THE BOYS CATCH THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE.
After the departure of James Welch, nothing worthy of note occurred to
disturb the quiet enjoyment of life on Elm Island.
Upon Ben’s recovery in the spring, he had hired Robert Yelf for the
summer.
Ben, Jr., who now began to manifest as great a capacity for work as he
had heretofore evinced for mischief, made himself extremely useful. He
assumed the entire charge of the hens, ducks, geese, and turkeys. In
the spring he had dropped corn and potatoes, and assisted in planting
the garden. He pulled up weeds, carried in wood and chips for his
mother, brought up the cows at night, and drove them to pasture in the
morning.
After haying, Ben and Yelf finished and rigged the scow, which he had
begun before he was taken sick, and built a wharf in the cove, with an
inclined platform, over which cattle could be driven to or from the
scow. They also built a boat to take the place of the Perseverance,
Jr., from Charlie’s moulds, which was an easy matter, as the work was
all laid out.
When corn was in the milk, Sally Merrithew ventured to marry Joe
Griffin, who had been on probation since he nearly finished Uncle
Smullen. Joe built his log house in the midst of a burn, where he had
planted corn and sowed wheat in the spring. Ben gave Sally a cow and
Captain Rhines a pig to begin housekeeping with, and Ben continued to
pasture her sheep on Griffin’s Island, as Joe had no land cleared for
pasturing sheep, and they were safe from the wolves on that island. Elm
Island gradually improved in beauty as Ben ploughed and removed the
stumps; and the fruit trees in the new soil increased rapidly in size.
Amid these quiet occupations and enjoyments, interspersed with tramps
in the woods, bear-hunts and gunning expeditions with Uncle Isaac, the
autumn, winter, and succeeding summer glided rapidly away.
Very different was the appearance of Elm Island, with its comfortable
and roomy buildings, broad fields covered with crops, now fast ripening
to the harvest, and vocal with the lowing of kine and the song of
birds, from its appearance the morning that Uncle Isaac and Joe
Griffin landed on the beach, and startled the herons from their nests
with the sound of the axe and the crash of falling trees. Great as
was the change that had taken place on Elm Island, it was trifling in
comparison with that which obtained in respect to the country at large.
Then it was a period of general poverty and distress, although
money was made by individuals through superior energy, tact, and
the irregularities then existing in trade, and the intercourse of
nations,--Ben and his father being among the fortunate ones.
Then there was neither revenue nor power to collect any; the country
oppressed with debt, and no means to pay the old government under which
the war of the revolution had been fought--a rope of sand--and no
confidence in any quarter. The states were deluged with importations
of all kinds--French gewgaws, English broadcloths, iron, cordage, and
duck from Russia and Sweden--which people who had any means or credit
were but too much inclined to buy, despite the efforts made by the
government to discourage it, and encourage home manufacture.
But now the Federal government was established, and Washington at its
head, with power to form treaties of amity and commerce, lay duties and
imposts; the national debt funded, affording an opportunity for safe
and profitable investments; and banks were established. The spirit of
the country was up, and rose with a bound over all obstacles, ready to
grapple with any odds.
Nowhere was the exhilarating influence of the times more eagerly
responded to than in the District of Maine,--with a vast extent of
sea-coast, and to a great degree aquatic population, and the town
of Portland in particular, then but recently arisen from its ashes
after its bombardment by the British, and incorporated, with an
unrivalled harbor, a back country almost one unbroken forest of timber
of all kinds, for which there was an abundant demand at high prices
in Europe and the West Indies, with extensive water-power for its
manufacture; vast quantities of ship-timber, with mechanics both native
and imported; and a population whose energies were _then_, and have
_continued_ to be, equal to every demand made upon them.
This town was among the first to avail itself of, and profit by, these
altered circumstances. Mills were going up on every waterfall, wharves
building, distilleries erecting, the keels of vessels laid, and the
roads thronged with teams dragging the masts, spars, and boards to the
place of shipment. Mails were established, and a newspaper published.
It is easy to perceive what effect these new excitements must make upon
boys so impressible as Charlie and John, at work in the midst of such
scenes. They read the Cumberland Gazette, which Mr. Starrett took; also
the Columbian Centinel, printed at Boston, which he borrowed from one
of his neighbors; a Portsmouth paper, which was sent to a Portsmouth
man who worked in the shop. They listened with sharp ears to every
word of the excited conversation that occurred within their hearing,
in that stirring period, when the state of Europe, its politics, its
markets, the troubles in France, and their bearing upon the prosperity
of America, became subjects of discussion, and were every whit as much
interested as the actual participants, and, when they were alone,
talked over all they had heard between themselves.
John was now working as a journeyman, and received four-and-six a day.
Charlie found an excellent employer in Mr. Foss, who instructed him by
every method in his power, and put him on the best work, as he found
that he was capable of doing it, and also increased his wages.
Fishing, too, had received the same impulse as other pursuits, not
merely by reason of the increased market for fish, and increased
facilities for carrying them to foreign parts, but also in consequence
of a bounty granted by the government. And Fred Williams, who, to his
traffic in fish and groceries, had added the buying of potash, beef,
and pork, was steadily acquiring.
As the country became cleared, great numbers of cattle were raised, and
salted beef found a ready market in the West Indies for the use of the
slavers.
Potash was in great demand in Europe. Fred was able to barter goods for
potash, sell it in Boston at a large advance, and thus make a double
profit--making more in that way than by all his other traffic.
Charlie, finding that the price of land was rising, sent word to Uncle
Isaac to purchase enough more of the heavy pine growth abutting on the
back part of his lot to make, with what he already had, four hundred
acres; but Uncle Isaac bought the whole lot, and informed Charlie he
might have of him, at the price he gave, enough to make out his four
hundred acres. Charlie also bought Birch Island of the state, as he
did not relish the idea of being a squatter; and the whole island,
containing six acres of first-rate land, covered with a heavy growth of
birch, an excellent harbor, and a noble spring of water, cost him only
nine shillings. But in those days land on a small island like that was
but lightly valued, while birch wood was not considered worth thanking
God for.
“Charlie,” said John, in one of those confidential interviews that
generally occurred on Saturday night, “couldn’t you build a vessel now?”
“I don’t know but I could. I lined up the Freebooter, while Mr. Foss
was laying the keel of another vessel.”
“What is the reason we couldn’t build a vessel? I know I could do the
iron-work.”
“I suppose we might do the work if somebody would find the money. It
takes a heap of money to build a vessel and fit her for sea.”
“But couldn’t we build one, take time enough, and sell her just as you
do the boats--without rigging her?”
“I’ll tell you what we might do.”
“What?”
“Build one, take our own time for it,--I’ve got timber enough on my
land to build and load ever so many,--then keep a part of her, and sell
the rest; put our work, my timber, and what little money we could
muster, against somebody else’s money.”
“Yes, we could do that; but I should much rather have her to
ourselves,--say you, and I, and Fred.”
“We might go to work, cut the timber, and set up a vessel, get her
along as far as our means would allow, then let her stand till we could
earn more. But we should want a captain.”
“That is true; and perhaps Seth Warren or Sydney Chase might take a
part, and go in her.”
“Yes, that would be a quarter apiece.”
“Charlie, I heard Captain Pote say, in this very house last Saturday
night, that if anybody could get a load of lumber to the West Indies,
at the right time, he could make enough to build another vessel.”
“How much do you suppose it costs to build a vessel?”
“I don’t know; the rigging and sails are the most. You can build the
hull very cheap, so that she will last a little while without much iron
fastening; but you must have good rigging and sails, or else you are
liable to lose vessel and cargo.”
“How much?”
“I know Mr. Foss built a vessel for Weeks and Tucker, hull and spars,
and found everything, for fifteen dollars a ton, delivered at Pearson’s
breast-work, in Portland.”
“Fifteen hundred dollars for the hull and spars of a vessel of a
hundred tons?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m sure we could build a sloop of fifty.”
“But a sloop of fifty tons wouldn’t be of any use to carry such bulky
cargoes as boards, spars, ton-timber, and molasses, which is what we
must do.”
“Ye-e-e-e-s.”
Here the conversation came to an abrupt termination by Charlie’s
falling asleep.