“WE WERE PUT INTO THIS WORLD TO HELP ONE ANOTHER.”
IT was about eight o’clock Saturday night. Captain Rhines had sailed
that morning for Boston.
Mrs. Brown had finished her household business for the day, and was
seated before a bright fire in a cosy little sitting-room, reserved for
her private use. Her children were with her, the girls having closed
the store earlier than usual, and with the beloved and rescued son and
brother in the midst, they were talking over the exciting events of the
week.
“When I look back upon what has happened for the past two or three
weeks,” said the happy mother, “it seems like a dream. There I was, day
after day, and week after week, watching the papers, and no news of
the vessel, a short passage too. Then I got Captain Folger to write
to Halifax, and the consignee wrote that they supposed the vessel was
lost, as one of her boats, bottom up, had been found, and a bucket
that had the vessel’s name on it. A husband and son both buried in the
ocean. It tore open the old wounds, and they bled afresh; brought up
all the anguish of your father’s loss anew. I felt it was more than I
could bear. How I begged and plead with my heavenly Father for your
life, Arthur, the widow’s only hope! And some how, whenever I rose
from my knees, I felt better than when I knelt down; a feeling as
though, some how or other, the cup would pass from me, seemed to take
possession of me, and this feeling kept me, for the most part of the
time, on my knees. I felt better and happier there than anywhere else.”
“Don’t you think, mother, when I came to be on that raft, provisions
and water all gone, the captain raving mad and jumping overboard, my
shipmates dying one after another, that I didn’t think of you, and
that you were praying for me? Poor little Ned and I, our throats were
so dry and parched we couldn’t speak so as to be heard by each other
above the winds and waves. I fell into a doze, and dreamed I saw a most
beautiful grove of apple trees all in blossom, and a great long table
spread under them, covered with piles and piles of meat, and great
goblets, that held a gallon, full of the clearest water; and you was
sitting at it, and saying, ‘Come, Arthur, this is all for you.’ I tried
so hard to move towards you, it woke me; and I heard a shout, ‘Raft,
ahoy! Is there anybody can take a line?’ Then I knew there was help. I
tried to shout, but couldn’t. I could only raise my arm. Soon I heard
something strike the raft; a voice shouted, ‘All fast!’ and two men
stood over us. They were Mr. Ben Rhines and Charlie Bell. They told me
to keep my heart up, for they would stick by me; but I was so overcome
I fainted away.”
“Brother,” said Ellen, “didn’t you suffer terribly before you got so
low as that?”
“Tongue can’t describe it; but the thirst was the worst. But here I am
now, sitting before this comfortable fire, in this old room where we
have spent so many happy hours, with you all around me. I’m sure, as
mother says, it seems like a dream to me.”
“I hope,” said the widow, “such trials and such mercies will make us
better; they certainly should.”
“I feel that it has been good for me,” said Eliza. “I thought, when
we were in that agony of uncertainty, ‘O that I, too, could pray with
mother! that I had a right to, as I felt she had! But when Captain
Rhines’s letter came, I did go to God with tears of thankfulness, and
trust I was accepted.”
“I thought, if my poor boy’s life could only be spared, even if he was
a cripple, or injured for life, I could ask no more. And then to have
him come home so well and happy, with such a friend as God has raised
up for us all in Captain Rhines! Yet I can never think upon him and his
kindness but it makes me reflect upon myself.”
“Why so, mother?” said Arthur.
“Your father was of most open and generous nature, far too much so
for his own interest, and, as I then thought, for that of his family,
while my disposition was very different. My parents were poor, and I
was brought up by a relative, early taught hardship, knew the value of
money, and was naturally prudent. Your father would take the clothes
off his back to put on anybody else. I used to go to sea with him,
when we were first married; and when sailors came on board without
clothes, he would give them clothing, fix them all up, and make them
comfortable. I used to tell him, sometimes, that if they drank,
gambled, and threw all their money away, they ought to suffer the
consequences, and his first duty was to his family. But it was no use
to reason with him; he couldn’t help it—couldn’t bear to see anybody
suffer; and at length I refrained from saying anything on the subject,
but tried to economize all I could, to offset his liberality. He never
concerned himself about household matters, was gone a great part of the
time, and left everything to me.
“He would come home, and bring barrels of sugar and molasses for family
use, and bags of coffee, and have them hauled up to the house; and also
quantities of fine cloths from Europe and the East Indies for me and
the children, and material for towels, curtains, and bedding. After he
was gone, I would live as prudently as possible, sell a great part of
the things sent home, and put by the money against time of need.
“After our third child was born, he began to alter gradually, and
seemed to have different ideas, became more prudent, and, as he was a
man of great business talent, began to accumulate, and soon owned a
good part of the vessel, and, had he lived, would have become a wealthy
man, but was taken away in a moment. There was no insurance on the ship
or cargo, and all he had accumulated was gone, except this house. Then,
being left a widow, with a young family, I found the benefit of the
little I had saved.”
“I’m sure, mother,” said Eliza, “I don’t see what you have to reflect
on, except with satisfaction. You were not saving for yourself, but for
us children, and for father, had he lived to be old, and past labor.”
“Ah, but I was so anxious that your father should lay up something for
his family, that after he was gone, I felt that perhaps I had said more
than I ought; sometimes, too, I would discourage him from doing for
others, when it did not consist in giving money; when he would spend a
great deal of time at sea in teaching some young man navigation, when,
as I thought, he ought to have been asleep in his berth, or resting;
often, when he was on shore, and I wanted him to go with me, he
would be running here and there, night and day, to get a vessel built
for somebody, and oftentimes get small thanks for it, as I told him.
Then he would say, ‘Harriet, we were put into this world to help each
other; we ought not to feel vexed or disappointed if we do not always
receive gratitude from those we have befriended, when we consider how
ungrateful we are ourselves to our Maker, but do our duty.’ These
things often came up in memory, after he was taken away, and I would
have given anything if I had not said some things, and could have taken
them back.”
“But, mother,” said Ellen, “I don’t think you ought to feel so. You
meant it for his good.”
“I thought I did, at the time; but since then I have felt there was a
good deal of selfishness at the bottom, that ought not to have been
there; that your father felt it, and it pained him, for I could see a
shade of sadness flit across his face, like a cloud across the sun in a
spring morning.”
“Don’t cry, mother,” said Arthur, putting his arm around her, and
wiping away the tear that trembled on her cheek.
“But when,” she continued, in a voice broken with emotion, “in the
midst of my anguish about you, that letter came from Pleasant Cove,
telling me your life had been saved by Captain Rhines (one of the very
boys your father had worked so hard to help), so full of sentiments of
affection for your father, and gratitude for the favors he had received
from him, and a few days later your letter, telling me of their
kindness to you and Ned, I was overcome.”
“O, mother, I can’t tell you one half they did for me, because it can’t
be told; for it was not only what they did, but the way they did it. It
came so right out of the heart. They seemed to love to do it, and it
was done with such looks and tones of love.”
“Yes; and when that noble man came up here, and couldn’t do
enough—wanted to take us all home with him—insisting upon it, didn’t
I feel condemned for trying to hinder your father from helping others,
and telling him he got small thanks for it? Here, now, is one of those
very persons, becoming a father to his son, putting him right into
business at once.”
“Well, mother, I’ve made up my mind to one thing—I’ll try to show
myself my father’s son, and practise that which I approve of so much
in others. I’ll let Captain Rhines, Mr. Ben, Charlie, John, and the
others see that I am not deficient in gratitude. If God gives me life
and strength, the grass shan’t grow on that vessel’s bottom. I’ll make
her a happy vessel for sailors, and help every young man I can, as
father told Captain Rhines to do when he asked him how he could repay
him. And as he has helped me, whether I get any thanks for it or not,
I’ll look higher than that for my reward,—I’ll get it in doing my
duty. I’ll begin with my shipmate, little Ned Gates.”
“I am glad to hear you talk thus, Arthur. Your father’s principle was
the true one,—do right because it is right,—and from all I have
seen, it generally bears the best fruit even in this life. There was
your uncle David, just the opposite of your father; always saving
for his children; so close as to be on the edge of dishonesty, if
not actually dishonest; never had a thought or care for any one but
himself or his own, and, just as he had amassed a large property, went
into a great speculation in his old age for the sake of getting more,
when he had more than enough already risked the whole, and lost the
whole. Now, worn out, and broken down, without a house over his head,
everybody says, ‘Served him right,’ and his children all poor, while
your father’s good name and deeds have been money at interest for his
family, and the bread he cast upon the waters has come back after many
days.”
“Mother, there’s one thing I want you to do before I go to sea.”
“What is that, Arthur?”
“Just send off these boarders,—no longer make a slave of
yourself,—and take some comfort. The girls are doing well in the
store; George supports himself; I am going to have business, and
Captain Rhines has given you and the girls money; so there’s no need of
working, and wearing your life out now.”
“I couldn’t feel right, Arthur, if I were not earning something; a
thousand dollars would soon be spent, come to sit down and live upon
it; you may have hard luck at sea; the girls are doing well, to be
sure, but they have got to return the money that friends loaned them
to start with. I have put that thousand dollars in the bank, against
a rainy day; besides, I have another reason for wishing to earn
something.”
“What is it?” asked Ellen.
“I want to atone for past selfishness, and follow your father’s example
in doing what little I can to help those poorer than myself. It’s but
little I can do, to be sure, but I mean to do that little cheerfully,
and I trust ‘twill be accepted. There is the mother of poor James
Watts, who was on the raft, and died. She is poor, and bereft of all
her dependence, for he was a good boy, and gave her all his earnings,
while my child was spared, and friends raised up to help me; and I mean
to do all I can to help and comfort her. I mean to act on your father’s
principle, ‘Harriet, we were put into this world to help each other.’”
“At any rate, mother, you need not have so large a family and work so
hard; you can keep more help; you must gratify me in that.”
“Well, I will, my son.”
At this period of the conversation, the servant announced that a young
man wanted to see Arthur.
“It is Ned; tell him to come in here. Good evening, Edward; sit down
beside me; this is more comfortable than the raft.”
“Indeed it is, sir.”
“I suppose you hardly care to sail salt water any more, you’ve had such
bad luck this time.”
“O, yes, sir; old Captain Osborne tells me some people have all their
bad luck at once, and that it’s a good sign when a man falls overboard
before the vessel leaves the wharf, or is wrecked at the first going
off. He says that ship was cursed.”
“Was cursed!” said Mrs. Brown; “what did he mean by that?”
“He says, marm, that he knew that captain; that he was a cruel man to
sailors, abused and starved them (that I know to be true); that it was
thought he had murdered men. Are you going again, Mr. Brown?”
“Yes, Edward. Captain Rhines and his folks are building me a vessel; I
expect the keel is laid by this time.”
“Can I go with you, sir?”
“Yes, if your parents are willing.”
“They are willing I should go with _you_, sir.”
“It will be some months before the vessel is ready; now, you better go
to school, and get all the learning you can.”
“Yes, sir; shall I study navigation?”
“No; I’ll teach you that on board ship. Study arithmetic and
book-keeping, learn to keep accounts and write a business hand, and
study trigonometry and geography. If we live to get to sea in the ship,
we won’t starve, or abuse anybody, nor pass any wrecks, and try not to
have the vessel cursed. We know what it is, my boy, to starve, and to
be helped in distress, and will do as we have been done by.”
“Mr. Brown, don’t you think the folks at Pleasant Cove and round there
are the best folks that could be?”
“Yes, Ned.”
“But don’t you think Charlie is handsome,—the handsomest man that ever
was?”
“I think Captain Rhines is handsome.”
“Yes, sir; but Charlie Bell; is it any hurt for me to call him Charlie?
They all down there call each other so, and somehow I seem to love him
more when I don’t put the handle on.”
“No, indeed; do you love me better when you don’t put on the handle?”
“No, sir; because I have been used to calling you Mr. Brown, and it
comes natural, and I couldn’t love you any better than I do.”
“I suppose, Ned, Charlie looks handsome to you, and Captain Rhines to
me, because we had the most to do with them; but they are both really
fine-looking men. Most people would think John Rhines a finer specimen
of a man than Charlie. I have seen a great many men, but I never in
all my life saw so fine a proportioned young man as John Rhines; if he
lives, he’ll be almost as strong as Ben. Charlie is the handsomest,
John the most manly.”
“But, sir, do you know what I thought (I suppose I was wandering) after
they took us off the raft, and I kind of came to? I opened my eyes,
and Charlie was bending over the bed. I looked him right in the face;
such a beautiful face, so much goodness in it, I thought I had got to
heaven, and that an angel was hovering over me; and then, when I came
to myself, he was so kind,—fed me with a spoon, took me in his arms,
and put me in a chair, just as my mother would; and Ben Rhines, though
he ain’t handsome, he is just as good as the rest. Uncle Isaac and Fred
Williams, they are all just as good as they can be. I mean to go down
there, and stay a month at Pleasant Cove, and Elm Island. They asked me
to.”