CHAPTER IX.

TOO GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE.

Ben persuaded Joe Griffin to go home with him, stay all night, and help eat the coon. Though one of the most kind-hearted creatures that ever lived, Joe’s proclivity for practical jokes was both instinctive and inveterate. If the choice lay between making a mortal enemy for life and a good joke, he could not prevail upon himself to forego the joke. He was very shrewd withal, and would extricate himself from difficulties, and accomplish his ends by pleasantry, where others would be compelled to fight their way out, or miss of their object.

One autumn, the blacksmith, having great quantities of axes to make for the loggers, hired Joe a couple of months, as there was a great deal of striking with the sledge, and his apprentice was young and light. The smith was a very driving man, but kept his men well, and was very hospitable. He was obliged to be absent occasionally to deliver his axes. At such times his wife, who was penurious in the extreme, kept the boys very short. Joe, knowing that his master did not approve of this, resolved to put a stop to it. They worked evenings. One night the smith came home full of grit, as he had been riding and resting, and prepared to forge an axe. Placing a hot iron on the anvil, he cried, “Strike, Joe, strike.” Joe struck a few feeble blows, when exclaiming, “It’s going! it’s going! it’s all gone!” dropped his sledge on the floor, and seemed ready to faint away.

“What’s gone?” cried the smith, in a rage at having lost his heat.

“That water porridge we had for supper.”

The master then took them to the house, and gave them a hearty meal.

Once more the iron was laid upon the anvil; Joe struck tremendous blows, making the sparks fly all over the shop, crying, “It’s coming! it’s coming! it gives me strength! I feel it! I feel it!”

“What’s coming, and what do you feel?”

“That good beefsteak I had for supper.”

Joe could talk like anybody under heaven, and look like them too. He could talk more like Uncle Sam Yelf than Uncle Sam could himself. This gift, however, he used very sparingly, for he could take a joke as well as give one; felt that ’twas mean to turn the peculiarities of others into ridicule, and in a way in which they could not retaliate.

Yelf had a sort of hitch in his voice, which was very ludicrous, but, like many people who have an impediment, could sing distinctly and shout tremendously; he was also very hot in his temper. Sometimes, when they met at the store, Joe would begin to talk with him, and just like him.

The old man would fly in a passion in a moment, begin to sputter, and Joe would “take him off,” while no human being could help laughing. It was fine sport for the young folks, and the more so on account of its rarity, as it was but seldom that Joe could be persuaded to do it, and was sure to give the old man some tobacco soon after. He could also imitate the cry of any beast, wild or tame, to perfection, from a moose to a muskrat; and of birds, except the squawk; Joe said the squawks were too many for him.

This power was of great value to him in hunting. He could call a moose or muskrat within range, by imitating the notes of either.

In the evening Ben went over to the widow Hadlock’s. He was in the habit of making a bootjack of the crane; standing on one leg, and steadying himself by the mantel-piece, he put the other foot into the crotch of the crane, and pulled off his boot. Joe had often seen him do this, and laid his plans accordingly. After the family were all asleep, Joe got up, and with a crowbar pulled out the dogs that held the crane, and then put them back again in such a manner that the least touch would loosen them, and bring crane and all on to the floor. He then took a cow-bell from a cow’s neck in the barnyard, and putting some stones in an old tin pail, hung them and a bottle of sour milk on the crane, and went back to bed.

About twelve o’clock Ben came. He felt round for a candle, expecting to find it where his mother usually left it--on the mantel-piece; but Joe had taken very good care to remove both candle and matches; so, feeling for the crane, he clapped in his foot and pulled; down came the crane on to the floor. Ben went over backwards, full length on the floor, with a force that shook the whole house from garret to cellar; the cow-bell and tin pail rattled; the sour milk ran all over Ben; his mother awaked from a sound sleep, and screamed murder; and old Captain Rhines came rushing out in his night-shirt, with a pistol in each hand, blazed away at the sound, putting one bullet through the window, and the other into a milk-pan of eggs, which stood upon the dressers, while the children, roused by the frantic screams of the mother and the pistol shots, came shrieking from their beds.

“Don’t shoot any more, father,” cried Ben; “it’s me.”

“My God!” exclaimed Captain Rhines, feeling the milk, which, by hanging over the fire, had become warm, as it touched his bare feet, and mistaking it for blood; “have I shot my own son?”

“No, father,” said Ben; “it’s some of that confounded Joe Griffin’s work. I’ll fix him.” He ran up stairs to take summary vengeance. In this he was disappointed, for the moment Joe heard the crash, he slid down on a pole, which he had previously placed at the window, and ran home.

We must remember that Ben had been courting; had on his best broadcloth, purchased on the last voyage, and in which he was to be married.

Broadcloth suits in those days were limited to a very few. The minister had a coat and breeches for Sabbath; so of a few of the seafaring people and their families; but the clothing of the people in general was both manufactured and made up at home, there being no such thing as a tailor.

Here, then, was Ben’s best suit, made in Liverpool by a professional tailor, soaked with sour milk, and covered with ashes; his light buff waistcoat all over smut, from the pot, crane, hooks, and trammels, that fell over him. Thus, though Ben’s temper was not easily roused, and soon subsided, he was now thoroughly mad, and, had he caught Joe, would probably have crippled him for life. Perhaps some such thought crossed his mind, as he said to his father on coming down, “He’s gone, and I’m glad of it; but I’ll be even with him before snow flies.”

Aunt Molly Bradish’s declaration that Ben Rhines had helped everybody that needed help, and that she should think somebody might give him a lift, was not lost. Seth Warren happened to be in there, and heard the old lady’s remarks. Seth was a kind-hearted, jovial fellow, who had been many a time with Ben on his errands of mercy, and loved any kind doings. He went directly to the store, where, as he expected, he found, as it was Saturday night, a good portion of the young men of the place assembled. He took them aside, and said, “You know what a good fellow Ben Rhines is; how he has always been getting up ‘bees’ to help everybody that was behindhand: now, what say for going on to the island next week, the whole crew of us, and giving him a lift with his house?”

Seth’s proposition was received with acclamations. “Now, boys,” he continued, “you know how such things always leak out, and that spoils the whole. Now, don’t say a word about it to neither sister, mother, or sweetheart, till they have gone back to the island Monday morning, and then we can talk as much as we please, and they cannot possibly get wind of it.”

This was solemnly assented to.

“I,” said Seth, “will go over and sleep with Joe Griffin Sunday night, and, without letting him suspect anything, find out how far they’ve got along with their work, that we may know when our help will be most needed.” This he did, when Joe told him what he did the night before at Captain Rhines’s.

“What do you suppose Ben’ll do to you? He’ll murder you after he gets you on to the island. I shouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“Poh! he won’t, neither; he’s like a bottle of beer, soon up and soon over. I think it is like enough he’ll throw me overboard; if he does, I don’t care; I’d be willing to be ducked twenty times for the sake of the fun I had that night, and for the better fun I shall have thinking about it and telling of it.”

The next morning Seth accompanied Joe to the shore; but no sooner was the gundelow fairly off, than getting on the horse with Hannah Murch, who had come to bring her husband, he let out the whole matter to her. Hannah, by no means backward in the good work, told everybody she met on the road, and went to the school-house and told the mistress.

The result of this was, that thirty-five young men agreed to go,--among whom were ten ship-carpenters from Massachusetts, who were there cutting ship timber, with their master workman, Ephraim Hunt; also, Sam Atkins, from Newburyport, who was at home on a visit.

The girls, under the direction of Hannah Murch, were to cook and furnish the provisions, while John Strout engaged to set them on in his fishing schooner, the Perseverance, an Essex pink-stern, of sixty tons.