ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT.
The moment Uncle Isaac landed, he set out for Sam Elwell’s. Going
along, he saw Yelf’s horse feeding beside the road, with the bridle
under his feet, and, a little farther on, his master lying in a slough
hole, to all appearance dead, but, as it turned out, only dead drunk.
He pulled him out, and, as he was unable to stand, set him against the
fence to drip, while he caught the horse; his gray hairs and face were
plastered with mud; his nose had bled; the blood was clotted upon his
beard, and soaked the bosom of his shirt.
“How came you in this mud hole?”
“Why, you see, Isaac, the mare went in to drink; the bridle slipped out
of my hand; I reached down to get it, kind o’ lost my balance, and fell
right over her head, and hit my nose on a rock. I think, Isaac, I must
have taken a leetle drop too much.”
His friend scraped the mud from him as well as he could with a chip,
put him on the mare (for Yelf could ride when altogether too drunk to
walk), and left him at his own house, which lay in the direction he was
going.
“That’s a bad sight,” said Uncle Isaac to himself, as he went on, “and
it’s one that’s getting altogether too common. I remember the time when
he was content with his three glasses a day, and perhaps a nightcap;
but now he can’t stop till he stops in a ditch. There ain’t a man in
this town but what drinks spirit, myself among the rest, and most of
them more than’s good for ’em. I don’t see why people can’t use liquor
with moderation, and without making a beast of themselves. If it was
only these old, worn-out ones, like Yelf, ’twouldn’t be so much matter;
but it’s amongst the young folks; and even boys get the worse for
liquor. It’s natural they should; for if men sail vessels, boys’ll sail
boats. It’s time something’s done, though what can be done I’m sure I
don’t know. What an awful thing it would be, if, one of these days,
Ben or Joe Griffin should pick me out of a ditch, and carry me home to
my family looking like that! I’ll think about it, and talk with Hannah
this blessed night.” He was aroused from his meditations by hearing the
voice of Sam at his own door.
He was about the age of Isaac, but a much heavier man, being very
thick set, with a stoop in his shoulders. His hands were of great size,
full of cracks; his fingers crooked, from constant working with stone
hammers and drills; many of the nails jammed off, and his face as hard
as the stones he worked on. He was also a man of very few words, while
Isaac liked to talk; yet they had been close friends from boyhood, took
great delight in each other’s society (if it could be called society
where one talked and the other listened), and always got together, and
worked together, whenever they could. They were both passionately fond
of gunning. Isaac was the quicker shot; but Sam could scull a float
steadier and faster than any man along the shore. He could also lay
brick well, but was possessed of a remarkable gift for working upon
rocks. He knew just how to take hold of a great rock to move it, and
could do a better quality of work than they ever had occasion for in
that rude state of society, where nobody had hammered doorsteps but
Captain Rhines, widow Hadlock, and a few others. He knew all about
the nature and grain of rocks, could dress underpinning, or make a
millstone out of a boulder in the pasture.
He had just come home from a long job, and was taking his tools out of
the cart.
“Let them be,” said Isaac; “I’ve got another job for you:” as he spoke
he pulled the clevis-pin out of the tongue.
Sam, without a word, unyoked the oxen, and went into the barn to feed
them, while the other tied them up.
Isaac, without any invitation, followed Sam into the house. The table
was in the floor, and Sam’s wife had just put on the victuals. “Set
along,” said Sam, motioning Isaac to a chair. That’s the way they
lived. If they chanced to be in each other’s houses about meal time,
they always stopped. If they met on the road, or were at work together
in the woods, or had been off gunning, they always went to the house
that was nearest. Their wives never worried about them, for they knew
where they were, and were as good friends as their husbands.
“Sam,” said Isaac, “did you ever see a fireplace and chimney built of
stone?”
“No.”
“You didn’t?”
“I’ve seen stones set up in a log camp to build a fire against, with
a ‘cat and clay’ chimney built over them; but ’twas a make-shift till
they could get bricks.”
“Could it be done?”
“They say Necessity’s the mother of Invention. I suppose it might, by
putting in the proper stone.”
“Well, Ben Rhines has got his house up, can’t get bricks this fall,
and don’t know what to do. He was going to get Joe Dorset to build his
chimney; but I told him I knew you could build a good fireplace and
chimney out of the rocks on the island, if you had a mind to.”
“Dorset don’t know anything about rocks,” growled Sam.
“Now, let me tell you about the stone. There’s a granite ledge on the
western p’int that lays in thin sheets, that you can break up with your
stone hammer.”
“Granite’s first rate for a chimney, but ’twont do for a fireplace.”
“Then there’s a kind of gray stone, with white streaks in it, but
softer than granite.”
“That’s a bastard soapstone; that’ll do for a fireplace.”
“Well, can you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Enough said. Now, I’m bound Sally shall have an oven; and I’m going
to take up my butt’ry floor to make it of.”
“You needn’t do that. I can make as good an oven of that stone as
ever a woman baked bread in. It’ll crack some, but not half as bad as
granite. It’ll hold heat wonderfully.”
“You beat all, Sam. I told Ben I knew you could build a chimney without
a brick in it; but I never dreamt of your building an oven.”
“Who am I to have to tend me, and help handle these big stones?”
“That pretty little Ben Rhines and Joe Griffin, to say nothing of
myself.”
When Sam went on to the island and saw the stone, he rubbed his hands,
and chuckled, and talked to himself, and appeared overjoyed.
“What a queer old coon he is!” said Joe; “anybody’d think he’d found a
gold mine, instead of a pile of rocks.”
There was but one fireplace, and that was in the kitchen; but the
hearths were laid in the two front rooms for two more, whenever they
should be parted off and finished.
This fireplace was made of three large stones, which Uncle Sam cut
and fitted together without any mortar. It was five feet to the
mantel-bar, eight between the jambs, and of proportionate depth. This
monstrous cavern was the fireplace. Such a master was Uncle Sam of his
business, that when he saw a rock in the pile that he wanted, he would
throw a little stone at it, and Ben or Joe would bring it to him.
But it was upon the oven that Uncle Sam displayed his genius. He found
a place where a large portion of this bastard soapstone ledge had
cracked and fallen out into the sea, leaving a smooth perpendicular
face. He told Ben this rock was rent when Christ was crucified. From
this ledge he split off just such large, flat slabs as he wanted, made
them perfectly smooth, squared the edges, and of them built his oven
in the form of a stone box, having top, bottom, and sides of perfectly
smooth stones; for he threw sand and water on them, and putting on
another great stone, as big as he and Uncle Isaac could lift, he got
Ben to scour them, while he stood by and threw on sand and water, till
they were perfectly smooth. He now put them together, leaving a space
of a foot or more at the sides and ends. The covering stone was made to
project on every side, so as to enter into the body of the chimney, in
order that, if it should crack, it could not fall down. He now built
a roaring fire in it. By and by the great stone on top, and one on the
side, cracked with a loud noise.
“Crack away,” said Uncle Sam; “crack all you want to.”
He then took some clay mortar, filled all the space round the sides,
worked it into all the cracks and joints, and, after it was thoroughly
dry, made another great fire, and baked it all into brick. It would
never crack any more, because the fire had already opened all the bad
places in the soapstone, and these were filled with clay mortar, which
was now burned into brick.
When the chimney was up to the chamber floor, he made what was called
an _eddy_; that is, he brought the chimney right out into the chamber.
Across it he put three beech poles, called lug-poles: these were to
hang anything on which it was desired to have smoked. He also made a
stone shelf in one corner to put an ink-bottle on, or anything that was
to be kept from freezing. There was so much fire left on the hearth at
night that these great chimneys never got cold. Uncle Isaac then made a
tight door, to keep the smoke from coming into the chamber.
“Ben,” said Uncle Sam, “are you going to have a crane?”
“No; I can’t afford it.”
“Then I’ll put in another lug-pole.”
It was the custom to fasten a chain to this to hang the pot on.
“That’s right,” said Uncle Isaac, delighted with the effect of his
teachings; “a withe is just as good; I’ll give you a piece of chain
to put on the end of it. When you go up in the spring with a load of
spars, you can buy iron, and have a crane made.”
“I,” said Joe, “will make it for you; I’m blacksmith enough for that.”
“Now,” said Sam, “I want just one thing--some lime to lay the stone in
after I get above the roof, and collar the chimney.”
There was a large lot of clam shells on the shore, where the fishermen
had shelled clams for bait. These he burned into as handsome white lime
as ever you saw. Uncle Sam, though a man of but few words, possessed
a very kind heart, and was much attached to Sally; hence the great
pains he bestowed upon the chimney and oven. He now, therefore, as
the chimney stood right out in the room, and was not concealed by any
woodwork, took some of the lime and white-washed it, and also the arch
in the cellar. Uncle Isaac now made a fire to try it. It was found to
carry smoke splendidly,--upon which he praised it in no measured terms.
Sam was evidently much pleased with the encomiums of his friend; and,
that both might have cause for satisfaction, Joe then told Sam about
Uncle Isaac’s pulling up Bradish.
The last thing Uncle Sam did was to split out two large stones for
doorsteps. After they were placed, he said to Ben, “These stones are
the best of granite; and when you build a frame house, if I ain’t dead,
or past labor, I’ll dress them for you, and they’ll make as handsome
steps as are in the town of Boston.”
“Well, Ben,” said Uncle Isaac, as they left the island, “that’s a log
house; but it’s a very different one from those in which your father
and I were born and brought up: they were no better than your hovel. We
had no cellar, but kept our sass in a hole in the ground out doors. My
poor mother never had an oven while she lived, but baked everything on
a stone, or in the ashes. She raised a rugged lot of children, for all
that, who live in good frame houses, and have land of their own now;
but then it’s harder for you than ’twas for us, because _we_ were all
alike, and had never seen anything better; while you are going to live
in a log house, right in sight of those who live in better ones. But
you will be supported, Ben, and will be prospered.”