CHAPTER XXI.

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.”