WHY THE BOYS LIKED UNCLE ISAAC.
It has been very evident, during the progress of this story, that the
young men were very much attached to Uncle Isaac; yet the boys were not
a whit the less so; the reasons of which will appear as we proceed.
In the first place, he retained in his feelings all the freshness
and exuberance of his youth; they knew that he liked them; and it is
strange how this unwritten, unspoken language of the heart is generally
felt and understood.
In the next place, he was never known to divulge a secret, and was
the depositary of half the love affairs of the young people in the
neighborhood; indeed, the boys often confided to him their intended
pranks. If mere fun was the object of them, he permitted them to take
their course, but, if they were of a malicious nature, would induce
them to give them up, by proposing something else,--generally a tramp
with him in the woods, or on the water, the seductions of which no boy
was able to resist. It was well it was thus, for he knew infinitely
better how to manage them than half their parents. It has been well
said, that man must look up in order to worship; ’tis just so with
boys. A timid, effeminate man can have no influence over a mess of
boys; and if you have any doubt on this point, just read the names on
the boys’ sleds and boats.
When, in the winter, he happened to ride by the school-house, just as
school was out, a curious scene presented itself. Children, in those
days, were taught to make their manners; but when Uncle Isaac came
along, they first made a bow, or dropped a courtesy, just to manifest
respect; and then boys and girls would pile into the sleigh, and hang
around his neck, till he was well nigh smothered. The old horse would
lay back his ears, and look around, as though distrusting his ability
to draw the unwonted load; while the schoolmaster, looking out of the
window, attracted by the noise, and amused to see the little ones
searching his pockets for apples, would forget to notice when the
minute-glass had run out.
There was another thing which imparted to his society a wonderful
fascination for the boys, which we can in no other way explain so
well as by relating a conversation between little Bobby Smullen and
his grandfather. The boy was at play before the door, as Uncle Isaac
returned from Sam Elwell’s, after picking Yelf out of the ditch. He
endeavored, with all his might, to entice him to go in, as he wanted to
listen, while he talked over old times with his grandparent; but Uncle
Isaac was in a hurry, and, patting his head, went on.
Bobby, who was a bright, observing little chap, looked after him till
he was out of sight. Going into the house, he said, “Grandsir, what
makes Uncle Isaac walk so?”
“Walk how?”
“Why, you know how; he don’t walk like other folks.”
“The child means,” said his grandmother, “because he toes in.”
“That’s because he’s an Indian, Bobby.”
“Why, Jonathan, ain’t you ashamed of yourself? he’s no more of an
Indian than you are. I knew his father and mother well; old Mr. Murch
and his wife were the best of people.”
“Well, the Indians brought him up, anyhow. I don’t jestly know the
rights of it; but they carried him off, with some others of his people,
when he was a boy; part of them they tomahawked, and part they roasted
alive; but one of the chiefs took him, and brought him up. He lived
with them years and years, learnt their language and their ways, and
was as good an Indian as the best of them. I’ve heard him say, he
thought their kind of life was happier than ours; he never will get
that wild nature out of him. When the Penobscots come here in the
summer, and camp on his point, he’ll carry them beef, pork, potatoes,
and milk, and says they have as good right here as he has, and better,
too. He’ll give them anything except rum; he says that wasn’t made for
an Indian, because it makes him crazy.”
“Don’t it make white people crazy, too, grandsir?”
“Hush, child; you put me out, and you don’t know what you’re talking
about. For all he’s such a desperate working cretur, he’ll go down
right in haying time, and set on a log, and talk with them, and seems
just as uneasy all the time they’re about as John Godsoe’s geese.”
“What about John Godsoe’s geese?”
“Nothing, child.”
“Yes, there is; I know there is; do tell your little boy, grandsir.”
“Why, John’s got some wild geese that can’t fly, because one joint of
their wings is cut off. They go in the pasture with the other geese as
peaceable as can be; but in the spring, when the wild ones are flying
over and konking, they’ll flap their old stubs of wings, and holler,
and be as uneasy; that’s jest the way Isaac’s took when the Indians are
round. I sometimes think he’d go off with them, if he could get his
family to go.”
The horrors of Indian massacre were still fresh in the recollections of
older people. Smullen’s first wife and old Mr. Yelf’s father were both
killed by the Indians; and there was nothing more attractive to the
youth of that day. No marvel, then, that a romantic interest mingled
in the minds of the boys with the affection they entertained for Uncle
Isaac.
It is frequently said, one boy is better than two boys, and that three
is just no boy at all; but half a dozen of them would work all day for
dear life, with Uncle Isaac, encouraged by the promise, always kept,
of going on a tramp with him when the job was over. Boys don’t like
to go gunning, and come home empty-handed. When they went with him,
they always brought home game with them; for if they couldn’t shoot
anything, he could. These attractions enabled him to exert a great
influence over them, which he improved to the noblest ends, and made
impressions that were never eradicated. He was neither in his own
opinion, nor by profession, a religious man; but the teachings of a
pious mother had laid deep in his young heart the foundation of faith
and love. When torn from her by the savages, in the solitude of mighty
forests, he had pored and prayed over them, till they ripened into a
heartfelt love for Him “who causeth the grass to grow for cattle, and
herb for the service of man.”
His teachings were therefore of such a nature, that while divested
of the stiffness generally connected with all attempts at advice or
instruction, they deepened every good impression, and stirred the young
heart to the quick.
A most silly and hurtful notion, often entertained by young people
in respect to religion, is, that it has a tendency to make people
narrow-minded, or, as they phrase it, meeching. Such a feeling was
effectually repressed, as they listened to ideas of that nature from
one who hesitated not to grapple with the fiercest beasts of the
forest, and bore on his person the scars of many wounds. His influence
over them was very much increased, for the reason that he seemed
anxious to make them happy in this world, as well as the other;
inculcated with great earnestness those principles which lie at the
bottom of thrift, competence, and the well-being of society.
Religious discourse from their parents, the catechising of the
minister, advice in respect to their conduct in life, might be quite
dry and uninteresting; but with what power to attract and move were
the same ideas invested, as they fell from the lips of the hunter
and warrior, on a wild sea-beach, amid the roar of breakers; in some
sunny nook of the hills, with the rifle across his knees, made juicy
and attractive by his graphic language; not thrust upon them against
the stomach of their sense, but, like the teachings of the great
Parent of nature, in harmony with bursting buds, the springing grass,
shading into a deeper green, or mingling in their ear with the brook’s
low murmur, and the music of summer winds among the foliage,--thus
imperceptibly, as the increase of their strengthening sinews, growing
up with, and moulding the very habit of their thoughts!
There had been no adverse element to disturb these pleasant and
profitable relations, till Peter Clash came into the neighborhood.
Nothing but the entire conviction of the uselessness of all efforts to
reclaim him, and a knowledge of the injury his influence and example
was doing to the other boys, caused Uncle Isaac to treat him with such
severity, and made him resolve to drive him out of the place.
“I wouldn’t be so mean,” said he, “as to throw my weeds into other
people’s gardens; but when they throw their weeds into mine, I’ll fling
them back again: he shan’t take root and go to seed here; we’ve weeds
enough of our own.”
The first leisure day John had, after his father’s return, he took his
hoe, and going directly to the field where he knew Uncle Isaac was
digging potatoes, went to work with him.
“I don’t mean to play any more with Pete, and that set; I mean to play
with you, Uncle Isaac.”
“I should like to have a playmate first rate; I’ve been pretty much
alone of late.”
“Will you go gunning with me in your float, after we get these potatoes
dug?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t you tell me an Indian story now?”
“I can’t talk and work too; but I’ll tell you one to-night, after we’ve
done work, and when we go gunning, and are waiting for birds. Work when
you work, and play when you play; that’s my fashion.”
When the time arrived, John reminded Uncle Isaac of his promise.
“Well, John, where do you want to go? into the woods, or after
sea-fowl?”
“I’ll tell you what I want to do, above all things; but perhaps you
wouldn’t; I want you to learn me to shoot flying. I can shoot very well
now at a dead mark; but I never, in all my life, shot anything flying.”
“You’ll never be much of a gunner till you can, because there’s ten
chances to shoot flying or running game where there is one to shoot
that which is still. Take a fox, for instance; ’tain’t one time to a
hundred you can shoot one, except on the clean jump, going twelve or
fifteen foot at a leap, and looking just like a little streak. All
these sea-fowl fly out of the bays every night. Now, there’s a place
between Smutty Nose and the Sow and Pigs, not more than half a gun-shot
in width, which they fly through about sunrise, when they come into the
bay. I’ve gone there before sunrise, with three guns, and killed over
a hundred; been back by the middle of the forenoon, got my breakfast,
and, by working a little later, done a good day’s work. What d’ye think
of that, Johnny?”
“O!” cried John, his eyes flashing, “I shouldn’t want to live any
longer, if I could do that.”
“There’s a good many other places where they fly through; for it’s the
nature of them to follow the land. They used to fly through between
Elm Island and the outer ledges, but I expect Ben has pretty much put
an end to that; besides, if you have two guns, or a double barrel, it
gives you two chances--you can fire at them in the water, and when they
rise give it to them again.”
“I know it; I’ve seen you and Ben shoot wild geese when they were
flying over. Ben burnt mother awfully with a wild goose.”
“How could that be?”
“Well, mother was frying fish in the Dutch oven; Ben fired into a flock
that was flying over the house, and down came an old gander, right down
chimney, and flung the fat all over her face.”
“Well, John, as to the learning, you must forelay for them; when
they’re coming towards you, swing your gun as they fly, and aim jest
before their bill, and then they’ll fly right into the shot. The best
bird for a boy to practise on is a fish-hawk, because they are a large
mark, and fly steady, but they are all gone south now; but a coot will
do very well. You must shoot, and shoot, and practise till you get it;
and jest as you begin to think you never can get it, ’twill come. You
better take my gun; it goes quicker than yours. I’ll manage the boat;
you can fire, and I’ll watch you and tell you.”
On their way home they fell into conversation about the other boys.
“I don’t think,” said John, “that Fred is a bad-hearted boy; we’ve
always played together, and he was a good boy till Pete came here. I
believe all of them would do well enough, if ’twasn’t for him, and
would never do any real mean mischief of their own heads; they like
fun, and so do I, and should be as full of mischief as any of them, if
I didn’t like gunning so much better, which takes up all my spare time.”
“That Pete is too rotten to nail to. As for Fred, there’s more
foundation to him; he’s had a better bringing up; he’s like the fish
that take the color of the bottom they feed on; he falls in with the
company he keeps, and can’t stand on his own legs.”
“I don’t believe I should have been one whit better than Fred, if I
had been brought up as he has. I’ve known Fred to do a real good day’s
work, and his father and mother never take the least notice of it;
now, big boy as I am, there’s nothing pleases me so much as to have
father come and see what I’ve done, and praise me for it; then his
father always sets his bounds, and tells him he may go to such a tree
or rock; of course he wants to go over; he’d be a fool if he didn’t.
I’ve gone over there sometimes, all dressed up, to play with him, and
his father would keep him to work, when Fred knew, and I knew, that the
work might be just as well done the next day. I tell you, that makes a
boy feel ugly. Now, just look at my father; I’ve known him, when boys
came over here to play with me, to let me off, and work till after dark
himself. Think I didn’t put in the next day, and watch for chances to
make it up? and do you think I’ll ever forget it, as long as I live?
’Tisn’t every boy, Uncle Isaac, that’s got as good father and mother as
I have.”
“You never spoke a truer word than that, John.”
“I don’t believe a boy can love a man, just because he’s his father, if
he treats him just like a dog.”
“Don’t you think, then, instead of leaving Fred altogether, it would be
better to ask him to go with you and me sometimes?”
“I think we should have a great deal better time without him.”
“Perhaps so; but we ought to be willing sometimes to displease
ourselves, for the sake of benefiting others. A boy or man, who never
thinks of anybody’s comfort or happiness but his own, is a pretty mean
sort of an affair, and ought not to be allowed round. There’s Pete;
he’s no credit to his Maker, and only a plague to the neighborhood, and
swears awful; yet God feeds and clothes him.”
“No, he don’t, Uncle Isaac; because Mrs. Smullen makes the cloth, and
makes the clothes, too.”
“If she does, the Lord gives her the stock, and wit, and strength to
manufacture it. You allow yourself there’s some good in Fred; and I say
it’s no part of a man, when a poor fellow’s on his hands and knees,
trying to get up, to jump on him.”
“But you don’t understand. It isn’t just for the sake of going gunning,
and hearing the Indian stories, that I like so well to go with you; but
I like to hear you talk about good things, and tell me how I can make a
man of myself. Fred wouldn’t care a straw for such things.”
“How can that ever be known, till it’s tried? According to your tell,
he’s never had much of such treatment.”
“That is very true.”
“You’re very sorry he’s a bad boy; wish he was better; but are not
willing to forego your own pleasure for the sake of getting him into
better company, and giving him an opportunity to rally. We’ve spent all
this day, and have patiently managed the boat, that you might learn to
shoot flying, and you’ve made out to kill two birds; whereas, if I’d
taken the gun, made you manage the boat, or gone without you, I might
have killed twenty, and been home at dinner-time.”
“I’m ashamed of myself, Uncle Isaac; I won’t be so mean and selfish any
more.”
“Well, Pete’ll have enough to do to take care of his legs this winter,
and I think he’ll go off in the spring. Speak kindly to Fred, and keep
hold of him; and when the warm weather comes, we’ll take him with us,
and try to save him.”