AN UNGRATEFUL BOY.
It may seem very singular to some of our readers, that Captain Rhines,
whom we have spoken of as having a strong attachment to the soil,
should express a willingness so soon to leave it. But this will not
seem at all remarkable to any seafaring man whose eye may chance to
glance over our pages.
He had in early years been prevented from gratifying this inclination.
On the other hand, his life from boyhood had been spent at sea,
in company with seafaring men, and amid excitement and peril. The
habits of years are not easily to be overcome; and as age had made
no impression upon his iron constitution, after being at home a few
months, an almost irresistible longing came over him, at times, to be
once more among the very perils he had so congratulated himself upon
having escaped, and to hear some talk except about barley and butter.
He also, the moment he came home, began to make improvements--as he
said, made things look “ship-shape.” But this required money, and he
missed the cash he was accustomed to receive at the end of a voyage;
besides, a trip to the West Indies seemed to the old sailor as mere
recreation, which would enable him to carry out some of his farm
produce as a venture, and get his sugar, molasses, coffee, and rum. Had
he abandoned the sea at Ben’s age, before its habits had ripened into a
second nature, it would have been another matter.
John remained on the island a week. On his return he received a warm
welcome from Tige, who met him at the shore, and almost wagged his tail
off, he was so glad to see him. He had been perfectly miserable without
John, for they were inseparable companions. Not knowing how otherwise
to express his joy, he began to take up sticks in his mouth, and run
about with them.
“Here, old fellow,” said John; “if you want something to do, take these
birds and carry them to the house, for our dinner.”
“John,” said his father, “have you had as good a time as you expected?”
“O, father, I never had such a good time in all my life! You know the
brook?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s the greatest place for frost-fish you ever did see. The
sea-fowl come in there to drink, and there is the best chance to creep
to them behind the wood. You never saw such a good dog to play as
Sailor is; you throw him a stone, and he’ll play half an hour with it.
What’s Tige been about, father, since I’ve been gone?”
“Well, when he wan’t down on the beach watching for you, barking and
whining, he was smelling all round the barn and orchard, and going up
in your bedroom: he has rooted the clothes of your bed a dozen times,
to see if you was in it; and every night he has slept on your old
jacket.”
The opinion expressed by John’s mother, that ’twas much better he
should be on the island than in the company of some of the boys he went
with, grew out of the following circumstances:--
During the past summer, a boy by the name of Peter Clash ran away from
a Nova Scotia vessel, that came in for a harbor. Old Mr. Smullen had
taken him in, out of charity. This boy was eighteen years of age, and
belonged in Halifax, where, having the run of the streets and wharves,
he learned all kinds of vice. He was of a malicious disposition, and
intolerably lazy.
He soon made the acquaintance of all the boys in the neighborhood, but
consorted chiefly with Fred Williams, the miller’s son, John Pettigrew,
Isaac Godsoe, Henry Griffin, and some others.
None of these boys would have been disposed to engage in any mischief
beyond mere fun, or that was injurious to any one’s person or property,
if left to themselves; they also had but little leisure, as, when
not at school, they were at work; but Peter, who did very much as he
pleased at old Uncle Smullen’s, had a great deal of spare time, when
he both planned mischief and persuaded the others to aid him in the
execution. He had been in the place but a month, when he manifested
his mean, cowardly disposition by a trick that he played upon his
benefactors.
The old people had fed, clothed, and sheltered him when he had no place
to put his head, for which the little labor he performed was by no
means an equivalent, as he generally contrived to be out of the way
just when his help was needed.
In those days nobody thought of hauling up a year’s stock of wood, and
having it cut and dried; but they picked it up as they wanted it, and
hauled it home on a sled, as wheels were by no means common in those
days. The old folks were in the habit of getting on the sled, and
riding out in the woods with Peter, helping him load, and then riding
back.
Peter had found a large hornet’s nest in a heap of beech limbs; so he
drives the sled right over it, and stops the cattle; when the enraged
insects, who were of the yellow-bellied kind, and the most cruel of
stingers, attacked the old people, and stung them terribly, as they
were too feeble to get quickly away.
It was thought the old gentleman would never see again. They then
turned upon the oxen, who, frantic with fear and agony, ran into the
woods, tore the sled in pieces against the trees, and ran into the
water, where they would have been drowned but for Joe Bradish and
Captain Rhines.
Peter pretended that he didn’t know the hornets were there, and the
kind old people believed him; but it came out afterwards that he had
done it on purpose.
He used also to torment small boys, whenever he could get a good
opportunity.
It was the influence of these boys which Mrs. Rhines feared; but she
apprehended danger where none existed. Peter, John despised: as to the
others, they were too much below him in point of intelligence and force
of character to exert any influence over him.
He was now in his fifteenth year, very large of his age, beautifully
proportioned, with his father’s gray eyes and dark hair; excelled in
wrestling, swimming, and all kinds of boys’ sports, and bade fair
almost to rival Ben in strength. He had an eye that you could look
right into, as you can look down into the depths of a clear spring.
The whole expression of his face was so manly and frank, it was felt
at once to be an index of his character. According to Fred Williams,
John Rhines was just as full of principle as he could stick; and the
boys never thought of proposing to him any plan which their consciences
told them was of doubtful morality. John was less accessible to
temptation, for the reason that he loved out of doors, and the
stimulus his nature craved was of a healthy character. He delighted in
everything that required great physical force and endurance; and we
cannot but think that the wrestling, jumping, pulling up, and rough
out-door sports of that period, though a man’s leg was broken now and
then, or somebody killed outright, were infinitely preferable to the
effeminate amusements of the present day, which turn boys into coxcombs
and men-milliners, and destroy both soul and body. Nothing was more
agreeable to him than the pleasure derived from contrasts between great
extremes. Those pursuits which promised neither peril nor hardship
possessed for him very little attraction.
He loved to fly through the water in a boat, with all the sail she
would suffer, while the spray came by bucketfuls on to the side of his
neck, and then, rounding a densely-wooded point, run her into a calm,
sunny nook, among the green leaves, exchanging the dash of the cold
spray and the shrill whistle of the wind for the warm sunshine and the
song of birds.
His father used to say he believed that John would pound his finger
for the sake of having it feel better when it was done aching; not
considering that the boy inherited his own temperament, and that he
had manifested the same disposition, when, basking in the warmth of a
blazing fire, filled to repletion with sea pie and pudding, he told his
wife how much the recollection of his past perils added to his present
happiness.
To complete the sum of John’s attractions, his voice was naturally
modulated to express every shade of feeling; as Uncle Isaac said, “it
came from the right place, and went to the right place.”