CHARLIE EXPLORING THE COAST.
CHARLIE rose early one morning, intending, as Ben had gone away and
given him the day, to work on his boat; but the beauty of the morning
was such, the wind and tide just right for a sail both ways along
shore, that he felt a strong desire to go and enjoy the day on the
water.
“Go, Charlie,” said his mother; “you work hard enough; you’ll get the
boat done long enough before Uncle Isaac wants her.”
He took his gun and luncheon, and started: he kept flint, steel,
matches, and a horn of tinder in the locker of the boat, that he might
kindle a fire whenever he wished.
Hauling his sheets aft, he determined to run up the bay, in the middle,
and then follow the shore along on his return, look into the coves and
nooks, and when he saw a place that pleased him, land, as he had a very
limited knowledge of the coast.
“I won’t fish any,” said he; “for if I try to do everything in one day
I shan’t do anything. I’ll have a look round, and if anything comes in
my way, I’ll shoot it.”
The wind was so that he could fetch both ways: he was closer hauled
going than returning; but to offset this, it was now dead low water,
and he would have the whole strength of the flood tide. The sky was
clear, and there was just breeze enough to carry three sails without
cramping the boat or throwing any spray.
Charlie stretched himself on his back, and taking the tiller over his
shoulder, lazily watched the sails, occasionally casting a glance
over the bow to direct his course, till, as the bay grew narrower,
bringing the shores together, the beauty of the jutting points and
coves, with their overhanging forests,--for as yet the axe had made but
partial inroads upon the wilderness,--induced him to sit upright, and
contemplate them.
He was now many miles from Elm Island, in a part of the country
entirely unknown, and with land on both sides.
“How like a witch she sails!” said he; “what a ways I have come! and I
know by the tide I’ve not been long.”
He now observed, on the port side, a wide reach making into the land,
at the mouth of which were two little islands--a wild, picturesque spot.
“That’s a handsome place. I don’t believe but what a fresh-water river
comes in there. I mean to see.”
Hauling his sheets as flat as he could get them, he shot in between the
little islands; they where covered with a thick growth of spruce, that
intercepted every breath of wind; but the flood tide was running like a
mill-race, and bore him along between perpendicular precipices on each
side, that looked as though they had been one, but sundered by some
convulsion of nature, and fringed to the very edge with forest; the
spruce, tenacious of life, clung to the fissures in the faces of the
cliffs, not more than two hundred yards asunder.
“What a beautiful place! I mean to come here some time with John and
Fred.”
Gracefully the boat glided through the glassy water, till at length the
reach terminated, not in a river, as he had imagined, but in a marsh,
through which ran a creek, into which poured a large brook.
The shores were most beautiful, now that the tide was nearly up,
concealing the unsightly marsh, being undulating with many little
points and coves thickly timbered with oak, birch, and basswood; the
long branches of the oaks, with their broad green leaves, stretching
far over the water.
Though boys are not much given to sentiment, Charlie acknowledged a
transient impression of the beauty of the scene, by silently gazing
upon every object within the range of vision. Impressions thus made are
permanent, and years afterwards are recalled, and become the warp and
woof of thought.
Rousing himself from his momentary reverie, he put his hand into the
water: it was as warm as milk; slowly flowing in a thin wave over the
large extent of marsh heated by the sun, it had become thus warm.
“How different the water is here from what it is at the island, where
it comes right in from sea, cold enough to make your teeth chatter to
go into it. It’s too good a chance to lose.”
Over went the anchor, and off went Charlie’s clothes. After swimming
till he was tired, he reluctantly turned the bow of his boat homeward:
the wind might die; and he was afraid to lose the aid of the tide.
He was so embayed with lands and forests, that his progress was at
first slow, the ebb tide not having begun to run; but as the bay
widened, the tide strengthened, the wind increased, and was, withal,
more favorable than in running up; the Wings of the Morning began to
justify her high-sounding appellation, and with a wake scarce larger
than the mackerel, after which she was modelled, left point after point
rapidly astern.
“What a racer you are, old boat!” said Charlie, slapping his hand
affectionately on the gunwale.
The misery and hardships of Charlie’s early life had produced a
precocity beyond his years: constantly thrown upon his own resources,
a boy in age, he was yet a man in thought and action. As his eye
wandered over the vast area of dense forest, broken only here and there
by a clearing, where there were so few occupants for so much land, he
contrasted it with the crowded acres of his native country.
“What a country this is!” said he; “land and work for all. I’ll have my
little spot, and perhaps some one to make it a home for me.”
Charlie had now arrived at a point where, if he sought the most direct
route for home, he must keep “away” and stretch off seaward; he was
some three miles above Uncle Isaac’s point.
Clearings now became more frequent; framed and log houses alternated
with each other, as the means of the settlers were more or less
limited. The shore line, however, was far less picturesque and wild:
it was regular and flat, with few indentations, except some little
nooks where those settlers whose clearings abutted on the shore hauled
up their log canoes. He debated with himself whether he should keep
“away,” and run for home, or run the shore down till he came to where
he was acquainted.
He did not like to leave this large portion of the shore unexplored.
He hove the boat to, and standing on the head-board, looked around: he
perceived that the formation of the land changed very much,--farther
along being broken into hills and valleys,--and that the shore was
rugged and bold. The vision here was limited by a long, heavily-wooded
point, of singular shape; and no farther view of the coast could be
obtained without running off, so as to look by it.
“There’s a shore worth looking at. I’ll know what is beyond that point,
if I don’t get home to-night. I’ll sleep in the woods: it’s a long time
since I have done so. I wish I had brought more luncheon.”
The growth of hemlock, spruce, and fir was now succeeded by white
oak, sock maple, and beech: as he neared the point, he perceived that
it was very long, with rocky shores of a moderate height; but instead
of terminating in a sharp angle, or in many little jagged portions, it
bent around somewhat in the form of a sickle, though more curved at the
end. At the distance of a quarter of a mile was an island of six acres,
very long in proportion to its width; level, and covered with a growth
consisting almost entirely of canoe birch, many of them three feet in
diameter, and sixty or seventy feet in height.
“There must be a cove round this point,” said he. He picked the flint
of his gun, and freshened the priming. As he rounded the hook, some
coots, that were feeding under the lee of it, took wing. Though taken
by surprise, he fired and brought down one: he now sailed into a
spacious cove formed by the long point on one side, and a shorter one
on the other, facing south-west; by its position, the sweep of the
northern part of the point and an outlying island completely protected
from all winds.
The long point, which was more than a quarter of a mile in breadth,
with the adjacent land, sloped from a high ridge gradually to the
south-west, terminating in a spacious interval of deep, moist soil,
extending to the south-west point, which rose abruptly from the
beach,--a high, rocky bluff, covered with spruce and white oak,--while
at the very extremity a leaning pine, clinging by its massive roots to
the edge of the cliff, supported the nest of a fish-hawk. Although the
growth was very heavy, few evergreens were to be seen.
From the south-western edge of this sunny and sheltered valley the
ground rose abruptly into rounded hills, with valleys intervening, the
high ground covered with a noble growth of white oak.
Exclaiming, “I’ll not go from here this blessed night till I have seen
all there is to be seen,” after taking a hearty luncheon, he began to
explore. The level, at the water’s edge, was timbered with a mixed
growth of canoe and yellow birches, shooting up to a great height,
many of the trunks of the yellow birches having a flattened shape,
which appeared very singular to Charlie: along with these were ash,
and occasionally an enormous hemlock; there were a few round stones
scattered over the surface, covered with moss of various colors, and
clasped by the tree roots.
“What a splendid field this would make! Wouldn’t grass grow here, I
tell you!”--kicking up the black, rich soil with his foot. “What a
nice place to set a vessel! what splendid timber to build her of! and
it would come right down hill. What a place for a saw-pit, under the
side of that steep ledge! Anybody could build a stage there, and roll
the timber right on to it. What a place for a garden!--falls right off
to the sun. O! O!”
As he ascended the slope, great long beeches, and once in a while a
Norway pine, shot up skyward, with scarcely a limb except at the top,
where every fork boasted the nest of a great blue heron.
“How are you, old acquaintance?” said Charlie, as they flew over his
head; “reckon we’ve met before, or some of your relations.”
He now came to a place where the ledge occasionally cropped out, and
the beech and pine gave place to a growth of sugar maple.
“What a chance to make sugar!--build the camp at the bottom of the
hill, and haul the sap down. Wouldn’t apple trees grow here! you better
believe it!”
His attention was now arrested by the sound of running water. Turning
around, he came upon a broad, deep brook, with water of a reddish
tinge, running very swiftly, leaping over logs half imbedded in the
soil, till, with a broad mouth, bordered by enormous basswood trees,
composed, as is often the habit of that tree, of many trunks springing
from a common root, it met the sea at the base of the cliffs of the
south-western point.
“How handsome these trees must look in blossom! and the water is deep
enough at high tide to sail right into the mouth of this brook, and
under the trees: won’t I do it some time?”
He now perceived, at a distance, something glancing white through the
mass of foliage.
“I’ll see what that is when I come back. I want to see what is on the
height of land.”
Proceeding up the ascent, he beheld a level surface of apparently a
light loam.
“Here,” said he, “is some black wood, at least.” There were clumps of
large white pines and spruce, with red oak, but no continuous growth
of pine, as on Elm Island. “Here is corn, grain, and potato land. What
a splendid farm this would make! so many kinds of land, and no waste
land.”
Going farther, he again came upon the brook.
“I shall get lost. I’ll follow the brook, and see what that white thing
was.”
Looking through the trees into a broad opening, he saw a bear with two
cubs, picking blueberries.
“I’ve nothing but small shot in my gun: if you’ll let me alone, I’ll
let you alone;” and he passed on.
The brook led him to a rocky ridge, through a chasm, in which the brook
flung itself over bowlders large and small, old logs, and over and
under great tree roots, that ran and twisted in among them from bank to
bank.
It was the white foam of this waterfall Charlie had caught glimpses of
through the foliage.
“There’s a brook for you,” said he; “it’s another kind from our brook:
that’s a quiet, cosy little brook; but this is a tearing fellow. What a
chance for a dam in that gap! ’twould cost next to nothing to build it,
and there’s water enough to carry a saw mill, spring and fall.”
Following the course of the brook, which from the point of the fall
to the mouth was very devious, he at length came to a place where
it almost returned upon itself, forming a little tongue, with a
beautifully rounded extremity, entirely bare of underbrush, and covered
with a thick mat of grass. Near the end stood a magnificent elm, the
only one Charlie had as yet noticed. Its trunk was begirt with that
network of foliage formed by the interlacing of many small twigs and
green leaves, which often, in its natural state, impart such singular
beauty to that noble tree. Among these meshes the wild ivy crept and
twined, half imbedded in the cork-like bark. Far above the roots, two
enormous branches diverged from the trunk, and nearly at right angles
with it; after running some distance in that direction, curved upward,
separating at a great height, the one into three, the other into five
branches, and there again subdividing, together with those of the main
trunk and others springing from the surface of the side branches,
terminated in a vast tracery of pendent foliage, covering the whole
of the little promontory with their shadow, and almost touching the
brook that washed its shores. As Charlie burst from the gloom of the
thick forest upon this sweet spot and this lordly tree, among whose
broad masses of foliage the rays of the declining sun seemed to love to
linger, he paused in mute admiration. At length he approached the great
tree, and standing on tiptoe, managed to barely reach the extremity of
a twig, and drew down the limb: he then stepped back and looked upon
the tree, and noted every feature of the landscape.
“Was there ever so beautiful a spot as this!” he said at length. “I
must have a piece of this land. I never can like any other place,
except Elm Island, after this. I wonder who it belongs to. Here’s
everything--timber, water, good land, I know by the growth, and O, how
beautiful! Fish in the brook too: there’s no fish in our brook, only
the smelts and frost-fish that come from the salt water.”
Heated and weary, he sat down between the spur roots of the great tree,
and looked up between the boughs, watching the play of the sunlight
quivering among the leaves, and espied two hangbirds’ (orioles) nests
pendent from the branches.
“You’ve been stealing the tow from my grafts, I guess, you rogues,”
noticing the material of which the nests were made.
Returning to the shore, he found the tide was out, and had left a
considerable extent of smooth, gravelly beach. He walked down to the
water’s edge; the clams were spouting all around him.
“A bold shore and plenty of clams: it’s a great thing to have clams;
we’ve often found it so on the island. If I had an axe to cut logs and
build a big fire, I’d sleep here to-night; but I haven’t,and that she
bear, or some wolf; might pay his respects to me in the night. I’ll
tell Uncle Isaac about that bear, and we’ll have her, cubs and all.”
He now picked up some dead wood, and making a fire, cooked his coot,
took a drink of water from the brook, anchored the boat in the middle
of the cove, and wrapping himself in the sails, was soon fast asleep.
With the break of day he weighed anchor, and made sail for Uncle
Isaac’s. He arrived there just as they were eating breakfast.
“You’ve come in a good time, Charlie; sit down with us.”
No sooner was appetite appeased than he described the place he had been
so much delighted with, to Uncle Isaac, and told him all about it, and
also about the island; what large birches there were on it; that he saw
a cove in one end of it, as he passed, that wound around as it went in.
“That cove,” said Uncle Isaac, “is the safest little harbor that can
be: no sea can get in there, the mouth is so narrow, and it is so
crooked. The bark on my birch came from that island, and better land
never lay out doors.”
“Who owns it?”
“Nobody.”
“Nobody?”
“No. I suppose it belongs to the state; but it don’t belong to any
individual. We don’t think anything here of a little thing like that.”
“Could I buy it?”
“Yes, you could buy it of the state, and then you would get a deed of
it; but if you should go on there, clear a spot, plant it, and keep
hold of it, nobody would ever consarn with you, and after a while you
would hold it by possession.”
“Is there any name to it?”
“Not as ever I knew.”
“How do you distinguish it?”
“Some call it Birch Island, and some Indian Island, because the Indians
used to make canoes there.”
Charlie told him about the bear.
“Shall I get Fred, and you go with us, and kill her?”
“No, Charlie; she’s nursing her cubs, and is poor now; let her alone
till my corn is in the milk; she’ll be getting into that; be fat then,
and the cubs worth something, and we will get the whole of them. I’ll
keep track of her. How do your partridges come on?”
“First rate; before they hatched I cut away the bushes, and built a
tight fence around the hen, and when I go there, they run right under
her.”
“You may keep them this summer, and next winter; but you’ll lose them
in the spring, unless you put them in a cage.”
“How can that be? I let them out the other day, and they followed the
hen, and acted just like any other chickens.”
“Because that wild nature is born in ’em; you may take an Indian boy
and send him to school; but when he’s grown, he’ll take to the wigwam
again. I tell you, when the partridges begin to drum next spring, look
out.”
“What is the name of this place where I slept last night?”
“It has no name; it’s wild land, wilderness: didn’t you see a bear
there?”
“Yes, sir; and I heard wolves howl in the night; but is there not some
name to tell it by?”
“There’s a number to the range,--I forget what it is,--and we call the
cove Pleasant Cove.”
“That’s a first-rate name: what made them call it that?”
“Because it is such a nice harbor, and a sheltered, sunny spot; people
in the winter time, bitter cold weather, pulling up the bay in a canoe,
get under the lee of that long p’int, and then go into the cove, and
are safe.”
“Does anybody own that?”
“Yes, there’s a man in Salem owns twelve hundred and eighty acres, and
that is part of it.”
“Would he sell it?”
“I suppose so. He has sold a good deal.”
“What would he ask an acre for that part of it?”
“There are no masts or spars on it of any great amount. It’s settling
land--hard wood growth. It ought not to bring more than fifteen cents
an acre; but he don’t care whether he sells or not, and might ask
fifty.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yes, indeed; known him this twenty years. He stopped at my house when
he bought that land, and three times as much more. I carried the chain
for Squire Eveleth when he run it out.”
“Uncle Isaac, I want a piece of land. You don’t know how much I’ve
thought about it! None of my folks ever owned an inch of land. Night
and day I have thought and dreamed about it, and I want _that_, and no
other in this world. The moment I came round the point into the cove,
and saw the sun shining on the trees, something said to me, That’s your
home.”
“I know what that feeling is, and all about it; and if you feel that
way, you’ll never be worth a cent, or be contented in any other spot.
There’s something comes out of the soil you love that puts the
strength into your arm, and the courage into your heart.”
“But how shall I get it?”
“Buy it. You’ve got money enough, when Fred pays you, to buy enough for
a farm, and more too.”
“But before that, some one that has got money to pay down might see it,
like it just as well as I have, and buy it right off; perhaps it’s sold
now.”
“No, it ain’t. People are not so fond of going on to wild land. They
had rather buy land that has been partly cleared. I’ll write to Mr.
Pickering, and get the price, and the refusal of it, and I’ll buy it
for you. When you get your money from Fred, you can pay me. You’ll have
enough from your boats, probably, to buy two hundred acres; and when we
hear from him, I’ll go over it with you. There’s a heavy growth of pine
back from the shore: I should want that; and there’s a pond, that the
brook is an outlet of: I should want command of that water. The brook
is a mill privilege. Boards will be worth something by and by; not in
my day, perhaps, but you are young, and can afford to wait.”
“Then there’s bears on it, Uncle Isaac. It is worth a good deal more
for that.”
“Most people wouldn’t consider that any privilege.”
“O, I should!”
“But the thing that toles the bears there, and makes them like it, is a
privilege.”
“What is that?”
“Acorns. There’s a master sight of acorns and beech-nuts on the whole
of that range along the shore, and hog-brakes in the swales. Hogs can
get their living in the woods, and, by clamming on the beach, all the
summer and fall.”
“Won’t the bears kill ’em?”
“Once in a while one; but then you can kill the bear, and he’ll be
worth as much as the hog. I would rather have ten bears round than one
wolf.”
“You know, Charlie,” said Hannah Murch, “bear’s grease is good to make
boys limber to wrestle. If you had served my bed-clothes as you did
Sally’s, I don’t know what I should have done to you.”
“I would have spoilt all the beds in the house for the sake of throwing
Henry Griffin.”
“It appears to me you are beginning in good season to get a farm. You
are not going to housekeeping?”
“The sooner the better,” said Uncle Isaac. “When a rat gets a hole, he
carries everything to it.”
“No, Mrs. Murch, nothing of that kind; but I do want a piece of the
soil that I can walk over and call my own, and have crops of my own,
that nobody can take from me. I love to work with tools; but I love the
earth that God made, and the woods. I love that spot, and am afraid
I shall lose it if I don’t get it now. If I can only know it’s mine,
that’s enough. Mrs. Murch, I think there’s something substantial about
the earth.”
“So there is, Charlie; and when you’ve got the land, you’ve something
under your feet, and it can lay there till you want it. There will be
no taxes of any amount till there’s a road made through it.”
“Hannah,” said Uncle Isaac, “the Bounty is loading with bark and wood
for Salem, in Wilson’s Cove. I’ll send my letter by her.”
“And I,” said Charlie, “must go home.”