The moment Uncle Isaac landed, he set out for Sam Elwell’s. Going along, he saw Yelf’s horse feeding beside the road, with the bridle under his feet, and, a little farther on, his master lying in a slough hole, to all appearance dead, but, as it turned out, only dead drunk. He pulled him out, and, as he was unable to stand, set him against the fence to drip, while he caught the horse; his gray hairs and face were plastered with mud; his nose had bled; the blood was clotted upon his beard, and soaked the bosom of his shirt.

“How came you in this mud hole?”

“Why, you see, Isaac, the mare went in to drink; the bridle slipped out of my hand; I reached down to get it, kind o’ lost my balance, and fell right over her head, and hit my nose on a rock. I think, Isaac, I must have taken a leetle drop too much.”

His friend scraped the mud from him as well as he could with a chip, put him on the mare (for Yelf could ride when altogether too drunk to walk), and left him at his own house, which lay in the direction he was going.

“That’s a bad sight,” said Uncle Isaac to himself, as he went on, “and it’s one that’s getting altogether too common. I remember the time when he was content with his three glasses a day, and perhaps a nightcap; but now he can’t stop till he stops in a ditch. There ain’t a man in this town but what drinks spirit, myself among the rest, and most of them more than’s good for ’em. I don’t see why people can’t use liquor with moderation, and without making a beast of themselves. If it was only these old, worn-out ones, like Yelf, ’twouldn’t be so much matter; but it’s amongst the young folks; and even boys get the worse for liquor. It’s natural they should; for if men sail vessels, boys’ll sail boats. It’s time something’s done, though what can be done I’m sure I don’t know. What an awful thing it would be, if, one of these days, Ben or Joe Griffin should pick me out of a ditch, and carry me home to my family looking like that! I’ll think about it, and talk with Hannah this blessed night.” He was aroused from his meditations by hearing the voice of Sam at his own door.

He was about the age of Isaac, but a much heavier man, being very thick set, with a stoop in his shoulders. His hands were of great size, full of cracks; his fingers crooked, from constant working with stone hammers and drills; many of the nails jammed off, and his face as hard as the stones he worked on. He was also a man of very few words, while Isaac liked to talk; yet they had been close friends from boyhood, took great delight in each other’s society (if it could be called society where one talked and the other listened), and always got together, and worked together, whenever they could. They were both passionately fond of gunning. Isaac was the quicker shot; but Sam could scull a float steadier and faster than any man along the shore. He could also lay brick well, but was possessed of a remarkable gift for working upon rocks. He knew just how to take hold of a great rock to move it, and could do a better quality of work than they ever had occasion for in that rude state of society, where nobody had hammered doorsteps but Captain Rhines, widow Hadlock, and a few others. He knew all about the nature and grain of rocks, could dress underpinning, or make a millstone out of a boulder in the pasture.

He had just come home from a long job, and was taking his tools out of the cart. “Let them be,” said Isaac; “I’ve got another job for you:” as he spoke he pulled the clevis-pin out of the tongue.

Sam, without a word, unyoked the oxen, and went into the barn to feed them, while the other tied them up.

Isaac, without any invitation, followed Sam into the house. The table was in the floor, and Sam’s wife had just put on the victuals. “Set along,” said Sam, motioning Isaac to a chair. That’s the way they lived. If they chanced to be in each other’s houses about meal time, they always stopped. If they met on the road, or were at work together in the woods, or had been off gunning, they always went to the house that was nearest. Their wives never worried about them, for they knew where they were, and were as good friends as their husbands.

“Sam,” said Isaac, “did you ever see a fireplace and chimney built of stone?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“I’ve seen stones set up in a log camp to build a fire against, with a ‘cat and clay’ chimney built over them; but ’twas a make-shift till they could get bricks.” “Could it be done?”

“They say Necessity’s the mother of Invention. I suppose it might, by putting in the proper stone.”

“Well, Ben Rhines has got his house up, can’t get bricks this fall, and don’t know what to do. He was going to get Joe Dorset to build his chimney; but I told him I knew you could build a good fireplace and chimney out of the rocks on the island, if you had a mind to.”

“Dorset don’t know anything about rocks,” growled Sam.

“Now, let me tell you about the stone. There’s a granite ledge on the western p’int that lays in thin sheets, that you can break up with your stone hammer.”

“Granite’s first rate for a chimney, but ’twont do for a fireplace.”

“Then there’s a kind of gray stone, with white streaks in it, but softer than granite.”

“That’s a bastard soapstone; that’ll do for a fireplace.”

“Well, can you do it?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Enough said. Now, I’m bound Sally shall have an oven; and I’m going to take up my butt’ry floor to make it of.”

“You needn’t do that. I can make as good an oven of that stone as ever a woman baked bread in. It’ll crack some, but not half as bad as granite. It’ll hold heat wonderfully.”

“You beat all, Sam. I told Ben I knew you could build a chimney without a brick in it; but I never dreamt of your building an oven.”

“Who am I to have to tend me, and help handle these big stones?”

“That pretty little Ben Rhines and Joe Griffin, to say nothing of myself.”

When Sam went on to the island and saw the stone, he rubbed his hands, and chuckled, and talked to himself, and appeared overjoyed.

“What a queer old coon he is!” said Joe; “anybody’d think he’d found a gold mine, instead of a pile of rocks.”

There was but one fireplace, and that was in the kitchen; but the hearths were laid in the two front rooms for two more, whenever they should be parted off and finished.

This fireplace was made of three large stones, which Uncle Sam cut and fitted together without any mortar. It was five feet to the mantel-bar, eight between the jambs, and of proportionate depth. This monstrous cavern was the fireplace. Such a master was Uncle Sam of his business, that when he saw a rock in the pile that he wanted, he would throw a little stone at it, and Ben or Joe would bring it to him.

But it was upon the oven that Uncle Sam displayed his genius. He found a place where a large portion of this bastard soapstone ledge had cracked and fallen out into the sea, leaving a smooth perpendicular face. He told Ben this rock was rent when Christ was crucified. From this ledge he split off just such large, flat slabs as he wanted, made them perfectly smooth, squared the edges, and of them built his oven in the form of a stone box, having top, bottom, and sides of perfectly smooth stones; for he threw sand and water on them, and putting on another great stone, as big as he and Uncle Isaac could lift, he got Ben to scour them, while he stood by and threw on sand and water, till they were perfectly smooth. He now put them together, leaving a space of a foot or more at the sides and ends. The covering stone was made to project on every side, so as to enter into the body of the chimney, in order that, if it should crack, it could not fall down. He now built a roaring fire in it. By and by the great stone on top, and one on the side, cracked with a loud noise.

“Crack away,” said Uncle Sam; “crack all you want to.”

He then took some clay mortar, filled all the space round the sides, worked it into all the cracks and joints, and, after it was thoroughly dry, made another great fire, and baked it all into brick. It would never crack any more, because the fire had already opened all the bad places in the soapstone, and these were filled with clay mortar, which was now burned into brick.

When the chimney was up to the chamber floor, he made what was called an eddy; that is, he brought the chimney right out into the chamber. Across it he put three beech poles, called lug-poles: these were to hang anything on which it was desired to have smoked. He also made a stone shelf in one corner to put an ink-bottle on, or anything that was to be kept from freezing. There was so much fire left on the hearth at night that these great chimneys never got cold. Uncle Isaac then made a tight door, to keep the smoke from coming into the chamber.

“Ben,” said Uncle Sam, “are you going to have a crane?” “No; I can’t afford it.”

“Then I’ll put in another lug-pole.”

It was the custom to fasten a chain to this to hang the pot on.

“That’s right,” said Uncle Isaac, delighted with the effect of his teachings; “a withe is just as good; I’ll give you a piece of chain to put on the end of it. When you go up in the spring with a load of spars, you can buy iron, and have a crane made.”

“I,” said Joe, “will make it for you; I’m blacksmith enough for that.”

“Now,” said Sam, “I want just one thing—some lime to lay the stone in after I get above the roof, and collar the chimney.”

There was a large lot of clam shells on the shore, where the fishermen had shelled clams for bait. These he burned into as handsome white lime as ever you saw. Uncle Sam, though a man of but few words, possessed a very kind heart, and was much attached to Sally; hence the great pains he bestowed upon the chimney and oven. He now, therefore, as the chimney stood right out in the room, and was not concealed by any woodwork, took some of the lime and white-washed it, and also the arch in the cellar. Uncle Isaac now made a fire to try it. It was found to carry smoke splendidly,—upon which he praised it in no measured terms. Sam was evidently much pleased with the encomiums of his friend; and, that both might have cause for satisfaction, Joe then told Sam about Uncle Isaac’s pulling up Bradish.

The last thing Uncle Sam did was to split out two large stones for doorsteps. After they were placed, he said to Ben, “These stones are the best of granite; and when you build a frame house, if I ain’t dead, or past labor, I’ll dress them for you, and they’ll make as handsome steps as are in the town of Boston.”

“Well, Ben,” said Uncle Isaac, as they left the island, “that’s a log house; but it’s a very different one from those in which your father and I were born and brought up: they were no better than your hovel. We had no cellar, but kept our sass in a hole in the ground out doors. My poor mother never had an oven while she lived, but baked everything on a stone, or in the ashes. She raised a rugged lot of children, for all that, who live in good frame houses, and have land of their own now; but then it’s harder for you than ’twas for us, because we were all alike, and had never seen anything better; while you are going to live in a log house, right in sight of those who live in better ones. But you will be supported, Ben, and will be prospered.”