“WE WERE PUT INTO THIS WORLD TO HELP ONE ANOTHER.”

IT was about eight o’clock Saturday night. Captain Rhines had sailed that morning for Boston.

Mrs. Brown had finished her household business for the day, and was seated before a bright fire in a cosy little sitting-room, reserved for her private use. Her children were with her, the girls having closed the store earlier than usual, and with the beloved and rescued son and brother in the midst, they were talking over the exciting events of the week.

“When I look back upon what has happened for the past two or three weeks,” said the happy mother, “it seems like a dream. There I was, day after day, and week after week, watching the papers, and no news of the vessel, a short passage too. Then I got Captain Folger to write to Halifax, and the consignee wrote that they supposed the vessel was lost, as one of her boats, bottom up, had been found, and a bucket that had the vessel’s name on it. A husband and son both buried in the ocean. It tore open the old wounds, and they bled afresh; brought up all the anguish of your father’s loss anew. I felt it was more than I could bear. How I begged and plead with my heavenly Father for your life, Arthur, the widow’s only hope! And some how, whenever I rose from my knees, I felt better than when I knelt down; a feeling as though, some how or other, the cup would pass from me, seemed to take possession of me, and this feeling kept me, for the most part of the time, on my knees. I felt better and happier there than anywhere else.”

“Don’t you think, mother, when I came to be on that raft, provisions and water all gone, the captain raving mad and jumping overboard, my shipmates dying one after another, that I didn’t think of you, and that you were praying for me? Poor little Ned and I, our throats were so dry and parched we couldn’t speak so as to be heard by each other above the winds and waves. I fell into a doze, and dreamed I saw a most beautiful grove of apple trees all in blossom, and a great long table spread under them, covered with piles and piles of meat, and great goblets, that held a gallon, full of the clearest water; and you was sitting at it, and saying, ‘Come, Arthur, this is all for you.’ I tried so hard to move towards you, it woke me; and I heard a shout, ‘Raft, ahoy! Is there anybody can take a line?’ Then I knew there was help. I tried to shout, but couldn’t. I could only raise my arm. Soon I heard something strike the raft; a voice shouted, ‘All fast!’ and two men stood over us. They were Mr. Ben Rhines and Charlie Bell. They told me to keep my heart up, for they would stick by me; but I was so overcome I fainted away.”

“Brother,” said Ellen, “didn’t you suffer terribly before you got so low as that?”

“Tongue can’t describe it; but the thirst was the worst. But here I am now, sitting before this comfortable fire, in this old room where we have spent so many happy hours, with you all around me. I’m sure, as mother says, it seems like a dream to me.”

“I hope,” said the widow, “such trials and such mercies will make us better; they certainly should.”

“I feel that it has been good for me,” said Eliza. “I thought, when we were in that agony of uncertainty, ‘O that I, too, could pray with mother! that I had a right to, as I felt she had! But when Captain Rhines’s letter came, I did go to God with tears of thankfulness, and trust I was accepted.”

“I thought, if my poor boy’s life could only be spared, even if he was a cripple, or injured for life, I could ask no more. And then to have him come home so well and happy, with such a friend as God has raised up for us all in Captain Rhines! Yet I can never think upon him and his kindness but it makes me reflect upon myself.”

“Why so, mother?” said Arthur.

“Your father was of most open and generous nature, far too much so for his own interest, and, as I then thought, for that of his family, while my disposition was very different. My parents were poor, and I was brought up by a relative, early taught hardship, knew the value of money, and was naturally prudent. Your father would take the clothes off his back to put on anybody else. I used to go to sea with him, when we were first married; and when sailors came on board without clothes, he would give them clothing, fix them all up, and make them comfortable. I used to tell him, sometimes, that if they drank, gambled, and threw all their money away, they ought to suffer the consequences, and his first duty was to his family. But it was no use to reason with him; he couldn’t help it—couldn’t bear to see anybody suffer; and at length I refrained from saying anything on the subject, but tried to economize all I could, to offset his liberality. He never concerned himself about household matters, was gone a great part of the time, and left everything to me.

“He would come home, and bring barrels of sugar and molasses for family use, and bags of coffee, and have them hauled up to the house; and also quantities of fine cloths from Europe and the East Indies for me and the children, and material for towels, curtains, and bedding. After he was gone, I would live as prudently as possible, sell a great part of the things sent home, and put by the money against time of need.

“After our third child was born, he began to alter gradually, and seemed to have different ideas, became more prudent, and, as he was a man of great business talent, began to accumulate, and soon owned a good part of the vessel, and, had he lived, would have become a wealthy man, but was taken away in a moment. There was no insurance on the ship or cargo, and all he had accumulated was gone, except this house. Then, being left a widow, with a young family, I found the benefit of the little I had saved.”

“I’m sure, mother,” said Eliza, “I don’t see what you have to reflect on, except with satisfaction. You were not saving for yourself, but for us children, and for father, had he lived to be old, and past labor.”

“Ah, but I was so anxious that your father should lay up something for his family, that after he was gone, I felt that perhaps I had said more than I ought; sometimes, too, I would discourage him from doing for others, when it did not consist in giving money; when he would spend a great deal of time at sea in teaching some young man navigation, when, as I thought, he ought to have been asleep in his berth, or resting; often, when he was on shore, and I wanted him to go with me, he would be running here and there, night and day, to get a vessel built for somebody, and oftentimes get small thanks for it, as I told him. Then he would say, ‘Harriet, we were put into this world to help each other; we ought not to feel vexed or disappointed if we do not always receive gratitude from those we have befriended, when we consider how ungrateful we are ourselves to our Maker, but do our duty.’ These things often came up in memory, after he was taken away, and I would have given anything if I had not said some things, and could have taken them back.”

“But, mother,” said Ellen, “I don’t think you ought to feel so. You meant it for his good.”

“I thought I did, at the time; but since then I have felt there was a good deal of selfishness at the bottom, that ought not to have been there; that your father felt it, and it pained him, for I could see a shade of sadness flit across his face, like a cloud across the sun in a spring morning.”

“Don’t cry, mother,” said Arthur, putting his arm around her, and wiping away the tear that trembled on her cheek.

“But when,” she continued, in a voice broken with emotion, “in the midst of my anguish about you, that letter came from Pleasant Cove, telling me your life had been saved by Captain Rhines (one of the very boys your father had worked so hard to help), so full of sentiments of affection for your father, and gratitude for the favors he had received from him, and a few days later your letter, telling me of their kindness to you and Ned, I was overcome.”

“O, mother, I can’t tell you one half they did for me, because it can’t be told; for it was not only what they did, but the way they did it. It came so right out of the heart. They seemed to love to do it, and it was done with such looks and tones of love.”

“Yes; and when that noble man came up here, and couldn’t do enough—wanted to take us all home with him—insisting upon it, didn’t I feel condemned for trying to hinder your father from helping others, and telling him he got small thanks for it? Here, now, is one of those very persons, becoming a father to his son, putting him right into business at once.”

“Well, mother, I’ve made up my mind to one thing—I’ll try to show myself my father’s son, and practise that which I approve of so much in others. I’ll let Captain Rhines, Mr. Ben, Charlie, John, and the others see that I am not deficient in gratitude. If God gives me life and strength, the grass shan’t grow on that vessel’s bottom. I’ll make her a happy vessel for sailors, and help every young man I can, as father told Captain Rhines to do when he asked him how he could repay him. And as he has helped me, whether I get any thanks for it or not, I’ll look higher than that for my reward,—I’ll get it in doing my duty. I’ll begin with my shipmate, little Ned Gates.”

“I am glad to hear you talk thus, Arthur. Your father’s principle was the true one,—do right because it is right,—and from all I have seen, it generally bears the best fruit even in this life. There was your uncle David, just the opposite of your father; always saving for his children; so close as to be on the edge of dishonesty, if not actually dishonest; never had a thought or care for any one but himself or his own, and, just as he had amassed a large property, went into a great speculation in his old age for the sake of getting more, when he had more than enough already risked the whole, and lost the whole. Now, worn out, and broken down, without a house over his head, everybody says, ‘Served him right,’ and his children all poor, while your father’s good name and deeds have been money at interest for his family, and the bread he cast upon the waters has come back after many days.”

“Mother, there’s one thing I want you to do before I go to sea.”

“What is that, Arthur?”

“Just send off these boarders,—no longer make a slave of yourself,—and take some comfort. The girls are doing well in the store; George supports himself; I am going to have business, and Captain Rhines has given you and the girls money; so there’s no need of working, and wearing your life out now.”

“I couldn’t feel right, Arthur, if I were not earning something; a thousand dollars would soon be spent, come to sit down and live upon it; you may have hard luck at sea; the girls are doing well, to be sure, but they have got to return the money that friends loaned them to start with. I have put that thousand dollars in the bank, against a rainy day; besides, I have another reason for wishing to earn something.”

“What is it?” asked Ellen.

“I want to atone for past selfishness, and follow your father’s example in doing what little I can to help those poorer than myself. It’s but little I can do, to be sure, but I mean to do that little cheerfully, and I trust ‘twill be accepted. There is the mother of poor James Watts, who was on the raft, and died. She is poor, and bereft of all her dependence, for he was a good boy, and gave her all his earnings, while my child was spared, and friends raised up to help me; and I mean to do all I can to help and comfort her. I mean to act on your father’s principle, ‘Harriet, we were put into this world to help each other.’”

“At any rate, mother, you need not have so large a family and work so hard; you can keep more help; you must gratify me in that.”

“Well, I will, my son.”

At this period of the conversation, the servant announced that a young man wanted to see Arthur.

“It is Ned; tell him to come in here. Good evening, Edward; sit down beside me; this is more comfortable than the raft.”

“Indeed it is, sir.”

“I suppose you hardly care to sail salt water any more, you’ve had such bad luck this time.”

“O, yes, sir; old Captain Osborne tells me some people have all their bad luck at once, and that it’s a good sign when a man falls overboard before the vessel leaves the wharf, or is wrecked at the first going off. He says that ship was cursed.”

“Was cursed!” said Mrs. Brown; “what did he mean by that?”

“He says, marm, that he knew that captain; that he was a cruel man to sailors, abused and starved them (that I know to be true); that it was thought he had murdered men. Are you going again, Mr. Brown?”

“Yes, Edward. Captain Rhines and his folks are building me a vessel; I expect the keel is laid by this time.”

“Can I go with you, sir?”

“Yes, if your parents are willing.”

“They are willing I should go with you, sir.”

“It will be some months before the vessel is ready; now, you better go to school, and get all the learning you can.”

“Yes, sir; shall I study navigation?”

“No; I’ll teach you that on board ship. Study arithmetic and book-keeping, learn to keep accounts and write a business hand, and study trigonometry and geography. If we live to get to sea in the ship, we won’t starve, or abuse anybody, nor pass any wrecks, and try not to have the vessel cursed. We know what it is, my boy, to starve, and to be helped in distress, and will do as we have been done by.”

“Mr. Brown, don’t you think the folks at Pleasant Cove and round there are the best folks that could be?”

“Yes, Ned.”

“But don’t you think Charlie is handsome,—the handsomest man that ever was?”

“I think Captain Rhines is handsome.”

“Yes, sir; but Charlie Bell; is it any hurt for me to call him Charlie? They all down there call each other so, and somehow I seem to love him more when I don’t put the handle on.”

“No, indeed; do you love me better when you don’t put on the handle?”

“No, sir; because I have been used to calling you Mr. Brown, and it comes natural, and I couldn’t love you any better than I do.”

“I suppose, Ned, Charlie looks handsome to you, and Captain Rhines to me, because we had the most to do with them; but they are both really fine-looking men. Most people would think John Rhines a finer specimen of a man than Charlie. I have seen a great many men, but I never in all my life saw so fine a proportioned young man as John Rhines; if he lives, he’ll be almost as strong as Ben. Charlie is the handsomest, John the most manly.”

“But, sir, do you know what I thought (I suppose I was wandering) after they took us off the raft, and I kind of came to? I opened my eyes, and Charlie was bending over the bed. I looked him right in the face; such a beautiful face, so much goodness in it, I thought I had got to heaven, and that an angel was hovering over me; and then, when I came to myself, he was so kind,—fed me with a spoon, took me in his arms, and put me in a chair, just as my mother would; and Ben Rhines, though he ain’t handsome, he is just as good as the rest. Uncle Isaac and Fred Williams, they are all just as good as they can be. I mean to go down there, and stay a month at Pleasant Cove, and Elm Island. They asked me to.”