The Young Ship-Builders of Elm Island

  CHAPTER IX.

  CHARLIE LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE.

  WHEN Charlie first sat down to his oars, he was not in so happy andjubilant a frame as when leaving the barn, after having completed thetimbering out of his boat; but as he pulled away from the island, thecalm hour, the beauty of the sea and shore, the glassy surface of thebay touched by the rays of the setting sun, gradually tranquillized hisperturbed feelings.

  “I have learned to graft, at any rate,” he soliloquized, “and I can getsome more scions of Mr. Welch.” And by the time he was half way to theisland he had begun to sing and talk aloud to himself.

  Charlie’s love for the soil had by no means become weakened through hisdevotion to boat-building; and now that the distress was over, and hefelt that he could do it, he bethought himself of other matters thatrequired looking after.

  The garden must be seen to right away, the beets and carrots must beweeded, the honeysuckle nailed up, the beans and squashes hoed, andsticks put to the peas.

  “There,” said he, “is that cabbage rose-bush, Mary Rhines gave me,ought to have a hoop to hold it up. I’ll make one, like a Turk’s head,out of willow, and stain it, and plane out three stakes of oak to holdit up; and I’ll stain them; it’s the last green dye I’ve got; but Idon’t care.”

  Charlie now had two objects in view: one was, to shoot a seal, and theother, and more important one, to learn to growl like them. In summerevenings, seals are very fond of resorting to the ledges at half tide,and to the sand spits, where they lie and suckle their young, wherethey feel safe, and much at home, growl, and are very sociable. Themany ledges lying off Griffin’s Island were frequented by seals; butone in particular, called the Flatiron from its shape, was a favoriteresort, because, while the others were within gunshot of the island,this was far beyond the range of any ordinary gun. Charlie, knowingthis, had brought, in addition to his own gun, Ben’s great wall piece,the barrel of which was seven feet in length, and the stock looked asif it had been hewed out with an axe. Uncle Isaac had often threatenedto make a new stock for it. Notwithstanding its bad looks, it wasa choice gun for long distances, and threw the charge where it waspointed.

  This ledge also possessed another attraction for the seals, as it wasflat, smooth, covered with a soft mat of sea-weed, and at the edgesslanted off into deep water; thus they could put their watchman on alittle ridge that rose up in the middle very much like the handle ofa flatiron, and when he gave the alarm, the whole band could, in aninstant, souse into the water.

  Charlie knew that Uncle Isaac and Joe Griffin could imitate the noiseof seals so exactly as to draw them on to the ledge, they supposing itto be another seal; and that Uncle Isaac had a seal stuffed, which hewould set on a ledge, as though alive, and then, concealing himself,make a noise like them. The seals, hearing the noise, and seeing thestuffed one, would endeavor to crawl up, and thus afford a shot.Charlie was an excellent singer, and a pretty good mimic, and hoped bypractice to obtain sufficient accuracy to deceive a seal; and he wantedto kill one to stuff, that he might try Uncle Isaac’s plan.

  Landing, and crossing the island, he approached the bank abreast theledge. Near this bank was a ridge of shelly rock, rising, about twofeet from the grass ground, to a sharp edge, from which the land slopedgradually towards the centre of the island--just the place to lie andrest the big gun over the edge of the rock.

  Although Charlie had no objection to shooting a seal, he was muchmore anxious to practise growling. It was little after high water: hecrawled up behind the ledge, with the boat’s sail over him, to keep offthe dew, and lay down in the bright moonlight to watch the seals, whowere swimming around the top of the rock, that was just beginning toget bare, preparing to go on to it. With the patience of a sportsmanCharlie waited; gradually the rock was left above the water. At lengthone seal ventured to land; then others followed; and soon they beganto converse. Charlie had practised a good deal, at home, by strivingto imitate them from recollection, and now had come over here that hemight hear them more, and fix the sounds well in his memory: so he layand listened a long time to the sounds, imitating them in a low tone,repeating them again and again. At length, flattering himself he hadcaught the tone quite perfectly, he concluded to try it on the seals;but the moment his voice rose on the air, every one of them went intothe water. Charlie was quite mortified at this; but it was evidentthey were not much alarmed, for they soon came back, and resumedtheir growling. After listening again for some time, and practisingas before, he made another effort aloud, when, to his great joy, theyremained; another attempt was equally successful; but the third timesome false note startled the wary creatures, and off they slid from theledge; but after swimming around a while they returned again.

  Charlie, quite well satisfied now with his proficiency in the language,determined to shoot one of his instructors. He took aim at a bigfellow who sat upon the highest part of the ledge and seemed to act aswatchman, and fired the old gun. It was heavily loaded with buckshot,and the seal never moved after receiving the charge.

  “So much for the big gun,” said Charlie.

  On his way home he concluded not to meddle with the boat again tillsome rainy day, or till he had put the garden and flowers to rights.

  After skinning his seal, cutting the skin as little as possible, hestuffed it with salt, intending to make a decoy of it. He ratherthought he should get into it, as the Indian got into the hog’s skinto kill poor Sally Dinsmore, thinking he could growl a great dealbetter in a seal-skin.

  The mornings now were most beautiful; it was generally calm till tenor eleven o’clock; and a busier or more attractive spot than ElmIsland presented it would be difficult to find. As the gray light ofmorning began to break, you would hear far off in the woods a single,sudden, harsh cry, breaking with explosive force from the mouth of anold heron, instantly followed by others; the squawks would add theircontribution; then would follow the sharp screams of the fish-hawk,mingling with the crowing of cocks,--of which there were no less thanthree in the barn,--the clear notes of the robin, and the twittering ofmany swallows from the eaves, that, with their heads sticking out oflittle round holes in their nests, were bidding their neighbors goodmorning.

  As the sun came up, all were stirred to new emulation; the bobolink,shaking the dew from his wings, poured forth his wild medley ofnotes; and faint in the distance was heard the bleating of sheep fromGriffin’s Island.

  As Charlie, mounted on a ladder, trained the honeysuckle over thefront door and windows, he often paused to listen, and sitting uponthe round of the ladder, inhaled the fragrance of the morning air, orgazed from his elevation upon the beautiful scene before him--the noblebay, smooth as a mirror, touched by the full rays of the rising sun;the gray cliffs of the islands, frowning above, with their majesticcoronal of forests; and the green nooks, here and there upon them,glittering with dew.

  “I wish I was a bobolink--I do,” said he, as he listened to one, who,more ambitious than his mates, was striving to lead the choir, fromthe summit of a mullein stalk, with mouth wide open, wings and everyfeather on him in motion.

  The old bush Mrs. Hadlock had given her daughter, sacred to theassociations of childhood, was now bending beneath its weight offlowers, while close beside it blushed the cabbage roses, hanging inrich clusters over the edge of the ornamental hoop Charlie had putaround the bush.

  To his great joy, Charlie found, on inspection, that his grafts werenot all destroyed. With the best intention in the world to do mischief,Ben, Jr., had not accomplished his intent. The clay had baked so hardaround the scions, that he had broken part of them off, leaving acouple of buds; for Charlie had put one bud into the cleft of eachstock, and they were coming through the clay.

  “I don’t care a cent’s worth,” cried he, when he saw this; “in twoyears I can get scions from these.”

  He found that the pears and cherries that had escaped Ben’s notice hadmost of them taken, and were starting finely.

  You seldom find boys who have more to occupy
their attention and takeup their time than Charlie had. He had wintered eight ducks and adrake, and young ducks were everywhere, for he had kept the old duckslaying, and set the eggs under hens. He had fifty hens (for there wascorn enough on Elm Island now), and troops of chickens. He also hadfour mongrel geese, the offspring of the wild gander and the tamegoose, and six rabbits. He was raising two calves, intending to have ayoke of oxen, and there were two cosset lambs; one of the mother sheephad got cut off by the tide under the rocks on Griffin’s Island, anddrowned; the other was mired, and the eagles had picked out her eyes.He had taught these cossets to drink cow’s milk. Ben, Jr., who was asbright and smart as he was mischievous, attended to feeding them, andthey would follow him all around the premises; but even this was notall. Uncle Isaac, in building fence that spring, had found a partridgenest, with fifteen eggs; as the parent had not begun to sit on them, hebrought them over to Charlie, well knowing his fondness for pets.

  “If you can tame them when they hatch,” said he, “you will do what wasnever done before.”

  The day before, little Ben had come upon a hen that had stolen her nestin the edge of the woods, and was just beginning to sit. He came intothe house full of the matter to his mother, who, taking the hen fromthe nest, put her under a tub to break her from wanting to sit. Asthere was no other hen that wanted to sit, Charlie put the partridgeeggs in the same nest, and put the hen on them, as he was afraid shewould leave them if he put them in a new place: he intended to keepwatch of her, and as soon as the eggs were pipped, to take the motherand young into the barn.

  Whenever Charlie had a little leisure amid his numerous avocations, heenjoyed a great deal in watching the proceedings of his large family,commonly as they retired for the night, as he was generally about thebarn, and more at leisure then.

  Although Charlie is now verging on early manhood, resolute to grapplewith danger, and yielding to no difficulties, yet he was peculiarlyboyish in his tastes; this tendency, in part native, had been fosteredby his isolated position, which compelled him to find enjoyment indifferent sources from boys in general; his pets were his companions.It is a great mistake to suppose that roughness is an attribute ofcourage. It was Nelson who said, as he was dying, to his comradethrough whole days of bloodshed, “Kiss me, Hardy.”

  Charlie had more moral and physical courage than Pete Clash, though hehad never lost his childish innocence. He loved to see the hens callingtheir chickens together for the night, and collecting them under theirwings, to see their little heads sticking out from under their mothers’breasts, and chirping, as though saying, “Mother, it ain’t night yet;it ain’t time to go to bed;” or in another case, where the chickenshad outgrown their swaddling-clothes, two of them roosting on theirmother’s back. He also noticed the contrast between the hens, as theywent to roost, and the swallows, whose nests were hung to the raftersand purlins, just above the high beams, on which they roosted. The hensseemed inspired with the very spirit of discord the moment the hourof retiring arrived. Madame Ebony, rejoicing in the dignity of age,and a grandmother, was shocked that a yellow-legged, last year’s latechick, that had not yet laid a litter of eggs, and those she had laidnot but a trifle larger than potato balls, should presume to roost nextto her, and began picking at her to drive her off the perch, while Mrs.Yellowlegs exclaimed, “I’m a married woman! I’m as good as you are anyday in the year! I’ll call my husband!”

  In the midst of this brawl, the white rooster, who prefers to do allthe fighting himself, flies up, and knocks them both down into the barnfloor, when every hen in the barn screams out at the top of her voice,“Served them right!”

  At length all is measurably quiet. A dispute commences between Mrs.Brown and Mrs. White, in which all take sides, as to which has had themost children. This is hardly over, and all about to compose themselvesfor the night, when the old white rooster espies a younger one on theend of the same beam, close to the eaves, and instantly calls out, “Ah,you thought I didn’t see you! Get off that beam, you miserable upstart!”

  “I won’t. I’ve as good right here on this beam as you have. It ain’tany of your beam.”

  Upon this, outraged dignity, to avenge himself, goes walking along thebeam, knocking the hens off, who, sputtering and fluttering, fly downinto the floor, where they are followed by the young upstart.

  The pugnacious fowls have become quiet at last, except thatoccasionally some aggrieved one cries in angry tones, “You crowd,”while the other replies, “I don’t--’tis yourself.”

  How different the swallows, who, having tarried later out of doorsthan the fowls, to catch the insects that are then abundant, nowcome gliding on swift and noiseless wing to their nests, through theholes Charlie had cut for them. Here all is harmony, love, and socialaffection. No bickerings, no struggle for preëminence, but, sittingon the edge of the nest, they bid each other good night in a pleasanttwitter, and with head beneath their wing, sink to rest.

  He also took pleasure in seeing the male swallow put flies into themouth of his mate, as she sat patiently upon her eggs, or watch themfeed their young on the wing. It amused him to see the ducks coming upfrom the brook in Indian file.

  As he had derived much pleasure from watching the eave-swallows asthey built their nests, he was equally interested in looking at themafter they were built and filled with birds,--their heads protrudingfrom the doors of their dwellings,--also the courage they displayed indriving intruders from their premises.

  He found they were not quite so mild in their dispositions as theswallows that built within, and frequently engaged in contests withthem, in which they were generally the aggressors.