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.”