-trap beside the flake, cover- 
 ing it in the sanr 1 , and hid himself among the bushes. 
 The boys manifested a great deal of caution, pre- 
 tending they had merely come down to fling stones 
 into the water. The conduct of Uncle Isaac, who 
 continued quietly to pick up the fish, without say- 
 ing a word, made them suspicious ; they thought 
 there must be something "under that heap of 
 meal." By and by they began to edge np towards 
 the flake, often stopping to listen. At last Pete 
 went up to the fish ; walking along the edge of the 
 flake, he threw off the fish as he went, crying, 
 " There's nobody here ; why don't you come on, you 
 cowards." The words were scarcely out of his 
 mouth, when snap went the great iron jaws of the 
 trap, and up jumped Uncle Isaac from the bushes. 
 Pete roared with agony. "Well he might ; the trap 
 would have cut off his leg, or crushed it to pom- 
 ace, if Uncle Isaac had not tied down one of the 
 springs, thus diminishing its force. His captor ut-
 
 208 UOX BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 tered never a word ; but catching him up, trap and 
 all, walked right into the water. 
 
 u O ! Mr. Murch, I'll never do so again ! What 
 be you going to do to me ? " 
 
 " Drown you, you spawn of a Tory ; your hide 
 isn't worth taking off." 
 
 Pete poured forth agonizing entreaties for mercy, 
 and made the most solemn promises of amendment, 
 if his life could be spared. 
 
 " You're a rotten egg ; you're spilin' all our boys, 
 you varmint," said Uncle Isaac, chucking him right 
 into the water, head and ears. 
 
 " Murder ! murder ! " screamed Pete, the moment 
 he got his head out. 
 
 " Will you clear out in the spring, in the first 
 fisherman that comes along, and go where you 
 come from ? " 
 
 Pete called God to witness that he would. 
 
 " You can do as you like ; but if you don't, I'll 
 be the death of you. I calculate," said Uncle Isaac, 
 as he picked up his fish, " he'll keep his word this 
 time ; he'll have about as much as he can do to 
 take care of that leg this winter." 
 
 John Rhines, being lonesome, after Ben went on 
 to the island, had kept company to some extent 
 with these boys ; but it was very much like trying
 
 PETER CLASH AND THE WOLF-TBAP. 209 
 
 to mix oil and water ; they played together occa- 
 sionally, but there was no fusion. When he heard 
 of the last-mentiorred occurrence, he said to his 
 mother, 
 
 " I won't be seen with those boys any more. O, 
 mother, I do wish I had somebody to love besides 
 Tige." 
 
 " Why, John Rhines, where are your parents, 
 your sisters, and all your friends ? " 
 
 " You know what I mean ; some boy of my age, 
 that I could love clear through ; that you, and 
 father, and Ben could love, and love to have me 
 with ; and, when he come to our house, you'd give 
 him a piece of cake, and wouldn't look so, as you 
 do when Fred comes. I mean somebody that 
 wasn't like these boys, either stupid or wicked." 
 
 The boy's heart, overflowing with the impulses 
 of youth, longed for a kindred spirit of his own age. 
 14
 
 210 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 
 
 IT has been very evident, during the progress of 
 this story, that the young men were very much at- 
 tached to Uncle Isaac ; yet the boys were not a 
 whit the less so ; the reasons of which will appear 
 as we proceed. 
 
 In the first place, he retained in his feelings all 
 the freshness and exuberance of his youth ; they 
 knew that he liked them ; and it is strange how 
 this unwritten, unspoken language of the heart is 
 generally felt and understood. 
 
 In the next place, he was never known to divulge 
 a secret, and was the depositary of half the love 
 affairs of the young people in the neighborhood ; 
 indeed, the boys often confided to him their in- 
 tended pranks. If mere fun was the object of 
 them, he permitted them to take their course, but, 
 if they were of a malicious nature, would induce 
 them to give them up, by proposing something 
 else, generally a tramp with him in the woods,
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 211 
 
 or on the water, the seductions of which no boy 
 was able to resist. It Avas well it was thus, for he 
 knew infinitely better how to manage them than half 
 their parents. It has been well said, that man must 
 look up in order to worship ; 'tis just so with boys. 
 A timid, effeminate man can have no influence over 
 a mess of boys ; and if you have any doubt on this 
 point, just read the names on the boys' sleds and 
 boats. 
 
 When, in the winter, he happened to ride by the 
 school-house, just as school was out, a curious scene 
 presented itself. Children, in those days, were 
 taught to make their manners ; but when Uncle 
 Isaac came along, they first made a bow, or dropped 
 a courtesy, just to manifest respect; and then boys 
 and girls would pile into the sleigh, and hang 
 around his neck, till he was well nigh smothered. 
 The old horse would lay back his ears, and look 
 around, as though distrusting his ability to draw 
 the unwonted load ; while the schoolmaster, look- 
 ing out of the window, attracted by the noise, and 
 amused to see the little ones searching his pockets 
 for apples, would forget to notice when the minute- 
 glass had run out. 
 
 There was another thing which imparted to his 
 society a wonderful fascination for the boys, which
 
 212 "LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 we can in no other way explain so well as by re- 
 lating a conversation between little Bobby Smullen 
 and his grandfather. The boy was at play before 
 the door, as Uncle Isaac returned from Sam El- 
 well's, after picking Yelf out of the ditch. He 
 endeavored, with all his might, to entice him to go 
 in, as he wanted to listen, while he talked over old 
 times with his grandparent ; but Uncle Isaac wa8 
 in a hurry, and, patting his head, went on. 
 
 Bobby, who was a bright, observing little chap, 
 looked after him till he was out of sight. Going 
 into the house, he said, "Grandsir, what makes 
 Uncle Isaac walk so ? " 
 
 "Walk how?" 
 
 " Why, you know how ; he don't walk like other 
 folks." 
 
 " The child means," said his grandmother, " be- 
 cause he toes in." 
 
 " That's because he's an Indian, Bobby." 
 
 " Why, Jonathan, ain't you ashamed of yourself? 
 he's no more of an Indian than you are. I knew 
 his father and mother well ; old Mr. Murch and his 
 wife were the best of people." 
 
 " Well, the Indians brought him up, anyhow. I 
 don't jestly know the rights of it * but they carried 
 him off, with some others of his people, when he
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 213 
 
 was a boy ; part of them they tomahawked, and 
 part they roasted alive ; but one of the chiefs took 
 him, and brought him up. He lived with them 
 years and years, learnt their language and their 
 ways, and was as good an Indian as the best of 
 them. I've heard him say, he thought their kind 
 of life was happier than ours ; he never will get 
 that wild nature out of him. When the Penob- 
 scots come .here in the summer, and camp on his 
 point, he'll carry them beef, pork, potatoes, and 
 milk, and says they have as good right here as he 
 has, and better, too. He'll give them anything 
 except rum ; he says that wasn't made for an In- 
 dian, because it makes him crazy." 
 
 " Don't it make white people crazy, too, grandsir ?" 
 
 " Hush, child ; you put me out, and you don't 
 know what you're talking about. For all he's such 
 a desperate working cretur, he'll go down right in 
 haying time, and set on a log, and talk with them, 
 and seems just as uneasy all the time they're about 
 as John Godsoe's geese." 
 
 " What about John Godsoe's geese ?" 
 
 " Nothing, child." 
 
 O' 
 
 " Yes, there is ; I know there is ; do tell your 
 little boy, grandsir." 
 
 " Why, John's got some wild geese that can't
 
 214 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 fly, because one joint of their wings is cut off. 
 They go in the pasture with the other geese as 
 peaceable as can be ; but in the spring, when the 
 wild ones are flying over and konking, they'll flap 
 their old stubs of wings, and holler, and be as un- 
 easy ; that's jest the way Isaac's took when the 
 Indians are round. J sometimes think he'd go off 
 with them, if he could get his family to go." 
 
 The horrors of Indian massacre were still fresh 
 in the recollections of older people. Smullen's first 
 wife and old Mr. Yelf 's father were both killed by 
 the Indians; and there was nothing more attrac- 
 tive to the youth of that day. No marvel, then, 
 that a romantic interest mingled in the minds of 
 the boys with the affection they entertained for 
 Uncle Isaac. 
 
 It is frequently said, one boy is better than two 
 <>oys, and that three is just no boy at all ; but half 
 a dozen of them would work all day for dear life, 
 with Uncle Isaac, encouraged by the promise, al- 
 ways kept, of going on a tramp with him when the 
 job was over. Boys don't like to go gunning, and 
 come home empty-handed. When they went with 
 him, they always brought home game with them ; 
 for if they couldn't shoot anything, he could. 
 These attractions enabled him to exert a great
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 215 
 
 influence over them, which he improved to the 
 noblest ends, and made impressions that were never 
 eradicated. He was neither in his own opinion, nor 
 by profession, a religious man ; but the teachings 
 of a pious mother had laid deep in his young heart 
 the foundation of faith and love. When torn from 
 her by the savages, in the solitude of mighty for- 
 ests, he had pored and prayed over them, till they 
 ripened into a heartfelt love for Him " who caus- 
 eth the grass to grow for cattle, and herb for the 
 service of man." 
 
 His teachings were therefore of such a nature,' 
 that while divested of the stiffness generally con- 
 nected with all attempts at advice or instruction, 
 they deepened every good impression, and stirred 
 the young heart to the quick. 
 
 A most silly and hurtful notion, often entertained 
 by young people in respect to religion, is, that it has 
 a tendency to make people narrow-minded, or, as 
 they phrase it, meeching. Such a feeling was ef- 
 fectually repressed, as they listened to ideas of that 
 nature from one who hesitated not to grapple with 
 the fiercest beasts of the forest, and bore on his 
 person the scars of many wounds. His influence 
 over them was very much increased, for the reason 
 that he seemed anxious to make them happy in
 
 216 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 this world, as well as the other; inculcated with 
 great earnestness those principles which lie at the 
 bottom of thrift, competence, and the well-being of 
 society. 
 
 Religious discourse from their parents, the cate- 
 chising of the minister, advice in respect to their 
 conduct in life, might be quite dry and uninterest- 
 ing; but with what power to attract and move 
 were the same ideas invested, as they fell from the 
 lips of the hunter and warrior, on a wild sea-beach, 
 amid the roar of breakers ; in some sunny nook of 
 the hills, with the rifle across his knees, made juicy 
 and attractive by his graphic language ; not thrust 
 upon them against the stomach of their sense, but, 
 like the teachings of the great Parent of nature, in 
 harmony with bursting buds, the springing grass, 
 shading into a deeper green, or mingling in their 
 ear with the brook's low murmur, and the music of 
 summer winds among the foliage, thus imper- 
 ceptibly, as the increase of their strengthening sin- 
 ews, growing up with, and moulding the very habit 
 of their thoughts! 
 
 There had been no adverse element to disturb 
 these pleasant and profitable relations, till Peter 
 Clash came into the neighborhood. Nothing but 
 the entire conviction of the uselessness of all efforts
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 217 
 
 to reclaim him, and a knowledge of the injury his 
 influence and example was doing to the other boys, 
 caused Uncle Isaac to treat him with such severity, 
 and made him resolve to drive him out of the 
 place. 
 
 " I wouldn't be so mean," said he, " as to throw 
 my weeds into other people's gardens ; but when 
 they throw their weeds into mine, I'll fling them 
 back again : he shan't take root and go to seed 
 here ; we've weeds enough of our own." 
 
 The first leisure day John had, after his father's 
 return, he took his hoe, and going directly to the 
 field where he knew Uncle Isaac was digging pota- 
 toes, went to work with him. 
 
 " I don't mean to play any more with Pete, and 
 that set ; I mean to play with you, Uncle Isaac." 
 
 " I should like to have a playmate first rate ; I've 
 been pretty much alone of late." 
 
 " Will you go gunning with me in your float, 
 after we get these potatoes dug ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Won't you tell me an Indian story now ? " 
 
 " I can't talk and work too ; but I'll tell you one 
 to-night, after we've done work, and when we go 
 gunning, and are waiting for birds. Work when you 
 work, and play when you play ; that's my fashion."
 
 218 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 % 
 
 "When the time arrived, John reminded Uncle 
 Isaac of his promise. 
 
 " Well, John, where do you want to go ? into 
 the woods, or after sea-fowl ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you what I want to do, above all things ; 
 but perhaps you wouldn't ; I want you to learn me 
 to shoot flying. I can shoot very well now at a 
 dead mark ; but I never, in all my life, shot any- 
 thing flying." 
 
 " You'll never be much of a gunner till you can, 
 because there's ten chances to shoot flying or run- 
 ning game where there is one to shoot that which 
 is still. Take a fox, for instance ; 'tain't one timo 
 to a hundred you can shoot one, except on the 
 clean jump, going twelve or fifteen foot at a leap, 
 and looking just like a little streak. All these sea- 
 fowl fly out of the bays every night. Now, there's 
 a place between Smutty Nose and the Sow and 
 Pigs, not more than half a gun-shot in width, 
 which they fly through about sunrise, when they 
 come into the bay. I've gone there before sun- 
 rise, with three guns, and killed over a hundred ; 
 been back by the middle of the forenoon, got 
 my breakfast, and, by working a little later, done 
 a good day's work. What d'ye think of that, 
 Johnny?"
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 219 
 
 " O ! " cried John, his eyes flashing, " I shouldn't 
 want to live any longer, if I could do that." 
 
 " There's a good many other places where they 
 fly through ; for it's the nature of them to follow 
 the land. They used to fly through between Elm 
 Island and the outer ledges, but I expect Ben has 
 pretty much put an end to that ; besides, if you 
 have two guns, or a double barrel, it gives you two 
 chances you can fire at them in the water, and 
 when they rise give it to them again." 
 
 "I know it; I've seen you and Ben shoot wild 
 geese when they were flying over. Ben burnt 
 mother awfully Avith a wild goose." 
 
 "How could that be?" 
 
 "Well, mother Avas frying fish in the Dutch 
 oven ; Ben fired into a flock that was flying over 
 the house, and down came an old gander, right 
 down chimney, and flung the flit all over her face." 
 
 " Well, John, as to the learning, you must fore- 
 lay for them ; when they're coming towards you, 
 swing your gun as they fly, and aim jest before 
 their bill, and then they'll fly right into the shot. 
 The best bird for a boy to practise on is a fish- 
 hawk, because they are a large mark, and fly 
 steady, but they are all gone south now ; but a 
 coot will do very well. You must shoot, and shoot,
 
 220 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and practise till you get it ; and jest as you begin 
 to think you never can get it, 'twill come. You 
 better take my gun ; it goes quicker than yours. 
 I'll manage the boat ; you can fire, and I'll watch 
 you and tell you." 
 
 On their way home they fell into conversation 
 about the other boys. 
 
 " I don't think," said John, " that Fred is a bad- 
 hearted boy ; we've always played together, and 
 lie was a good boy till Pete came here. I believe 
 all of them would do well enough, if 'twasn't for him, 
 and would never do any real mean mischief of their 
 own heads ; they like fun, and so do I, and should 
 be as full of mischief as any of them, if I didn't 
 like gunning so much better, which takes up all my 
 spare time." 
 
 "That Pete is too rotten to nail to. As for 
 Fred, there's more foundation to him ; he's hud a 
 better bringing up ; he's like the fish that take the 
 color of the bottom they feed on ; he falls in with 
 the company he keeps, and can't stand on his own 
 legs." 
 
 " I don't believe I should have been one whit 
 better than Fred, if I had been brought up as he 
 has. I've known Fred to do a real good day's 
 work, and his father and mother never take the
 
 WHY THE BOTS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC. 221 
 
 least notice of it ; now, big boy as I am, there's 
 nothing pleases me so much as to have father come 
 and see what I've done, and pi'aise me for it ; then 
 his father always sets his bounds, and tells him he 
 may go to such a tree or rock ; of course he wants 
 to go over ; he'd be a fool if he didn't. I've gone 
 over there sometimes, all dressed up, to play with 
 him, and his father would keep him to work, when 
 Fred knew, and I knew, that the work might be 
 just as well done the next day. I tell you, that 
 makes a boy feel ugly. Now, just look at my 
 father ; I've known him, when boys came over here 
 to play with me, to let me off, and work till after 
 dark himself. Think I didn't put in the next day, 
 and watch for chances to make it up ? and do you 
 think I'll ever forget it, as long as I live ? 'Tisn't 
 every boy, Uncle Isaac, that's got as good father 
 and mother as I have." 
 
 " You never spoke a truer word than that, John.'' 
 
 "I don't believe a boy can love a man, just be- 
 cause he's his father, if he treats him just like a dog." 
 
 " Don't you think, then, instead of leaving Fred 
 altogether, it would be better to ask him to go will? 
 you and me sometimes ? " 
 
 " I think we should have a great deal better time 
 without him."
 
 222 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but we ought to be willing some- 
 times to displease ourselves, for the sake of bene- 
 fiting others. A boy or man, who never thinks 
 of anybody's comfort or happiness but his own, is a 
 pretty mean sort of an affair, and ought not to be 
 allowed rouud. There's Pete; he's no credit to his 
 Maker, and only a plague to the neighborhood, and 
 swears awful ; yet God feeds and clothes him." 
 
 " No, he don't, Uncle Isaac ; because Mrs. Smul- 
 len makes the cloth, and makes the clothes, too." 
 
 " If she does, the Lord gives her the stock, and 
 wit, and strength to manufacture it. You allow 
 yourself there's some good in Fred ; and I say it's 
 no part of a man, when a poor fellow's on his hands 
 and knees, trying to get up, to jump on him." 
 
 " But you don't understand. It isn't just for the 
 sake of going gunning, and hearing the Indian sto- 
 ries, that I like so well to go with you ; but I like 
 to hear you talk about good things, and tell me 
 how I can make a man of myself. Fred wouldn't 
 care a straw for such things." 
 
 " How can that ever be known, till it's tried ? 
 According to your tell, he's never had much of 
 such treatment." 
 
 " That is very true." 
 
 ** You're very sorry he's a bad boy ; wish he was
 
 WHY THE BOYS LIKED LXCLE ISAAC. 223 
 
 better; but are not willing to forego your own 
 pleasure for the sake of getting him into better 
 company, and giving him an opportunity to rally. 
 We've spent all this day, and have patiently man- 
 aged the boat, that you might learn to shoot flying, 
 and you've made out to kill two birds ; whereas, if 
 I'd taken the gun, made you manage the boat, or 
 gone without you, I might have killed twenty, and 
 been home at dinner-time." 
 
 " I'm ashamed of myself, Uncle Isaac ; I won't 
 be so mean and selfish any more." 
 
 " Well, Pete'll have enough to do to take care 
 of his legs this winter, and I think he'll go off in 
 the spring. Speak kindly to Fred, and keep hold 
 of him ; and when the warm weather conies, we'll 
 take him with us, and try to save him."
 
 224 LION BEN" OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 
 
 IT was now early winter, and the proper time to 
 work in the woods. 
 
 ' Do you think," said Ben to Uncle Isaac, " I'd 
 better hire Joe ? " 
 
 " He asks great wages, but he's the cheapest man 
 you can hire, for all that. I've seen a man fall 
 spars, so that they all had to be hauled out top 
 foremost ; it was like twitching a cat by the tail. 
 Most men will break more or less masts, falling 
 them, and soon throw away all their wages ; but 
 though Joe seems to be such a great heedless crea- 
 ture, there's nothing pertains to falling, hauling, or 
 rafting timber, that he don't know ; he can also 
 shave shingles and rive staves, and will be just as 
 profitable in stormy weather as at any other time." 
 
 The next morning, as Ben and Joe were grind- 
 ing their axes to attack the forest, they were very 
 much surprised by a visit from Uncle Isaac. 
 
 " I felt," said he, " as though I must look upon
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. . 225 
 
 Elm Island once more, before the axe and firebrand 
 went into it, and while it was as God made it. 
 Perhaps it's owing to my Indian bringing up, but I 
 hate to see the forest fall ; and when I have to go 
 fifty miles to shoot a deer or a bear, the relish will 
 be all taken out of life for me." 
 
 " I feel very much as you do," said Ben ; " I 
 know I shall spoil its beauty, but I see no other 
 way to pay for it." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that ; there's no doubt but 
 Congress, by and by, will give a bounty to fisher- 
 men ; fishing is going to come up. Mr. Welch 
 don't want his money any more than a cat wants 
 two tails ; he told you to take your own time, and 
 I'd take my time. I believe you can pay for this 
 island by clearing only what you need for pasture 
 and tillage. That will make quite a hole in your 
 debt, and the rest you can pull out of the water." 
 
 "But I don't want to be a fisherman ; I detest 
 it ; work all summer, and eat it all up in the win- 
 ter ; so much broken time, when it's so windy you 
 can't fish, and can't do anything else, for fear it 
 will come good weather, and you will have to 
 leave it." 
 
 " That's the right kind of talk ; I like to hear you 
 talk so ; but you can fish till the land is yours 
 15
 
 226 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 can't you ? All the time you are fishing, the timber 
 will be growing, and then you can farm it to your 
 heart's content ; fanning is going to be a first-rate 
 business, too. People round here are all stark mad 
 about lumbering and fishing ; they will touch any- 
 thing but a hoe, and think barley ain't worth thank- 
 ing God for. Since the peace, the country is full 
 of foreign goods, and they are ready to strip the 
 land to get money to buy them. Nothing but 
 French calico, silks, and satins, and all such 
 boughten stuffs, will do for 'my ladyship' now. 
 If people are going to work in the woods all win- 
 ter, and drive the river and work in the mills all 
 summer, I should like to know where the corn, 
 hay, pork, and beef, to feed all these people that 
 grow nothing, is to come from. I wonder if the 
 people that stay at home -and raise it won't get a 
 round price for it." 
 
 " I've thought of that," said Ben. " I know that 
 a great many fishermen come here for supplies, 
 must have- them, and no time to run after them, 
 and will give whatever the men ask that bring 
 them alongside." 
 
 u There's another thing; this timber will be worth 
 more every year it stands, because it will be grow- 
 ing scarce."
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 227 
 
 " O, Uncle Isaac, this is a great country ; it won't 
 be till you and I, and our grandchildren, if we have 
 any, are dead and gone." 
 
 " That's true ; and it ain't true there's no end to 
 the timber in the country ; but the timber, that is 
 directly on the shore, where a vessel can go right 
 to it, is growing scarce, more especially these big 
 masts. The king's commissioners scoured the sea- 
 coast pretty well before the war ; and masts and 
 spars on an island like this, with a good harbor, 
 where they can be got to the ship's tackles with 
 little expense, will, in a few years, bear a great 
 price ; for if timber is plenty, labor is not. Thank 
 God, every one has enough to do ; and it costs, I 
 can tell you, to bring timber down a river thirty 
 miles, to what it does to roll it off the bank, as you 
 can here." 
 
 " I see you are right ; for I'm sure I don't know 
 of another island that is timbered like this. Others 
 have all been cut, and burnt over by the fishermen 
 setting fires in the summer ; about half the timber 
 on the islands is burnt up by mere carelessness." 
 
 "You wouldn't like to lose this brook would 
 you?" 
 
 " Lose the brook ! I'd as soon lose the island ; it 
 would not be worth much without the brook."
 
 228 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " Well, just as sure as you clear the middle ridge, 
 and the north-east end of the island where the 
 springs are that feed it, and let the sun and wind 
 in on the land, you'll dry the brook." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " 
 
 " I don't think so I know so. There's a brook 
 runs through my field. Long since I can remem- 
 ber it used to carry a saw-mill ; but my father and 
 I cleared the land, and the people at the source of 
 it cleared theirs, and now it's dry all summer, and 
 but a little water in it early in the spring and late 
 in the fall." 
 
 " I'm glad you told me this ; you know I'm a 
 sailor, and don't know much about such matters. 
 I hope you'll never be mealy-mouthed, but speak 
 just as you think." 
 
 " I'm an ignorant man, and have never been to 
 school, and over the world, as you have ; but I 
 know about these sort of things, because I've either 
 tried 'em, or seen other people try them ; it's jest 
 my experience." 
 
 When he had thus spoken he prepared to depart. 
 
 " Do stay to dinner, Uncle Isaac," said Sally. 
 
 w It's impossible ; I ought to be at home this 
 very minute ; but I couldn't help coming over 
 here and freeing my mind ; " and, dropping his
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 229 
 
 oars into the water, he was in a moment round the 
 eastern point. 
 
 This conversation made a deep impression upon 
 Ben ; he looked upon the island not merely as of- 
 fering advantages for a living, but he loved it. All 
 his ideas of beauty and sublimity were ingrafted 
 upon these woods and shores ; from boyhood he 
 had been accustomed to go there with his father. 
 Often, in the lonely hours of the middle watch on 
 the ocean, had memory painted the green foliage 
 of the birches drooping over the high ledge. 
 
 In many a black night of tempest, as he stood 
 amid the pouring rain and flashing lightning, did 
 his thoughts revert to that tranquil cove, reflecting 
 from its bosom the overhanging rocks and trees, 
 while the sunlight of a summer's morning was 
 glancing on the glossy breasts of the sea-ducks 
 sporting in its calm waters. 
 
 Standing upon the beach where he had parted 
 with his friend, he looked over the scene, and pic- 
 tured to himself the middle ridge, shorn of its 
 green coronal of majestic forest, covered with 
 blackened stumps and the charred ruins of mighty 
 trees. The interlacing network of tree-roots, ferns, 
 and mosses of a thousand hues, that now adornod 
 the rocks, burnt off, leaving them white and barren,
 
 230 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and the bare bones of the soil sticking out. No 
 shelter for fruit trees or crops, man or beast, and 
 the supply of water greatly diminished ; the sweet 
 music of the brook hushed, and the multitudes of 
 hawks and herons, who, notwithstanding their harsh 
 notes, could ill be spared, banished forever, and the 
 island left a shelterless rock in the ocean for the 
 cold sea winds to whistle over. 
 
 He found that Sally shared his feelings in the 
 fullest extent, and together they resolved to sub- 
 mit to any privations, and make every possible 
 effort in order to save, at least, a good part of the 
 forest. 
 
 The axes now went merrily from daylight till 
 dark. They made a workshop of the front part of 
 the house, and in stormy days made staves and 
 shingles, as there were many trees, which, after they 
 were cut, proved to have a hollow in the butt, or 
 were "konkus," and, though not suitable for spars, 
 made good shingles. Sometimes an oak was in the 
 way of a road, which, cut, made staves. 
 
 Ben, while privateering, had taken from a prize 
 some fine rifles ; two of these he sold, and bought 
 a large yoke of oxen, and hiring four more, he be- 
 ftnn to haul his spare to the beach. As the distance 
 was short, and the ground in general descending,
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 231 
 
 lie did not wait for snow, but hauled the smallest 
 spars on the bare ground, leaving the large masts 
 and bowsprits till the snow came. This was not so 
 difficult as it might appear ; for it is very different 
 hauling in the woods from doing the same thing oil 
 a road. The ground was in most places covered 
 with a network of roots, strewn with leaves and 
 frozen, and the sled slipped over these quite easily ; 
 besides, wherever there was a hard spot, or a hol- 
 low, they cut small trees, peeled the bark off, and 
 put them along the road for the sled to slip over, 
 and thus, though they could not move the largest 
 sticks in this way, they got along as fast with the 
 others as though there was snow ; for if they hauled 
 smaller loads, having no snow to wade through, and 
 no road to break, they went the oftener. Even 
 when the snow came, his team was light to haul 
 some of the biggest masts ; but they made calcu- 
 lations take the place of strength, put rollers under 
 the sticks, and helped the cattle with a tackle. 
 
 Thus they spent the winter. As the "spring came 
 on, -how he longed to plough up the clear spot along 
 the beach, to plant a few peas and potatoes, or set 
 out a currant bush or two in the warm sunny 
 ground, under the high ledge, that every time he 
 passed it seemed to say, " Do plant me, Ben."
 
 232 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 How much more difficult it was to let the wild 
 geese alone, that were flying in vast flocks over his 
 head ! It made him half crazy to hear the guns of 
 Uncle Isaac, John, and his father, who were letting 
 into them right and left, as they went, bang, bang. 
 
 It was not like the gunning nowadays, when a 
 great lazy fellow goes all day to shoot a sandpiper 
 or a sparrow ; but there was profit as well as sport 
 in it. Nevertheless, he manfully resisted tempta- 
 tion, and plied the axe. 
 
 " I'll not live another spring without a gunning 
 float," said he to Joe, and dismissed the matter 
 from his thoughts. 
 
 " What fools we are ! " said Joe ; " we've not had 
 a drink of sap yet." As he spoke, he struck his 
 axe with an upward blow into the body of a rock 
 maple, and stuck a chip in the gash ; he then cut 
 down a small hemlock, took off a length, and from 
 it made a trough. The sap ran down the chip into 
 the trough, and in a few hours they had enough to 
 drink. 
 
 How good that looks ! " said Joe, as he got down 
 on his hands and knees, and looked into the luscious 
 T jquicl, as clear as crystal; "and it don't taste bad, 
 neither." 
 
 The first thing Joe did the next morning was ta
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 233 
 
 visit the trough*, expecting to find it full ; but it was 
 entirely empty. 
 
 " It was half full when I left it, and it must 
 have run fast ; what a fool I was I didn't drink it 
 all up ! I know who's got it," cried he, as he 
 noticed on a little patch of snow some tracks, that 
 looked not unlike those made by the bare feet of 
 little children, for they had been enlarged by the 
 thawing of the snow ; " they are that coon's wife 
 and children, that we killed when we were hewing 
 timber. They will be nice neighbors, Ben, when 
 you come to plant corn here." 
 
 " I don't care if they do eat a little corn ; I want 
 all the neighbors I can get. It will be first rate to 
 know just where to go and get a coon when you 
 want one. I shall be as well to do as the grand 
 folks in England, and have my own game pre- 
 serve ; besides, if they get troublesome, I can kill 
 them all with Sailor in a week, on a place no larger 
 than this." 
 
 There was no vessel in that vicinity larger than 
 a fisherman's, or a wood coaster. It required a 
 vessel of larger size to carry such spars, and to have 
 hired one from a distance would, have eaten up a 
 great part of their value. Determined at any risk 
 to save a great part of the forest, he devised and
 
 234 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 executed a most audacious plan,* that he might 
 realize every dollar from the sale of his spars, by 
 avoiding the great expense of transportation. 
 
 With a cool daring and skill, perfectly character- 
 istic, he rolled his masts and spars on to the bench, 
 where, by the help of the tide, lie could handle 
 them as he pleased, and built them somewhat into 
 the shape of a Vessel, securing the whole firmly 
 together with cross-ties and treenails. He then 
 made a large oar to steer with, which no one but 
 himself could lift, that worked in a port, so that it 
 could not slip out and float up. He then put a 
 large timber across the stern, with deep notches 
 cut in it, to hold the oar in whatever direction he 
 placed it, in order that he might be able to leave it, 
 and go to other parts of the rail to attend to other 
 matters. A mast had been already built in when 
 the raft was made ; he bought an old mainsail that 
 belonged to John Strout, made for the Persever- 
 ance, and put a cable, anchor, and boat-compass 
 on board. 
 
 " I must have a chance to make a cup of ten," 
 said Ben ; " for I shall be up nights, as there's only 
 one in a watch." ' 
 
 They placed a forge flat stone in the midst of the 
 raft to build the fire on, and then made a fireplace
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 235 
 
 with stones laid in clay, to prevent the wind from 
 blowing the fire away from the kettle. Two 
 crotches were then placed each side of the fire- 
 place, and a pole put across to hang the tea-kettle on. 
 Wood and water were now put on board ; some 
 dry eel-grass to lie down on ; staves, shingles ; and 
 feathers, the results of gunning at odd times; and 
 the preparations for the voyage were complete. 
 
 " Ben," said his wife, " Joe says you are going to 
 Boston on that thing alone ? " 
 
 " I'm going to set out, Sally. I can tell you 
 better when I come back, whether I get there 
 or not." 
 
 " Suppose you should get blown off to sea, and 
 never be heard from again." 
 
 " Suppose, what is more likely, I shouldn't." 
 
 " Suppose the raft should come to pieces." 
 
 " Suppose it should stay together. We never shall 
 save the woods, and the beach, and all the pretty 
 things, if it costs half the spars are worth to get 
 them to market." 
 
 " Better lose the island than your life ; what if 
 there should come a big sea, and wash you over- 
 board?" 
 
 " What, if when the angels were taking Elijalj 
 to heaven, they had let him drop ? "
 
 236 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 Perceiving he had fully made up his mind, she 
 said no more, but quietly set about preparing his 
 food for the voyage. This was put under the ca- 
 noe, which was turned bottom up on the raft, and 
 lashed. 
 
 There were but four pieces of rope on the whole 
 raft, for rope was high in those days : these were 
 the cable, the canoe's painter, and the sheet and 
 halyards of the sail. 
 
 The logs were Inshed with withes, as also the 
 canoe, water, and other things. These withes were 
 of enormous strength, though stiff and hard to 
 handle ; for many of them were as thick as a man's 
 wrist, which Ben twisted as though they had been 
 willow switches. 
 
 Ben had not mentioned his plan to any one out 
 of his own house, but, when the wind came in 
 strong from the north-east, set sail just as the sun 
 came up. 
 
 The first proceeding of John Rhines at this time 
 of year, when he got out of bed, was to look out 
 of his window, to see if there were any wild geese 
 round that were anxious to be shot, that he might 
 give the alarm to his father. No sooner did he 
 espy the novel craft come out from the harbor, and 
 proceed to sea, than going down stairs three steps
 
 BEX'S NOVEL SHIP. 237 
 
 at a time, he shouted, " Father ! father ! see what 
 this is!" 
 
 " It is a raft, that has come down from the head 
 of the bay, and is going over to Indian Creek Mill." 
 
 " But it came from Elm Island ; I saw it." 
 
 " You thought it did ; but it came down by it, 
 and appeared to you to come from it." 
 
 "No, father; it came right out of the harbor, for 
 I saw it with my oWn eyes." 
 
 " Get the glass, John ; that will tell the story." 
 Resting' the glass on the fence, he looked long and 
 carefully. At length he said, "John, that's your 
 brother Ben on that raft. He's got half an acre 
 of spars, I verily believe all they have cut this 
 winter ; well, he's one of the kind to make a spoon 
 or spoil a horn always was." 
 
 " But where's he going to?." 
 
 " Boston, I expect ; he's steering that way, and 
 is making first-rate headway, too." 
 
 Forgetting all about his breakfast, John ran to 
 Uncle Isaac's, while Captain Rhines went in to tell 
 the news to his wife. 
 
 " Ben's going to Boston on a raft ! " he shouted ; 
 " O, come quick, or he'll be out of sight ! " 
 
 They watched him from the hill, and then from 
 the garret window, till he disappeared from view.
 
 238 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 " If the wind should come in fresh at north- 
 west," said Uncle Isaac, " no power on earth could 
 prevent his going to sea, and that would be the end 
 of him ; " but, noticing the look of anxiety upon 
 John's face, he said, " Come in and take breakfast 
 with us, and then we'll see what your father thinks 
 about it." 
 
 " Don't you think Ben's running a great risk ? " 
 asked Uncle Isaac of Captain Rhines. 
 
 Now, Captain Rhines had never done much else, 
 except to run risks, and therefore was not particu- 
 larly sensitive on that score. 
 
 " It's a risk, that's certain ; but then it's a risk 
 that's well worth the running, to get such a tre- 
 mendous raft of spars as that to market, as you 
 may say, for nothing. The wind often holds east- 
 erly, this time of year, a fortnight ; it's our trade- 
 wind ; he is going every bit of four knots. I'll risk 
 Ben ; he's one of ftie kind that always come on 
 their feet. There's not another man in the world 
 that looks as bad as he does, that would have got 
 Sully Iladlock. Nobody else could have got Elm 
 Island from Father Welch. I have been trying to 
 buy it of him these twenty years ; but he said it 
 was his father's before him, and fie wouldn't sell it, 
 5or he didn't want to see it stripped ; and he knew
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 239 
 
 I would cut the timber off the first thing. No, I'll 
 risk Ben. Did I ever tell you what a Yankee trick 
 he served a British man-of-war, when he was cap- 
 tain of a privateer ? " 
 
 " No ; what was it ? I didn't know he ever was 
 captain." 
 
 " Well, he never was, only in this way. Their 
 captain was killed in action with an aimed mer- 
 chantman ; Ben, being lieutenant, took charge, and 
 acted as captain the rest of the cruise. You see, 
 they were cruising off the coast, to try and cut off 
 some of the English supply vessels, that were bring- 
 ing provisions and ammunition to their armies, for 
 our folks were mighty short of powder, and every- 
 thing else, for the matter of that. They were lying 
 by in a thick fog not a breath of wind couldn't 
 see your hand before you ; and when the fog lifted 
 at sunrise, they were right under the guns of a 
 fifty-gun ship, that was off there looking out for the 
 expected transports. No squeak for them. What 
 does Ben do but strip off his clothes, get into his 
 berth, and make the doctor bind his right leg and 
 arm all up with splinters and bandages, as though 
 they were broken, then bleed him, and put the 
 blood over the wound, as though it had been done 
 by a shot ! John Strout was second mate ; so he
 
 240 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 became first mate, or first lieutenant, when Ben took 
 charge ; you know he and Ben are like knife and 
 fork always together. The man-of-war put a prize 
 captain and crew on board, and put Ben's crew in 
 irons, and ordered her into New York. They took 
 him out of his berth, and put him between decks 
 with his men, which was just what he wanted, 
 though he groaned and took on terribly when they 
 were moving him, it hurt him so ; and the doctor 
 said 'twas real barbarity to move a patient in his 
 condition. 
 
 " The English in time of war were always short 
 of seamen, more so now than ever, as they 
 were fighting with us and France both ; they had 
 but few men to spare for a prize crew ; they took 
 out part of Ben's crew, and put the rest in irons ; 
 made a captain of an old quartermaster, with two 
 midshipmen for lieutenants ; gave them about a 
 dozen seamen, and three or four petty officers, 
 thinking, as 'twas so short a run into port, there 
 
 
 
 was no great risk of their meeting any Yankee 
 cruiser. Ben knew very well there was no time to 
 lose, and laid his plans with the doctor for re-tak- 
 ing the vessel that very night. They apprehended 
 but little trouble from the seamen, who were most 
 of them pressed men ; but there were three marines
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 241 
 
 to be got rid of, one on the forecastle, and one 
 at each gangway, and armed to the teeth. The 
 doctor secured the key of the arm-chest as soon 
 after twelve o'clock as the watch, who came below, 
 were well asleep. Ben took off the splints and 
 bandages, 'and crawling out of his hammock, 
 wrenched the handcuffs from the wrists of eight 
 of his men." 
 
 " Who did he let loose ? " said Uncle Isaac ; 
 "anybody I know?" 
 
 " Yes ; John. Strout, and black Caasar, who was 
 the strongest man in the vessel, except Ben." 
 
 " I knew him ; he was a slave to Seth Valen- 
 tine, and he gave him his liberty when the war 
 broke out." 
 
 "And Calvin Merrithew, who was almost as 
 stout ; and Ed Griffin, brother to Joe, who was 
 killed afterwards, with Jack Manley, in the Lee 
 privateer. The rest of 'em didn't belong round 
 here." 
 
 "I heard something about it at the time, but 
 never heai'd the particulars. But were not these 
 sailors armed ? " 
 
 "No; they don't allow sailors arms when about 
 their duty ; the marines do all the guard duty ; the 
 sailors are only armed in time of action. The 
 16
 
 242 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 doctor had a dog, who got the end of his tail 
 jammed off a day or two before, under the truck 
 of a gun carriage. The men, for deviltry, would 
 touch it, to make him sing out ; he got so at last, 
 that if anybody pointed at it he would howl. They 
 resolved to make the howl of the dog, which was 
 too common to attract attention, a signal for ac- 
 tion. They dressed themselves in the hats and 
 coats of the watch* who had turned in, that they 
 might be taken in the dark for men-o'-war's-men. 
 Caesar went up the main hatch, passed the sentry 
 on the forecastle, and went into the head. As 
 'twas nothing uncommon for men to come up in 
 the night, the marine took no notice of 'em. Mer- 
 rithew, Ed Griffin, and another, lay at the steps of 
 the main hatch, watching the marine there ; Ben, 
 John Strout, and the others at the after hatch. 
 The doctor, who went and came without question, 
 pinched the dog's tail, who instantly began to howl. 
 Caesar felled the marine with a blow of his fist, and 
 flung him overboard ; Merrithew, rushing upon the 
 marine at the hatchway, whose attention was occu- 
 pied with the noise on the forecastle, flung him 
 head foremost into the hold, while the others put 
 on the hatches and barred them down. In the 
 mean time Ben, rushing upon the sentry in th
 
 BEN'S NOVEL SHIP. 243 
 
 gangway, flung him against the lieutenant, who 
 was pacing the deck, with such force as to fell him 
 senseless on the planks, while the doctor locked 
 the cabin doors, and the rest barred down the after 
 hatches, then, seizing the boarding-pikes that were 
 lashed to the main boom, joined their comrades. 
 The seamen made little or no resistance. A ter- 
 rible noise and swearing were now heard aft ; the 
 prize captain, having got p on the cabin table, 
 with his head out of the skylight, was screaming 
 to know why the doors were fastened, and what 
 was the matter. 
 
 " ' Come out here and see, my little man,' said 
 Ben, reaching down, and taking him by both ears, 
 he pulled him through the skylight, and set him 
 astride a gun. 
 
 " ' Who are y ou ? ' exclaimed the astonished com- 
 mander. 
 
 " ' This,' said the doctor, * is the man with the 
 broken leg ; he's got well ; I never had a patient 
 mend so rapidly.' " 
 
 " I don't think that was very civil treatment for 
 a prisoner of war," said Uncle Isaac. " .- 
 
 " It was tit for tat," said Captain Rhines. " In 
 the first of the war the British frigates used to run 
 our privateers down, and destroy all hands, and
 
 244 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 
 
 starve and maltreat our prisoners in their hulks ; 
 but they got more civil in the last of it. I tell 
 you, Ben would stick a mast into Elm Island, and 
 sail it to Boston, if he undertook it."
 
 PETE COMES TO GKIEF. 245 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 PETE, IN QUEST OF REVENGE, COMES TO GKIEF. 
 
 "SAM HADLOCK," said his mother, "they say- 
 Ben's gone to Boston on a raft, all alone. I don't 
 believe it; but go right over and see what it all 
 means, and take Sally's hens on." 
 
 Sam arrived at Elm Island about dusk, with the 
 hens and a crower. The first thing a rooster does, 
 upon finding himself in a strange place, is to flap 
 his wings and crow, in order that it may be known 
 he is round. The next morning, as the daylight 
 shone in between the logs of the hovel, he raised 
 his cry of defiance to all things in general, and 
 everybody in particular. 
 
 Now, although the squawks had been in posses- 
 sion of the island from time immemorial, they had 
 never heard a rooster crow, or even seen one. The 
 ins&int that shrill, defiant voice rose on the morn- 
 ing air, saying, " I'm somebody ; who are you ? " 
 every squawk on the island uttered his loudest 
 yell. This startled the herons and fish-hawks ; the
 
 246 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 crows joined the chorus, and Sailor exerted hia 
 lungs to the utmost. Sally woke up in alarm, and 
 was for some time unable to account for the terrible 
 uproar. It was a week before the Elmites would 
 permit the rooster to crow, or a hen to cackle, in 
 peace. The moment he attempted it, the whole 
 community combined to drown his voice, and re- 
 buke his presumption ; but, after a while, they 
 began to recognize him as an adopted citizen of 
 that of which they had so long been the sole occu- 
 pants. It was laughable to see with what gravity 
 they would cluster on the trees, at the edge of the 
 woods near the house, and, with their keen eyes, 
 stare at him and his dames. Now and then a great 
 blue heron would sail lazily overhead, when, the 
 cock raising the cry of alarm, all would scud for 
 the barn ; but they learned, after a while, that none 
 of the original inhabitants were to be feared, except 
 the eagles. 
 
 The next morning, after the arrival of the hens, 
 a calf, bright red, with a white star in his forehead, 
 and white on his fore legs and the end of his tail, 
 made his appearance. 
 
 Sally was delighted ; the birth of the calf opened 
 a prospect not only of milk, of which they had been 
 deprived for two mouths, but of butter. It was
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 247 
 
 also the first domestic animal that had been born 
 on the island ; besides, there are so many pleasant 
 memories of childhood connected with a " bossy," 
 that it seemed a great affair to Sally in her lonely 
 situation. She scarcely ever came in from the 
 barn but her sleeves were all chewed up, in conse- 
 quence of stopping to pet the calf. 
 
 " How much it seems like borne," said she to Joe, 
 "to have a calf to pet, and hear it crying for the 
 cow ! to hear a rooster crow, and hens cackle, and 
 have eggs to hunt after! I used to think, when I 
 first came on here, it would be music to hear a pig 
 squeal." 
 
 " I can give you music," said Joe, and set up a 
 cry so much like that of a pig in his last agonies, 
 that Sally was glad to stop her ears. He then be- 
 gan to make a noise like a calf in trouble, which 
 soon brought the mother running from the woods, 
 where she had been browsing upon maples that Joe 
 had cut down for her. 
 
 Peter Clash embraced the first opportunity in the 
 spring to ship in a fishing vessel, being in mortal 
 fear of Uncle Isaac, who, Joe Griffin had told him, 
 had Indian blood in him, and would carry him into 
 the woods and roast him alive, as he had been 
 taught to do among the Indians. But he was
 
 248 LION 1 BEtf OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 determined, before he departed, to revenge himself 
 upon Uncle Isaac, and inflict some injury upon 
 John Rhines. He hated John, although he had 
 never injured him, because he was a good boy, and 
 Uncle Isaac and everybody liked him. Although 
 two years older, he feared to attack him. He 
 talked with the boys who were most under his in- 
 fluence, and by ingenious falsehoods contrived to 
 prejudice them against him, by possessing them 
 with the idea that John helped Uncle Isaac set the 
 trap, and was in the bushes with him watching 
 them when it sprung. 
 
 " I hate him, too," said Jack Godsoe, whose mind 
 Pete had completely warped to his own interest, 
 and who was also older than John, and a smart, 
 resolute boy. 
 
 " He thiuks he's too good to play with us, be- 
 cause his father is captain, and lives in a big house, 
 and because he goes with Uncle Isaac ; I hate him ; 
 let's lick him, and take some of that grand feeling 
 out of him." 
 
 They seated themselves on the beach, under a 
 great willow that hung over the bank, in earnest 
 consultations as to the best means of revenging 
 themselves upon Uncle Isaac. Jack proposed they 
 should pull up his corn.
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 249 
 
 " That," said Fred "Williams, " is too much work, 
 and he could plant it over again." 
 
 " Let us put his sheep in the well," said Sam 
 Smikes. 
 
 " It's too near the house," said Pete ; " we shall 
 be caught ; besides, it wouldn't be bad enough for 
 the ' old cuss ; ' he could get them out, and would 
 save the wool and the pelts, for they are not sheared. 
 O ! I'll tell you what we'll do ; we'll kill his apple 
 trees." 
 
 Uncle Isaac had an orchard in full bearing, that 
 he valued very highly, having, at a great deal of 
 labor and expense, obtained the trees of the Rev. 
 Samuel Deane, of Portland. They were most of 
 them grafted, a rare thing in those parts at that 
 day, as Dr. Deane understood the ai*t and mystery 
 of grafting. They determined to girdle all these 
 trees, which would be a most severe blow to Uncle 
 Isaac, as he had watched over them for twenty 
 years ; and they were now in full bearing, having 
 been planted on a burn among the ashes, and had 
 thriven apace in the new, strong soil. It could 
 also be accomplished without risk of detection, as 
 the orchard was at a distance from the house. The 
 meanness of the act seemed greater, because of 
 the generous nature of the owner, who was not a
 
 250 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 niggard of his fruit, but gave the boys all the 
 apples and cider they wanted. The fact that this 
 villanous plan was eagerly assented to by the rest, 
 shows to what an extent the example and influence 
 of Pete had corrupted these boys. They thought 
 themselves secure from interruptions, as they com- 
 manded from the place where they sat a vic>v of 
 the whole beach, and, becoming excited, talked in 
 a louder tone than they were aware of. 
 
 " I'll set a trap for him that will make him ache 
 as much as his trap did me," said Pete, chuckling. 
 But doubtful things are uncertain. 
 
 John's mother had sent him on that morning 
 after some willow bark, to color with. He directed 
 his steps to the great willow, and coming upon the 
 party before they were aware of it, heard the latter 
 part of their conversation. Pete espied him, and 
 jumping tap, in a pleasant tone invited him to come 
 down among them, when John, who had not heard 
 that portion of the consultation which related to 
 himself, complied : they all, at a wink from Pete, 
 surrounded him, who now thought proper to change 
 his tone. 
 
 "You heard what we were saying about?" he 
 inquired, pointing in the direction of Uncle Isaac's. 
 
 " Yes."
 
 PETE COMES TO GEIEF. 251 
 
 " And you'll tell him of it ?" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 "Ain't that just what I told you?" said he, 
 turning to the other boys; "just such a mean, 
 low-lived fellow as he is ; go and peach on his play- 
 mates ! " 
 
 "I should think if anything was mean, it was 
 barking a man's apple trees in the night." 
 
 Now, Pete was more anxious to bark the apple 
 trees than he was to lick John ; so he replied, 
 
 " "Well, if we will promise to give it up, will you 
 promise to say nothing about it ? " 
 
 Pete's design in this was to prevent TJncle Isaac 
 being put on his guard, to bark the trees that night, 
 and go off the next morning, leaving the other boys 
 to take the consequences. lie knew if John gave 
 his word he'd keep it. But John fathomed their 
 design ; and although they could trust him, he 
 would not trust them, and refused. 
 
 At this Pete said, " You're a mean fellow ; I've 
 owed you a hiding this long time, and now you'll 
 get it." 
 
 " You can't begin to do it." 
 
 We all can," cried Jack. 
 
 John, seeing there was no help for it, determined 
 to have the first blow, and before the words were
 
 252 LION" BEX OF ELM IST.AXD. 
 
 fairly out of Jack's mouth, knocked him down ; but 
 as the ground was descending, and the sand af- 
 forded poor footing, he fell forward with the force 
 of his own blow, and came upon one knee. They 
 all piled on top, but John threw them of By a 
 well-directed blow he sent Fred yelling from the 
 conflict, and would have gained his feet and handled 
 the whole of them, had not Jack recovered, and, 
 catching him by the hair, pulled him down again. 
 
 Now," cried Pete, as cruel as he was cowardly, 
 " let's lick him within an inch of his life." 
 
 Finding he was to receive no quarter, John be- 
 gan to shout for aid. Tige was sleeping in the sun 
 before the door, as dogs always sleep, with one ear 
 open. The instant he heard the cry, he got up, 
 stretched himself, gaped, and listened. It was re- 
 peated. He leaped the front yard fence at a bound, 
 and in a moment was running full speed in the di- 
 rection of the noise. Captain Rhines, who recog- 
 nized John's voice, followed him. A narrow path 
 led down the bank to the beach, where the scuffle 
 was going on, and which was hard trodden and 
 polished by the frequejit tramping of the boys, who 
 resorted there to swing on the great willow, whose 
 limbs hung over the beach, and to make whistles. 
 So headlong was the speed of the dog, that, his
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 253 
 
 feet slipping upon the smooth path, he turned a 
 complete somerset from the top to the bottom of 
 the bank, and came down upon his back among 
 these little fiends, while employed in their work 
 of torture, thus affording them a moment's respite 
 while he was picking himself up. With all the 
 speed the fear of instant death could inspire, they 
 fled along the beach, with the exception of Smike, 
 who, with great presence of mind, catching a limb 
 of the willow, was in a few moments among its 
 topmost branches, screaming with all his might. 
 Pete was the hindmost. With a horrible growl, 
 Tige sprung upon him and crushed him. to the 
 earth. He bit through both his hands, with which 
 he strove to defend his throat, tore away half of 
 his chin, and, taking him by the back, shook him as 
 he would a woodcluick. 
 
 The dog now pursued Fred, whom he bit through 
 both thighs and arms, and, as the others were out 
 of sight, would have killed him, had not John 
 compelled him to desist by cramming his cap into 
 his mouth, and coaxing and scolding him. 
 
 The Newfoundland dog is very slow to wrath, 
 but ferocious enough when once aroused. Tige's 
 rugged temper, excited by the strongest possible 
 provocation, injury to the person of his friend,
 
 
 254 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 was now thoroughly up ; his eyes were green with 
 rage, his lips covered with foam ; his great tearing 
 teeth stood out, and every hair on his body was 
 erect. 
 
 As Captain Rhines came up, the blood was spirt- 
 ing in jets from Fred's right leg. " God o' mercy ! " 
 cried he, "the arter is cut;" and, clapping his 
 thumb on the place, stopped the flow of blood in a 
 moment. 
 
 "John," cried he, "take off my garter and put it 
 twice round his leg, above the bite, and tie the ends 
 together." 
 
 John did as he was directed. 
 
 " Now get a stick and twist it." 
 
 John twisted. 
 
 " Twist harder ; twist with all your might. 
 Now run to Dr. Ricker's, and tell him to come to 
 our house with tools to tie an arter, as quick as 
 he can." 
 
 "Will he die, father?" 
 
 " No ; I hope not ; but he would have been dead 
 in two minutes more, if I had not stopped that 
 blood." 
 
 He now took the boy in his arms, and carried 
 him to his own house, while Tige lay down at the 
 foot of the willow to keep watch of Smike.
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 255 
 
 The doctor said that the boy must not be moved ; 
 and his mother came to take care of him. John 
 now went down, called off Tige, and liberated 
 Smike from the tree. 
 
 " John," said the captain, after the excitement was 
 over, "did you set the dog on those boys?" 
 
 " No, father ; they had me down on the ground, 
 beating me ; I screamed for help, and Tige came 
 and went right at 'em. I got him off of Fred as 
 soon as I could, but he wouldn't mind me ; and he 
 was so savage I was afraid of him myself." 
 
 " What did they beat you for ? " 
 
 " They were all sitting on the beach, planning 
 out to pull Uncle Isaac's corn up, throw his sheep 
 in the well, and girdle his apple trees ; because I 
 overheard 'em, and wouldn't promise not to tell 
 him, they pitched into me. I believe I could have 
 whipped the whole of them, if I hadn't fell down." 
 
 "I wouldn't have believed that of boys raised 
 round here ; it's a pity Tige hadn't finished that 
 Pete ; he was at the bottom of it." 
 
 When Pete recovered from his Avounds he left 
 the place. The parents of the others gave them a 
 severe whipping, in consequence of which Jack 
 Godsoe ran away from home, but the others left off 
 their tricks, and became steady, industrious boys.
 
 256 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAXD. 
 
 " On deck there ! " cried Captain Rhines, from 
 the roof of the house, where he was stopping 
 a leak. 
 
 " What is it, father ?" said John. 
 
 u Tell your mother Ben has just come round 
 Birch Point in his canoe, and is going across to 
 the island; I guess he wants to kiss Sally, for 
 he's making the canoe go through the water like 
 blazes." 
 
 The next morning they saw him coming off i* 
 the canoe. 
 
 " "Well, Ben," said his father, after the greeting 
 had passed, " when I was young, folks didn't go to 
 sea without bidding their folks good by. Now, 
 give an account of yourself." 
 
 Ben, who knew. his father, old sailor like, would 
 want to know the details of the passage, said, " By 
 twelve o'clock the first night I was up with Pur- 
 pood uck, right off the pitch of the cape ; the wind 
 was very strong and steady from sunrise till mid- 
 night." 
 
 " I know it was ; for I was up watching it." 
 
 " It then died away to a flat calm ; and as the 
 flood tide was drifting me into Portland Sound, I 
 anchored and made a fire." 
 
 "What on?"
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 257 
 
 " A flat stone I carried ; made a cup of tea, and 
 slept till daylight, when the wind, blowing the 
 smoke in my face, woke me. The wind held, and 
 plenty of it. I run her all day and all night, and 
 by eight o'clock the next morning I was up with 
 Cape Ann, when it fell calm. It was flood tide ; I 
 went to sleep and let her drift. When I woke up, 
 the tide had carried me, with a little air of wind 
 there was, up to East Point ; and, in the course of 
 the day and night, I tied her to Long "Wharf, Bos- 
 ton not much sorry." 
 
 What did Mr. Welch say ? " 
 
 " He was somewhat astonished. There were 
 hundreds of people on the wharf to look at me or 
 the raft, I don't know which. I got there in a 
 good time. There were a great many vessels there, 
 from Europe, after spars especially big masts. I 
 sold enough to pay for half the island, and I haven't 
 cleared a quarter of it ; but that is not the best 
 of it." 
 
 " I should think that was good enough ; what 
 can be any better ? " 
 
 . " I sold all the timber that I used to confine the 
 
 raft (and that was full of holes) for wharf stuff 
 
 the cable, sail, everything but the compass, canoe, 
 
 and tea-kettle. I got a chance to pilot a French 
 
 17
 
 258 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 ship, that was bound to Portland for lumber and 
 horses, and got a round price for it. They took the 
 canoe on the ship's deck. In Portland I found a 
 schooner bound to Nova Scotia j they took me to 
 Gull Hock, and I rowed home. Thus I got mighty 
 good pay for doing my own work." 
 
 " Well, Ben, at that rate I would cut every stick 
 off the island, and sell the island for whatever any- 
 body, who is fool enough to live there, will give, 
 and come on to the main land, and buy a place 
 among folks." 
 
 " Not yet, father ; that is, if Sally likes to live 
 there. "I wouldn't swap it for the best place and 
 house in town." 
 
 Ben was now reduced to a single yoke of oxen, as 
 those he had hired were needed at home, and with- 
 out them he could not handle spars, which must be 
 hauled some distance ; but on the eastern side of 
 the island was a place where the rocks, undermined 
 by the frosts and sea, had fallen into the water, 
 lie cut the trees around it into mill-logs that were 
 not fit for spars, rolled them down the chasm into 
 the water, towed them to the mill, bringing back 
 the boards, and sticking them up on the shore to 
 season. Thus they worked all through the sum- 
 mer, despite of black flk-s and mosquitos.
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 259 
 
 They then cut a lot of cedar, and piled it up to 
 dry with the boards. 
 
 " What are you going to do with all this cedar?" 
 said Joe ; " and why don't you sell your boards at 
 the mill, instead of bringing them back here ? " 
 
 " I won't tell you," said Ben ; " so you needn't 
 ask me." 
 
 In September, Joe, who had agreed to go on a 
 fishing trip with John Strout, left, and Ben was 
 once more alone. 
 
 Let us now see how matters are going with Fred, 
 who, by fright, wounds, loss of blood, and remorse 
 of conscience, was brought well nigh to death's 
 door. For a long time he was so reduced, and 
 in such a state of stupor, as not to know where 
 he was ; but as he regained strength and percep- 
 tion, it mortified and stung him to the quick to find 
 himself in the house, and the object of 'care and 
 solicitude to those whom he had so recently in- 
 jured ; for, notwithstanding the mean, cowardly 
 treatment John had received from Fred, he was 
 unremitting in his attentions to him, sleeping in 
 the same room, and ministering to all his wants. 
 It is wonderful to what lengths a boy of a nat- 
 urally kind and generous nature may be induced 
 to go in wickedness, and mean wickedness, too,
 
 260 "LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 through the influence of evil examples and com- 
 panionship. 
 
 Such a boy was Fred ; and this kind treatment 
 was perfect torture. At length he could hear it no 
 longer ; but upon a night when he had been fever- 
 ish and very restless, and John had been up great 
 part of the night, bathing his head, and giving him 
 drink and medicines, he said, while his voice was 
 choked with sobs, " O, John, I don't deserve all 
 this kindness at your hands ; I don't see how I 
 could ever have gone in with that miserable Pete, 
 and those boys, to hurt you. If I ever get well, 
 I'll be a better boy, and try to show you and your 
 folks that I am not ungrateful." 
 
 He had made promises of amendment to John 
 before, especially when suffering under the smart 
 of the fish-hook. They came from the lips then 
 a repentance in view of consequences ; but Tige's 
 teeth went deeper than the fish-hook, and this time 
 they came from the heart. 
 
 Little Fannie now came down to see her brother. 
 The first thing she did, upon entering the house, 
 was to put both arms round Tige's neck, and tell 
 him he shouldn't be whipped if he did do naughty 
 things, for Captain Rhines said so. 
 
 Fred's father was a stern, passionate man, who
 
 PETE COMES TO GRIEF. 261 
 
 did not secure the affections of his children. His 
 mother was a fretful, teasing woman ; thought she 
 had to work harder, and had more to try her than 
 anybody else in the world ; didn't see what she 
 had so many children for ; when the window was 
 down she wanted it up, and when it was up she 
 wanted it down ; was never suited. She was a 
 great deal more inclined to scold her children for 
 doing wrong, than to praise them for doing well. 
 The doctor said Fred would never get well, if his 
 mother took care of him, she kept such a fuss, and 
 made him uneasy ; so Mrs. Rhines told her there 
 w r ere a good many of them, and they could take 
 care of him as well as not, and had plenty of room ; 
 that she had a great family, with much to do, and 
 young children ; their dog did the harm, and they 
 would take care of him. 
 
 As Fred besjan to mend, Mrs. Rhines would take 
 
 O ' 
 
 her work and sit down by him in the afternoon, 
 and talk with him as she did with her own chil- 
 dren ; in her kind, motherly way, tell him of the 
 results of vice, and the inducements to a virtuous 
 course ; and, as the tears ran down his cheeks, 
 wiped them away, soothing and encouraging him, 
 till the boy's inmost soul responded to her teach- 
 ings. His eyes would light up with satisfaction
 
 262 LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND. 
 
 when he saw her take her knitting work to sit by 
 his bedside. 
 
 Not long after Fred had given vent to his feel- 
 ings, John, meeting Uncle Isaac on the beach, said 
 to him, " I believe Fred would be right glad to see 
 you, but don't like to say so." 
 
 Well, I'll happen in." 
 
 So he happened in. What passed between them 
 was never known ; but the next day Fred said to 
 John, " Uncle Isaac's a good man ain't he ? " 
 
 " Good ! He's the goodest man that ever was." 
 
 Not many days after he happened in again, when 
 Fred said to him, " I have an uncle in Salem that's 
 a tanner and shoemaker. lie and I were always 
 great friends ; he wants me to come and live with 
 him, and learn the trade. Father has said a great 
 many times that I am such a bad boy, and plague 
 him so much, that he should be glad if I was there. 
 I've been thinking while on this bed, that since I 
 have got such a bad name round here, it would be 
 a good thing to go where nobody knows me, or 
 what I have done, and begin brand fire new." 
 
 "The tanner's trade is a first-rate one, and I 
 should like to have you learn it; but the pi .-ice 
 where you have lost your character, Fred, is the very 
 place to get it again. There was a man lived in
 
 PETE COMES TO GKIEF. 263 
 
 Rowley, who was accused of stealing a sheep. He 
 said he wouldn't stay in a place where he was so 
 slandered, and moved to Newbury. He had not 
 been there a fortnight when the report came that 
 he had stolen three sheep when he lived in Row- 
 ley, and he moved back again." 
 
 " But everybody will scorn me ; and when I go 
 to school the boys will twit me of it, and holler 
 after me when I go along the road." 
 
 " No boy or man, whose opinion is worth mind- 
 ing, will do it when they see you mean to mend ; 
 besides, you ought to be willing to suffer some mor- 
 tification on account of the sorrow you have caused 
 your parents and friends, and for all the mischief 
 you have done, and meant to do." 
 
 " That is true ; and I am willing they may say 
 or do what they like ; I'll face it." 
 
 " That's right ; that's bravely spoken," said Cap- 
 tain Rhines, laying his great hand upon the pale 
 forehead of the sick boy ; you'll live it down, and 
 be thought more of for it. You see, my son, build- 
 ing character is just like building a vessel. We 
 build a vessel model, fasten, spar, and rig her the 
 best we know how, and think she'll prove service- 
 able ; still we don't know that. But when she's 
 made a winter passage across the western ocean,
 
 264 LION BEN OP ELM ISLAND. 
 
 and the captain writes home that she is tight, and 
 sails and worka well in all weathers, then you see 
 that vessel's got a character ; sailors like to go in 
 her, and merchants like to put freight in her. That 
 will be the way with you ; people will say there's 
 good stuff at bottom in that boy \ he's been through 
 the mill." 
 
 " But," said the poor boy, " who will believe that 
 I'm going to be a good boy? and who will go with 
 me at the first of it, while I'm proving myself?" 
 
 "John will go with you, and our girls." 
 
 " I," said Uncle Isaac, " will get Henry Griffin to 
 go with you. Pete tried to get hold of him, but 
 lie didn't make out. I'll get him to come down 
 and see you to-morrow." 
 
 When the cool weather came on, Fred gained 
 strength, went to school, and began to help his 
 father in the mill. 
 
 It was remarkable how soon people began to no- 
 tice the change in him, and to say, " What a smart 
 boy Fred Williams is getting to be ! and how much 
 help he is to his father!" He could not have been 
 placed in a better position to have his light shine, 
 than in a mill, where everybody in the whole town 
 came, and was convinced of the shrewd wisdom 
 of Uucle Isaac's declaration, that the place to look
 
 PETE COMES TO GllIEF. 265 
 
 for a thing was Avhere you lost it ; the place to re- 
 gain confidence, where you had forfeited it. 
 
 Our readers Avill recollect the longing for some 
 kindred spirit near his own age, which John ex- 
 pressed to his mother. That desire was now to be 
 gratified in a most wonderful manner, as will be 
 seen in the next volume of " Elm Island Stories," 
 entitled CHARLIE BELL, THE WAIF OF ELM 
 ISLAND ; and we cannot help thinking it must 
 have been as a reward for his remarkable conduct 
 towards Fred.
 
 NEW AND ATTRACTIVE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON, 
 
 LEE, SHEPAED, AND DILLINGEAM, New York, 
 
 OLIVER OPTIC'S NEW BOOKS. 
 
 MONEY-MAKER; OB, THE VICTORY OF THE BASILISK. 
 IGmo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 THE YACHT CLUB; OR, THE YOUNG BOAT-BUILDER. 
 
 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 LITTLE BOBTAIL; OR, THE WRECK OF THE PENOB- 
 
 SCOT. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 THE COMING WAVE; OR, THE HIDDEN TREASURE 
 OF HIGH ROCK. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 THE YACHT CLUB SERIES. 4 vols. In neat box. 
 Per vol., $1.50. 
 
 1. LITTLE BOBTAIL. 
 
 2. THE YACHT CLUB. 
 
 3. MONEY-MAKER. 
 
 4. THE COMING WAVE. 
 
 In this series each book contains an entirely independent story, with a 
 hero or heroine of its own, and having no necessary connection with any 
 other volume. Each volume contains thirteen full-page engravings, ex- 
 pressly designed for it by the well-kuowu American artist, C. G. Bush.
 
 NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 RUNNING TO WASTE. The Story of a Tomboy. By 
 GEO. M. BAKEB. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. This is the 
 second volume of the Maidenhood Series. 
 
 "A Perfect Little Gem." 
 
 NEW SONGS FOR LITTLE PEOPLE. By MRS. 
 MARY E. ANDERSON. Small 4to. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 "An Instructive and Interesting Book." 
 
 STORIES OF A GRANDFATHER ABOUT 
 AMERICAN HISTORY. By N. S. DODGE. lOmo. 
 Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 "An Example of Honor and Fidelity." 
 
 THE YOUNG ENGINEER. A Memoir of Frank Rus- 
 sell Firth. With an Introduction by Rev. E. E. HALK, and 
 a Sketch of the Life of OTIS EVERETT ALLEN. IGmo. 
 With Portrait. $1.50. 
 
 A Prize Volume. 
 
 HOW MARJORY HELPED. By M. CARROLL. 16mo. 
 Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 A New Oompilation. 
 
 THE COLUMBIAN SPEAKER. Consisting of Choice 
 and Animated Pieces for Declamation and Reading. Select- 
 ed and adapted by LOOMIS J. CAMPBELL and OREN ROOT, 
 JR. lOino. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 
 To be followed by other books, each complete in itself, grad- 
 uated to the capacities of the various classes of pupils and 
 students. 
 
 By the Author of "Amateur Dramas." 
 
 THE READING-CLUB AND HANDY SPEAKER. 
 
 Being Selections in Prose and Poetry, Serious, Humorous, 
 Pathetic, Patriotic, and Dramatic, for Readings and Recita- 
 tions. Edited by GEORGE M. BAKER. No. 1. 16mo. 50 
 cents.
 
 NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 New Volume of the Young America Abroad Series. 
 
 SUNNY SHORES ; R, YOUNG AMERICA IN ITALY AND 
 AUSTRIA. IGmo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD. A Library of Travel 
 and Adventure in. Foreign Lands. Four vols. Illustrated. 
 Per vol., $1.50. 
 
 \. UP THE BALTIC. 
 
 2. NORTHERN LANDS. 
 
 3. CROSS AND CRESCENT. 
 
 4. SUNNY SHORES. 
 
 Of the first series of " Young America Abroad," over one hundred thou- 
 sand volumes have been sold. The author describes from personal obser- 
 vation. He has made two voyages across the water, and will soon undertake 
 another for the purpose of gathering material for this series. 
 
 THE LAKE SHORE SERIES. 6 vols. Illustrated. In 
 neat box. Per vol., $1.25. 
 
 1. THROUGH BY DAYLIGHT. 
 
 2. LIGHTNING EXPRESS. 
 
 3. ON TIME. 
 
 4. SWITCH OFF. 
 
 5. BRAKE UP. 
 
 6. BEAR AND FORBEAR. 
 
 THE ONWARD AND UPWARD SERIES. Com- 
 plete in 6 vols. Illustrated. In neat box. Per vol., $1.25. 
 
 1. FIELD AND FOREST. 
 
 2. PLANE AND PLANK. 
 
 3. DESK AND DEBIT. 
 
 4. CRINGLE AND CROSS-TREE. 
 
 5. BIVOUAC AND BATTLE. 
 
 6. SEA AND SHORE.
 
 NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 ELIJAH KELLOGG'S NEW BOOKS. 
 JOHN GODSOE'S LEGACY. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 THE FISHER BOYS OF PLEASANT COVE. I6mo. 
 Illustrated. $1.25. Completing THE PLEASANT COVE SE- 
 RIES. 
 
 THE PLEASANT COVE SERIES. Five vols. Illus, 
 trated. Per vol., $1.25. 
 
 1. ARTHUR BROWN. 
 
 2. THE YOUNG DELIVERERS. 
 
 3. THE CRUISE OF THE CASCO. 
 
 4. THE CHILD OF THE ISLAND GLEN. 
 
 5. JOHN GODSOE'S LEGACY. 
 
 6. FISHER BOYS OF PLEASANT COVE. 
 
 THE TURNING OF THE TIDE; OR, RADCLIFFB 
 RICH AND HIS PATIENTS. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 A STOUT HEART; OB> THE STUDENT FEOM OVER THE 
 SEA. 16mo. Illustrated. Cloth. $1.25. 
 
 THE WHISPERING PINE SERIES. 6 vols. Illus- 
 trated. Per vol., $1.25. 
 
 1. THE SPARK OF GENIUS. 
 
 2. THE SOPHOMORES OF RADCLIFFE. 
 
 3. THE WHISPERING PINE. 
 
 4. WINNING HIS SPURS. 
 
 5. THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. 
 
 6. A STOUT HEART. 
 
 " Mr. Kellogg has made himself a great favorite with young people by 
 the number and variety of adventures which he manages to pack into a 
 book ; and to the parents by the excellent precepts which he inculcates."
 
 NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 PAUL COBDEN'S NEW BOOKS. 
 TAKE A PEEP. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 THE BECKONING SERIES. 4 vols. Illustrated. 
 16mo. Per vol., 1.25. 
 
 1. WHO WILL WIN? 
 
 2. GOING ON A MISSION. 
 
 3. THE TURNING WHEEL. 
 
 4. GOOD LUCK. 
 
 5. TAKE A PEEP. 
 
 BY POPULAR AUTHORS. 
 
 LOTTIE EAMES ; OR, Do YOTJE BEST AND LEAVE THE 
 BEST. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 "A successful picture of New-England life." J. G. IVTiittier. 
 
 RHODA THORNTON'S GIRLHOOD. By MBS. 
 MAJKY E. PRATT. With eleven full-page Illustrations. 
 16mo. $1.50. 
 
 GIRLHOOD SERIES. Complete in 6 vols. Illustrated. 
 Comprising: 
 
 1. AN AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD. By Miss ADELINE 
 
 TRAFTON. 
 
 2. ONLY GIRLS. By Miss VIRGINIA P. TOWNSEND. 
 
 3. THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. By SOPHIE MAY. 
 
 4. THE MOUNTAIN GIRL. By MKS. E. D. CHENEY. 
 
 5. LOTTIE EAMES. By a favorite author. 
 
 6. RHODA THORNTON'S GIRLHOOD. By MRS. MARY 
 
 E. PRATT. 
 
 "A Charming Eomance of Girlhood." 
 THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS. By Miss A. M. DOUG- 
 LAS. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. Being the initial volume 
 of t'lo Maidenhood Series.
 
 NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 PROF. J. DeMILLE'S NEW BOOKS. 
 THE WINGED LION. 16mo. Illustrated. (In press.) 
 
 THE SEVEN HILLS. 16mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 AMONG THE BRIGANDS. I6mo. Illustrated. $1.50 
 Completing THE YOUNG DODGE CLUB SERIES. 3 vols 
 Illustrated. Per vol., $1.50. 
 
 1. AMONG THE BRIGANDS. 
 
 2. THE SEVEN HILLS. 
 
 3. THE WINGED LION. 
 
 Prof. DeMille's books are noted for their abundant humor as well as foj 
 stirring adventures and useful information. 
 
 SOPHIE MAY'S NEW BOOKS. 
 
 MISS THISTLEDOWN. 18mo. Illustrated. $0.75. 
 LITTLE GRANDFATHER. 18mo. Illustrated. $0.75, 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES. 6 vols. E 
 lustrated. Per vol., $0.75. 
 
 1. LITTLE FOLKS ASTRAY. 
 
 2. PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE. 
 
 3. AUNT MADGE'S STORY. 
 
 4. LITTLE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 5. LITTLE GRANDFATHER. 
 
 6. MISS THISTLEDOWN. 
 
 " Life and Nature are as charming in small editions, and sometimes 
 more PO than in large ones; and, if Dotty and Prurty were not the pictures 
 of infantile good humor and kitten wit, we hardly know where to look foi 
 Buch things/' Boston Post.
 
 A 000604245 1