The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 34

The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 34

It was now the first of March. The brigantine General Knox, Edward

Hiller, master, was working her way to the eastward. She was homeward

bound from Matanzas, having lain in Portland during a severe gale,

where she had discharged her cargo. A heavy sea was still running,

and the vessel, close hauled on the wind, and under short sail, being

light, was knocking about at a great rate. Captain Hiller had been from

boyhood a deep-water sailor, but, having married the year before, took

a smaller vessel, traded to the West Indies in winter, and coasted in

the summer. He was now bound home for a summer’s coasting, having his

brother Sam for mate, and a crew composed of his neighbors’ boys, two

of whom, John Reed and Frank Wood, were his cousins. Captain Hiller was

amusing himself with humming the old capstan ditty,--

 

“Storm along, my hearty crew,

Storm along, stormy,”--

 

in tones which sounded like a nor’wester, whistling through a

grommet-hole, at times varying his occupation by sweeping the horizon

with his glass. At length he said to the man at the helm,--

 

“John, what island is that on the lee bow?”

 

“Don’t know, sir.”

 

“I’ll ask our Sam: he is pilot all along shore, and knows every rock,

and everybody. Sam, come aft here.”

 

“Ay, ay, sir.”

 

“What island is that to leeward?”

 

“Elm Island, captain.”

 

“Does anybody live there?”

 

“Yes, sir; Ben Rhines.”

 

“What Ben Rhines?”

 

“Him they call Lion.”

 

“That can’t be, Sam: he took his father’s ship when the old man gave

up; there ain’t his equal along shore. I’ve been “shipmates” with him:

he wouldn’t be living on such a place as that.”

 

“It is so, captain; he was offered the ship; but like another man

I know of, that is a relation to me, he fell in love with a pretty

girl, who vowed she wouldn’t marry him if he went to sea. And so he

bought that island, married the girl, and has turned farmer. There’s

some trouble there; I can see a woman on the beach, and she has got a

petticoat--that’s the flag of all nations--on an oar, and is making

signals.”

 

“If my old shipmate is in trouble, I’m there. Keep her off for the

island, John. Flow the main sheet, and set the colors in the main

rigging, and then she’ll know we see her signals.”

 

The vessel, with the wind free, increased her speed, but not

sufficiently to suit the impatience of the noble-hearted seaman, who

exclaimed,--

 

“Shake the reefs out of the mainsail! loose the fore-topsail! Why, how

slow you move to help a neighbor! Sam, do you know the way in there? It

seems to be all breakers.”

 

“I know the way, captain; there’s water enough.”

 

“Then shove her in: we’ll soon know what’s the matter.”

 

Ben, propped up with pillows, and now able to converse, received

with heartfelt joy his old shipmate, who sat down beside him, while

the young men gazed with awe upon the great bones and muscles, made

prominent by the wasting of the flesh, and called to mind the wonderful

stories they had heard of his strength.

 

“What do you think of that, boys, for a lion’s paw?” said the captain,

taking up Ben’s right arm, and showing it to the astonished group.

“Now, Mrs. Rhines,” said he, “do you get a couple of axes, and John and

Frank will cut some wood, while Sam and myself get your husband up, and

put some clean clothes on him, and I will shave him; then you can make

the bed, and we will put him back; for I suppose he has not been moved

since he was taken sick.”

 

“No,” said Sally; “it was impossible for me to move him.”

 

These strong and willing hands soon put a new face on matters. With a

roaring fire in the old fireplace, clean linen on the bed, the house

put to rights, Ben shaved, and his spirits excited by hope, everything

seemed cheerful.

 

“Frank,” said the captain, “go aboard, and in my berth you’ll find a

pot of tamarinds and a box of guava jelly; they’ll be just the stuff

for him: I got them fresh in Matanzas.”

 

“Frank,” said Sam, “get a couple dozen oranges out of my chest.”

 

“Don’t you do it, Frank,” said John Reed; “get them out of mine: he is

courting a girl; but I ain’t so happy. I haven’t anybody to give mine

to.”

 

“Captain,” said Ben, “you will dine with us.”

 

“By no means.”

 

“Yes; I insist upon it,” said Sally; “such friends as you don’t grow on

every bush.”

 

“But, Mrs. Rhines, you are worn out with labor and anxiety.”

 

“I _was_; but that is all gone now.”

 

“Well,” said the captain, who perceived that a refusal would do more

harm than good, “we will go on board, and get our dinners; your

husband, who has had quite enough fatigue for once, will sleep; then we

will come to supper, take care of the cattle, and some of us will sit

up with Mr. Rhines; you will get a good night’s rest, and then will be

all right. To-morrow we will go over and get your folks. I should not

feel right to leave you alone.”

 

The next morning the brig’s boat went over, and brought back Sam

Hadlock, his mother, and Sally Merrithew. Captain Rhines followed, in

his own boat, with Uncle Isaac, and they brought cooked victuals enough

for a small army. The news spread, and by night the house was full.

 

“Who will take the Perseverance, and go to Portland for the boys, if

they are well paid for it?” asked Captain Rhines.

 

“I,” replied Joe Griffin; “but not for pay.”

 

“And I,” said Henry.

 

“And I, too,” said Joe Merrithew.

 

In less than an hour the swift little craft was cleaving the waves,

her sheets well aft, the smoke pouring from the wooden chimney into

the clew of the foresail, and the spray freezing as fast as it came on

board.

 

When Charlie came, he was so shocked by the emaciated appearance of

Ben, and the alteration in Sally, who had grown pale and thin, that he

burst into tears.

 

“Charlie,” said Sally, as they sat together, after the rest had

retired, and Ben was asleep, “do you remember that the first night

you came here, you said your mother’s dying counsel to you was, when

trouble came, to pray to God, and he would take care of you?”

 

“Yes, mother.”

 

“Do you ever pray now?”

 

“I say the Lord’s prayer; and the first time I went on to my land after

it was mine, I thanked the Lord, or tried to; but I’ve been so happy

here, that I have not prayed as I did before. Don’t you think,” said

he, fairly getting into her lap, “that we are more for praying when we

are in a tight place?”

 

“Yes, Charles; and so the better God uses us, the worse we use Him. The

night you came here, a poor outcast boy, like drift-wood flung on the

shore, you said you thought God had forgotten you; and now that he has

given you a mother in me, and a father in Ben, and a brother in John,

you have forgotten Him.”

 

“O, mother, I know I am a wicked, ungrateful boy.”

 

“No more so than the rest of us. Since you left home, I have suffered

all but death; but I have also experienced a great joy. When Ben was

first taken sick, he had a high fever; then he was out of his head;

after that he went into a sog. At last there came a night, O, what a

night! I could scarce get wood to keep from freezing; the sea roared

as though it would come into the house; I thought Ben would die before

morning. As I sat here, just where I do now, something seemed to say,

‘There’s no help for you on this earth; look to God!’ I did look to

God; and I made a promise that I mean to keep! I looked for Ben to die

when the tide turned; and such horrible thoughts as passed through my

mind, that I could not move him from the bed, nor bury him; and to be

here alone with a corpse! but when the day broke, I saw he was better.

What sweet joy and love sprang up in my heart! You must pray to God

this night, this moment, Charlie.”

 

“I will do anything you want me to, mother.”

 

“You must do it because it is right, not because I want you to.”

 

“I feel ashamed to, when I think how good He has been to me, and how

meanly I have used Him; but if you will pray for me right here, I will

pray for myself when I go to bed.”

 

When Ben had regained in some measure his strength, Sally told him all

her heart.

 

“These things,” replied he, “are not new to me. In boyhood, yes, even

in childhood, they were familiar to and grew up with me. There are

trees growing on our point that were bushes when I prayed under them.

After I went to sea, these impressions faded out; but the death of John

brought them back; and since I have left off drinking spirit, they have

increased in power. The day before I was taken sick, as I lay on the

rocks watching for birds, and thinking of John, and how quick he went,

the thought, _Are you ready to follow him?_ came in my mind with such

distinctness, that I turned round to see who spoke to me. On the rocks,

right there, I cried to God, which I had not done since I was fifteen.

I think I see men as trees walking; and I mean to follow after the little glimmering of light that I have.”