Lion Ben of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

  CHAPTER XV.

  ENCOURAGING NATIVE TALENT.

  The moment Uncle Isaac landed, he set out for Sam Elwell’s. Goingalong, he saw Yelf’s horse feeding beside the road, with the bridleunder his feet, and, a little farther on, his master lying in a sloughhole, to all appearance dead, but, as it turned out, only dead drunk.He pulled him out, and, as he was unable to stand, set him against thefence to drip, while he caught the horse; his gray hairs and face wereplastered with mud; his nose had bled; the blood was clotted upon hisbeard, and soaked the bosom of his shirt.

  “How came you in this mud hole?”

  “Why, you see, Isaac, the mare went in to drink; the bridle slipped outof my hand; I reached down to get it, kind o’ lost my balance, and fellright over her head, and hit my nose on a rock. I think, Isaac, I musthave taken a leetle drop too much.”

  His friend scraped the mud from him as well as he could with a chip,put him on the mare (for Yelf could ride when altogether too drunk towalk), and left him at his own house, which lay in the direction he wasgoing.

  “That’s a bad sight,” said Uncle Isaac to himself, as he went on, “andit’s one that’s getting altogether too common. I remember the time whenhe was content with his three glasses a day, and perhaps a nightcap;but now he can’t stop till he stops in a ditch. There ain’t a man inthis town but what drinks spirit, myself among the rest, and most ofthem more than’s good for ’em. I don’t see why people can’t use liquorwith moderation, and without making a beast of themselves. If it wasonly these old, worn-out ones, like Yelf, ’twouldn’t be so much matter;but it’s amongst the young folks; and even boys get the worse forliquor. It’s natural they should; for if men sail vessels, boys’ll sailboats. It’s time something’s done, though what can be done I’m sure Idon’t know. What an awful thing it would be, if, one of these days,Ben or Joe Griffin should pick me out of a ditch, and carry me home tomy family looking like that! I’ll think about it, and talk with Hannahthis blessed night.” He was aroused from his meditations by hearing thevoice of Sam at his own door.

  He was about the age of Isaac, but a much heavier man, being verythick set, with a stoop in his shoulders. His hands were of great size,full of cracks; his fingers crooked, from constant working with stonehammers and drills; many of the nails jammed off, and his face as hardas the stones he worked on. He was also a man of very few words, whileIsaac liked to talk; yet they had been close friends from boyhood, tookgreat delight in each other’s society (if it could be called societywhere one talked and the other listened), and always got together, andworked together, whenever they could. They were both passionately fondof gunning. Isaac was the quicker shot; but Sam could scull a floatsteadier and faster than any man along the shore. He could also laybrick well, but was possessed of a remarkable gift for working uponrocks. He knew just how to take hold of a great rock to move it, andcould do a better quality of work than they ever had occasion for inthat rude state of society, where nobody had hammered doorsteps butCaptain Rhines, widow Hadlock, and a few others. He knew all aboutthe nature and grain of rocks, could dress underpinning, or make amillstone out of a boulder in the pasture.

  He had just come home from a long job, and was taking his tools out ofthe cart.

  “Let them be,” said Isaac; “I’ve got another job for you:” as he spokehe pulled the clevis-pin out of the tongue.

  Sam, without a word, unyoked the oxen, and went into the barn to feedthem, while the other tied them up.

  Isaac, without any invitation, followed Sam into the house. The tablewas in the floor, and Sam’s wife had just put on the victuals. “Setalong,” said Sam, motioning Isaac to a chair. That’s the way theylived. If they chanced to be in each other’s houses about meal time,they always stopped. If they met on the road, or were at work togetherin the woods, or had been off gunning, they always went to the housethat was nearest. Their wives never worried about them, for they knewwhere they were, and were as good friends as their husbands.

  “Sam,” said Isaac, “did you ever see a fireplace and chimney built ofstone?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I’ve seen stones set up in a log camp to build a fire against, witha ‘cat and clay’ chimney built over them; but ’twas a make-shift tillthey could get bricks.”

  “Could it be done?”

  “They say Necessity’s the mother of Invention. I suppose it might, byputting in the proper stone.”

  “Well, Ben Rhines has got his house up, can’t get bricks this fall,and don’t know what to do. He was going to get Joe Dorset to build hischimney; but I told him I knew you could build a good fireplace andchimney out of the rocks on the island, if you had a mind to.”

  “Dorset don’t know anything about rocks,” growled Sam.

  “Now, let me tell you about the stone. There’s a granite ledge on thewestern p’int that lays in thin sheets, that you can break up with yourstone hammer.”

  “Granite’s first rate for a chimney, but ’twont do for a fireplace.”

  “Then there’s a kind of gray stone, with white streaks in it, butsofter than granite.”

  “That’s a bastard soapstone; that’ll do for a fireplace.”

  “Well, can you do it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Enough said. Now, I’m bound Sally shall have an oven; and I’m goingto take up my butt’ry floor to make it of.”

  “You needn’t do that. I can make as good an oven of that stone asever a woman baked bread in. It’ll crack some, but not half as bad asgranite. It’ll hold heat wonderfully.”

  “You beat all, Sam. I told Ben I knew you could build a chimney withouta brick in it; but I never dreamt of your building an oven.”

  “Who am I to have to tend me, and help handle these big stones?”

  “That pretty little Ben Rhines and Joe Griffin, to say nothing ofmyself.”

  When Sam went on to the island and saw the stone, he rubbed his hands,and chuckled, and talked to himself, and appeared overjoyed.

  “What a queer old coon he is!” said Joe; “anybody’d think he’d found agold mine, instead of a pile of rocks.”

  There was but one fireplace, and that was in the kitchen; but thehearths were laid in the two front rooms for two more, whenever theyshould be parted off and finished.

  This fireplace was made of three large stones, which Uncle Sam cutand fitted together without any mortar. It was five feet to themantel-bar, eight between the jambs, and of proportionate depth. Thismonstrous cavern was the fireplace. Such a master was Uncle Sam of hisbusiness, that when he saw a rock in the pile that he wanted, he wouldthrow a little stone at it, and Ben or Joe would bring it to him.

  But it was upon the oven that Uncle Sam displayed his genius. He founda place where a large portion of this bastard soapstone ledge hadcracked and fallen out into the sea, leaving a smooth perpendicularface. He told Ben this rock was rent when Christ was crucified. Fromthis ledge he split off just such large, flat slabs as he wanted, madethem perfectly smooth, squared the edges, and of them built his ovenin the form of a stone box, having top, bottom, and sides of perfectlysmooth stones; for he threw sand and water on them, and putting onanother great stone, as big as he and Uncle Isaac could lift, he gotBen to scour them, while he stood by and threw on sand and water, tillthey were perfectly smooth. He now put them together, leaving a spaceof a foot or more at the sides and ends. The covering stone was made toproject on every side, so as to enter into the body of the chimney, inorder that, if it should crack, it could not fall down. He now builta roaring fire in it. By and by the great stone on top, and one on theside, cracked with a loud noise.

  “Crack away,” said Uncle Sam; “crack all you want to.”

  He then took some clay mortar, filled all the space round the sides,worked it into all the cracks and joints, and, after it was thoroughlydry, made another great fire, and baked it all into brick. It wouldnever crack any more, because the
fire had already opened all the badplaces in the soapstone, and these were filled with clay mortar, whichwas now burned into brick.

  When the chimney was up to the chamber floor, he made what was calledan _eddy_; that is, he brought the chimney right out into the chamber.Across it he put three beech poles, called lug-poles: these were tohang anything on which it was desired to have smoked. He also made astone shelf in one corner to put an ink-bottle on, or anything that wasto be kept from freezing. There was so much fire left on the hearth atnight that these great chimneys never got cold. Uncle Isaac then made atight door, to keep the smoke from coming into the chamber.

  “Ben,” said Uncle Sam, “are you going to have a crane?”

  “No; I can’t afford it.”

  “Then I’ll put in another lug-pole.”

  It was the custom to fasten a chain to this to hang the pot on.

  “That’s right,” said Uncle Isaac, delighted with the effect of histeachings; “a withe is just as good; I’ll give you a piece of chainto put on the end of it. When you go up in the spring with a load ofspars, you can buy iron, and have a crane made.”

  “I,” said Joe, “will make it for you; I’m blacksmith enough for that.”

  “Now,” said Sam, “I want just one thing--some lime to lay the stone inafter I get above the roof, and collar the chimney.”

  There was a large lot of clam shells on the shore, where the fishermenhad shelled clams for bait. These he burned into as handsome white limeas ever you saw. Uncle Sam, though a man of but few words, possesseda very kind heart, and was much attached to Sally; hence the greatpains he bestowed upon the chimney and oven. He now, therefore, asthe chimney stood right out in the room, and was not concealed by anywoodwork, took some of the lime and white-washed it, and also the archin the cellar. Uncle Isaac now made a fire to try it. It was found tocarry smoke splendidly,--upon which he praised it in no measured terms.Sam was evidently much pleased with the encomiums of his friend; and,that both might have cause for satisfaction, Joe then told Sam aboutUncle Isaac’s pulling up Bradish.

  The last thing Uncle Sam did was to split out two large stones fordoorsteps. After they were placed, he said to Ben, “These stones arethe best of granite; and when you build a frame house, if I ain’t dead,or past labor, I’ll dress them for you, and they’ll make as handsomesteps as are in the town of Boston.”

  “Well, Ben,” said Uncle Isaac, as they left the island, “that’s a loghouse; but it’s a very different one from those in which your fatherand I were born and brought up: they were no better than your hovel. Wehad no cellar, but kept our sass in a hole in the ground out doors. Mypoor mother never had an oven while she lived, but baked everything ona stone, or in the ashes. She raised a rugged lot of children, for allthat, who live in good frame houses, and have land of their own now;but then it’s harder for you than ’twas for us, because _we_ were allalike, and had never seen anything better; while you are going to livein a log house, right in sight of those who live in better ones. Butyou will be supported, Ben, and will be prospered.”