Elijah Kellogg

“ I have lived many moons; many snows have fallen on my head; and I remember the good days when the children of William Penn were many, when they bore rule at the council-fire, and those bad men who now have most to say were of small account, and when the red man, treated justly, was happy; and, because you are few, our lands are taken without paying for them, and our blood is shed. We do not love you the less because the power has gone from you: therefore we give the life of this man (whom the pale-faces could not buy) to you, and the spirit of the great and good Penn. ”

“ Uncle Isaac let go the anchor, and in a moment she was peacefully riding where there was not a ripple, with the roar of surf all around her, and bunches of white froth drifting lazily alongside.
It is these strong contrasts which make the charm of life along shore, and that so attach rugged spirits to the sea; and though those who live among these scenes do not talk about them as others do, who seldom witness them, yet they feel them, and they are a part of their life. Taking out the birds and guns, they put them into the canoe to take on shore. ”

“ O, I shouldn’t want to be a king, to be stuck up for everybody to look at, and nobody to love. If people obeyed me, I should know it was because they couldn’t help it; if they pretended to love me, I should be sure they lied.”
“But I ain’t a king, Ned.”
“No; but you are a mate, and if just being a mate is going to make such an awful gap, what must being a king make? It must be a lonesome thing to be a king.”
“What a queer fellow you are, Ned! I always thought you were about as spunky and ambitious a boy as I ever knew. You wouldn’t want to be a boy always—would you?” ”

“ But when in the outer cove of the White Bull the great wave came up, a quarter of20 a mile in length, bearing before it the pebbles, some weighing three hundred pounds, others not larger than a sparrow’s egg, all alive and moving in the surf, and rolling over each other on the smooth granite bottom, how solemn to listen to that awful roar, like the voice of Almighty God! ”

“ Holmes used to tell me about him; and he’s a Lord, too,—he made the Lord’s prayer and the Bible, and made me, and every kind of a thing that ever was, or ever will be.”
“Mercy sakes, James!” cried Mrs. Whitman, holding up both her hands in horror; “God is not a man.”
“I thought he was a great big man, bigger than kings or queens; and I heard a minister what came to the workhouse read in the Bible, ‘The Lord is a man of war.’”
“He is indeed greater than all other beings; but he is not a man, but a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.” ”

“ John threw some fresh fuel on the fire, and squatting down on the ground, with both arms on the deacon’s seat, and his mouth wide open, sat 250 with his eyes riveted on the old hunter’s face, drinking in every word, while Charlie and Joe Griffin disposed themselves in attitudes of attention.
“I don’t,” continued Uncle Isaac, “bear any malice against a bear, as I do against a wolf, though they have done me a deal of mischief in my day, because they are not a bloodthirsty animal. A wolf will bite the throats of a whole flock of sheep, just to suck their blood.” ”

“ There were rumors in the air, and forebodings of a radical reform in medical practice. Practitioners of the doctor's age, who were either too indolent, prejudiced, or too far advanced in life to receive and act upon new ideas, were by no means to be envied, being somewhat in the position of one upon a ledge in the sea, cut off by the tide, that, constantly rising, rendered his passing into oblivion merely a question of time. ”

“ I will marry you, and go to that island with you; we will take the bitter with the sweet; we will suffer and enjoy together. If you love me well enough to give up a ship, and go on to that island to live with me, I love you well enough to go on it and be happy with you. I thank God, that if he has given me a handsome face, as they say, he has not given me an empty head nor an idle hand to go with it. ”

“ If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopylæ! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle! ”

“ Suppose before two days there should come a gale of wind, a real snorter, set the blockading fleet a flying, everything head over heels, and it is, up topgallant-mast, send up topgallant and royal yards, mast-head the topsail, man the windlass, up anchor and away for Marseilles. By and by we get home. Charlie Bell and Captain Rhines say (as I know they will) , 'Well, boys, have you seen any place you like better than home? What kind of land is it? What crops do they grow? Did the people seem happy, and do they live any better or know any more than we do? ”

“ I’ve named him Rover; and don’t you think he knows when the tide is down just as well as I do; then he goes to the beach, and digs clams with his nose; he never goes a clamming at high water. When I am fishing for flounders he will sit by me till I pull up a fish, and then he will swallow it in no time; sometimes I say, ‘Rover, you can’t have that; it is for the house;’ and he will look so wishful I have to give it to him.”
“I never heard of such a pig before, Charlie; I expect you will learn him to play with sea ducks.” ”

“ I know the Indians loved my people, and the memory of William Penn, though he has been so long in his grave. Friend Honeywood, 'love is stronger than death: many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.' Thou knowest we believe there is an inward light in every person born into the world; and there is in these poor savages (who are now torturing their prisoners, and would have tortured thee) , but it has been obscured by ages of ignorance and superstition: yet they would take the food from their mouths to put into mine, or any true follower of William Penn. ”

“ But this, which was entirely new to John, excited his wonder, and was so difficult of belief, was no matter of surprise to Charlie.
“Small way!” he exclaimed: “a good many strands make a rope. O, you don’t know much about England. Why, the people there are thicker than flies around a dead herring, glad to turn their hand to anything to get their bread, and thousands can’t get it; not because they are too lazy to work, but can’t get the work to do, are helped by the parish, and often die of hunger.” ”

“ He knew Bradford Whitman well, knew that he was as shrewd as kindly-affectioned, and that he was bitterly prejudiced against the business of soul-driving in which he was engaged, as Wilson had for years vainly endeavored to persuade him to take a redemptioner; but he had heard from the miller that Mr. Whitman was coming to the mill in a few days with wheat, and he resolved to make a desperate effort to prevail upon him to take James.
“He’s a kindly man,” said Wilson to the miller, “perhaps he’ll pity the lad when he comes to see him.” ”

“ It is certainly better, Ned, to be in the hands of a wise and good Providence, than to be left to plan for ourselves. If the disposal of events had been committed to you or me, we never should have suffered the Madras to spring a leak, and endured what we did upon the raft; yet it carried us to Pleasant Cove, to Captain Rhines and Charlie Bell, and was the best thing that could have happened to either of us. Way enough, men; fend off, Jacques. ”

“ Dan was a robust, red-cheeked boy, sound to the core, of fearless, sanguine temperament, and it was the hardest work in the world for Dan to sit on a bench and apply himself to study. Nothing but their attachment to Rich would have induced him and his sworn friends, Ned Baker and Frank Merrill, to attempt and accomplish it. But much as Dan loved his mother, he did abhor medicine, and to be coddled up. ”

“ Genius comes in with ‘Little Prudy.’ Compared with her, all other book-children are cold creations of Literature only; she alone is the real thing. All the quaintness of childhood, its originality, its tenderness and its teasing,—its infinite, unconscious drollery, the serious earnestness of its fun, the fun of its seriousness, the natural religion of its plays, and the delicious oddity of its prayers,—all these waited for dear Little Prudy to embody them. Sam Weller is not more piquant; Hans Andersen’s nutcrackers and knitting-needles are not more thoroughly charged with life. ”

“ Joe’s features instantly assumed a terrified expression. He colored to the very tips of his ears, but uttered no word.
“If,” said Sally, “it had been Ben Rhines, Seth Warren, Charlie, or anybody that could have taken their own part; but to set to work on that poor old man, one of the kindest men that ever lived, who took in that miserable Pete Clash, and clothed him, when he had no place to put his head, and whom everybody loves, to run the risk of killing or crippling him for life, I say it’s real mean!”
Joe made no reply, and Sally saw something very much like a tear in his eye. ”

“ As they sat side by side, the old gentleman with the child on his knee, Captain Rhines said,—
“I don’t see how anybody who ever saw Charlie could harbor any doubt about Mr. Bell’s being his father—they favor each other so much.”
“Ah, captain,” was the reply, “put an old, faded, red shirt on me, all stained up with osier sap, a tarpaulin hat, a bundle of baskets on my back, and, more than all, the heart-broken look I wore then, you yourself couldn’t have found much resemblance.” ”

“ All the way a carpenter, who was a good mechanic, but not possessed of ability to model a vessel, could build one, was to get some one who had to timber her out to the ribbands, after which he could finish her; but then everybody knew it. Now a person, by paying for it, may (privately) get any kind of a model he likes, build from it, and nobody—or but a very few—the wiser. Thus a man with modern helps can build vessels, and good ones, who, for the life of him, could not have gone to work, set up, and built a vessel, as Charlie did on Elm Island. ”

“ Walter and Ned had made their preparations for this voyage to Marseilles with feelings quite different from that blithesome, buoyant mood in which they weighed anchor before.
The death of Uncle Isaac, as he was fondly called by the young people, had blighted anticipations of pleasure to be derived from going into the woods during the holidays; and the loss of one who united in his single person the characters of parent, counsellor, and most genial companion, weighed heavily upon their hearts. ”

“ There was a short log left in the building of the house, and, in order to pass the time away, while waiting for the dinner, they dug it out, and made a hog’s trough: thus Ben’s first article of furniture was a hog’s trough.
The clams formed the first course; eggs, corn, apples, and cheese, the second; concluding with milk punch, which passed from hand to hand in a tin quart.
If ever there was real enjoyment, it was to be found among that frolicsome throng of young men, conscious that they had done a noble act, and, in aiding a neighbor, had found the purest happiness for themselves. ”