Arthur Brown, The Young Captain

by Elijah Kellogg

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE GRIFFINS.

  THOSE of our readers who are familiar with the Elm Island stories havealready known a good deal of the Griffin family in the persons of Joeand Henry, with a slight introduction to Walter and Will.

  Suppose, now, for the better understanding of Walter’s declaration,“there’s a hard streak in all of us Griffins,” we accompany ParsonGoodhue (who is a great friend of the Griffins, and for whom Walter isnamed) in one of his parochial visits to the homestead.

  The good man, like most of the ministers of that day, had a farm ofeighty acres, kept a horse, sheep, three cows, and a yoke of oxen,and did considerable work himself, always feeding his own cattle. Hehad, in addition, a wood lot of fifty acres. The parishioners were inthe habit of getting together in the fall, cutting his year’s stockof wood, and piling it up in the woods; when snow came they put theirteams together and hauled it to the door, when the boys and young menassembled and cut it for the fire; on such occasions they came aboutnoon, and had supper and a grand time at the parsonage in the evening,the girls coming about two o’clock, bringing with them abundantsupplies and preparing the repast.

  The Griffin family consisted of eight persons—the parents and sixchildren, all boys, Joseph, Henry, Walter, William, Edmund, andWinthrop. One hot forenoon, about eleven o’clock, and just afterhaying, Parson Goodhue, in all the glory of the snow-white wig, silkstockings, and polished silver shoe-buckles (which Lion Ben of ElmIsland had presented to him after his adventure with the wild gander),was wending his way by a road that skirted the bank of the river,to Edmund Griffin’s. He was mounted on a very finely proportioned,snug built, calico-colored mare, a pacer. A large blue saddle-clothprotected his garments from the hairs (as he was quite fastidious abouthis dress), and he was provided with a capacious pair of saddle-bags,long experience having convinced the good man that it was a most properprecaution, when visiting the Griffins, to be well provided withsaddle-bags.

  It is said, we know not with how much truth, that dappled horses areof superior intelligence, and can more easily be taught all kindsof tricks; and for this reason they are often found in the circus.However this may be, one thing is sure—that Parson Goodhue’s mare wasintelligent enough, and vexed his soul to that extent he sometimesfeared she received diabolical aid. But Dapple, as he called her, wassuch a capital roadster, carried him so easily, and was sound in windand limb, that the parson, who dearly loved a good animal, bore itpatiently.

  In those days the doors of all out-buildings were universally fastenedwith wooden latches, or buttons, as also a great proportion of thedoors of the dwellings.

  There was not a door or gate upon the premises of her master, orany of his neighbors, but Dapple could and would open, a fence shecould not get over, or a pair of bars she could not take down (unlessthey were pinned), provided a sufficient motive presented itself.Notwithstanding she had been reared from a colt in the family of aclergyman, under the very droppings of the sanctuary, received thebest of instruction, and the best examples had been proposed for herimitation, she would appropriate without the least scruple; in short,though we grieve to say it, she was a downright, incorrigible, sneakingthief; she was no respecter of persons or character, but would stealfrom saint or sinner, rich or poor; she would even take from the widowHadlock and Aunt Molly Bradish (that good old soul, when she wasalive), walk right into poor Mrs. Yelf’s cornfield right before hereyes, because she knew that Robert was at sea, and the old lady couldnot get at her for rheumatism.

  Parson Goodhue lived so near to the meeting-house that he and hisfamily always walked to meeting, thus Sabbath was a leisure day toher; and even on that day, when all other horses and good people wereat meeting, and her good master was inculcating morality, she would(if she could get loose) take the opportunity to commit trespass; inshort, she was the grief of her master and the pest of the parish, wascovered with scars she had received for her misdeeds, and would havebeen killed had she belonged to any other person than Parson Goodhue,whom everybody loved. She would back up against a door and turn thebuttons, would lift the latch or pull the string of one with her teeth,and break or get off any yoke or clogs that were put on her. Themost singular part of the whole matter was, that she would sometimesgo for a month peaceably, in the pasture, and the good parson wouldfeel quite encouraged, hoping it was a radical reformation; when justas he began to solace himself with this idea, and accord her largerliberty, she would abuse it to act worse than ever. At one time Dapplehad gone quietly in the pasture for nearly six weeks, and the hopesof her master were raised to the highest pitch. Adjoining the pasturewas a most excellent piece of wheat, just full in the milk, belongingto Jotham Lancaster. Dapple had not been permitted for a long time togo out of a Sabbath day; but her conduct had been so unexceptionable,that her master determined to trust her, especially as there was ahigh stone wall in good repair around the pasture. So, before goingto meeting, he turned her out; when he returned at noon, he found herquietly feeding, and told Captain Rhines he verily believed Dapple hadgot over her tricks.

  “Hang her,” was his reply, “I wouldn’t trust her.”

  When the parson came home at night, there she was, in that beautifulfield of wheat. If she had merely eaten what she wanted in one place,it might have been borne; but she had gone all over it, trampling downhere and there, then lain down, and rolled in half a dozen places;and when found, was quietly feeding out in the grass. She had, withher teeth, flung off the top pole, pushed over the top rocks with herbreast, and then jumped over.

  The next week John Rhines made a pair of iron fetters, to fasten one ofher hind legs to one of her fore ones, permitting her to scuffle alongand feed, but not to jump, and made a present of them to Mr. Goodhue,saying, “She can’t jump with these, I know.”

  Dapple now went quietly for some time. Captain Rhines said to hermaster, “I guess you’ve got her this time.”

  Vain delusion! she was probably meditating, in the “recesses of a mindcapacious of such things,” upon the means and methods of evading thisnew device; that her meditations bore fruit was soon manifest. ParsonGoodhue, returning from meeting in the afternoon, found her in themidst of his own corn. There was not a length of fence down; the barswere all up, and pinned, so that she could not remove them with herteeth. There was not a stone displaced in the wall, and the fetterswere fast to her feet. As her master took down the bars to lead herout, he gazed upon her almost with fear; he was not superior to thesuperstitions of his day, and was almost apprehensive of some satanicagency.

  The story got abroad; John and Fred determined to watch her. They shuther up in the barn with nothing to eat, till she was very hungry, thenturned her into the pasture just at night, and concealing themselves,kept watch. Dapple went to feeding, stopping every once in a while tolook around and listen; at length, seeing or hearing no one, she madedirectly for the bars, and attempted to take them down with her teeth;but they were pinned at each end. She then tried to push them over bybacking up against them; but they were braced by stakes nailed to theposts, and set in the ground; she then put her head between the lowerbar and the one next to it above, sprung the two sufficiently to inserther shoulders, then her whole body, and shoved herself through, comingdown whack on her side, while the bars sprung together as before; thengetting up and shaking herself, with a look of profound satisfaction,was making for the corn, when she was accosted in not very flatteringterms by her observers. John said he never saw anybody look more silly,or more worked, than she did.

  It was a matter of great surprise to the neighbors, and the town talk,that the mare never paid her respects to Joe Griffin, as in the fieldsof all others (except Captain Rhines’s, where Tige kept watch and ward)she ran riot; while Joe’s (whose land was new, just taken from theforest, and raised splendid crops of corn and grain) were unmolestedby the common enemy; they were passed by to commit depredations on thefields of Charlie Bell, that adjoined.

  We will let our readers into the mystery. The second ye
ar after Joeworked his place, he got up very early one morning, just as the daybroke, to go out gunning; there was Dapple in the corn for the firsttime. As Joe had recently moved into the neighborhood, she probably,as an old resident, felt it would be polite to call. Joe well knewthe character of his visitor, and what he might expect in future. He,however, manifested not the least sign of anger; didn’t even throw astone, or hit her with a stake; but turned her out, put up the fence,and went off gunning; not even mentioning the matter to his wife, whohad not yet risen.

  Dapple, who had made up her mind to receive a pounding, thought Mr.Griffin was one of the best of men, and resolved to cultivate hisacquaintance.

  Three nights after, she paid him another visit, and going along thefence, found the old gap but very indifferently mended; taking offsome small poles with her teeth, she cleared the great bottom log ata jump; but the instant she touched the ground on the other side, itgave way beneath her feet, and she found herself in a pit. Bitter wereher reflections; she accused herself of imbecility for not interpretingaright such forbearance in a Griffin; and awaited, with fear andtrembling, the approach of morning. Just as the day broke, she heardfootsteps, and Joe made his appearance. A smile of satisfaction passedover his face, as he gave one look, and disappeared, returning soonwith a shovel in one hand, and a bundle of long, tough beech withesin the other. Then, standing on the edge of the pit, he began mostunmercifully to apply them, with all the strength and endurance of anarm that had scarcely its rival in the community. On head, rump, andribs the horrible tempest fell. In vain poor Dapple kicked, and reared,and ran round the pit, which was not large enough for her to get out ofreach of the blows. For an hour, without intermission, this terriblescourging continued, when, reeking with perspiration, Joe threw downthe rod, and took up the shovel.

  Dapple expected nothing less than to be buried alive, and with deathstaring her in the face, remembered with compunction the manner inwhich she had abused the kindness of the good old man, and despised allhis wise counsels. But her quick discernment soon discovered that Joewas about to dig the earth at one end to an inclined plane to let herout, and instantly all her remorse and resolutions for a better lifewere at an end.

  When he had graded the pit, as he thought, sufficiently, headministered a few blows with the flat of the shovel, and an energythat sent Dapple flying from the pit like a hen from a hawk, observing,as he went leisurely to work to fill up the hole, “Much obliged to you,neighbor, for this visit; call again the first opportunity.”

  When Joe had filled up the pit, he flung some brush over, took thepail, and went to milking, never mentioning the matter, even to hiswife, till years afterwards.

  The mare never found opportunity to comply with Joe’s kind invitation.He might have left his crops out of doors for all her.

  Dapple mended her pace as she approached the rising ground on which theGriffin homestead was located, for she had often proved the hospitalityof its stable and pastures. The buildings were situated on the summitof a hill, which rose quite abruptly from the river. The blazing sunpoured down upon a house of enormous size, the lower rooms finished,the rest a shell. Not a tree or a bush, save one old stub, stood nearit. There was not the least attempt at a garden, but, far out in thefield, in the midst of the corn, cabbage, beets, carrots, and onionswere growing, and peas now ripe in the pod.

  On one side of the front door was a goose-pen; on the other a molasseshogshead, into which an upright board conducted the rain water from theeaves. The only approach to anything in the shape of plants was somehouse leek (then considered a sovereign remedy for _corns_), in an oldskillet.

  At a short distance from the end door was a small enclosure, made bydriving stakes into the ground, in which were roots of wormwood, tansy,comfrey, lovage, and sweet agrimony, while an enormous hop-vine covereda great part of the front of the house. All about the door-yard wereshingle bolts, bunches of shingles, old yokes, logs, sticks of hewntimber, drags, sleds, with the stakes in, broken and whole, and abrush-harrow was tipped up against the house, right under one of thefront windows, while between them the skin of a bear, recently killed,was stretched and nailed to the clapboards.

  Beside the end door stood a leech, that had been set up in the spring,to make soap, and suffered to stand through the summer, as Mrs.Griffin liked to have weak lye to scour with. Within a gun-shot ofthe western end of the house stood the stub of a massive pine, whichhad been broken off about twenty-five feet from the ground, and washollow, having the opening on the north-west side. In the cavity wereaugers, planes, saws, chisels, shovels, axes, and canting dogs, throwntogether in most admirable confusion. The tools were of English make,and evidently of excellent temper, but covered with rust. From the deadlimbs on the outside hung rusty scythes and a grain cradle. This wasthe Griffin tool-chest. An eighth of a mile from the house, down underthe hill, was the well.

  In the rough climate of New England, the inhabitants were solicitousto place their buildings in a lee, either under the side of a hill,the protection of a wood, or to dispose the buildings themselves insuch a manner as to give them a sheltered and sunny door and barn-yard.But here the barn was a great distance from the house, the buildingsdisposed without the least reference to shelter, as though theoccupants were insensible to wind or weather. Yet in other respectseverything betokened plenty and thrift; the walls were well built ofrocks of great size, and handsomely laid up; the barns were large, andthrough the open doors the hay could be seen, brought so far over thefloors that the mows nearly touched each other, leaving barely room toswing a flail.

  An immense log crib, the top covered with boards and shingles, wherethe long yellow ears of corn showed through the chinks, attested thatthe thrifty owner kept a year’s stock of bread on hand. On a scaffoldof poles, laid over the high beams, bundles of last year’s flax werevisible, while the number of milking-stools, hanging on the barn-yardfence, gave token of a large dairy.

  To complete the picture, four great hogs were rooting in the chipsafter thistle roots, and a white mare, with a sucking colt and twohalf-grown ones, was standing in the shade, on the north side of thehouse. As Parson Goodhue gained the summit of the hill, and was notfar from the old stub, he saw approaching some one whose form wasnearly concealed by a huge back-load of spruce poles, from twenty totwenty-five feet in length, and bearing in one hand an axe. As heflung the poles from his shoulder, and stood erect, he caught sight ofthe minister.

  “Halloo, parson! Good morning. Glad to see you. _Hot_—ain’t it?”

  “Good morning, Edmund,” replied his visitor, apparently not the leastdisconcerted by the rudeness of the reception, and extending his hand,which the other enclosed in his great palm, and shook with a heartinessthat caused the good man to reel in his saddle.

  “How are you, Elizabeth, and all the children?”

  “Well, so’s to be crawling. Lizzy always keeps herself worked down.‘Tain’t so much the work,—though we milk seven cows, for Lizzy’s amaster hand to turn off work, and real rugged,—but she’s foreverscrubbing and scouring. I tell her ‘tain’t a bit of use, but she willdo it. Then father’s a good deal of care.”

  “How is the old gentleman?”

  “He’s real strong at the stomach; eats and sleeps as well as ever hedid; but he sometimes has the rheumatics.”