INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES.
As Ben had shown no disposition to retaliate for the joke played upon
him, had never mentioned it to any one, or ever alluded to it, Joe
supposed that, with his usual good nature, he had forgotten it.
Ben, on the contrary, had resolved to pay Joe in his own coin, with
usury, whenever a fitting opportunity presented itself.
Some weeks before he had mown some tall grass, which grew on the beach,
made it into hay, and enclosed it with a brush fence, to protect it
from the sheep. Adjoining the stack was a honey-pot. Honey-pots are
mires, sometimes twenty feet or more in depth, composed of a blue,
adhesive mud, which, by the constant soaking of some hidden spring, and
the daily flow of the tide, is kept in a half fluid state, except upon
the surface, where the clay, being somewhat hardened by the sun at low
water, is stiff, and will bear a man to walk over it quickly; but, if
he stands a moment, down he goes.
Joe, who had never been on the island before, was ignorant of the
existence of this mire. Ben, while the rest were asleep the night
before, had removed all the sand and drift stuff, and scraped the hard
clay from the surface of the honey-pot, till it would hardly bear a dog.
While the boys were stretched upon the grass, laughing and talking
after dinner, Ben asked Joe to help him bring some hay on the poles for
the oxen. When two persons carry hay on poles, the one behind cannot
see where he steps, but must follow his leader, who picks the road for
him. Ben went as near to the edge of the honey-pot as he dared. The
moment he got a little by, he turned short off, bringing Joe right into
the middle of it. In he went, carried down both by his own weight and
that of the load, clean to his breast, when Ben, twitching the poles
away, sat down on the bank to laugh at him.
“O, Ben,” cried Joe, “we’re square now; help me out.”
Ben took out his knife, and began to whittle.
Getting frightened, as he found himself gradually sinking, Joe roared
for help, drawing the whole party to the spot. This was just what Ben
wanted. He knew that Joe had told everybody in the neighborhood of the
trick he put on him, and it was his turn now.
The moment Joe saw Uncle Isaac, he cried out, “Do help me; I’m going
down.” As there was now real danger of his smothering in the mud, Ben
ran the poles under his arms. Joe made desperate efforts to extricate
himself by means of the poles, but the mire so sucked him down, that he
only succeeded in getting out his shoulders.
At this juncture Tige came rushing along, and, seizing him by the
collar, endeavored to lift him out; but sinking down into the slime,
which Joe’s struggles had wrought into a complete porridge, his mouth
and nose were filled with mud and water: giving a vigorous snort, he
completely plastered Joe’s face and eyes with it, who, not being in the
most amiable of moods, hit him a cuff on the side of the head. Tige,
enraged at being thus rewarded for his good intentions, was going to
bite him, when Ben pulled him away by the tail.
“Pity I wan’t a dog,” whined Joe; “then there’d be some feeling for me.”
He now appealed again to Uncle Isaac; but the old man had thought the
matter all over, and come to the deliberate conclusion that it was
time Joe’s wings were clipped; that, if not checked, he would become
unbearable; that there could be no better time to administer reproof,
and one stringent enough to be remembered.
“You know, Joseph,” said he, in a severe tone, “that the trick you
played last week on Ben was not by any means the first you’ve played
on him and others. Who was it put on a bear-skin, got down on all
fours, followed the widow Hadlock when she was going home from my house
through the woods, and growled, and frightened the poor woman so that
she was sick for three months, and the whole town turned out the next
day to kill the bear?”
“I cut all her winter’s wood, to pay for it.”
“Who,” said Joe Riggs, “stopped up the chimney, when the young folks
had a New Year’s party in the chamber over the store, and put peas on
the stairs, so that Seth Warren fell from top to bottom, and broke his
leg?”
“Joe Griffin,” cried Seth.
“He’d done the same to me, if he’d had the chance, and wit enough.”
[Illustration: JOE GRIFFIN IN THE HONEY POT. Page 139.]
“It makes my heart ache, Joseph,” said Uncle Isaac, “to see a young
man in your situation in such an unreconciled frame of mind; we never
should do wrong to others because they have done, or would do, wrong
to us. So far from manifesting any contrition, you justify yourself in
your evil courses. Instead of resignation under trial, you appear to me
to be ‘gritting your teeth,’ and thrashing about like unto a seal in a
herring net.”
“Who was it,” asked John Strout, “when Mose Atherton was all dressed
up, going to walk round the head of the bay, to see Sally Bannister,
offered to show him a shorter cut over the marsh, and led him into a
honey-pot, then went to John Godsoe’s, told them there was a man’s
hat on Moll Graffam’s honey-pot, and he guessed somebody must be in
trouble? When Godsoe’s people got there, the tide was flowing around
him, and the water up to his chin.”
Joe made no reply to this.
“Don’t be sullen, Joe, for you must perceive we’re measuring you by
your own bushel. I begin to fear it may become our duty to leave you
here till you’re in a more submissive frame of mind.”
“O, Uncle Isaac, you won’t leave me in this mire, six miles from any
human being, to perish?”
“Not to perish, young man, but to repent. Let me see: to-day’s
Thursday; we can give you a little light food, and leave you over the
Sabbath; it’s a good day, and should bring serious reflections. The
water don’t come up here, except when it’s a storm. I don’t see any
signs of a storm--do you, boys?”
The others didn’t see much signs of one; some thought that ’twas a
little “smurry.”
“Reflection is profitable, Joseph. Monday we might find you more
reconciled.”
“I’ll do anything you want me to, if you will only take me out.”
“That is better. Will you promise not to play any more tricks upon any
of this company, or anybody else?”
“Don’t make him lie,” said Ben; “he can’t help it.”
“Well, then, will you promise not to play any more upon any one here,
and say that you are sorry for what you did to Ben?”
“I will.”
“Then we will take you out; and I trust it will be a warning to you in
future. Boys, build up a fire; he must be half perished with cold.”
Ben got some boards, and laying them two-thick upon the surface of the
honey-pot, walked to the place, and pulled him out; and a miserable
plight he was in.
“Jump into the water, Joe,” said John Strout, “and wash yourself; and I
will go to my chest in the schooner and get you a shift of clothes.”
Joe washed the mud off in the water, and then stood by the fire till
John came with the clothes; then, putting them on, he washed his own,
and hung them on a tree to dry.
“Joe,” said Uncle Isaac, “did you see anything of Sam Atkins in that
honey-pot? for I’m blest if I know what has become of him.”
“Here he comes,” said Joe; and, sure enough, he was now seen coming up
from the shore, with something on his shoulder.
“What is that, Sam?” asked Uncle Isaac.
“A cradle for that bouncing baby Seth told about.” He had got out
the stuff unnoticed by the rest of them, and then went on board the
schooner and put it together. This was examined by all, and caused
abundant jests at Ben’s expense.
It was now proposed that they should end the day with a ring wrestle,
both at close hugs and arms’ length. While the wrestling was going on,
the two old gentlemen, for whom a comfortable seat had been provided
near the fire, sat looking on, criticising the proceedings, and
entering into every detail with intense interest.
The presence of these distinguished veterans, with their great bony
frames,--for they had been men of vast pith and power, and famed
through all the region,--acted as a mighty incentive to the young men.
“I think, Uncle Jonathan,” said Yelf, “you and I have seen the day
we could show these boys some things they haven’t learned yet. Do
you remember that wrastle we had when Captain Rhines’s house was
raised--there was stout, withy men around these bays in them days;--how
you threw Sam Hart, that came forty miles to wrastle with you, and said
God Almighty never made the man that could heave him? But he found the
man--didn’t he?” giving his friend a nudge in the ribs with his elbow.
“They said,” replied Smullen, “he was so mortified because he’d bragged
so much, that he went home and hung himself. Ah, my toe was so sartin
in those days, when I put it in! You know I had a particular trip with
my left foot.”
“Hoora!” said Uncle Sam, as John Strout crotch-locked Sam Pettigrew,
and threw him; “a fair fall that, and no mistake. Both shoulders and
both hips on the ground.”
The plaudits of the veterans were like fuel to the fire. The young
men exerted themselves to the utmost in the presence of such competent
judges.
At length their aged blood began to circulate more briskly, under the
combined influence of the warm fire, milk punch, and old associations.
“Uncle Sam,” said Smullen, “what do you say to me and you trying a
fall; we’ve had hold of one another afore to day?”
“Agreed,” was the reply; “but it must be at arm’s length. I’ve had the
rheumatics so much that my back’s got kinder shackly.”
The young people laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks as they
stepped into the ring, their upper garments removed, heads bare, and
the white locks flowing round their shoulders. Uncle Yelf, producing
his snuff-box,--a sheep’s bladder,--after taking a pinch, offered it to
Smullen, and the contest began.
They exhausted every feint known to the art, and it was soon evident to
the young people that these veterans possessed a skill unknown to them,
and that it was only in the strength of youth they were lacking.
Beside them was an elm, that separated at the root into two parts.
Between the forks Smullen threw Yelf with such force, that he was
firmly-wedged, and had to be pulled out.
“Well,” said Uncle Sam, “he ought to throw me; he’s the oldest.”
Just before sunset they took leave of Ben, and, with hearty cheers,
made sail.
It was a current saying, in respect to Uncle Isaac, that he could
keep more men at work, bring more to pass, with less fuss, and have
everybody good-natured, than any man in the district; and nobly had he
justified the general verdict.