TOO GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE.
Ben persuaded Joe Griffin to go home with him, stay all night, and
help eat the coon. Though one of the most kind-hearted creatures that
ever lived, Joe’s proclivity for practical jokes was both instinctive
and inveterate. If the choice lay between making a mortal enemy for
life and a good joke, he could not prevail upon himself to forego the
joke. He was very shrewd withal, and would extricate himself from
difficulties, and accomplish his ends by pleasantry, where others would
be compelled to fight their way out, or miss of their object.
One autumn, the blacksmith, having great quantities of axes to make for
the loggers, hired Joe a couple of months, as there was a great deal
of striking with the sledge, and his apprentice was young and light.
The smith was a very driving man, but kept his men well, and was very
hospitable. He was obliged to be absent occasionally to deliver his
axes. At such times his wife, who was penurious in the extreme, kept
the boys very short. Joe, knowing that his master did not approve of
this, resolved to put a stop to it. They worked evenings. One night the
smith came home full of grit, as he had been riding and resting, and
prepared to forge an axe. Placing a hot iron on the anvil, he cried,
“Strike, Joe, strike.” Joe struck a few feeble blows, when exclaiming,
“It’s going! it’s going! it’s all gone!” dropped his sledge on the
floor, and seemed ready to faint away.
“What’s gone?” cried the smith, in a rage at having lost his heat.
“That water porridge we had for supper.”
The master then took them to the house, and gave them a hearty meal.
Once more the iron was laid upon the anvil; Joe struck tremendous
blows, making the sparks fly all over the shop, crying, “It’s coming!
it’s coming! it gives me strength! I feel it! I feel it!”
“What’s coming, and what do you feel?”
“That good beefsteak I had for supper.”
Joe could talk like anybody under heaven, and look like them too. He
could talk more like Uncle Sam Yelf than Uncle Sam could himself. This
gift, however, he used very sparingly, for he could take a joke as well
as give one; felt that ’twas mean to turn the peculiarities of others
into ridicule, and in a way in which they could not retaliate.
Yelf had a sort of hitch in his voice, which was very ludicrous, but,
like many people who have an impediment, could sing distinctly and
shout tremendously; he was also very hot in his temper. Sometimes, when
they met at the store, Joe would begin to talk with him, and just like
him.
The old man would fly in a passion in a moment, begin to sputter, and
Joe would “take him off,” while no human being could help laughing. It
was fine sport for the young folks, and the more so on account of its
rarity, as it was but seldom that Joe could be persuaded to do it, and
was sure to give the old man some tobacco soon after. He could also
imitate the cry of any beast, wild or tame, to perfection, from a moose
to a muskrat; and of birds, except the squawk; Joe said the squawks
were too many for him.
This power was of great value to him in hunting. He could call a moose
or muskrat within range, by imitating the notes of either.
In the evening Ben went over to the widow Hadlock’s. He was in the
habit of making a bootjack of the crane; standing on one leg, and
steadying himself by the mantel-piece, he put the other foot into the
crotch of the crane, and pulled off his boot. Joe had often seen him do
this, and laid his plans accordingly. After the family were all asleep,
Joe got up, and with a crowbar pulled out the dogs that held the crane,
and then put them back again in such a manner that the least touch
would loosen them, and bring crane and all on to the floor. He then
took a cow-bell from a cow’s neck in the barnyard, and putting some
stones in an old tin pail, hung them and a bottle of sour milk on the
crane, and went back to bed.
About twelve o’clock Ben came. He felt round for a candle, expecting
to find it where his mother usually left it--on the mantel-piece; but
Joe had taken very good care to remove both candle and matches; so,
feeling for the crane, he clapped in his foot and pulled; down came
the crane on to the floor. Ben went over backwards, full length on the
floor, with a force that shook the whole house from garret to cellar;
the cow-bell and tin pail rattled; the sour milk ran all over Ben; his
mother awaked from a sound sleep, and screamed murder; and old Captain
Rhines came rushing out in his night-shirt, with a pistol in each hand,
blazed away at the sound, putting one bullet through the window, and
the other into a milk-pan of eggs, which stood upon the dressers, while
the children, roused by the frantic screams of the mother and the
pistol shots, came shrieking from their beds.
“Don’t shoot any more, father,” cried Ben; “it’s me.”
“My God!” exclaimed Captain Rhines, feeling the milk, which, by hanging
over the fire, had become warm, as it touched his bare feet, and
mistaking it for blood; “have I shot my own son?”
“No, father,” said Ben; “it’s some of that confounded Joe Griffin’s
work. I’ll fix him.” He ran up stairs to take summary vengeance. In
this he was disappointed, for the moment Joe heard the crash, he slid
down on a pole, which he had previously placed at the window, and ran
home.
We must remember that Ben had been courting; had on his best
broadcloth, purchased on the last voyage, and in which he was to be
married.
Broadcloth suits in those days were limited to a very few. The minister
had a coat and breeches for Sabbath; so of a few of the seafaring
people and their families; but the clothing of the people in general
was both manufactured and made up at home, there being no such thing as
a tailor.
Here, then, was Ben’s best suit, made in Liverpool by a professional
tailor, soaked with sour milk, and covered with ashes; his light buff
waistcoat all over smut, from the pot, crane, hooks, and trammels, that
fell over him. Thus, though Ben’s temper was not easily roused, and
soon subsided, he was now thoroughly mad, and, had he caught Joe, would
probably have crippled him for life. Perhaps some such thought crossed
his mind, as he said to his father on coming down, “He’s gone, and I’m
glad of it; but I’ll be even with him before snow flies.”
Aunt Molly Bradish’s declaration that Ben Rhines had helped everybody
that needed help, and that she should think somebody might give him
a lift, was not lost. Seth Warren happened to be in there, and heard
the old lady’s remarks. Seth was a kind-hearted, jovial fellow, who
had been many a time with Ben on his errands of mercy, and loved any
kind doings. He went directly to the store, where, as he expected, he
found, as it was Saturday night, a good portion of the young men of
the place assembled. He took them aside, and said, “You know what a
good fellow Ben Rhines is; how he has always been getting up ‘bees’ to
help everybody that was behindhand: now, what say for going on to the
island next week, the whole crew of us, and giving him a lift with his
house?”
Seth’s proposition was received with acclamations. “Now, boys,” he
continued, “you know how such things always leak out, and that spoils
the whole. Now, don’t say a word about it to neither sister, mother,
or sweetheart, till they have gone back to the island Monday morning,
and then we can talk as much as we please, and they cannot possibly get
wind of it.”
This was solemnly assented to.
“I,” said Seth, “will go over and sleep with Joe Griffin Sunday night,
and, without letting him suspect anything, find out how far they’ve
got along with their work, that we may know when our help will be most
needed.” This he did, when Joe told him what he did the night before at
Captain Rhines’s.
“What do you suppose Ben’ll do to you? He’ll murder you after he gets
you on to the island. I shouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”
“Poh! he won’t, neither; he’s like a bottle of beer, soon up and soon
over. I think it is like enough he’ll throw me overboard; if he does, I
don’t care; I’d be willing to be ducked twenty times for the sake of
the fun I had that night, and for the better fun I shall have thinking
about it and telling of it.”
The next morning Seth accompanied Joe to the shore; but no sooner was
the gundelow fairly off, than getting on the horse with Hannah Murch,
who had come to bring her husband, he let out the whole matter to her.
Hannah, by no means backward in the good work, told everybody she met
on the road, and went to the school-house and told the mistress.
The result of this was, that thirty-five young men agreed to go,--among
whom were ten ship-carpenters from Massachusetts, who were there
cutting ship timber, with their master workman, Ephraim Hunt; also, Sam
Atkins, from Newburyport, who was at home on a visit.
The girls, under the direction of Hannah Murch, were to cook and
furnish the provisions, while John Strout engaged to set them on in his
fishing schooner, the Perseverance, an Essex pink-stern, of sixty tons.