LION BEN
OF
ELM ISLAND.

The cover was created by the transcriber using elements from the original publication and placed in the public domain.

ELM ISLAND STORIES.

LION BEN
OF
ELM ISLAND.

BY
REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG,
AUTHOR OF “SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS,”
“GOOD OLD TIMES,” ETC.

BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD.
1869.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
LEE AND SHEPARD,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

ELECTROTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY,
19 Spring Lane.

ELM ISLAND STORIES.

• 1. LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND.
• 2. CHARLIE BELL, THE WAIF OF ELM ISLAND.

Others in preparation.

PREFACE.

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 own 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 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 marvel 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.

LION BEN OF ELM ISLAND.

CHAPTER I.
ELM ISLAND.

In one of the most beautiful of the many romantic spots on the rugged coast of Eastern Maine lived Captain Ben Rhines. The country was just emerging from the terrible struggle of the revolution, 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 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 turf, 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 description 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 Rhines’s house and the whole extent of the bay, and Uncle Isaac’s Point, were visible. Nature seemed to have lavished 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 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 inaccessible, had not nature provided on the south-western end a most remarkable harbor. The line of perpendicular 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 approached the south-western end, till it terminated in a broad space occupying the whole width between the outer cliffs, and gradually sloping to the water’s edge. This portion of the island was bare of wood, and covered with green grass. The eastern 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, curving around, formed a beautiful cove, whose precipitous sides broke off the easterly sea and gales.

Into the head of this cove poured a brook, which, like 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 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 robbing the fish-hawks. The wild geese, coots, whistlers, 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 all 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 western 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 undisturbed 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 perfectly at home and happy.

They belonged to that species called, by naturalists, ardea nycticorax. The inhabitants called them squawks and flying foxes, from the noise they made. Like all the heron tribe, they are extremely 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, apparently 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 dry 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, quaw, squawk, squawk, producing a chorus almost deafening. The sound they emit, which is a union of growl, bark, and scream, comes from their throat with such suddenness, breaking upon the deep silence of the woods, like the whirr of the partridge, that it will make you jump, though you are prepared 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 bobolink 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 impossible to see them. You must therefore shoot them when they are on the wing, or at the moment they light.

They will bear a great deal of killing, and even 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 horrible 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 are light blue, the back part and sides of the neck lilac, shading on the front 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 fishing for minnows, squawks catching frogs, the wild geese making their peculiar noise, the sea-fowl diving, the ducks quacking, and the fish jumping from the water in schools. It shows how God provides for all his creatures, for though there are thousands 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 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 ragged and outlying rocks.

One of these was called the White Bull, deriving 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 seaward side it ran off into irregular broken reefs, covered 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 connected 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 water all around it, and covered with grass. The two ends of this island lapped by the western point of the White Bull and the western point of the main island, thus presenting a complete barrier against the sea. The whole space between 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 excellent hold to anchors.

There were two passages to go in and out, according as the wind might happen to be, with deep water close to the rocks. This harbor was a favorite resort of the fishermen, who came here to dig 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 on the White Bull was 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 granite. The sea, in great storms, rolled the fragments of blue stone back and forth on this granite floor, and wore away and rounded the corners, making them of the shape of those you see in the pavements 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 summer 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, breaking thirty feet high, pouring through the gaps between 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 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, protected 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, having 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, 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 there shivering in the gale, their great roots sticking 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 tide 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 scouring 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 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, except 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 completely 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; children with their little bare feet as red as the pigeons’ with the cold, picking the little bits of 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 clothing 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 overboard.”

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.

CHAPTER II.
THE RHINES 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 proportioned, “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 experienced 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 poverty, went as cook in one of these vessels when so small that some one had to hang on the pot for him. He was thus engaged for several summers, till big enough to go as boy in a coaster. During the winters, arrayed in buckskin breeches, Indian 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 obtained 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 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 captain, “for he can’t write his own name.”

“Can’t write his own name! Why, that is impossible.”

“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 seaman, and get more wages?”

“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 sympathies 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 be done by—turn schoolmaster, and teach you myself.”

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 frolicking, 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 Boston, 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 fruit and shade trees, for, by travel and observation, 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 himself.

Captain Rhines’s fine house, nice furniture, and curiosities which he brought home from time to time, excited no heart-burnings among his neighbors, 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,” everybody felt sorry for him, and told him so.

Indeed, everything about the Rhines family was pleasant, and excited cheerful emotions. The old house itself had a most comfortable, cosy look, as it lay in the very eye of the sun, with an orchard before it, green fields stretching along the water, sheltered on the north-west by high land and forest. 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 rousing fires.

There was a row of Lombardy 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, 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 straining 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 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 with 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 without 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 excellent 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, 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 seventeen 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 anybody 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. He had often done this for the widow Hadlock, who was their nearest neighbor. The widow Hadlock’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 furnished, 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, industry, 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 exaggerated by the stoop in his shoulders: though 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 perceive, or courage to resist, imposition.

But never was the proverb, “Appearances are deceitful,” more strikingly verified than in this instance. 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 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, causing 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 ringbolts, 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 endurance, 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 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 outcry 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 replied 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 inflicted 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 killed him, I’ve laid him out.”

CHAPTER III.
TIGE RHINES.

There was another member of the family whose qualities deserve especial mention—the great Newfoundland dog.

We have already alluded to the captain’s fondness 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 neighbors 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 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 acquaintance 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 covered 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 monkeys; 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 showman, after the bargain was concluded, “I never would have parted with him; he will protect your 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 person 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 further 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 he 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 employment 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 companion. Tige always went to meeting, and slept on the horse-block in fair weather, and under it 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” 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 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 shoulders, 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 objection to his departure.

In the cove before the house was a beach of fine white sand, without a stone in it, which when wet 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 amusements. 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 going 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 clams at a great fire made of drift-wood.

Parents did not like very well to have the children, especially the little ones, play there so much, for fear of their getting drowned; and the larger ones could not well be spared from work to go with 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 “courtesy,” would say,—

“Captain Rhines, me, and Eliza Ann Hadlock, and Caroline Griffin, and the Warren girls, are going 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 fastened; 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.

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 himself 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 her 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 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 covered 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 determined. “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 followed 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 collar, with an account of this brave act engraved upon it.

Ever after this he had a warm place in the affections 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 nothing of the history of Tige, and perhaps, if he had, would not have cared; to gratify a malicious disposition, 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 prepared 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, hollyhocks, 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 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 comed 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 quieted, trudged along, putting her flowers to Tige’s nose for him to smell of, telling him he shouldn’t be licked, ’cause Captain Rhines said so.

CHAPTER IV.
BEN’S COURTSHIP.

Ben had never been to sea with his father. Captain Rhines didn’t believe it was a good plan 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 before his return. The greatest source of apprehension 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 family 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 faculized.” 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 spectacles 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 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 altogether 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 in the place, who, since his advent, found themselves 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 contemptuous, 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 tormentor 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 discomfiture of the puppy.

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 a 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 sitting in his arm-chair reading the Apocrypha, and fell asleep.

Ben was sitting at the window, all dressed up, quite nervous, waiting for Sam.

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 all this was going on, Sam Johnson unaccountably disappeared. Ben could do no less than offer to carry in the milk for them; was invited to spend the evening; and the old lady, excusing herself 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 condition 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 am a man of few words, and would never ask a woman 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 fortunate, 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, employed 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 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 people, 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 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 themselves to you, and that had rich fathers, instead of poor Ben Rhines, 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 that ever lay out doors, covered 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 considerable money by gunning and fishing; but,” said Ben, his countenance falling, “what a place for a woman! No society, no neighbors, right among the 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. I’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 Hadlock. 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 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 disadvantages 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 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 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.

CHAPTER V.
SALLY TELLS HER MOTHER 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 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 better to marry him with only the clothes to his back, and the good principles that are in him, 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 something 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 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 otherwise. Your grandmother, girl, was born in old Rowley, Massachusetts, was brought up to have everything she wanted, and knew nothing of hardships; 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, was better than the good farm when they got it; that there was nothing in her well-to-do life afterwards 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 hardships, 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 hardships, 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 fail; 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.

“The last time I was in Rowley, I saw rich men’s sons; whose fathers scorned your grandfather because 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 neighbors 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 before Sam was born; and now to see how they live! just the least little scriffin 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 suppose, they should take too much; and then so many compliments to so little victuals! But they put it 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 looking 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 breakfast, for I thought I heard Sam getting up.”

CHAPTER VI.
BEN BUYS 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 been 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 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 circumstances must be extremely happy; but, as he was not deficient in shrewdness, he learned a lesson that effectually repressed any desire to murmur at his own lot.

The merchant then said to him, “Mr. 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-easter would get rich where anybody else would starve.

It was now the month of October. Ben proposed 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 preparations for building in the spring. But Sally declared she would as lief have Ben at sea as have him 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.

“Live where, Sally?” inquired Ben.

“Why, with you. I suppose you will live somewhere—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 summer, and move in the fall.”

“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 cooking, and 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 troubled; “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 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 it’s all the thing on this earth that will; it will bear trial; it is a fast color, and 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.”

CHAPTER VII.
CAPTAIN RHINES RIDING OUT A GALE BEFORE THE FIRE.

The morning succeeding Ben’s return from Boston 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 pulling 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 father Welch had to give it to me; he never would miss it. 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 afternoon to kill a lamb, and have a regular “tuck out” on a sea-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 despatched 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 rain 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 boots, and sitting down 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 listened 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 below; eight hours in to-night.”

He then sat some time in silence, with his hands clasped over his knees, and looking 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 features, 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 master’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 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 comfortable 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,” replied 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 children a better father, than you have always been.”

“God bless you, Mary!” exclaimed the old seaman 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 vitriol, 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 allers 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?”

“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 destroy 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?”

Though Captain Rhines had a rugged temper of his own when roused, with only the education he had picked up at sea, and the culture acquired by 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 unguarded expression, and annoying him with exhortations; 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 converse, 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 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, springing to his feet, “you’ve been fishing to some purpose; 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 grandfather was old and childish, and hated to have the house torn down; so I got Isaac to make a model 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, he and Isaac were like two fingers on one hand. I believe he thinks as much of the Hadlock 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 Hadlock? 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 Hadlock, 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 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 intending 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 difficulties.”

“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 please 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 go right up. Will you go on with me 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 sunrise, or thereabouts.”

During Ben’s absence, the 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.

CHAPTER VIII.
BREAKING GROUND ON ELM ISLAND.