The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 9

The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 9

Charlie’s West India wood was constantly coming into use, for one thing

or another, and Joe Griffin could not have given him a more acceptable

or useful present.

 

He also used his skeins of willow for winding the legs of the three

chairs he made, one for his mother, one for Hannah Murch, and one for

Mrs. Hadlock. The legs were made of stout willow, and wound with these

bands.

 

He presented work-baskets to his mother, Mrs. Rhines, and her

daughters, and Aunt Molly Bradish, and expressed his determination to

make some baskets the next winter to send over to the mill, that people

might see them.

 

What was his delight on going out one night, after supper, to get some

willows he had put to soak in the brook, to see a company of swallows

he disturbed fly off in the direction of the barn, with their bills

full of clay! Following them, he saw, with great joy, some of them fly

into the holes he had cut in the barn, while others deposited their

burdens beneath the eaves outside.

 

By that he knew that two kinds of swallows had come to take up their

abode, and were building their nests--barn-swallows and eave-swallows.

 

He was not long in getting to the house with the glad tidings, which

delighted his mother as much as himself.

 

“I think,” she said, “eave-swallows are the prettiest things in the

world, they look so cunning sticking their heads out of a little round

hole in their nest!”

 

“Yes, mother, and I’ve seen them two stories on Captain Rhines’s

barn--one nest right over the other.”

 

It seemed as if a kind Providence had determined to remunerate Charlie

for his disappointment in respect to the boat. He kept his goose, with

her goslings, in a large pen near the barn, while the wild gander was

let out every day to go where he liked. The great body of wild geese

were now gone; but a few stragglers from broken flocks still remained,

and were not considered worth the attention of gunners.

 

A brush fence ran across the island behind the barn, dividing the field

from the pasture. Great was Charlie’s surprise, when coming one day to

dinner, he saw the gander in conversation with a wild goose through

the fence. He could not fly over the fence, as one wing was mutilated,

therefore was trying to persuade the goose to fly over to him. The

goose, on the other hand, being lonely,--the rest of the flock probably

having been shot,--was desirous of company, but afraid to venture. The

gander would walk along one side of the fence, and the goose the other,

a little ways, and then stop and talk the matter over. Charlie ran and

made a hole in the fence, right abreast the back barn doors, while they

were down under the hill out of sight, and opened the barn doors that

led into the floor, then hid himself and watched them. They continued

walking along till they found the gap, when the gander instantly went

through, and joined the goose, making the most strenuous efforts to

entice her to follow him through the hole, and finally succeeded; he

evidently wished to coax her to the barn, but the goose held off; she

would venture a little way, and then go back, her head erect, turning

in every direction, and her eyes flashing like balls of fire. It seemed

as if the gander would fail in his efforts, and she appeared about to

rise and fly away.

 

At this juncture, Charlie, in his concealment, flung some corn around

the barn door: the gander now redoubled his efforts; he would run

ahead, pick up some corn, then run back and tell her how good it was.

The goose, evidently hungry, now approached slowly, and began to

pick the corn, a train of it extending into the floor; Charlie was

so excited he could hear his heart beat. He now crawled out of the

barn, and concealed himself outside, and the goose, following up the

scattered kernels, entered the floor, when Charlie slammed the door to.

He could hardly believe that he had a veritable wild goose unhurt; he

flew into the house, where they were all through dinner, and replied

to his mother’s question, of where he had been, by taking her and Ben

by the hand and dragging them to the barn, where they found the wild

goose on the collar beam, and the gander on the floor, vainly striving

to entice her down. After being chased from beam to beam, she buried

herself in the hay, when they caught her and clipped her wings.

 

The flax being done out, Sally, with a good smart girl to help her

(Sally Merrithew), had linen yarn to bleach to her heart’s content.

One forenoon, about eleven o’clock, Ben and Charlie were in the field;

Sally had spread some linen yarn on the grass to whiten, and gone in to

get dinner. All at once a terrible outcry arose from the house; Sally

was screaming, “Ben! Ben! get the gun;” the baby was bawling for dear

life, and Sailor barking in concert.

 

The cause of the outcry was soon manifest. A large fish-hawk was seen

sailing along in the direction of the eastern point, with two skeins of

Sally’s yarn in his claws, screaming with delight at the richness of

his prize.

 

“Why don’t you fire, Ben?” screamed Sally.

 

“It’s no use,” said Ben; “he’s out of range.”

 

“Well, get the axe and cut the tree down this minute.”

 

“I will, mother,” said Charlie, running to the wood-pile for the axe.

 

“Stop till after dinner,” said Ben, who had not the most distant idea

of cutting the tree down; however, he felt very sorry for Sally, and

like a prudent general, permitted her feelings to exhaust themselves.

“If I’ve got to cut that great pine down this warm day, I think I must

have a cup of tea.” He well knew the soothing effect of a cup of tea.

 

When they were seated at table, he said,--

 

“What a nice dinner this is, Sally! you do make the best bread, and

such nice butter!” Not a word about the fish-hawk. But as dinner was

most over, Ben began to unfold his purpose. “Sally,” said he, “do you

love that little creature?” pointing to the baby.

 

“How can you ask such a question?”

 

“Haven’t you taken a great deal of comfort in making his little

dresses? and wouldn’t you feel bad if some one should come and tear

down this house, break the furniture, and destroy all that we’ve

worked, scrubbed, and contrived so long to collect around us, for these

little ones?”

 

“Why, Ben, how you talk! Of course I should. But what makes you talk

so? Who’s going to hurt us?”

 

“Nobody, I hope; but suppose somebody had taken some little thing from

us,--an axe, a shovel, or a milk pan,--would you want their house torn

down over their heads for it?”

 

“No; I’d say the worst is their own.”

 

“But you want me to cut down that tree, and break that poor fish-hawk’s

nest to pieces, that she has built stick by stick, lugging them miles

through the air in her claws, just because she took two skeins of yarn

to line her nest with, it’s so much better than eel-grass, and which we

shall hardly miss; besides, she don’t know any better than to take what

she wants, wherever she can find it.”

 

At this appeal Sally cast down her eyes and colored; at length she

said,--

 

“You are right, Ben, I know; but it was so provoking, after I had

worked so hard to spin and scour that yarn, the first, too, that we

have ever had, of our own raising, to see it going off in the claws of

a fish-hawk!”

 

“Well,” continued Ben, “this fish-hawk came and built here the first

spring we lived here, and kind of put herself under our protection,

building her nest so near the house, where we pass under it every

day; they are harmless creatures, and never pull up corn, like the

crows or blue jays; nor carry off lambs, like the eagles; nor pick out

their eyes when they get mired or cast, as the ravens do. There’s a

noble disposition in a fish-hawk: they are industrious, work hard for

a living, and maintain their families by their own labor; they won’t

pick up a dead fish, or eel, or feed on a dead horse or cow, like an

eagle or carrion crow, but will have a live fish, that they have taken

fresh from the sea; they won’t be beholden to chance, nor anybody, for

their living, but earn it, as every honest person should, in the sweat

of their face. Once when I was a boy, just for fun, I put the eggs

of two fish-hawk’s nests into one. I was over here with father after

they were all hatched out, and there was the nest, heaping full, the

little hawks screaming, and the old ones springing to it, working like

good ones to bring up such a family. There were some great lazy eagles

sitting in the tops of the pines, and every once in the while, when the

hawks would get a good large flounder, they would give chase and take

it away from them. O, how mad I was! Two or three times I got up my gun

to shoot; but father wouldn’t let me, because he said that to shoot

an eagle was bad luck.” As he concluded, he looked at his watch, and

said, “We’ve been only an hour and a half at dinner; and what of it?”

he continued, putting his great brawny arms on the table, that creaked

under the weight. “This is the comfort of the farmer’s life--he is his

own employer. Now, if I was a sailor, the mate would come forward, and

sing out, ‘Turn to there, men;’ if I was a fisherman, and the fish

didn’t bite, there’d be my expenses going on; if I was a shipmaster, I

must hurry into port, and then hurry just as fast out, and if I made a

bad voyage or a long passage, the owners would look sour; but now, if

I am sick, or happen to feel lazy, the grain will grow, the cows give

milk, and the sheep make wool, all the same.”

 

It is evident Ben felt remarkably happy about this time, one reason

of which was, that he had determined to put Joe Griffin in the

Perseverance, who was going to fish a short distance from the shore.

Henry Griffin and Robert Yelf were going with him, and Uncle Isaac

before and after haying: thus Ben was going to have a good time

farming--the work he liked best.

 

“Sally,” said Mrs. Hadlock, “I wouldn’t worry about the yarn; it’s

nothing to what old Aunt Betty Prindle met with.”“What was that, mother?”