Not very long after this, Thursday October Christian experienced at the
hands of John Adams treatment which bore some slight resemblance to a
species of tooth-drawing. In fact, Adams may be said to have had his
revenge. It happened thus:--
Adams was seated, one afternoon, in front of his house on a low stool,
where he was wont to sun himself and smoke an imaginary pipe, while the
children were at play in the grassy square. He was absorbed,
apparently, in what he used to term a brown study. Thursday October,
making his appearance from among the bushes on the opposite side of the
square, leaped the four-foot fence like a greyhound, without a run, and
crossed over.
Whether it was the leap or the rate at which he had walked home through
the woods, we cannot say; but his handsome face was unusually flushed,
and he stopped once or twice on nearing Adams, as if undecided what to
do. At last he seemed to make up his mind, walked straight up to the
seaman, and stood before him with folded arms.
"Hallo, Toc," said Adams, rousing himself; "you've caught me napping.
The truth is, I've bin inventin' a lot of awful whackers to spin a yarn
out o' for the child'n. This is Friday, you know, an' as they've bin
fastin', poor things, I want to give 'em what you may call mental food,
to keep their bread-baskets quiet, d'ye see? But you've got somethin'
to tell me, Toc; what is it?"
"Father," said Thursday,--and then followed a long pause, during which
the youth shifted from one leg to the other.
"Well, now, Toc," said Adams, eyeing the lad with a twinkling
expression, "d'ye know, I _have_ heard it said or writ somewhere, that
brevity is the soul of wit. If that sayin's true, an' I've no reason
for to suppose that it isn't, I should say that that observation of
yours was wit without either soul or body, it's so uncommon short; too
witty, in short. Couldn't you manage to add something more to it?"
"Yes, father," said Thursday, with a deprecating smile, "I have come to
ask--to ask you for leave to--to--to--"
"Well, Toc, you have my cheerful leave to--to--to, and tootle too, as
much as you please," replied Adams, with a bland smile.
"In short," said Thursday, with a desperate air, "I--I--want leave to
marry."
"Whew!" whistled Adams, with a larger display of eyeball than he had
made since he settled on the island. "You've come to the point _now_,
and no mistake. You--want--leave--to--marry, Thursday October
Christian, eh?"
"Yes, father, if you've no objection."
"Hem! no objection, marry--eh?" said Adams, while his eyebrows began to
return slowly to their wonted position. "Ha! well, now, let's hear;
_who_ do you want to marry?"
Having fairly broken the ice, the bashful youth said quickly,
"Susannah."
Again John Adams uttered a prolonged whistle, while his eyebrows sprang
once more to the roots of his hair.
"What! the widdy?"
"Yes, Mr Young's widow," replied Thursday, covered with confusion.
"Well, I never! But this _does_ beat cock-fightin'." He gave his thigh
a sounding slap, and seemed about to give way to irrepressible laughter,
when he suddenly checked himself and became grave.
"I say, Toc," said he, earnestly, "hand me down the Prayer-book."
Somewhat surprised, the lad took the book from its shelf, and placed it
on the sailor's knees.
"Look 'ee here, Toc; there's somethin' here that touches on your case,
if I don't misremember where. Let me see. Ah, here it is, `A man may
not marry his grandmother,' much less a boy," he added, looking up.
"But, father, Susannah ain't my grandmother," said Toc, stoutly feeling
that he had got an advantage here.
"True, lad, but she might be your mother. She's to the full sixteen
years older than yourself. But seriously, boy, do you mean it, and is
she willin'?"
"Yes, father, I do mean it, an' she is quite willin'. Susannah has bin
kinder to me than any one else I ever knew, and I love her better than
everybody else put together. She did laugh a bit at first when I spoke
to her about it, an' told me not to talk so foolishly, an' said, just as
you did, that she might be my mother; but that made no odds to me, for
she's not one bit like my mother, you know."
"No, she's not," said Adams, with an assenting nod. "She's not like
Mainmast by any means, bein' a deal younger an' better lookin'. Well,
now, Toc, you've given me matter to put in my pipe, (if I had one), an'
smoke it for some time to come--food for reflection, so to speak. Just
you go to work, my lad, as if there was nothin' in the wind, an' when
I've turned it over, looked at it on all sides, gone right round the
compass with it, worked at it, so to speak, like a cooper round a cask,
I'll send for you an' let you know how the land lies."
When Adams had anything perplexing on his mind, he generally retired to
the outlook cave at the mountain-top. Thither he went upon this
occasion. The result was, that on the following day he sent for
Thursday, and made him the following oration:--
"Thursday, my lad, it's not for the likes o' me to fly in the face o'
Providence. If you still remain in earnest about this little matter,
an' Susannah's mind ain't changed, I'll throw no difficulty in your way.
I've bin searchin' the Book in reference to it, an' I see nothin'
particular there regardin' age one way or another. It's usual in Old
England, Toc, for the man to be a deal older than the wife, but there's
no law against its bein' the other way, as I knows on. All I can find
on the subject is, that a man must leave his father and mother, an'
cleave to his wife. You han't got no father to leave, my boy, more's
the pity, an' as for Mainmast, you can leave her when you like, though,
in the circumstances, you can't go very far away from her, your tether
bein' somewhat limited. As to the ceremony, I can't find nothin' about
that in the Bible, but there's full directions in the Prayer-book; so
I'll marry you off all ship-shape, fair an' above board, when the time
comes. But there's one point. Toc, that I feel bound to settle, and
it's this: That you can't be married till you've got a good bit of
ground under cultivation, so that you may be able to keep your wife
comfortably without callin' on her to work too hard. You've bin a busy
enough fellow, I admit, since ever you was able to do a hand's turn, but
you haven't got a garden of your own yet. Now, I'll go up with you
to-morrow, an' mark off a bit o' your father's property, which you can
go to work on, an' when you've got it into something of a for'ard state,
I'll marry you. So--that's a good job settled."
When Adams finished, he turned away with a profound sigh of relief, as
if he felt that he had not only disposed of a particular and knotty
case, but had laid down a great general principle by which he should
steer his course in all time to come.
It need scarcely be said that Thursday October was quite prepared to
undertake this probationary work; that the new garden was quickly got
into a sufficiently "for'ard state;" and that, ere long, the first
wedding on Pitcairn was celebrated under circumstances of jubilant
rejoicing.