Lion Ben of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

  CHAPTER II.

  THE RHINES FAMILY.

  In order that you may know all about them, we will resume the thread ofour story, and trace the history of Captain Rhines and his family.

  The captain was a strong-built, finely proportioned, “hard-a-weather”sailor, not a great deal the worse for wear, and seasoned by the sunsand frosts of many climates. In early life he had experienced thebitter struggle with poverty.

  His father came into the country when it was a wilderness, with nothingbut a narrow axe, and strength to use it. His first crops being cutoff by the frosts, they were compelled to live for months upon clams,and the leaves of beech trees boiled. There were no schools; and theparents, engaged in a desperate struggle for existence with famineand the Indians, were unable to instruct their children. Fishingvessels from Marblehead often anchored in the cove near the log camp,and little Ben, anxious to earn somewhat to aid his parents in theirpoverty, went as cook in one of these vessels when so small that someone had to hang on the pot for him. He was thus engaged for severalsummers, till big enough to go as boy in a coaster. During the winters,arrayed in buckskin breeches, Indian moccasons, and a coon-skin cap,he helped his father make staves, and hauled them to the landing on ahand-sled.

  At nineteen years of age he went to Salem, and shipped in a brig boundto Havana, to load with sugar for Europe. He was then a tall, handsome,resolute boy as ever the sun shone upon, without a single vicioushabit; for his parents, though poor, were religious, and had broughthim up to hard work and the fear of God.

  He was passionately fond of a gun and dogs, and what little leisure heever had was spent in hunting and fowling. As respected his fitness forhis position, he could “steer a good trick,” had learned what littleseamanship was to be obtained on board a fisherman and coaster, but hecould not read, or even write his name.

  The mate of the vessel conceived a liking for him the moment hecame over the ship’s side, and this good opinion increased uponacquaintance. They had been but a fortnight at sea, when he said to thecaptain, “That long-legged boy, who shipped for a green hand, willbe as good a man as we have on board before we get into the EnglishChannel; he will reeve studding-sail gear, already, quicker than anyordinary seaman. I liked the cut of his jib the moment I clapped eyeson him. If that boy lives he’ll be master of a ship before many years.”

  “I hardly see how that can be,” replied the captain, “for he can’twrite his own name.”

  “Can’t write his own name! Why, that is impossible.”

  “At any rate he made his mark on the ship’s articles, and he is theonly one of the crew who did.”

  “Well,” replied the mate, “I can’t see through it; but he’s in mywatch, and I’ll know more about it before twenty-four hours.”

  That night the mate went forward where Ben was keeping the lookout.

  “Ben!”

  “Ay, ay, sir.”

  “Where do you hail from?”

  “Way down in the woods in Maine, Mr. Brown.”

  “What was you about there?”

  “Fishing and coasting summers, and working in the woods in the winter.”

  “Why didn’t you ship, then, for an ordinary seaman, and get morewages?”

  “Because, sir, I was never in a square-rigged vessel before, and Ididn’t want to ship to do what I might not be able to perform.”

  “I see you made your ‘mark’ on the brig’s articles. Were you never atschool?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no such thing where I came from.”

  “Couldn’t your parents read and write?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then why didn’t they learn you themselves?”

  “There were a good many of us, sir, and they were so put to it to raiseenough to live on, and fight the Indians, they had no time for it.”

  The mate was a noble-hearted man; all his sympathies were touched atseeing so fine a young man prevented from rising by an ignorance thatwas no fault of his own. He took two or three turns across the deck,and at length said,--

  “I tell you what it is, youngster: I’ll say this much before your faceor behind your back: you’re just the best behaved boy, the quickest tolearn your duty, and the most willing to do it, that I ever saw, andI’ve been following the sea for nearly thirty years; and before I’llsee an American boy like you kept down by ignorance, I’ll do as I’d bedone by--turn schoolmaster, and teach you myself.”

  Mr. Brown was as good as his word. While the rest of the crew in theirforenoon watch below were mending their clothes, telling long yarns,or playing cards, and when in port drinking and frolicking, Ben waslearning to read and write, and putting his whole soul into it. Hestuck to the vessel, and Mr. Brown stuck to him. When he shipped thenext voyage as able seaman, he wrote his name in good fair hand.

  They went to Charleston, South Carolina, to load with pitch, rice, anddeer-skins, for Liverpool. The vessel was a long time completing hercargo, as it had to be picked up from the plantations. Ben improved thetime to learn navigation. From Liverpool they went to Barbadoes. Whilelying there, the captain of the ship James Welch, of Boston, namedafter the principal owner, died. The mate taking charge of the ship,Ben, by Mr. Brown’s recommendation, obtained the first mate’s berth. Hewas now no longer Ben, but Mr. Rhines, and finally becoming master ofthe ship, continued in the employ of Mr. Welch as long as he followedthe sea. He then married, built a house on the site of the old logcamp, and surrounded it with fruit and shade trees, for, by travel andobservation, he had acquired ideas of taste, beauty, and comfort, quitein advance of the times, or his neighbors. He then took his parentshome to live with him, and made their last days happy.

  Although he was compelled by necessity thus early to go to sea, he hada strong attachment to the soil, and would have devoted himself to itscultivation in middle life, had he not met with losses, which so muchembarrassed him, that he was compelled to continue at sea to extricatehimself.

  Captain Rhines’s fine house, nice furniture, and curiosities which hebrought home from time to time, excited no heart-burnings among hisneighbors, because they knew he had earned them by hard work, and didnot think himself better than others on account of that.

  Thus, when he became embarrassed, instead of saying, “Good enough forhim,” “He will have to leave off some of his quarter-deck airs now,”everybody felt sorry for him, and told him so.

  Indeed, everything about the Rhines family was pleasant, and excitedcheerful emotions. The old house itself had a most comfortable, cosylook, as it lay in the very eye of the sun, with an orchard before it,green fields stretching along the water, sheltered on the north-west byhigh land and forest. The shores were fringed with thickets of beechand birch, branches of which, at high tide, almost touched the surfaceof the water.

  Some houses are high and thin, resembling a sheet of gingerbread seton edge; they impress you with a painful feeling of insecurity, asthough they might blow over. Such houses generally have all the windowsabreast, so that when the curtains are up, and the blinds open, youcan look right through them. They seem cold, cheerless, repellent; youshrug your shoulders and shiver as you look at them. But _this_ housewas large on the ground, and looked as if it grew there, with an elland long shed running to the barn, a sunny door-yard, a spreading beechbefore the end door, with a great wood-pile under it, suggestive ofrousing fires.

  There was a row of Lombardy poplars in front of the house, and alarge rock maple at the corner of the barn-yard, which the childrenalways tapped in the spring to get sap to drink and make sap coffee.There was a real hospitable look about the old homestead; it seemedto say, “There’s pork in the cellar, there’s corn in the crib, hay inthe barn, and a good fire on the hearth: walk in, neighbor, and makeyourself at home.”

  But the popularity of Captain Rhines among his neighbors had a deeperroot than this. A great many of the young men in the neighborhood hadbeen their first voyage to sea with him; he had treated
them in such amanner, had taken so much pains to advance them in their profession,that they respected and loved him ever after.

  When it was known in the neighborhood that Captain Rhines was going tosea, the question was not, how he should _get_ men, but how he shouldget _rid_ of them, there were so many eager for the berth.

  It would have done your heart good to have seen the happy faces of themen grouped together on that ship’s forecastle, waiting, like houndsstraining in the leash, for the order to man the windlass; not an oldbroken-down shellback among them, but all the neighbors’ boys, in theirred shirts, and duck trousers white as the driven snow, which theirmothers had washed.

  As each one of them had a character to sustain, was anxious to outdohis shipmate, and the greater portion of them were in love with someneighbor’s daughter, and expected to be married as soon as they weremaster of a ship, it is evident there was very little to do in the wayof discipline. It was a jolly sight, when there came a gale of wind,to see them scamper up the rigging, racing with each other for the“weather-earing.”

  Captain Rhines, though a large and powerfully built man, was a pygmyto his son Ben. Ben measured, crooks and all, six feet two inches inheight, weighing two hundred and thirty pounds. He was possessed ofstrength in proportion to his size, and, what was more remarkable, wasas spry as an eel, and could jump out of a hogshead without touchinghis hands to it. His neighbors called him “Lion Ben.” He obtained theappellation from this circumstance.

  One day when the inhabitants of the district were at work on the roads,they dug out a large rock. Ben, then nineteen years of age, took it up,carried it out of the road, dropped it, and said it might stay theretill they raised another man in town strong enough to take it back.

  He was now twenty-six years of age, of excellent capacity, and goodeducation for the times, his father having sent him to Massachusettsto school. It was very difficult to provoke him; but when, after longprovocation, he became enraged, his temper broke out in an instant,and he knew no measure in his wrath. His townsmen loved him, becausehe used his strength to protect the weak, and were at the same timeexcessively proud of him, as in all the neighboring towns there was nota man that could throw him, or that even dared to take hold of him.

  He had a large chair made on purpose for him to sit in, and tools forhim to work with; and if anybody lent a crowbar to Captain Rhines,they always said, “Don’t let Ben use it,” as in that case it was sureto come home bent double, and had to be sent to the blacksmith’s to bestraightened.

  He was passionately fond of gunning, and would risk life and limb toshoot a goose or sea-duck. Though he had followed the sea since he wasseventeen years of age, yet he was greatly attached to the soil, andwhen at home loved to work on it. It was a curious sight to see thisgreat giant weeding the garden, or at work upon his sister’s flower-bed.

  He was a generous-hearted creature; when anybody was sick or poor hewould get all the young folks together, make a bee, get in their corn,do their planting, or cut their winter’s wood for them. He had oftendone this for the widow Hadlock, who was their nearest neighbor.The widow Hadlock’s husband, a very enterprising sea captain, haddied at sea, in the prime of life, leaving his widow with a youngfamily, a farm, a fine house well furnished, but nothing more. Thebroken-hearted woman had struggled very hard to keep the homestead forher children, and the whole family together. Being a woman of greatprudence, industry, and judgment, with the help of good neighbors, shehad succeeded. Her oldest son was now able to manage the farm, and thebitterness of the struggle was past.

  The tax-gatherer came to the widow for the taxes.

  “Why, Mr. Jones,” said the widow, “you tax me altogether too much; Ihave not so much property.”

  “O, Mrs. Hadlock,” said he, “we tax you for your faculty.”

  Notwithstanding all the sterling qualities we have enumerated, thepersonal appearance of Ben Rhines was anything but an exponent of hischaracter. There was such an enormous enlargement of the muscles ofthe shoulders, and his neck was so short, that his head seemed to comeout of the middle of his breast. The great length of his arms wasexaggerated by the stoop in his shoulders: though his legs and hipswere large, yet the tremendous development of the upper part of thebody gave him the appearance of being top-heavy.

  From such a square-jawed fellow you would naturally expect to proceed adeep bass voice; but from this monstrous bulk came a soft, child-likevoice, such as we sometimes hear from very fat people; and unlesshe was greatly excited, the words were slowly drawled: the entireimpression made by him upon a stranger was that of a great, listless,inoffensive man, without penetration to perceive, or courage to resist,imposition.

  But never was the proverb, “Appearances are deceitful,” more strikinglyverified than in this instance. That listless exterior, and almostinfantile voice, concealed a mind clear and well informed, and atemper, that when goaded beyond the limits of forbearance, broke outlike the eruption of a volcano.

  In his position as mate of a vessel it became his duty to control menof all nations. Being well aware that his appearance was calculated toinvite aggression, he took singular methods to escape it. He knew thathis temper, when it reached a certain point, was beyond his control.He also knew his strength; and as the good-natured giant didn’t wantto hurt anybody when milder methods would answer the purpose, hewould come along just as the ship was getting under way, the men atthe topsail halyards, and reaching up above all the rest, bring themdown in a heap on deck, causing those that were singing to bite theirtongues. Sometimes when two or three sailors were heaving with thehandspikes to roll up a spar to the ringbolts, singing out and makinga great fuss, he would seize hold of the end of it, and heave it intoits bed apparently without any effort, while the men would wink to eachother and reflect upon the consequences of having a brush with such amate as that.

  By proceeding in this way, though he had taken up one or two that hadinsulted him beyond endurance, and smashed them down upon the ground,kicked a truckman into the dock who was beating his horse with acordwood stick, he never struck but one man in his life, which happenedin this wise.

  Ben was on board a ship in port, with only a cook and two boys, thecaptain having gone home, and the rest of the crew being discharged.He hired an English sailor to help the boys trim some ballast in thehold; they complained that he kicked and abused them.

  Ben told them to go to work again, and he would see about it. Afterdinner he lay down in his berth for a nap, when he was disturbed by aterrible outcry in the hold, and, going down, found the sailor beatingthe boys with a rope’s end. He asked him what he was doing that for;the man said they wouldn’t work, and were saucy to him. Ben repliedthat the boys were good boys, that he had always known them, and thathe mustn’t strike the boys. The bully asked him if he meant to takeit up. Ben replied that he didn’t wish to take it up, but he mustn’tstrike the boys.

  The sailor then threatened to strike him; upon which Ben stood upbefore him, and folding his arms on his breast, in his drawling,childish way, told him to strike. The man struck, when Ben inflictedupon him such a terrible blow, that, falling upon the ballast, he layand quivered like an ox when he is struck down by the butcher.

  “O, Mr. Rhines,” exclaimed the terrified boys, “you’ve killed him,you’ve killed him!”

  “Well,” he replied in his quiet way, “if I’ve killed him, I’ve laid himout.”