CHAPTER VII.
LITTLE NED AND HIS MOTHER.
WHEN Walter Griffin flung down the yard-stick, and jumped over FredWilliams’s counter for the last time, he went directly on board theCasco, and made several voyages to Cadiz with Isaac Murch, who valuedhis services highly, and offered him promotion to remain with him;but arriving from a voyage while the “Arthur Brown” was building,the temptation to go in her on shares, and engage in all the perilsand excitements attendant upon running the gauntlet of the enemy’scruisers, proved perfectly irresistible to a boy of Walter’s sanguine,fearless nature; and, as the vessel would be launched and away beforehe could make another voyage and return, he resolved to wait for her.
In order to make the most of his time, he went over to Elm Island tostudy navigation with Lion Ben, and then, by Captain Rhines’s advice,to Salem, where was a French family, who, having fled from their nativecountry, during the revolution, in poverty, leaving their propertybehind, supported themselves by teaching French, giving music lessons,and employing themselves in any way which would bring the means ofsubsistence. They also found no lack of sympathy among the inhabitants,who, being a seafaring community, not only shared in the universal goodwill at that time felt towards the French, but also were naturallytouched by the miseries of those who, having seen better days, andaccustomed to every comfort, found themselves, in old age, poor and ina strange land.
Fred Williams had an uncle in Salem, a tanner. Walter boarded with him,doing work enough in the tan-yard to defray the expense of his board.Thus, under the instruction of persons of culture, and in daily contactwith them, he not only obtained a knowledge of the language, butlearned to speak it properly, and in a manner quite different from thepatois of Peterson, which, picked up from the lower class of people,was, however, fluent, coarse, and vulgar.
Salem, as our readers will recollect, was the home of Ned Gates, who,ready to like anybody who came from the neighborhood of Pleasant Cove,received Walter with open arms, insisted upon having him at his houseto tea, and to stay all night, about half the time, and spent everyspare moment he could get with him.
Ned would go down to the yard and help Walter break bark, pull hidesout of the pits, take out the spent tan, and hang up the sides ofleather to dry, in order that his friend might have more time to studyFrench, and stuck to him like his skin. Were they not going to beshipmates together, and share in perils?
Ned’s parents never wanted him to go to sea, and did all in theirpower to prevent it; but finding his heart set upon it to such anextent that he was utterly indifferent to everything else, andunhappy, they yielded with the best grace possible. But when he wasshipwrecked, and came so near perishing with hunger on the raft, theywere greatly encouraged, thinking it would incline him to comply withtheir wishes and abandon the sea. Ned’s mother was not only a mostaffectionate parent, but a warm-hearted Christian woman. Like allChristian mothers, she had been accustomed to hear her little boy sayhis prayers, and continued the practice after he came to be a largeboy. Ned would leave the light burning, and his mother would come up,sit by his bedside, hear him repeat the Lord’s Prayer, then kneel downbeside the bed and pray herself. Ned was a good boy, and loved hismother dearly, but was full of life, and sometimes would do somethingout of the way, so much so, that his mother, after hearing him say hisprayer, would get up, take the candle in her hand as though about toleave the room, observing, “Edward, you have been a bad boy, to-day; Idon’t know as I ought to pray with you to-night.” This never failed tobring Ned to terms. He would own up, if it was any concealed mischief,confess, and promise amendment, for he could not bear to go to sleeptill his mother had prayed with him; yet he was nearly sixteen yearsold, as smart a boy as ever went aloft to furl a royal or reeve signalhalyards. When the crew abandoned the sinking ship, Ned, as we havebefore stated, preferred to stick by the captain.
Who says vulgarity, coarseness, and profanity are necessaryconcomitants of courage?
“Edward,” said his mother, as he took the candle to go to bed, thefirst night after getting home from Pleasant Cove, “leave the light;I’ll come and get it.”
“Mother,” said he, after saying his prayers, “how nice it seems to beonce more in the old bed, and say my prayers to you, as I used to do!”
“I hope, Edward, you didn’t forget them while you were away from me.”
“I never turned in a night without it; but I didn’t have any mother tocome and get the light and kiss me when I got through.”
“I hope, my child, you did more than that. I hope, when you wereundergoing such misery on that dreadful raft, you prayed to God in yourown words, and out of your own heart.”
“No, I didn’t, mother.”
“Not pray, when there seemed nothing but death before you—a childinstructed as you have been?”
“No, mother. I suppose you want me to tell you just as it was.”
“Certainly, my child; but didn’t the captain, James Watts, or ArthurBrown?”
“The captain was swearing part of the time, and crying the rest. Oneminute he’d say he knew some vessel would come along and take us off,and seem quite cheerful; the next minute he would wring his hands,and swear, and cry, and say we should all starve to death on thatraft. After the little water and provision the men left us was gone,he took to drinking salt water. It made him crazy, just as Mr. Browntold him it would, for he said he had heard his father say so. Thenhe ran off on the idea that we were going to kill and eat him. If hesaw us talking together, he would say we were plotting to kill himand drink his blood. Mr. Brown said the second mate told him that hepassed a crew of men once on a wreck, and wouldn’t take any notice oftheir signals, though they hoisted a signal of distress, and now he wasgetting his pay for it. I suppose it was the idea he took in his head,that we would kill and eat him, that made him jump overboard in thenight, when we were all asleep.”
“That was awful; but didn’t Arthur Brown or James Watts ever call uponGod?”
“Not as I know of; what they did inside I don’t know, but I never heardthem.”
“It seems very strange to me that a boy brought up to know and respectall good things taught in the Catechism, and who never went to bed anight in his life, till he went from home, without saying his prayers,and having his mother pray with him, should be on a raft in the ocean,starving, death staring him in the face, and not call upon God. I can’tunderstand it; I should think that would be just the time, if ever inthe world.”
“Well, it ain’t, mother, though it may seem strange to you. It seemsstrange to myself now; but I suppose, if I was in the same place, Ishould do just so again. I did think of my prayers, and said them, as Itold you; but whenever I thought of doing anything more, it seemed tome so mean to pray to God because I was in a hard place, when I neverdid it when I wasn’t, that I couldn’t—I didn’t dare to. Then I wasthinking, most of the time, about being taken off, watching for somevessel, or dreaming and thinking about eating and drinking.”
“Dreaming about eating?”
“O, yes, mother, that was the worst of it; when my tongue was soswelled, as big as two tongues, and I was so weak from hunger that Icould hardly move, I’d fall into a doze, and dream that there was agreat table set full of everything that I loved, and then wake up, andfind it all a dream. One time I dreamed I was travelling on a road ina real hot day, and saw a little wood on the side of a hill. I went toit, and right between two great maple trees was a barrel sunk down inthe ground, and full of clear, cold water. It was a boiling spring, anda flat stone right beside it. I thought I knelt down on the stone, andlooked way down into the clear, beautiful water, saw grains of sandrolling over and over in it, and tried to drink; but whenever I got myparched lips close to the water, it went away, and in my struggles toreach it I woke; and there right before me was poor James Watts’s deadface, and Mr Brown looking so pale and ghostly I thought he was dead,and I all alone on the wide ocean. When I saw it was all a dream, Iburst into tears; after that, began to grow stupid an
d wandering, anddidn’t sense anything more till I found myself in a bed, and somebodyputting water in my mouth; and don’t you think, mother, I went rightback where I left off in my dream, and thought I was drinking out ofthat spring? but it was Charlie Bell’s wife putting water in my mouth.I tell you what it is, mother; people may think so who don’t know; butif they were in such a place, they would find it wasn’t a very nicetime to be good.”
“My dear boy,” replied his mother, affected to tears by the narration,“now that God has restored you to us, you have suffered so much, andseen what the life of a sailor is, and what they are exposed to, I hopeyou will never leave us again. You are all the son I have got—do staywith us and your sisters. You have had a good education; your fatherwill take you right into the store with him, or he will set you up inbusiness, when you are old enough. There is Henry Bradshaw, that youused to sit with in school; your old playmate; you used to love him,and was just like a brother with him. He is going into business soon.You can go with him, or you can learn a trade. Your father will sendyou to college—he will do anything for you to keep you at home. If youcould only know what we underwent, after we heard the vessel was lost,and thought you were lost in her, and what a thanksgiving there was inthe house after we got Captain Rhines’s letter, you certainly neverwould leave us again.”
Ned was not taken by surprise, for he knew his mother’s heart, andloved her. It was no easy task to deny the plea of such a mother, undersuch circumstances, and the very first night of getting home, too. Helay a long time silent, with eyes shut fast. His mother saw the tearscome out from under the closed lids, and, as she wiped them away, beganto hope her desires were to be realized.
“Mother,” at length he said, “you will think I am the worst, mosthard-hearted boy that ever was in the world.”
The mother trembled, but made no reply.
“Mother, I must go to sea. I can’t, indeed, I can’t stay at home.”
“But only think what you suffered, and how near you were to death.”
“But I didn’t die, mother. I’m all right now, and heavier than I everwas in my life. I was weighed in Mr. Williams’s store the day before Ileft, and weighed ten pounds more than I ever did before, without mycoat or waistcoat. Only think of that.”
“But only think what you suffered!”
“Don’t people suffer at home, mother? Just see what Will Webb hassuffered, all tied up in knots with rheumatism; and Tom Savage, withthe spine complaint. I do believe, if I knew I should go through all Ihave been through the next voyage, I should have to go. Ain’t I a fool,mother?”
“I think you are very foolish to leave a good home and kind parentswithout any necessity for such hardships. Only think of your cousin,poor James Ross, who fell from the main-mast and was killed, the veryfirst day out.”
“Well, mother, perhaps he would have died if he had been at home.Captain Rhines says, when God wants a man, he’ll call him; and anybodyis just as safe on the royal yard as on deck, or at home in his bed.Isn’t that so, mother?”
“I don’t know, my dear; I think I should a great deal rather have youat home in this bed. Suppose you are sick at sea. There is no one totake care of you.”
“Yes, mother, Captain Brown and Walter will.”
Mrs. Gates knelt down beside the bed, and prayed for submission to bearwhat she felt to be a bitter trial—resigning a beloved, affectionateboy to the hardships and chances of a life at sea.
“Mother,” said Ned, as she took the light in her hand to go downstairs, “isn’t Walter Griffin a splendid boy?”
“Yes; too good a boy to go to sea.”
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