UNCLE ISAAC’S PLEDGE.
As they came to the edge of the woods they espied Uncle Isaac standing
beneath the branches of the old maple, and, with his hand over his
eyes, looking all around him as though in quest of something. Equally
surprised and delighted, they ran to meet him.
“I heard you was on here,” said he, “and was looking for you. How do
you do, Charlie?”
“Very well, I thank you, Uncle Isaac. O, how glad I am to see you! It
is a great while since you were here.”
John, who knew Charlie was too modest to do it himself, showed him the
lookout in the top of the tree, the house, and all that was in it, and
also told him how Charlie beat them firing at a mark, though they had
guns, and he a bow and arrows; and showed him the bullet-holes and
arrow-marks in the target.
“What should you say if I could beat that?”
The boys entreated him to fire.
“This bow is rather small for me, and the arrow will go slower than I
have been accustomed to have them, which makes it difficult judging how
much it will fall. It’s many a long year since I drew an arrow to the
head; but I’ve seen the time it would have been as much as any of your
lives were worth to have run across the roughest ground you ever saw,
within thirty yards of my arrow; that is, if I was prepared to harm
you. Have any of you hit the dot?”
“No,” replied Fred; “but Charlie came within an inch of it.”
“Well, I am going to hit it. Where did you stand, Charlie?”
“Here, Uncle Isaac; I put my toe right against that stone.”
“I will put mine right against that stone; I want you all to see that
it’s fair, and I stand just in his tracks.”
The boys all allowed it was fair. After firing up in the air once or
twice, to get the hang of the bow, he planted an arrow, as he had said,
directly in the dot.
The boys were greatly delighted at this proof of skill.
“I will show you another thing. Charlie, run to the house and get your
mother’s milk-pail. Now, what will you bet that I can’t shoot an arrow
up in the air so that it will come down in that pail?”
“It’s impossible,” cried Charlie; “it can’t be done.”
“If I do it, will you and John give me a day’s work this fall digging
potatoes?”
“Yes, will we.”
“And so will I,” said Fred.
He drew the bow, and, sure enough, the arrow came down in the
milk-pail, and, as it was pointed, stuck up in it.
“Well,” exclaimed Charlie, “if any man in this world had told me he had
seen that done, or that it could be done, I wouldn’t have believed him.”
“I rather think,” said Uncle Isaac, with a smile, “this is the easiest
way in which I can dig my potatoes.”
“Now, Uncle Isaac,” said Charlie, “I want you to tell me just one
thing; how did you learn to shoot so? My grandfather killed men in
battle, and used to shoot at the butts on holidays, and gained prizes
for shooting, but he couldn’t shoot like that; and I don’t believe he
ever heard of anything like it.”
“I learnt among the Indians, when I was a lad. I was on a visit at my
uncle’s, and the Indians were in ambush in the woods. My uncle was a
very strong, fearless man, and an excellent marksman. It was not known
that there were any Indians round; and one morning he loaded his gun
(for they never went without arms in those days), and went down beside
the brook to cut some timber. Instead of taking his powder-horn, he, by
mistake, took a horn that was full of sand, which they kept to put on
the scythe rifles. (We would say to our readers, that the scythe rifles
in those days were not made as at present, by putting sand or emery
upon wood, with cement; but they scratched the wood and made it rough,
then smeared it with tallow, and put fine sand on it, which adhered to
the tallow and the scratches.) While he was at work the Indians fired
at and wounded him. He returned the fire, and killed the chief’s son,
and, when they rushed upon him, he killed another with the butt of
his gun, when they mastered him. If he had only taken his powder-horn
instead of the sand, he would probably have driven them off. They then
killed my aunt and cousins, and put my poor uncle to the torture; but
the chief, whose son my uncle had killed, took me for his own, and I
grew up with the Indians, and they learnt me all their ways. When I was
with them I used to shoot partridges, coons, and porcupines, for my
Indian mother.”
“Do Indians know much? I thought they were ignorant as beasts.”
“They don’t know how to read in books; but they are a wise and
understanding people, after their fashion. I learned to love my Indian
father and mother, for they were very kind to me, and, when we were
scant of food, would go without themselves to feed me.”
“Why can’t you stay, and go hunting with us to-morrow, and tell us more
about the Indians?”
“I can’t, child; because I only came over to bring some bad news, and
must go right back.”
“What is the news?” said John. “Is anything the matter at our house, or
has there any bad tidings come from father?”
“Poor old Uncle Yelf is dead; and I hope none of us will ever die in
such an awful way.”
“How did he die?”
“Why, night before last his horse came home with the bridle under his
feet. They raised the neighborhood, and followed the horse’s tracks
to William Griffin’s door, and then it got dark, and they lost them;
however, they hunted in the slough holes, and all about, a good part of
the night, for it was cold, and they knew if he laid out he’d perish.
But the next morning, when Mr. Griffin went out to feed his hogs, there
lay the poor old man in the hogs’ bed, stone dead. Boys, do either of
you drink spirit?”
They all replied that they had drank it.
“I drink it,” said John, “at huskings and raisings, and when father
gives it to me.”
“So do I,” said Fred; “but I don’t buy any to drink myself.”
“I,” said Charlie, “used to drink at home, when father gave it to me;
but, after he was pressed, I promised my mother not to drink any, and I
never have, of my own will; but when I was in the Albatross they used
to make me drink, and poured it down my throat if I refused, in order
that I might sing songs, and make sport for them when I was drunk.”
“Well, I want you, and John, and Frederick to agree, before I leave
this spot that I am sitting on, that you will never taste another drop
of liquor, without you are sick.”
“Why do you want us to promise that?”
“Because I remember the time when Yelf was as smart, iron-sided, and
industrious a man as ever trod the Lord’s earth. It took a withy man
to lay him on his back, or lift his load, I tell you. He had a farm
of two hundred acres of the best of new land; his wife milked seven
cows, made butter and cheese, and spun and wove all their cloth; they
had enough of everything, and everybody was as welcome to it as they
were themselves. He was as well thought of as any man in town, and bid
fair to be a rich man. But he carried all that stock and land to the
store (except one acre and a half) in a two-quart jug, and died drunk
among the hogs. Now, that poor woman, who has counted her cheese by
scores, and her butter by tubs, has not a drop of milk except what the
neighbors give her, nor a stick of wood but what she picks up.”
Uncle Isaac’s voice was broken, and the tears ran down his cheeks. The
boys were greatly affected; they had never seen the calm, resolute man
moved before, and the tears stood in their eyes.
“There’s no telling,” continued he, “what a man, who drinks ever so
little, may come to, and how it may grow upon him; but if he don’t
drink at all he is safe.”
The proposition of their friend was, notwithstanding, so strange in
that day, that the boys hesitated.
“Uncle Isaac,” asked John, “don’t you drink?”
“Yes, I do, John; but if I was beginning life, and forming habits as
you are, a drop should never cross my lips. Though I never drank a
daily dram, and sometimes not for six months, and was never intoxicated
in my life, I’ve strong thoughts--yes, I’ve very strong thoughts--of
leaving it off altogether.”
“But father drinks, and my brother Ben, and the minister, and everybody
I know. When the minister comes to our house, mother gets some gin,
sweetens it with loaf sugar, and puts it down on the hearth to warm. I
know my mother wouldn’t do anything wrong; she couldn’t.”
“Your father, the minister, and myself may be able to govern ourselves,
but a great many others may not, and you may not. Poor Mr. Yelf never
thought he should die in a hog-sty.”
“But,” asked Fred, “if it is wrong now, wan’t it always wrong? You
never said anything about it before.”
“I’ve been thinking about it this long time, and have been gradually
brought to see that it was gaining ground, and getting hold of the
young ones; that it was killing people, and making poverty and misery,
and have thought something ought to be done. As long ago as when this
house of Ben’s was building, I found old Mr. Yelf in a slough, bruised,
dirty, and bloody. Ever since that I’ve been thinking about it; it has
kept me awake nights. But when I saw the poor old man, whom I had known
so well to do, dead among the swine, I felt the time had come. I meant
to have begun with older people, and should not have thought of you;
but when I heard that you were all on here together, it seemed to me
that the road was pinted out; that you had no bad habits to break off,
and that it would be beginning at the root of the tree; for if there
were no young folks growing up to drink, there would be no old ones to
die drunkards.”
“I’ll promise,” said Fred. “I should like to go ahead in something
good;” and so said the others.
“I don’t want you to promise without consideration, because I expect
you to keep it. A promise made in a hurry is broken in a hurry. I want
you to be ‘fully persuaded in your own minds,’ and think what you would
do if your own folks should ask you to drink.”
“It costs a great deal,” said John. “Father spends lots of money for
spirit to drink and give away; and I don’t think it does anybody any
good, for I am as well as I can be without it. I’ll do it, and stick
to it.”
“Charles,” said Uncle Isaac, “go to the house and bring up Ben’s big
auger, that he bores yokes with.”
When the auger was brought, he took it and bored a hole in the side
of the maple. “Now, I want you to put your hands on this auger, and
promise not to drink any spirit, without you are sick, till this hole
grows up.”
“But,” said Charlie, “after it grows up there will be nothing to keep
us from drinking.”
“It will be many a year before that hole grows up, for I’ve bored
through the sap. I expect by that time you will have seen so much of
the bad effects of drinking spirit, and the benefits of letting it
alone, that no power on earth would persuade you to do it.”
Sally now blew the horn for supper. As they went with Uncle Isaac to
his boat, Fred said to him, “You know we’ve got a whole week for a
holiday; we have been so much more used to work than play, and have
so many things in our heads, that we don’t know what to do first. If
you was a boy, like us, what would you do to-morrow, to have the best
time?”
“Yes; tell us,” said Charlie.
“Well, I’ll tell you, and see what you think of it. Mr. Yelf is going
to be put into the ground to-morrow, and I’ve come on to let Ben and
Sally know, that they may go over to the funeral. He has left his
family miserably poor. His only son is in the Ark with Captain Rhines.
The neighbors are going to send in enough for the present. Suppose,
while we are gone to the funeral, you boys should go and catch a good
lot of fish,--enough to last Mrs. Yelf all winter. When she was well to
do, before he took to drinking, nobody went hungry in her neighborhood.
I’ll be on the beach, in Captain Rhines’s cave, when you come back, and
will split and salt the fish; there’s a flake to dry them on, and no
Pete Clash to throw them in the water. I will cure them; and when they
are done you can take them to her.”
“We don’t want anything better than that,” said the boys.
“I’d rather do that,” said Fred, “than play at the best play in the
world; you are real good to put it into our heads;” and he threw his
arms around his friend’s neck.
“But,” asked Charlie, “how shall we know where to go? I know where to
go for hake and winter cod; but it’s too late for hake, and the winter
fish have not come in.”
“There’s rock cod on the ledges; and I can tell John, who knows the
shores and islands, so that you can find them. You know, John, that
lone spruce on the end of Birch Pint?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring that to bear over the western pint of the Junk of Pork, at
high-water mark; then bring the north-west side of Smutty Nose, and
the south-east side of Oak Island, just touching on to each other,
and you’ll be on a kelp shoal, where there’s plenty of rock cod, and
where it is so shallow that at low water you can see them bite. Your
grandfather showed me those marks. It isn’t everybody that knows that
spot, and I don’t want you to tell them to anybody. Be sure, if it
breaks, to anchor to the leeward of the breaker, because, if your
anchor should drag, you might drift into it. It’s a good bit to sea,
but there’s three of you, good stout boys, to row, that ain’t afraid of
trifles. The wind is north-west; I think it will be smooth, and you can
take the big canoe.”
“But father will want that to go to the funeral,” said Charlie; “and
mine is not large enough to go so far.”
“Well, then, take mine; I’ll go home in yours, and we will swap at the
beach.”
“I wish I could do more for the poor woman; it is not much to get her a
lot of fish.”
“Not much for you, but it will be a great deal to her, though. They
have got potatoes in the ground, and that will give them hash all
winter; and beans growing, and a little piece of corn, that won’t come
to much, but it will fat their pig, that’s now running in the woods.
I’ll tell you what else you can do. When I come to make my cider, you
can all come to our house; we will take my oxen and haul her wood
enough to last all winter; and you can have just as many apples, and as
much new cider, as you want.”
“What shall we have for bait? There are no menhaden in the bay.”
“You don’t want any; rock fish will bite at clams; and it is most low
water; then you can get some; and if you could get a lobster it would
be first rate. I want you, while you are young, to get in the way of
feeling for your fellow-critters, and then it will grow on you just
as rum-drinking grows on a drunkard. When God wants us he calls for
us. I’m sure I hope when he calls for me, he will find me with my hand
stretched out, putting something into some poor critter’s mouth, and
not drunk in a hog-sty.”
“Did God call Uncle Yelf?” asked John.
“No; he went without being called; killed himself; and it’s dreadful to
think what has become of his soul.”
It was nearly night when Uncle Isaac dropped his oars into the water.
The boys went directly to digging clams by the bright moonlight; and
as Ben and Sally helped them,--Sally picking them up and washing
them,--it was soon accomplished. While this was going on, Charlie,
with his spear, poked some lobsters from beneath the rocks. Ben was so
much occupied with thoughts about Uncle Yelf’s funeral, that he never
asked a question in respect to the ball, or where they found it, merely
saying, as he saw it in Fred’s hand, “So you got your ball.”
As tired as dogs, but happy, they lay down. Fred exclaimed, “What is
the matter with this bed? it seems to be going up and down.”
“It’s the motion of the boat that is in your head,” replied John.
Charlie was already snoring.