BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC AND IS COMFORTED.
The party on the island sat by the camp fire, listening to the voices
of their departing friends, till they died away in the distance.
“Who are you going to get to build your chimney, Ben?” asked Uncle
Isaac.
“Joe Dorset.”
“I never’d get him; a poor man can’t afford to hire him; he came from
Newburyport, and he’d be always heaving out, and telling how much
better they have things in Massachusetts; growling about the stuff he
has to work with, and can’t do anything without merchantable brick.”
“I don’t know anything about him,” said Ben, “only I’ve heard he is an
excellent workman.”
“Well, so he is; but when you’ve said that you’ve said everything.
He’ll have a great many long stories to tell, that’ll eat up his own
time, and hinder other people. I like to hear a good story myself, and
tell one too; but I always do it after work, and not to hinder work,
in my own time, and not my employer’s; besides, he’s so lazy! He went
fishing one year with John Strout, and he was so long hauling up a
codfish that a dogfish eat him all up, and left nothing but the bare
hooks to come to the top of the water.”
“Who shall I get?”
“Get Sam Elwell.”
“He ain’t a mason.”
“No, but he’s a plaguy sight better for your purpose; he’s a natural
stone layer--took it up of his own head; he’d build you a chimney out
of the stones, right here on the island, that’ll carry the smoke first
rate, and that’s all you want of a chimney; and he’ll do it in quarter
of the time. Then the chimney’ll compare with the house, and they’ll be
all of a muchness.”
At this period of the conversation Joe flung himself upon the brush,
and was soon sleeping soundly.
“Uncle Isaac, now that we are alone, I want to tell you how I feel. It
does seem to me that it’s bad enough to bring Sally into a log house
at all, and that I ought, in reason, to have had panel doors in it;
more than two windows in the whole in a broadside, with a good brick
chimney and oven laid in lime mortar.”
“Plank doors, tongued and cleated, are the warmest. Panel doors in a
log house would look like a man with a beaver hat on and barefoot. You
can cut out a window whenever you like, and the less holes the warmer.”
“But the chimney,” persisted Ben; “what will she say to that? and how
can she get along without an oven?”
“Sally is one that looks into the realities of things; and if she
has made up her mind to live on this island, depend upon it she has
considered the matter all round, is looking forward to something
better, and that will keep her from being discouraged, however severe
things may appear at first. I don’t suppose as how an _oven_ can be
made of stone; but I’ll tell you what I will do--take up the bricks in
my butt’y floor, and lend ’em to you; it’s altogether too late for you
to get bricks this fall.”
“Well, I hope ’twill all turn out well; but I know in my soul that
she’s no more idea of what living in a log house is, than she has of
London.”
“I know a great deal more about Sally Hadlock than you do, though you
are engaged to be married to her, because I know her people, and
there’s a great deal in the blood. She is the living picture of her
grandmother Hannah, my wife was named for, who came down here when
it was a howling wilderness, fought hunger and the Injuns, and beat
’em both. Handsome as she is, and gentle and good as she seems and
is, she’s got the old iron natur of that breed of folks, who had much
rather earn a thing than have it gin to ’em. She’s had nothing to call
out that grit yet; but you’ll find out what she’s made of when she
comes to be put to’t.”
“There’s one thing that troubles me, that perhaps you haven’t thought
of. If I was going to take her into a new settlement, where everybody
lived in log houses, and all fared alike, it would be another thing;
but I am going to bring her where she can look right across the bay,
and see the smoke of her mother’s chimney, and all her friends and
folks living in nice frame houses. Now, if she’s unhappy, and keeps it
to herself on my account, and grief is gnawing at her heartstrings, I
can’t bear that.”
“Benjamin,” said Uncle Isaac, solemnly, who saw his friend was really
distressed, “what I’m going to say to you now I say candidly, and what
I know to be a fact. I’m a married man, Ben, and know what a woman is.
When a woman really sets her heart on a man, he is almost like God
Almighty to her; and the more she can put herself out for him, the more
contented she is; that is, if she’s morally sartin he loves her. Now,
Sally loves you with her whole soul, for she might have had her pick of
half the young men in town, and she knows it. She is also sure that you
love her, or you would never have given up the business prospects that
you had, and undergo all that you must undergo on this island just on
her account; therefore the more hardships she’s called to suffer ’long
with you, the lighter hearted she’ll be; yes, she’ll take pride in’t.
O, Benjamin, these rich folks, who never know what it is to strive and
contrive to get along, don’t taste the real honey of married life; they
don’t know what’s in one another, and don’t love one another as those
do who have to fight for a living. Why, they can’t; they haven’t had to
lean on each other, and be so necessary to each other.”
“Well, I never thought of that before.”
“Of course, you haven’t; I expect you’ll have the happiness of finding
that out. I tell you, Hannah and I take lots of comfort Sabbath
nights, when we ain’t tired, talking over all we’ve been through
together. And then sometimes I get the Bible, and read them are varses,
where it says, ‘She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with
her hands; she will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her
life.’ I can’t help giving her a kiss, and saying, ‘Well, wife, I never
should’ve got through it if’t hadn’t been for you.’”
This last sally of the noble old philosopher of the woods completely
silenced Ben, who promised he’d never harbor another doubt in respect
to the matter.
“There’s another thing, Benjamin; don’t try to slick it over any, but
make it full as bad as ’tis. If she expects the worst, and then finds
it a great deal better’n she expected, ’twill make her more contented.
There’s a great deal in the first feeling and the first look of a
thing, especially to a woman.”
The next day Ben and Joe were employed in hauling stone for the
chimney, and making clay mortar. Uncle Isaac cut a red oak, and hewed
out a mantel-bar, to form the top of the fireplace; it was twelve feet
in length, and no less than nine inches square, as it was to support a
great weight of stone. Though of wood, it was so far from the fire, on
account of the great height and depth of the fireplace, that it could
not well burn; besides, it was always the custom, whenever they had a
great fire, to wet the mantel-bar the last thing before going to bed.
He then cut a hole through the floor, in what was to be the front
entry, to pour potatoes through into the cellar (because the cellar was
under the south part of the house), and made a door to cover it.
The house would seem to my readers but a poor place to live in. There
were but four windows below, and these being put on the corners, to
admit of making others between them when they should be able, gave to
the house a funny look. The house consisted of but two rooms below,
separated by a rough board partition, in which were two doors of rough
boards, hung by wooden hinges. The chamber was reached by a ladder;
the boards of the floors were rough, and full of splinters, just as
they came from the saw. Against the wall in the north-west corner, with
shelves and closets nicely planed, were some dressers to hold dishes.
In the cellar was a square arch of stone, into which Uncle Isaac put
shelves, and to which he made doors. He then made a cross-legged table,
all in one leaf, and a settle to place before the fire, with a back
higher than the top of a person’s head, to keep off the draughts of air
that went up the great chimney.
They went off Saturday, well satisfied with what they had accomplished.