Lion Ben of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

  CHAPTER XIII.

  INJURED PEOPLE HAVE LONG MEMORIES.

  As Ben had shown no disposition to retaliate for the joke played uponhim, had never mentioned it to any one, or ever alluded to it, Joesupposed that, with his usual good nature, he had forgotten it.

  Ben, on the contrary, had resolved to pay Joe in his own coin, withusury, whenever a fitting opportunity presented itself.

  Some weeks before he had mown some tall grass, which grew on the beach,made it into hay, and enclosed it with a brush fence, to protect itfrom the sheep. Adjoining the stack was a honey-pot. Honey-pots aremires, sometimes twenty feet or more in depth, composed of a blue,adhesive mud, which, by the constant soaking of some hidden spring, andthe daily flow of the tide, is kept in a half fluid state, except uponthe surface, where the clay, being somewhat hardened by the sun at lowwater, is stiff, and will bear a man to walk over it quickly; but, ifhe stands a moment, down he goes.

  Joe, who had never been on the island before, was ignorant of theexistence of this mire. Ben, while the rest were asleep the nightbefore, had removed all the sand and drift stuff, and scraped the hardclay from the surface of the honey-pot, till it would hardly bear a dog.

  While the boys were stretched upon the grass, laughing and talkingafter dinner, Ben asked Joe to help him bring some hay on the poles forthe oxen. When two persons carry hay on poles, the one behind cannotsee where he steps, but must follow his leader, who picks the road forhim. Ben went as near to the edge of the honey-pot as he dared. Themoment he got a little by, he turned short off, bringing Joe right intothe middle of it. In he went, carried down both by his own weight andthat of the load, clean to his breast, when Ben, twitching the polesaway, sat down on the bank to laugh at him.

  “O, Ben,” cried Joe, “we’re square now; help me out.”

  Ben took out his knife, and began to whittle.

  Getting frightened, as he found himself gradually sinking, Joe roaredfor help, drawing the whole party to the spot. This was just what Benwanted. He knew that Joe had told everybody in the neighborhood of thetrick he put on him, and it was his turn now.

  The moment Joe saw Uncle Isaac, he cried out, “Do help me; I’m goingdown.” As there was now real danger of his smothering in the mud, Benran the poles under his arms. Joe made desperate efforts to extricatehimself by means of the poles, but the mire so sucked him down, that heonly succeeded in getting out his shoulders.

  At this juncture Tige came rushing along, and, seizing him by thecollar, endeavored to lift him out; but sinking down into the slime,which Joe’s struggles had wrought into a complete porridge, his mouthand nose were filled with mud and water: giving a vigorous snort, hecompletely plastered Joe’s face and eyes with it, who, not being in themost amiable of moods, hit him a cuff on the side of the head. Tige,enraged at being thus rewarded for his good intentions, was going tobite him, when Ben pulled him away by the tail.

  “Pity I wan’t a dog,” whined Joe; “then there’d be some feeling for me.”

  He now appealed again to Uncle Isaac; but the old man had thought thematter all over, and come to the deliberate conclusion that it wastime Joe’s wings were clipped; that, if not checked, he would becomeunbearable; that there could be no better time to administer reproof,and one stringent enough to be remembered.

  “You know, Joseph,” said he, in a severe tone, “that the trick youplayed last week on Ben was not by any means the first you’ve playedon him and others. Who was it put on a bear-skin, got down on allfours, followed the widow Hadlock when she was going home from my housethrough the woods, and growled, and frightened the poor woman so thatshe was sick for three months, and the whole town turned out the nextday to kill the bear?”

  “I cut all her winter’s wood, to pay for it.”

  “Who,” said Joe Riggs, “stopped up the chimney, when the young folkshad a New Year’s party in the chamber over the store, and put peas onthe stairs, so that Seth Warren fell from top to bottom, and broke hisleg?”

  “Joe Griffin,” cried Seth.

  “He’d done the same to me, if he’d had the chance, and wit enough.”

  JOE GRIFFIN IN THE HONEY POT. Page 139.]

  “It makes my heart ache, Joseph,” said Uncle Isaac, “to see a youngman in your situation in such an unreconciled frame of mind; we nevershould do wrong to others because they have done, or would do, wrongto us. So far from manifesting any contrition, you justify yourself inyour evil courses. Instead of resignation under trial, you appear to meto be ‘gritting your teeth,’ and thrashing about like unto a seal in aherring net.”

  “Who was it,” asked John Strout, “when Mose Atherton was all dressedup, going to walk round the head of the bay, to see Sally Bannister,offered to show him a shorter cut over the marsh, and led him into ahoney-pot, then went to John Godsoe’s, told them there was a man’shat on Moll Graffam’s honey-pot, and he guessed somebody must be introuble? When Godsoe’s people got there, the tide was flowing aroundhim, and the water up to his chin.”

  Joe made no reply to this.

  “Don’t be sullen, Joe, for you must perceive we’re measuring you byyour own bushel. I begin to fear it may become our duty to leave youhere till you’re in a more submissive frame of mind.”

  “O, Uncle Isaac, you won’t leave me in this mire, six miles from anyhuman being, to perish?”

  “Not to perish, young man, but to repent. Let me see: to-day’sThursday; we can give you a little light food, and leave you over theSabbath; it’s a good day, and should bring serious reflections. Thewater don’t come up here, except when it’s a storm. I don’t see anysigns of a storm--do you, boys?”

  The others didn’t see much signs of one; some thought that ’twas alittle “smurry.”

  “Reflection is profitable, Joseph. Monday we might find you morereconciled.”

  “I’ll do anything you want me to, if you will only take me out.”

  “That is better. Will you promise not to play any more tricks upon anyof this company, or anybody else?”

  “Don’t make him lie,” said Ben; “he can’t help it.”

  “Well, then, will you promise not to play any more upon any one here,and say that you are sorry for what you did to Ben?”

  “I will.”

  “Then we will take you out; and I trust it will be a warning to you infuture. Boys, build up a fire; he must be half perished with cold.”

  Ben got some boards, and laying them two-thick upon the surface of thehoney-pot, walked to the place, and pulled him out; and a miserableplight he was in.

  “Jump into the water, Joe,” said John Strout, “and wash yourself; and Iwill go to my chest in the schooner and get you a shift of clothes.”

  Joe washed the mud off in the water, and then stood by the fire tillJohn came with the clothes; then, putting them on, he washed his own,and hung them on a tree to dry.

  “Joe,” said Uncle Isaac, “did you see anything of Sam Atkins in thathoney-pot? for I’m blest if I know what has become of him.”

  “Here he comes,” said Joe; and, sure enough, he was now seen coming upfrom the shore, with something on his shoulder.

  “What is that, Sam?” asked Uncle Isaac.

  “A cradle for that bouncing baby Seth told about.” He had got outthe stuff unnoticed by the rest of them, and then went on board theschooner and put it together. This was examined by all, and causedabundant jests at Ben’s expense.

  It was now proposed that they should end the day with a ring wrestle,both at close hugs and arms’ length. While the wrestling was going on,the two old gentlemen, for whom a comfortable seat had been providednear the fire, sat looking on, criticising the proceedings, andentering into every detail with intense interest.

  The presence of these distinguished veterans, with their great bonyframes,--for they had been men of vast pith and power, and famedthrough all the region,--acted as a mighty incentive to the young men.

  “I think, Uncle Jonathan,” said Yelf, “you and I have seen the daywe could s
how these boys some things they haven’t learned yet. Doyou remember that wrastle we had when Captain Rhines’s house wasraised--there was stout, withy men around these bays in them days;--howyou threw Sam Hart, that came forty miles to wrastle with you, and saidGod Almighty never made the man that could heave him? But he found theman--didn’t he?” giving his friend a nudge in the ribs with his elbow.

  “They said,” replied Smullen, “he was so mortified because he’d braggedso much, that he went home and hung himself. Ah, my toe was so sartinin those days, when I put it in! You know I had a particular trip withmy left foot.”

  “Hoora!” said Uncle Sam, as John Strout crotch-locked Sam Pettigrew,and threw him; “a fair fall that, and no mistake. Both shoulders andboth hips on the ground.”

  The plaudits of the veterans were like fuel to the fire. The youngmen exerted themselves to the utmost in the presence of such competentjudges.

  At length their aged blood began to circulate more briskly, under thecombined influence of the warm fire, milk punch, and old associations.

  “Uncle Sam,” said Smullen, “what do you say to me and you trying afall; we’ve had hold of one another afore to day?”

  “Agreed,” was the reply; “but it must be at arm’s length. I’ve had therheumatics so much that my back’s got kinder shackly.”

  The young people laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks as theystepped into the ring, their upper garments removed, heads bare, andthe white locks flowing round their shoulders. Uncle Yelf, producinghis snuff-box,--a sheep’s bladder,--after taking a pinch, offered it toSmullen, and the contest began.

  They exhausted every feint known to the art, and it was soon evident tothe young people that these veterans possessed a skill unknown to them,and that it was only in the strength of youth they were lacking.

  Beside them was an elm, that separated at the root into two parts.Between the forks Smullen threw Yelf with such force, that he wasfirmly-wedged, and had to be pulled out.

  “Well,” said Uncle Sam, “he ought to throw me; he’s the oldest.”

  Just before sunset they took leave of Ben, and, with hearty cheers,made sail.

  It was a current saying, in respect to Uncle Isaac, that he couldkeep more men at work, bring more to pass, with less fuss, and haveeverybody good-natured, than any man in the district; and nobly had hejustified the general verdict.