PETER CLASH AND THE WOLF-TRAP.
Captain Rhines was called to Boston on account of some business with
Mr. Welch, and John was kept from school to take care of matters at
home.
One pleasant morning, his mother having given him the day, he had made
up his mind to go gunning and fishing, taking his dinner with him, Sam
Hadlock having agreed to do what was necessary in his absence.
As he was about to set out, Fred Williams came along, with his
dinner-pail in his hand, on his way to school.
“Where are you going, John?”
“Frost-fishing and gunning.”
“I’ll go with you; ’tis too pleasant to go to school.”
“I wouldn’t play truant, Fred.”
“Father won’t know it; our girls ain’t going to-day; so there’s nobody
to tell.”
“But you’ll know it yourself, Fred.”
“I don’t care.”
“If you won’t play truant, I’ll go some Saturday with you.”
“Saturdays father makes me work in the mill; he thinks I don’t want to
play, as other boys do.”
John could not persuade him to go to school; so they started off
together. They spent the forenoon in gunning. At noon they made a fire
on the rocks, made some clay porridge, then took a sea-fowl and dipped
into it, feathers and all, coating it completely with clay; they then
dug a hole in the ground, filling it partly with stones, which they
made red hot; on these they put the bird, then threw back the loose
earth. After a proper time they took it out, and peeled off the clay,
which brought the feathers and skin with it, leaving the carcass clean
and well cooked.
John had brought pepper, salt, and butter, and they had plenty of bread
and meat in their dinner-pails. Tige wouldn’t touch the bird; so they
gave him the meat.
“How good this is!” said Fred, with the wing of a sheldrake in his
mouth; “how glad I am I didn’t go to school!”
John made no reply, for his mouth was full; neither did he approve
of playing truant. They now went to Uncle Isaac’s brook, fishing. The
frost-fish swim up into the mouth of little brooks, where the water
is only about two or three inches deep, and are very slow in their
movements in cool weather. The boys caught them by fastening a cod-hook
to a stick, three or four feet long, and hauling them out. They set out
on their return in good season, that Fred might get home at the proper
time, and escape detection.
As they came to the landing, John jumped out to haul the boat ashore,
while Fred pushed with an oar; the boat, striking a rock, stopped so
suddenly, that he fell down into the bottom of her, and stuck one of
the hooks into his thigh. The remorseless steel buried itself in the
flesh beyond the barb. There was the miserable boy, with both hands
behind him, holding himself up, afraid either to get up or sit down, as
he could not move an inch without taking with him the great stick to
which the hook was fastened. John, reaching carefully under him, cut
the string which fastened it to the hook, letting it fall off.
Fred now prostrated himself on the beach, while John proceeded to
examine; he pulled a little.
“O-w-w! you hurt me!”
“It’s over the barb; I can’t pull it out without almost killing you.”
“My father’ll kill me quite, if he finds out I’ve played truant;
father’s awful when he rises. O, I wish I’d gone to school.”
“I should think you would.”
“It must come out somehow; can’t you _cut_ it out?”
“I’ll try; but it’ll hurt.”
“I can’t help it; but be as easy as you can.”
John had been shelling clams with his knife the day before, and that
forenoon he’d used it as a screw-driver, to tighten the flint in his
gun; but he whet it on the sole of his boot, and began to cut.
“O, dear! what shall I do? Boo-oo! cut away, John! I shall die! I shall
die! I wish I’d gone to school! Murder! murder!! murder!!!”
“Fred,” cried John, flinging away the knife, his eyes filling with
tears, “I can’t bear to hurt you so.”
“Father’ll hurt me worse; he’ll rip it right out, and lick me into the
bargain.”
“There’s a file in the canoe, they have to sharpen hooks; perhaps I can
file it off.”
“Do, John; do.”
Just as the voices of the children were heard going home from school,
John succeeded in filing it off. Fred jumped up, his mouth full of
gravel, where he had bitten the beach in his agony, and ran home. He
didn’t sleep much that night. The sawing of the flesh with a dull knife
produced irritation, and by morning it began to fester. It hurt him to
walk, it hurt him to move, and it hurt him to sit still. All day long
he sat on the edge of his seat, and didn’t go out at recess to play.
When he got home, he found his cousin John Ryan had come to spend the
night. As he was a general favorite, the children all wanted him to sit
next them at the table. They were all standing up around the table,
wrangling about it, when the miller, who had a grist to grind before
dark, and was in a hurry for his supper, lost all patience.
“Down with you--will you, somewhere?” cried he to Fred; “you’re big
enough to behave,” and pushed him slap down into a chair.
“O!” screamed Fred, jumping upright, bursting into tears, and clapping
both hands to the aggrieved part.
It all came out now; but in consideration of what he had suffered, and
had yet to undergo, he escaped a whipping. His mother bound some of the
marrow of a hog’s jaw on the wound, and, after a while, the hook came
out.
Fred promised John Rhines solemnly that he not only would never play
truant again, but in all respects try to become a better boy; yet the
wound was scarcely healed before he was again engaged in mischief.
Captain Rhines had a fish-flake on the beach, just above high-water
mark. Uncle Isaac had been making fish on it, and they were nearly
cured.
He cherished a bitter antipathy to the Tories, and, like all the people
on the sea-coast of Maine, was inclined to dislike the inhabitants of
Nova Scotia, among whom they sought refuge after they were driven from
the colonies. This prejudice extended itself to Peter Clash, and was
greatly strengthened by his treatment of his benefactors; he therefore
never treated him with the cordiality he did the other boys. This Pete
highly resented. He persuaded Fred, Jack Pettigrew, Ike Godsoe, and
some others, to go with him in the evening, take the fish from the
flakes, and throw them on the beach. It was a very difficult matter to
persuade the boys to do this, for they all loved and respected Uncle
Isaac; besides, he was not a person to be trifled with. After going
once, all, except Fred, Jack, and Ike, refused to go again; and after
Pete and his satellites had gone, Henry Griffin and the others went
back and replaced the fish. Pete, with his crew, continued the sport,
and enjoyed a malicious pleasure, as, hid in the bushes, they saw him
picking up the fish, many of which, getting in the tide’s way, were
spoiled.
[Illustration: PETER CLASH AND THE WOLF TRAP. Page 207.]
Uncle Isaac set a wolf-trap beside the flake, covering it in the sand,
and hid himself among the bushes. The boys manifested a great deal of
caution, pretending they had merely come down to fling stones into the
water. The conduct of Uncle Isaac, who continued quietly to pick up the
fish, without saying a word, made them suspicious; they thought there
must be something “under that heap of meal.” By and by they began to
edge up towards the flake, often stopping to listen. At last Pete went
up to the fish; walking along the edge of the flake, he threw off the
fish as he went, crying, “There’s nobody here; why don’t you come on,
you cowards.” The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when snap went
the great iron jaws of the trap, and up jumped Uncle Isaac from the
bushes. Pete roared with agony. Well he might; the trap would have cut
off his leg, or crushed it to pomace, if Uncle Isaac had not tied down
one of the springs, thus diminishing its force. His captor uttered
never a word; but catching him up, trap and all, walked right into the
water.
“O! Mr. Murch, I’ll never do so again! What be you going to do to me?”
“Drown you, you spawn of a Tory; your hide isn’t worth taking off.”
Pete poured forth agonizing entreaties for mercy, and made the most
solemn promises of amendment, if his life could be spared.
“You’re a rotten egg; you’re spilin’ all our boys, you varmint,” said
Uncle Isaac, chucking him right into the water, head and ears.
“Murder! murder!” screamed Pete, the moment he got his head out.
“Will you clear out in the spring, in the first fisherman that comes
along, and go where you come from?”
Pete called God to witness that he would.
“You can do as you like; but if you don’t, I’ll be the death of you. I
calculate,” said Uncle Isaac, as he picked up his fish, “he’ll keep his
word this time; he’ll have about as much as he can do to take care of
that leg this winter.”
John Rhines, being lonesome, after Ben went on to the island, had kept
company to some extent with these boys; but it was very much like
trying to mix oil and water; they played together occasionally, but
there was no fusion. When he heard of the last-mentioned occurrence, he
said to his mother,--
“I won’t be seen with those boys any more. O, mother, I do wish I had
somebody to love besides Tige.”
“Why, John Rhines, where are your parents, your sisters, and all your
friends?”
“You know what I mean; some boy of my age, that I could love clear
through; that you, and father, and Ben could love, and love to have me
with; and, when he come to our house, you’d give him a piece of cake,
and wouldn’t look so, as you do when Fred comes. I mean somebody that
wasn’t like these boys, either stupid or wicked.”
The boy’s heart, overflowing with the impulses of youth, longed for a
kindred spirit of his own age.