CHAPTER VII.

NOBLE CONDUCT OF BERTIE.

The next day proved rainy, but Mrs. Whitman perceived that—notwithstanding the lack of enthusiasm manifested by her husband the evening before,—though there was much work under cover that was quite necessary to be done, he did not set James about it; but told Bertie that he and James might take the day to study, after doing the chores, and, taking Peter, went to the barn to thresh beans.

“Father, can I teach James to write, too?”

“You have no writing-book.”

“I have one I didn’t quite finish last winter, and so has Maria.”

“There’s not a quill in the house, and but one pen that has been mended till there’s not much of it left, and I can’t spare that.”

“We can pull some out of the old gander.”

“They will be too soft.”

“Mother says she can bake ‘em in the oven.”

“Well, fix it to suit yourselves.”

One obstacle surmounted, another arose.

“Mother, I can’t find my plummet, and there’s not a mite of lead in the house; what shall I do to rule the writing-book?”

“Ask grandfather to give you a bullet; he’s never without bullets.”

When grandfather was appealed to, he said, “I have but one, Bertie; and that’s in my rifle. I loaded her for an owl that’s been round trying to kill a goose, but I will lend it to you to rule your book.”

He took down the rifle into which Bertie had seen him drive the bullet, wrapped in a greased patch. “Grandpa, you never can get it out.”

“Go up stairs and get a bag of wool that is right at the head of the stairs.”

When Bertie brought the wool, grandfather made a circle on the bag with a smut coal, and a cross in the middle of it.

“Now, Bertie, take that bag out of doors and set it up where I tell you. I’m going to put a bullet into the middle of that cross.”

After placing the bag at the distance pointed out, he said, “Where shall I stand, grandpa?”

“Wherever you like, ‘cept betwixt me and that cross.”

“Why, grandfather, what are you thinking of? Come right into the house, Bertie,” cried Mrs. Whitman, “your grandfather’s going to shoot.”

“What if I am,” replied the old man testily, “I’m not going to shoot all over the country. His father would hold the bag in his hand, as he has done smaller things, a hundred times.”

“I know it, grandpa; but you must remember that you are an old man now, and of course can’t see as well as you could once, and your hand cannot be so steady.”

“I can see well enough to thread your needle when you can’t, and well enough to hit a squirrel’s eye within thirty yards.”

The old gentleman fired, the bag fell over and Bertie cried,—

“There’s a hole right in the middle of the cross, as you said, grandpa.”

“Indeed! I wonder at that. Wonder the bullet hadn’t gone up into the air, or into the ground, or killed your father or Peter in the barn, or into the pasture and killed one of the horses,” replied he, entirely unable to digest the suspicion that his powers were waning, implied in the caution of Mrs. Whitman to Bertie.

The bullet was found in the wool, having penetrated a few inches. After hammering the bullet into the shape of a plummet on the andiron, he gave it to Bertie, saying,—

“When you are done with it give it back to me, and I will run it into a bullet again, for I want to kill that owl. It’s all I’m fit for now; to kill vermin, some people think. I expect I’m in the way.”

Mrs. Whitman never noticed any little testiness that occasionally clouded the spirit of the genial sunny-tempered old gentleman, who, though he would sometimes say that he was growing old, could seldom without disturbance brook the remark or even suspicion, from another.

He had been celebrated for strength and activity, and with the exception of a stiffness in his legs, the result of toils and exposures in early life, was still strong. It was surprising to see what a pile of wood he would cut in an hour. He used no glasses, had every tooth he ever possessed, his mind was clear, his judgment good, his health firm, and his disposition such as made every one happy around him. Any labor that admitted of standing still or moving slowly he could still perform; could reap, hoe, chop wood, took entire charge of the garden, and could work at a bench with tools, and nothing seemed to disturb the serenity of his mind, save the suspicion that he was superannuated. No one could equal him in putting an edge on a scythe, and he ground all the scythes in haying time, the grindstone being placed under the old chestnut, and fitted with a seat for his convenience.

Alice Whitman soon restored the old gentleman’s good humor by showing him the pattern of a new spread for his bed that she was then drawing in the loom to weave; she then wheeled his great chair to the fire, flung on some cobs to make a cheerful blaze, and grandfather, restored to his composure, began to chat and tell of the birch-bark writing-books they had in his school days.

Thus did Bradford Whitman and his wife unite in smoothing the declivity of age to one who had fought and won life’s battle; made many blades of grass to grow where there were none before; reared a large family in habits of industry and virtue; had fought with the savage in defence of his own hearthstone; bore the scars of wounds received in the service of his country, and having made his peace with God, resembled an old ship just returned from a long and tempestuous voyage—her sails thread-bare, her rigging chafed and stranded, her bulwarks streaked with iron-rust—riding quietly at anchor in the outer harbor, waiting for the tug to tow her to the pierhead.

The example of the parents infected the children, and they vied with one another in attention to their grandfather and in obedience and affection to their parents. Thus were Jonathan Whitman and his wife reaping as they had sown, and daily receiving the blessing promised to filial obedience.

Provided at last with quill and writing-book and plummet, the boys spent the entire day in alternate exercises of teaching and learning the letters of the alphabet, and to make straight marks.

When the boys had gone to bed, Mr. Whitman and his wife were looking at the writing and the latter said,—

“The last of James’ straight marks are a good deal better than the copy Bertie set for him.”

The old gentleman, after looking at it, said, “That boy will make a good penman. You can see that he improves, as he goes on; his marks are square and clean cut at top and bottom. I think, for a boy that never had a pen in his hand before, he has done remarkably well.”

“Husband, what are you going to set James about to-morrow?”

“Driving horses to plough. Why?”

“We want some wood cut; and I don’t think your father ought to cut so much as he does. The weather is getting cooler, and we burn a good deal more, but I am afraid it will hurt his feelings if anybody else cuts wood for the fire, as he considers that his work.”

“I can arrange that. I’ll tell him in the morning that I want James to learn to handle an axe; that he undertook at Hanscom’s tavern to cut some wood and stuck the whole bitt of the axe in his leg the second clip, and ask him if he won’t grind an axe for him and take him to the wood-pile with him, and teach him, and see that he does not cut himself.”

The old gentleman was well pleased with the idea of teaching James an art in which he was so competent to instruct, not in the least suspecting that it was thought he could not supply the fire without doing more than he was able.

No sooner was breakfast despatched than, having ground an axe, he proceeded with James to the wood-pile.

The old gentleman set his chopping-block on end near a pile of oak and maple limbs cut eight feet in length, and said to his pupil,—

“Now, Jeames (he held on to the old pronunciation) I’ll hold these sticks on the block and I want you to strike just there,” pointing with his finger, “where they bear on the log, because if you don’t, you’ll jar my hands.”

Not, however, reposing much confidence in his assistant, he had taken the precaution to put on a very thick patched mitten to deaden the jar.

James began to strike, the blows were forcible but most of them misspent. Whenever he struck fair on a stick he cut it off as though it had been a rush. But many times he struck over, and as many more fell short, so that only the corner of the axe hit the stick, and sometimes missed it altogether and drove the axe into the block with such force that it was hard work to pull it out.

It was by no means the old chopper’s purpose to find fault, he praised the vigor with which James struck and protected his own fingers from the jar of the random blows as well as he could. In the course of an hour James improved very sensibly; perceiving this, Mr. Whitman began to point out some of his errors and said: “You must look at the place where you mean to hit and not at your axe, and you must let your left hand slip up and down on the axe-handle and guide your axe a good deal with your right hand, whereas you keep a fast grip with both hands on the axe-handle, just as a woman does when she undertakes to cut wood.”

James blushed and replied,—

“If I should do that way I don’t think I could strike as fair as I do now.”

“You won’t at first, but after a while you will. You may cut off small limbs on a block in your fashion, but you could not work to any purpose in cutting large wood on the ground. I’ll cut a while and you may hold on, and you’ll see how I cut.”

The blows of the senior were delivered with the precision of a machine.

James took the axe again, and though, at first, he seemed to retrograde, it was not long before he became accustomed to the new method. The old gentleman now began to put on the block sticks that were so large that it required two or three blows to sever them when the blows were delivered with precision, but it required seven or eight of James’. For instance, if it was a stick that might be cut at two blows, he would deliver one and cut it half off, and then, instead of striking in the same scarf and severing it he would strike a little on one side or the other and the blow went for nothing. He now saw that it was necessary to strike fair, for by striking once in a place he could never cut a stick of any size off, and feeling that when he did strike into the same place it was more by chance than skill, began to be somewhat discouraged.

The senior noticed this and said,—

“Let me cut a spell, you are tired and will strike better after resting a while.”

James could not but admire the precision and ease with which he lopped the sticks, so true were the blows that when he took and looked at the ends they seemed to have been cut at one blow, whereas the ends of his sticks looked like a pair of stairs and the bark was in shreds.

When at the expiration of an hour the old gentleman gave him the axe, and he saw what a pile of wood the former had cut, James could not help saying,—

“I don’t believe I shall ever strike true.”

“Indeed you will; it’s all in practice. You mustn’t be discouraged if you should find that little Bertie can strike truer than you can now, for the boys here begin to chop as soon as they can lift an axe, whereas it is a new thing to you.”

The next morning his instructor set James to cutting large logs, showed him how to cut his scarfs and told him to strike slow, and as fair as possible, for every miss clip was so much time and strength laid out for nothing, and thinking it would only discourage James if he should go to cutting logs with him, employed himself in splitting.

It was now an entirely different thing with James. He was stiff and sore, but after he got warmed up, he found that he could strike a great deal better. The old gentleman praised his work and told him he had a mechanical eye and he knew it by his writing, and with practice he would handle any kind of a tool.

The hands of James were now blistered, and Mr. Whitman, who had a large breadth of ground to plough for spring wheat, made out two teams,—Bertie driving John and Charlie for Peter, and James driving Frank and Dick for him.

James proved an excellent driver, and Mr. Whitman was so much gratified, that at night he said to his wife,—

“I believe, after all, that boy is going to make most excellent help, he handles horses as well as anybody, young or old, that I ever had on the place.”

“He has a great memory, and if he learns other things as fast as he learns to read and write, you’ll never regret that you took him.”

“James,” said Mr. Whitman, as they were at work together the next day, “did you ever hold plough?”

“I never was anything but a ploughboy. In England the ploughman does nothing but plough, and in many places drives and holds both, but I have held plough a few hours, and sometimes half a day, when the ploughman was sick or away.”

“Well, take hold of the handles.”

Mr. Whitman took the reins, and James held so well, that his master kept him at it till noon. Peter and Bertie were ploughing in the same field, and they could not help going into the house for a drink, and telling their grandfather that James was holding plough, and their father driving the horses.

While matters were thus pleasantly going on among the Whitmans, the most contradictory stories were circulated in the neighborhood in respect to James.

Those who obtained their information from the landlord of the public-house where Wilson put up, having James with him, averred that Jonathan Whitman had got awfully cheated in a redemptioner; that he was lame and underwitted; a great scrawny, loutish boy, and no life in him, and had such a down look that many people reckoned he might be a thief, most likely he was, for Wilson got him out of a parish workhouse.

Others were of opinion that the next time Wilson came that way he should be treated to a coat of tar and feathers for putting such a creature on to so good a man as Mr. Jonathan Whitman; still others said there could be no doubt of it, for Blaisdell, Mr. Wood’s redemptioner, who came over in the same vessel, said he thought he was underwitted or crazy, for he never heard him speak, nor saw him talk with any of the passengers.

While this talk was going on in the bar-room, a shoemaker came in, who said that Lunt the miller told him that the week before the redemptioner was at his mill with Whitman’s youngest boy, and he never saw a man handle a span of horses or bags of wheat better, and that he would pitch a barrel of flour into a wagon as easily as a cat would lick her ear.

James Stone the peddler then said that the last time he was there, the redemptioner was sitting in the sun on the wood-pile, while Whitman and Peter were threshing in the barn with all their might, and the redemptioner had been there a week then.

At that moment a drover, a joking, good-natured fellow, came into the bar-room and said he was over in Whitman’s neighborhood that very forenoon, and when he went by there about eleven o’clock, the redemptioner was holding plough, and Whitman was driving, and the horses were stepping mighty quick too.

This occasioned a great laugh, and the subject was dropped. The verdict, however, remained unfavorable to James, as Eustis the shoemaker was not considered very reliable, and Sam Dorset the drover was so given to joking, that though a truthful man, everyone supposed he then spoke in jest.

James now went again to the wood-pile with the old gentleman, and chopped for four days in succession, the former cutting till he was tired, and then going into the house or piling up the wood.

The weather was fast growing cooler, and it was the custom of Mr. Whitman to cut and haul a large quantity of wood to last over the wet weather in the fall and till snow came. He also wished to haul wheat to the mill himself, and wanted Peter to go with him, going two turns in a day. He therefore asked his father if he felt able to go into the woods with James and Bertie, and show James how to fell a tree, and see that he didn’t fell one on himself or Bertie.

The old gentleman said he could go as well as not, that he could ride back and forth in the cart, chop as much as he liked, and then make up a fire, and sit by it, and see to them, and he thought it would do him good to be in the woods.

The old gentleman selected a tree and cut it down, while James who had never seen a tree cut down in his life, looked on; he then selected another and told him to chop into it. James did so, though he found it a little more difficult to strike fair into the side of a tree, than into a log lying on the ground. When it was more than half off his instructor told him where to cut on the other side.

James walked round the tree and stood by the lower side of his scarf, and was about to strike.

“You mustn’t stand there; turn round and put your left shoulder to the tree, and your left hand on the lower end of the axe-handle, now strike.”

“I can’t cut so, it don’t come right, I ain’t lefthanded.”

“That indeed! but all good choppers, when they fell a tree, learn to chop either hand forward; you must put your right hand forward.”

“I couldn’t guide the axe with my right hand forward; I never could cut a tree down in that way. I should only hack it off.”

“Well, hack it then, you must creep afore you can walk, it comes just as unhandy to everybody at first.”

He then took James to a ravine, the sides of which were quite perpendicular and the edges covered with large trees, and said,—

“Now, suppose you wanted to cut one of those trees, you couldn’t stand on the lower side to cut, but must either cut them off all on one side, or chop right hand forward. Besides, there is often another tree in the way and you would have to cut both, to cut one.”