CHAPTER III.

JOHN GOES TO SEE THE NEW BOY.

One of old Mr. Yelf’s grandsons was going as cook with John Strout; and in the morning, when John came alongside his vessel, after his return from Elm Island with the net and fish, he found the old gentleman on board, who had come to bring his grandson. He told the old man the story as it really was, but he was quite hard of hearing, and John was in a hurry, and could not stop to repeat and explain, and thus he obtained a very confused and incorrect account of it. John made sail and went out fishing, and the old gentleman hastened ashore to give a most exaggerated account,--to which, every one adding a little as it went from mouth to mouth, it at length assumed monstrous proportions.

Captain Rhines was as anxious to get accurate information as anybody, but felt no alarm, because all the reports agreed in this, that the pirates had the worst of it, and that neither Ben nor Sally was injured. He could not leave to go on, as he had stripped the shingles from the roof of his house, and was trying to get it re-shingled before a storm should come. John had heard about the new boy, and that John Strout was very much pleased with him, and he was very anxious to get on there and see him, for he had a presentiment that they were made for each other, and was prepared to like him, even before seeing him.

Captain Rhines, at length worn out with the solicitations of John, which were aided by his own desire to know the truth of the matter, went over to Uncle Isaac’s, and said to him, “I wish you would take John and my canoe, and go over to the island (for I can’t go), and see how many Ben’s killed, or if he’s killed anybody; and about that boy, or if there is any boy. John is teasing me to death about it, and he won’t be able to do any work till that is settled; for he’s thinking so much about it, he can’t drive a nail into a shingle without pounding his fingers.”

“Well, I should like to know myself as much as anybody; I’ll be along right after dinner.”

“I’m going to put some squashes and potatoes in the canoe, for he hasn’t planted a hill of anything this year; I don’t see how people can live so. I should think, when he has such a nice place for a garden under the ledge, he would have a few peas and potatoes.”

“Ben believes in doing one thing at a time; and a mast that he can cut in an hour will buy as much garden stuff as he would raise in a whole summer. He won’t dabble with farming till the island is his, and then you’ll see some of the tallest kind of farming, or I’ll miss my guess.”

All the way to the island John was remarkably silent, apparently engaged in deep thought. At length he said, “Uncle Isaac, is it right to like an Englishmun?”

“Bless me! yes; what is the boy thinking about?”

“We’ve just done fighting and killing the Englishmun, and they’ve been killing our people, and wanted to hang General Washington, and I didn’t know as it would be right to like ’em; and they say this boy is an Englishmun.”

“It isn’t the nation, John, it’s the character, that makes a person good or bad; your grandfather and mine were both Englishmun; so you need not be afraid to like him on that account.”

When they landed Ben was eating supper. “You’ve come in good time,” he said; “sit down with us.”

The moment supper was over, Uncle Isaac said, “Now, I want to hear all about the pirates, for there are all sorts of stories going; it’s all come through Uncle Yelf, and he has drunk so much rum that he’s lost what little wit he ever had; and he never had brains enough to cover a beech leaf, and is deaf to boot.”

They told him the story from beginning to end.

“It was a good thing for me, at any rate,” said Ben, in conclusion; “for they left a new cable and anchor on the beach, and a first-rate little boy behind them.”

“It’s amazing how things will gain by going,” said Uncle Isaac. “We heard that there was a dozen pirates landed, and that one of them got Sally by the hair, pulled her down on her knees, and was going to cut her head off with his cutlass, when you come running in from the woods, and broke his neck short off over your knee, smashed another one’s brains out against the jambs, and threw the grindstone at another and killed him; the rest run to the vessel, but before they could get the anchor you was on board; then they run below, and you fastened them in; that there was a woman and a little boy in the vessel, that they had prisoners; and that they fired at you and missed, and the bullet went into her side; and that then you took the boy, and fastened them all into the cuddy, and brought the ones you had killed ashore, and set fire to the vessel, and burnt them all up together; and a great many believed it, because they saw a fire on here; but your father said he didn’t believe a word of it, for you wasn’t such a fool as to burn up a vessel; and if the men were armed they could have shot you.”

“I was burning some brush that was in my way,” said Ben; “that was the fire they saw.”

“So this is the boy,” said Uncle Isaac, turning to Charlie; “well, I wish you well; I hear that you are a good boy, and industrious, and those are great things. I was a poor boy at your age, and had nothing but my hands, as you have; but, by God’s blessing, I have got along, and so will you, and be happy and respected, for you’ve come to a good country, a better one for laboring people than the one you have left. Poor men get rich here, but poor people grow poorer there, and sometimes starve to death, which is awful in a place that pretends to be a Christian country; but you see there’s too many sheep in the pasture--they are too thick; it ain’t so here--there’s room enough.”

In the mean time the two boys stood--the one beside Sally’s chair, and the other by Ben’s--eying one another, and each longing to hear the other speak. John thought he had never seen a finer looking boy than Charlie, and Charlie was internally paying the same compliment to John.

“Uncle Isaac,” whispered Sally, “how shall we get these boys together? shall I introduce them?”

“Nonsense; I’ll soon fix that. Ben, have you got a bushel basket?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let this youngster--What’s your first name, my lad?”

“Charles, sir.”

“Well, let Charles go down with John to the canoe, and fetch up some things your father sent over. That’s the way,” said Uncle Isaac; “they don’t want any of our help; they will take care of themselves.”

The two boys took the basket, and proceeded to the canoe. John, feeling that as he was a native, and Charles a stranger, it was his duty to speak first, by way of breaking the silence, which was getting to be oppressive, said, “How old be you?”

“Fifteen,” was the reply.

“I’m fourteen,” said John; “shall be fifteen in July.”

“I shall be sixteen next Michaelmas.”

“What do you mean by Michaelmas, Charles?”

“Why, St. Michael’s Day, the 29th of September.”

“Well, what does it mean?”

“I don’t know. All I know is, that in England everybody that can get it eats a goose that day, and if you do you’ll have enough all the year round. Do you know how to row?”

“Yes; I can row cross-handed, and scull. Can you scull a gunning float?”

“I never saw one; what are they for?”

“They are made like a canoe, only smaller and lighter; and there’s a scull-hole in the stern, just above the water, to put the oar through; and then we lie down on our backs in the bottom, and take the oar over our shoulder, and scull up to the sea-fowl, and shoot them. Don’t they go gunning in your country?”

“The great folks do; but the poor folks and common people are not allowed to.”

“That’s a queer country; I wouldn’t like to live in such a country as that. Do you know how to shoot?”

“No; I never fired a gun in my life; you couldn’t shoot a sparrow--I was going to say a ‘bumble-bee’--in England, without being taken up.”

“What did you do?”

“I made baskets. Can you wrestle?”

“Yes. Wouldn’t you like to learn to shoot?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll show you some time what I know. Do you know how to mow or reap?”

“No.”

“Nor chop?”

“No. I’ve got a plenty to learn--haven’t I?”

“I should think you had.”

They were a long time getting up the things; but when they were all up, Charles said to his mother, “Can John and I go over to the White Bull?”

“Yes; and when it is time to come back I’ll blow the horn for you.”

They had taken supper early; and as Uncle Isaac said he had as “lieves” go over in the evening as at any time, it being bright starlight, she did not blow the horn till dark.

“Look there,” said Sally, pointing to the shore, soon after she had blown the horn. The boys were returning with their arms over each other’s neck.

“I’m so glad they take to one another,” said she. “John thinks it’s the greatest happiness of life to come over here; we are as glad to see him as he is to come; and, if he likes Charlie, he’ll want to come more than ever; won’t they have good times!”

“Uncle Isaac,” said John, as they were rowing home, “don’t you love to be out on the water in the night among the stars?”

“Yes, I do, John; and I like to go along the edge of thick woods, when there’s a bright moon, and watch the shadow on the water. But I think the best of all is, to go in a birch,--they don’t make any noise, and there’s no splashing of oars; but they go along just like a bird, and they float in so little water that you can go along the very edge of the beach, and listen to the noise of the water on the rocks, and the little breath of wind among the trees. I think I have the best thoughts then I ever have; I feel solemn, but I feel happy, too. I think sometimes, if ministers could be in some of the places, and have some of the feelings we ignorant people have, and we could have some of their learning to go with our feelings, it would be better for both. I am not a good man; but I have often kneeled down in the woods, in the moonlight, hundreds of miles from any house, in the trackless forest, and prayed to God, and it has done me good.”

“Uncle Isaac, I love to hear you talk about such things.”

“It is talk that won’t do either of us any harm, John; and I trust you are not a prayerless, as I know you are not a thoughtless, boy.”

“I say the Lord’s prayer, as my mother taught me. Uncle Isaac, are you in any hurry to get home?”

“No; I don’t care if we don’t get home till midnight.”

“Then let us talk; it’s calm; let her drift; I want to tell you what I think. I think Charles and I were made for each other; it seems so to me, and I can’t make it seem any other way. Don’t you like him?”

“Why, I haven’t seen enough of him to know yet; I never set eyes on him till about three hours ago. They say a person is known by the company he keeps, and he certainly came in very bad company.”

“You say that just to plague me; you don’t believe in your heart that he went with those men because he liked them, or that he is a bad boy.”

“I like his appearance, and I think he’ll turn out to be a good boy. He has, no doubt, been obliged to take up with company that was not his own choice, for misery makes strange bedfellows.”

“_Turn out to be a good boy!_ He’s a good boy _now_! I know he is; he’s good clear through!”

“Well, time will show.”

John, finding it impossible to inspire Uncle Isaac with his own enthusiastic confidence, let the matter drop, and for a while they rowed on in silence. At length John said, “I tell you what makes me think that boy is a good friend for me; he knows a great many things that I don’t know, and I know a great many things that he don’t. I know he’s tender-hearted.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked him if he had any mother, and he almost cried when he told me she was dead. Now, when a boy loves his mother, isn’t it a good sign?”

“The best sign in the world, John.”

“And then the way he talked about her, and about good things. I don’t know as he’s a religious boy,--what mother calls pious,--but I know he’s a good boy; you know anybody can tell.”

“Well, John, I guess you’re right; you have found out more about him in one hour than I could in six months.”

“Well, we’re bound to be thick together, I know that.”