Lion Ben of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

  CHAPTER XIV.

  BEN CONFIDES IN UNCLE ISAAC AND IS COMFORTED.

  The party on the island sat by the camp fire, listening to the voicesof their departing friends, till they died away in the distance.

  “Who are you going to get to build your chimney, Ben?” asked UncleIsaac.

  “Joe Dorset.”

  “I never’d get him; a poor man can’t afford to hire him; he came fromNewburyport, and he’d be always heaving out, and telling how muchbetter they have things in Massachusetts; growling about the stuff hehas to work with, and can’t do anything without merchantable brick.”

  “I don’t know anything about him,” said Ben, “only I’ve heard he is anexcellent workman.”

  “Well, so he is; but when you’ve said that you’ve said everything.He’ll have a great many long stories to tell, that’ll eat up his owntime, and hinder other people. I like to hear a good story myself, andtell one too; but I always do it after work, and not to hinder work,in my own time, and not my employer’s; besides, he’s so lazy! He wentfishing one year with John Strout, and he was so long hauling up acodfish that a dogfish eat him all up, and left nothing but the barehooks to come to the top of the water.”

  “Who shall I get?”

  “Get Sam Elwell.”

  “He ain’t a mason.”

  “No, but he’s a plaguy sight better for your purpose; he’s a naturalstone layer--took it up of his own head; he’d build you a chimney outof the stones, right here on the island, that’ll carry the smoke firstrate, and that’s all you want of a chimney; and he’ll do it in quarterof the time. Then the chimney’ll compare with the house, and they’ll beall of a muchness.”

  At this period of the conversation Joe flung himself upon the brush,and was soon sleeping soundly.

  “Uncle Isaac, now that we are alone, I want to tell you how I feel. Itdoes seem to me that it’s bad enough to bring Sally into a log houseat all, and that I ought, in reason, to have had panel doors in it;more than two windows in the whole in a broadside, with a good brickchimney and oven laid in lime mortar.”

  “Plank doors, tongued and cleated, are the warmest. Panel doors in alog house would look like a man with a beaver hat on and barefoot. Youcan cut out a window whenever you like, and the less holes the warmer.”

  “But the chimney,” persisted Ben; “what will she say to that? and howcan she get along without an oven?”

  “Sally is one that looks into the realities of things; and if shehas made up her mind to live on this island, depend upon it she hasconsidered the matter all round, is looking forward to somethingbetter, and that will keep her from being discouraged, however severethings may appear at first. I don’t suppose as how an _oven_ can bemade of stone; but I’ll tell you what I will do--take up the bricks inmy butt’y floor, and lend ’em to you; it’s altogether too late for youto get bricks this fall.”

  “Well, I hope ’twill all turn out well; but I know in my soul thatshe’s no more idea of what living in a log house is, than she has ofLondon.”

  “I know a great deal more about Sally Hadlock than you do, though youare engaged to be married to her, because I know her people, andthere’s a great deal in the blood. She is the living picture of hergrandmother Hannah, my wife was named for, who came down here whenit was a howling wilderness, fought hunger and the Injuns, and beat’em both. Handsome as she is, and gentle and good as she seems andis, she’s got the old iron natur of that breed of folks, who had muchrather earn a thing than have it gin to ’em. She’s had nothing to callout that grit yet; but you’ll find out what she’s made of when shecomes to be put to’t.”

  “There’s one thing that troubles me, that perhaps you haven’t thoughtof. If I was going to take her into a new settlement, where everybodylived in log houses, and all fared alike, it would be another thing;but I am going to bring her where she can look right across the bay,and see the smoke of her mother’s chimney, and all her friends andfolks living in nice frame houses. Now, if she’s unhappy, and keeps itto herself on my account, and grief is gnawing at her heartstrings, Ican’t bear that.”

  “Benjamin,” said Uncle Isaac, solemnly, who saw his friend was reallydistressed, “what I’m going to say to you now I say candidly, and whatI know to be a fact. I’m a married man, Ben, and know what a woman is.When a woman really sets her heart on a man, he is almost like GodAlmighty to her; and the more she can put herself out for him, the morecontented she is; that is, if she’s morally sartin he loves her. Now,Sally loves you with her whole soul, for she might have had her pick ofhalf the young men in town, and she knows it. She is also sure that youlove her, or you would never have given up the business prospects thatyou had, and undergo all that you must undergo on this island just onher account; therefore the more hardships she’s called to suffer ’longwith you, the lighter hearted she’ll be; yes, she’ll take pride in’t.O, Benjamin, these rich folks, who never know what it is to strive andcontrive to get along, don’t taste the real honey of married life; theydon’t know what’s in one another, and don’t love one another as thosedo who have to fight for a living. Why, they can’t; they haven’t had tolean on each other, and be so necessary to each other.”

  “Well, I never thought of that before.”

  “Of course, you haven’t; I expect you’ll have the happiness of findingthat out. I tell you, Hannah and I take lots of comfort Sabbathnights, when we ain’t tired, talking over all we’ve been throughtogether. And then sometimes I get the Bible, and read them are varses,where it says, ‘She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly withher hands; she will do him good, and not evil, all the days of herlife.’ I can’t help giving her a kiss, and saying, ‘Well, wife, I nevershould’ve got through it if’t hadn’t been for you.’”

  This last sally of the noble old philosopher of the woods completelysilenced Ben, who promised he’d never harbor another doubt in respectto the matter.

  “There’s another thing, Benjamin; don’t try to slick it over any, butmake it full as bad as ’tis. If she expects the worst, and then findsit a great deal better’n she expected, ’twill make her more contented.There’s a great deal in the first feeling and the first look of athing, especially to a woman.”

  The next day Ben and Joe were employed in hauling stone for thechimney, and making clay mortar. Uncle Isaac cut a red oak, and hewedout a mantel-bar, to form the top of the fireplace; it was twelve feetin length, and no less than nine inches square, as it was to support agreat weight of stone. Though of wood, it was so far from the fire, onaccount of the great height and depth of the fireplace, that it couldnot well burn; besides, it was always the custom, whenever they had agreat fire, to wet the mantel-bar the last thing before going to bed.

  He then cut a hole through the floor, in what was to be the frontentry, to pour potatoes through into the cellar (because the cellar wasunder the south part of the house), and made a door to cover it.

  The house would seem to my readers but a poor place to live in. Therewere but four windows below, and these being put on the corners, toadmit of making others between them when they should be able, gave tothe house a funny look. The house consisted of but two rooms below,separated by a rough board partition, in which were two doors of roughboards, hung by wooden hinges. The chamber was reached by a ladder;the boards of the floors were rough, and full of splinters, just asthey came from the saw. Against the wall in the north-west corner, withshelves and closets nicely planed, were some dressers to hold dishes.In the cellar was a square arch of stone, into which Uncle Isaac putshelves, and to which he made doors. He then made a cross-legged table,all in one leaf, and a settle to place before the fire, with a backhigher than the top of a person’s head, to keep off the draughts of airthat went up the great chimney.

  They went off Saturday, well satisfied with what they had accomplished.