Elijah Kellogg

“ The saucy little craft, her sails limed and snow-white, her decks white as a holy-stone and sand could make them, her masts scraped and slushed, with a little yellow ochre in the grease, her hull, mastheads, and spars gayly painted, and rigging fresh tarred, seemed, as she flung the foam from her bows and shot into the little harbor, proud of her burden.
The parson was brought ashore from the vessel in the large canoe; and as the beach was wet, Ben took him in his arms and set him down on the grass ground, without ruffling a feather; here he was met and welcomed by Sally. ”

“ Charlie rose early one morning, intending, as Ben had gone away and given him the day, to work on his boat; but the beauty of the morning was such, the wind and tide just right for a sail both ways along shore, that he felt a strong desire to go and enjoy the day on the water.
“Go, Charlie,” said his mother; “you work hard enough; you’ll get the boat done long enough before Uncle Isaac wants her.”
He took his gun and luncheon, and started: he kept flint, steel, matches, and a horn of tinder in the locker of the boat, that he might kindle a fire whenever he wished. ”

“ Uncle Isaac, Ben, and Charlie went to look over it.
“It is too much,” said Uncle Isaac; “seventy-five cents an acre! farther back, you can buy it for twelve or fifteen cents.”
“What of that?” replied Ben: “no chance to get a thing to eat, except what you get from the land, and while you are clearing, almost starve to death; have to hunt and live on beech leaves and acorns; while here are clams at the shore, and fish and lobsters in the sea, to fall back upon; besides a brook with a fine mill privilege.” ”

“ Nobody would fish in a canoe now; and as demand always creates supply, an ingenious man at Wiscasset (a ship carpenter, who had been injured by a fall, and could not endure the heavy work of the ship-yard) saw one of Charlie’s boats, took the dimensions of her, and set up boat-building. Uncle Sam Elwell also built a boat for himself, and other ingenious people did the same; but Charlie’s boats outsailed all the others, and were preferred; there was something about them the others could not imitate. Uncle Isaac said there was a soul in them; they were alive. ”

“ Anybody could build a stage there, and roll the timber right on to it. What a place for a garden!—falls right off to the sun. O! O!”
As he ascended the slope, great long beeches, and once in a while a Norway pine, shot up skyward, with scarcely a limb except at the top, where every fork boasted the nest of a great blue heron.
“How are you, old acquaintance?” said Charlie, as they flew over his head; “reckon we’ve met before, or some of your relations.”
He now came to a place where the ledge occasionally cropped out, and the beech and pine gave place to a growth of sugar maple. ”

“ There’s a noble disposition in a fish-hawk: they are industrious, work hard for a living, and maintain their families by their own labor; they won’t pick up a dead fish, or eel, or feed on a dead horse or cow, like an eagle or carrion crow, but will have a live fish, that they have taken fresh from the sea; they won’t be beholden to chance, nor anybody, for their living, but earn it, as every honest person should, in the sweat of their face. ”

“ When his boat was finished, he painted her by the streaks, and she looked as neat as a pin. He thought she was a great deal handsomer than a square stern; so did everybody.
When anchored beside the Perseverance, she looked so much like her that he christened her Perseverance, Jr. As soon as the spars and sails were made, Charlie and the whole family, except Sally Merrithew and the baby, went over to meeting. ”

“ Never were boys in a state of greater excitement than they, when, upon launching her into the water, with a hearty shove and hurrah, she went clear across the harbor, and landed on the Great Bull. They got into the Twilight, and brought her back, and found she sat as light as a cork upon the water, on an even keel, and was much stiffer than they expected to find her. ”

“ Another thing, he and I have always been very thick: whenever we’ve met, he has always urged me to come over to the island; but this summer he has never asked me once. Then the last time we were at Portland, there was some privacy going on between John and Joe, that they didn’t mean I should know; there was a great long box that went to Elm Island. I know there was paint in it by the smell, and it was paint [198] for that boat; that’s what it was, though I don’t see what it was so long for.”
The strange craft was now in full view, coming down before the wind and tide, like a race horse. ”

“ A fisherman wants a boat, too, that is smart, stiff to bear a hard blow, buoyant, will mind her helm, and work quick to clear an ugly sea, and sail well on a wind. They often go twenty miles from land, tempted by weather that appears “hard and good,” to particular shoals, where they get large fish, when the weather suddenly changes, and in an open boat they must beat in, and they do beat in. There are boats now built at Hampton or Seabrook that would beat into Boston Bay, with a man in them that knew how to handle them in a gale of wind, when a ship couldn’t do it ”

“ This incident suggested an idea to Joe’s but too fertile brain in an instant. The spirit of mischief invigorated by a long repose, and with difficulty suppressed, rose in arms. That night he made shoes for the ram’s feet, with sharp calks, and nails to put them on with. Mr. Smullen was very methodical in his habits, and Joe was well acquainted with them.
It was his custom, before turning the cattle out in the forenoon, to put a little salt hay in the yard for the sheep, then carry out the corn for the hens, and bring in the eggs in the same measure; and he never varied a hair’s breadth. ”

“ I’ll begin to-morrow; that is, if father can spare me.”
“I’ll paint her, and make the spars and sails. Uncle Isaac wants you to build him one: he would build one himself, but he can’t get the time. He expects to go over to Wiscasset, to work on spars, and is driving on to get his work at home done.”
“Does he want her the same dimensions as this one?”
“Yes; but he is in no hurry for her; you’ll have boats enough to build, Charlie; so you had better lay out for it.”
“I shouldn’t dare to build a boat for Uncle Isaac.” ”

“ He forged a great many anchors for fishermen, which was heavy work, and required a great deal of striking with a large sledge; and John always struck with a good will, was never tired, and would draw the iron more at one blow than Sam, or even Lewis, at two. No wonder then that Mr. Starrett liked John best, put him ahead, and gave him jobs, that, in the usual course of things, belonged to Sam. It was just the same at the anvil as everywhere else. The boy that does the best for his employer does the best for himself. ”

“ There are no rules and regulations, after all; you’ve got to make a frame, set it up, work a ribband along, and squint at it, cut and cut, fuss and fuss, till you get it to suit your eye; or else make a model and go through all the slavery with pieces of boards that I have in building this boat thus far. O, it’s an endless job to build a boat. ”

“ These hardy men, born among the surf, and by no means given to sentiment, could not repress a feeling of awe, as they lay there silent, and listened to the roar of the sea, that rolled in eddies of white foam among the ragged points, being raised by the north wind, while on the other side there was not a motion.
There is something in the hoarse roar of the [29] surf, when heard in the dead hours of night on such a spot, that is more than sublime—it is cruel, relentless. ”

“ There’s a master sight of acorns and beech-nuts on the whole of that range along the shore, and hog-brakes in the swales. Hogs can get their living in the woods, and, by clamming on the beach, all the summer and fall.”
“Won’t the bears kill ’em?”
“Once in a while one; but then you can kill the bear, and he’ll be worth as much as the hog. I would rather have ten bears round than one wolf.”
“You know, Charlie,” said Hannah Murch, “bear’s grease is good to make boys limber to wrestle. If you had served my bed-clothes as you did Sally’s, I don’t know what I should have done to you.” ”

“ See her go right straight to windward! That jib is what takes my eye!”
“How is he going to handle three sails alone, when he tacks, I should like to know?”
“He’s got the jib-sheets to lead aft to where he sits. I’ve often seen that done.”
“I think it’s queer that our Joe, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac, who can do anything they are a mind to, should never have built a boat, but always went about in these dug-outs,—enough to wear a man’s life out to pull ’em.”
“What in the world is he doing now, Hen? He’s hauled down his jib, and taken in his mainsail.” ”

“ It was an everlasting sight of work, but Charlie possessed that indispensable attribute to success, patient perseverance. Ships and boats, in their present state of perfection, are the results of the efforts of hand and brain for ages, each century adding its mite.
In boat-building, as in all mechanical employments, there are certain rules which are taught by masters to their apprentices, having themselves received them from others, by which hundreds of men work, who could never have discovered them themselves. ”

“ I love to work with tools; but I love the earth that God made, and the woods. I love that spot, and am afraid I shall lose it if I don’t get it now. If I can only know it’s mine, that’s enough. Mrs. Murch, I think there’s something substantial about the earth.”
“So there is, Charlie; and when you’ve got the land, you’ve something under your feet, and it can lay there till you want it. There will be no taxes of any amount till there’s a road made through it.”
“Hannah,” said Uncle Isaac, “the Bounty is loading with bark and wood for Salem, in Wilson’s Cove. ”

“ People are not so fond of going on to wild land. They had rather buy land that has been partly cleared. I’ll write to Mr. Pickering, and get the price, and the refusal of it, and I’ll buy it for you. When you get your money from Fred, you can pay me. You’ll have enough from your boats, probably, to buy two hundred acres; and when we hear from him, I’ll go over it with you. There’s a heavy growth of pine back from the shore: I should want that; and there’s a pond, that the brook is an outlet of: I should want command of that water. The brook is a mill privilege. ”

“ As we listen to it in such a place, from which there is more than a possibility that we may not escape, we realize how impotent is the strength or skill of man against the terrific rush of waters. We call to mind how many death-cries that sullen roar has drowned, how many mighty ships that gray foam has ground to powder, and look narrowly to see if the giant that thus moans in his slumbers is not about to rouse himself for our destruction. ”