THE FIRST TROUBLE, AND THE FIRST PRAYER.

Being somewhat lonely in the absence of Charlie, Ben employed himself in getting timber to build a scow, that he meant to construct with a mast, sails, and a sliding-keel, or, as they are now termed, centre-boards, to take cattle and hay to and from Griffin’s Island.

Uncle Isaac and Captain Rhines came on New Year’s Day. They told Ben and Sally it was so cold, and the weather uncertain, that they needn’t expect to see them again till April.

The next day, Danforth Eaton and two more came and hired the Perseverance. Ben told them, when they were done with her, to leave her in Captain Rhines’s Cove.

They were now left entirely alone. During the latter part of the same week, Ben, who had been out gunning all day, crawling round on the rocks, and getting wet, complained at night of pain in his head and back, and of chilliness. He made use of the usual remedies for a cold, but without avail. He continued to grow worse rapidly, and it was evident that he was to have a run of fever. Sally was in great extremity, her husband dangerously sick, neither physician nor medicine at hand,—save those simple remedies that necessity had taught our mothers,—with two children, one a baby, a stock of cattle to take care of, and utterly alone as respected any human aid. It was a bitter thought to her, as she sat listening to the wanderings of her husband she tenderly loved, and for whom she had sacrificed so much, that, while so rich in friends, all were ignorant of their necessity.

“If they only knew it at home,” said she to herself, “how soon should I see the Perseverance’s sails going up, and help coming!”

Sally had not what is sometimes termed a religious temperament. There was no sentiment about her. She was extremely conscientious in respect to keeping the Sabbath, or making light of serious things, was very decided in all her convictions, and never temporized. If it was wrong to do anything, it was wrong, and that was the end of it with her. She never read religious books from choice,—like many who never arrive at any satisfactory results in religious matters,—but only as a duty, as she did the Bible. She never cared to hear religious conversation, and, though she listened with the greatest respect to her mother in relation to these subjects, it went in at one ear and out at the other. Uncle Isaac’s description of her was perfect. She was lively as a humming-bird, and had too good a time of it in this world to think much about the other. But under the terrible pressure that now came upon her, the resolute nature and iron frame of the true-hearted, loving woman began to give way.

With the exception of some large logs for back logs, the wood which was cut was exhausted, and she was obliged to dig it from the snow and cut it.

The great fireplace was so deep, it was impossible to keep the room warm without a large log to bring the fire forward, and throw the heat into the room. These logs, which were three feet through, Sally hauled into the house on a hand-sled, and rolled into the fireplace, then cut up the rest of the wood to complete the fire.

The weather was intensely cold, the snow deep and drifted, and she was obliged to drive the cattle to the brook, and cut holes in the ice for them to drink. In addition to all this was the care of Bennie and the baby, the constant watching, and sense of loneliness. What a commentary was this upon the declaration of Uncle Isaac to Ben, in reply to the expression of his fears lest the untried hardships of Elm Island should prove too much for Sally,—

“O, she’s got the old iron nature of that breed of folks. She’s had nothing to call out that grit yet; but you’ll find out what she’s made of when she comes to be put to’t.”

Her husband was now so much reduced that it was with the greatest difficulty she could hear his requests, and the apprehension that he would die, which had tortured her for weeks, now seemed ripening into certainty.

It was just before midnight. Ben had lain since morning in a stupor, from which it seemed impossible to rouse him, and, being nearly high water, she feared he would die when the tide turned.

It was a fearful night. The roar of the sea on the rocks, with that hoarse, pitiless sound which pertains to the surf, and the hollow moan of the wind in the forest was heard all through the house. Sally had been taught to say her prayers from childhood, but never in all her life had she prayed in her own words. But now, as she sat with the Bible upon her knees, and her eye caught the promise, “Ask and ye shall receive,” something seemed to whisper, “Pray, poor woman, pray.” “Had I shown any gratitude for His mercies,” thought she, “I might with more confidence resort to Him in trouble.” At length, driven to despair, she fell on her knees beside the bed, and begged for mercy and help from heaven. “I am glad I did it,” said Sally, as she rose from her knees; “I think I now know something of what I have heard mother say—that the best place to carry a sore heart is to the cross. I don’t know what God will do with me, but I feel more willing to be in His hands. What a strange thing praying is! If you don’t get what you ask, you get comfort. It kind of takes the sting out. It’s like as when I was burnt so awfully, and the fire was out; the anguish is abated, though the wound is not healed. I will pray more, and trust more.” She spent the remainder of the night in prayer and reading the Scriptures.

The wind, shortly after midnight, had changed to north-west, and, though bitterly cold, it became clear. As the light of morning struggled through the windows, Sally scraped the thick coating of frost from the panes, that she might see her husband’s face, and eagerly scanned the pallid features. “He certainly does not look so death-like,” thought she, “is not feverish at all, and he certainly breathes better.” In the course of an hour, he made a sign for drink. She put it to his lips, and found that he swallowed. A short time after, she gave him some nourishment, which he also took. When a couple of hours had passed, he opened his eyes. She bent her ear to his lips, and asked him how he felt. “Better,” was the reply, in a voice scarcely audible. It was the first word he had spoken for two days. “The fever has turned, I know it has!” she cried; and falling on her knees, she poured out her heart in gratitude to God. Just then the child waked. “O, you blessed little soul,” cried the delighted mother, almost smothering it with kisses, “did you know your father was better?” And tying the young child in a chair, and giving it some playthings, she caught the milk-pail. As she opened the door, a ray of sunshine flashed in her face, and streamed across the threshold. “Bless God!” cried she, tears of gladness streaming down her cheeks; “it’s sunshine in my heart this morning.”

“How are you all?” said Sally, as she entered the barn, and, mounting with rapid steps the mow, pitched down a bountiful foddering to the cattle. “Put that into you; it’s Thanksgiving on this island to-day.” While Sailor, catching the altered looks and tone of his mistress, barked, and ran into the snow till nothing but the end of his tail was to be seen.

“How strong I feel this morning!” she exclaimed, rolling an enormous log on to the hand-sled; “I’ll make this old fireplace roar. I’ll have some light in this room, so that I can see Ben’s face. I have not dared to look at him for a month past,” catching a cloth, wet with hot water, and washing the frost from the windows. “I’ll wash up this floor, too; it is dirty enough to plant potatoes on; and then I’ll have a nap.”

In the afternoon, Ben awoke in the full possession of his faculties, though extremely weak, and in a whisper asked for the baby; he then asked for Sailor. Sally had kept the dog in the outer room, that he might not disturb her husband; but the moment she opened the door, he leaped on the bed, and licked his master’s hands and face, and then, rolling himself into a ball at his feet, went to sleep, occasionally opening one eye to see if his master was there.

It was now the first of March. The brigantine General Knox, Edward Hiller, master, was working her way to the eastward. She was homeward bound from Matanzas, having lain in Portland during a severe gale, where she had discharged her cargo. A heavy sea was still running, and the vessel, close hauled on the wind, and under short sail, being light, was knocking about at a great rate. Captain Hiller had been from boyhood a deep-water sailor, but, having married the year before, took a smaller vessel, traded to the West Indies in winter, and coasted in the summer. He was now bound home for a summer’s coasting, having his brother Sam for mate, and a crew composed of his neighbors’ boys, two of whom, John Reed and Frank Wood, were his cousins. Captain Hiller was amusing himself with humming the old capstan ditty,—

“Storm along, my hearty crew,

Storm along, stormy,”—

in tones which sounded like a nor’wester, whistling through a grommet-hole, at times varying his occupation by sweeping the horizon with his glass. At length he said to the man at the helm,—

“John, what island is that on the lee bow?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“I’ll ask our Sam: he is pilot all along shore, and knows every rock, and everybody. Sam, come aft here.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“What island is that to leeward?”

“Elm Island, captain.”

“Does anybody live there?”

“Yes, sir; Ben Rhines.”

“What Ben Rhines?”

“Him they call Lion.”

“That can’t be, Sam: he took his father’s ship when the old man gave up; there ain’t his equal along shore. I’ve been “shipmates” with him: he wouldn’t be living on such a place as that.”

“It is so, captain; he was offered the ship; but like another man I know of, that is a relation to me, he fell in love with a pretty girl, who vowed she wouldn’t marry him if he went to sea. And so he bought that island, married the girl, and has turned farmer. There’s some trouble there; I can see a woman on the beach, and she has got a petticoat—that’s the flag of all nations—on an oar, and is making signals.”

“If my old shipmate is in trouble, I’m there. Keep her off for the island, John. Flow the main sheet, and set the colors in the main rigging, and then she’ll know we see her signals.”

The vessel, with the wind free, increased her speed, but not sufficiently to suit the impatience of the noble-hearted seaman, who exclaimed,—

“Shake the reefs out of the mainsail! loose the fore-topsail! Why, how slow you move to help a neighbor! Sam, do you know the way in there? It seems to be all breakers.”

“I know the way, captain; there’s water enough.”

“Then shove her in: we’ll soon know what’s the matter.”

Ben, propped up with pillows, and now able to converse, received with heartfelt joy his old shipmate, who sat down beside him, while the young men gazed with awe upon the great bones and muscles, made prominent by the wasting of the flesh, and called to mind the wonderful stories they had heard of his strength.

“What do you think of that, boys, for a lion’s paw?” said the captain, taking up Ben’s right arm, and showing it to the astonished group. “Now, Mrs. Rhines,” said he, “do you get a couple of axes, and John and Frank will cut some wood, while Sam and myself get your husband up, and put some clean clothes on him, and I will shave him; then you can make the bed, and we will put him back; for I suppose he has not been moved since he was taken sick.”

“No,” said Sally; “it was impossible for me to move him.”

These strong and willing hands soon put a new face on matters. With a roaring fire in the old fireplace, clean linen on the bed, the house put to rights, Ben shaved, and his spirits excited by hope, everything seemed cheerful.

“Frank,” said the captain, “go aboard, and in my berth you’ll find a pot of tamarinds and a box of guava jelly; they’ll be just the stuff for him: I got them fresh in Matanzas.”

“Frank,” said Sam, “get a couple dozen oranges out of my chest.”

“Don’t you do it, Frank,” said John Reed; “get them out of mine: he is courting a girl; but I ain’t so happy. I haven’t anybody to give mine to.”

“Captain,” said Ben, “you will dine with us.”

“By no means.”

“Yes; I insist upon it,” said Sally; “such friends as you don’t grow on every bush.”

“But, Mrs. Rhines, you are worn out with labor and anxiety.”

“I was; but that is all gone now.”

“Well,” said the captain, who perceived that a refusal would do more harm than good, “we will go on board, and get our dinners; your husband, who has had quite enough fatigue for once, will sleep; then we will come to supper, take care of the cattle, and some of us will sit up with Mr. Rhines; you will get a good night’s rest, and then will be all right. To-morrow we will go over and get your folks. I should not feel right to leave you alone.”

The next morning the brig’s boat went over, and brought back Sam Hadlock, his mother, and Sally Merrithew. Captain Rhines followed, in his own boat, with Uncle Isaac, and they brought cooked victuals enough for a small army. The news spread, and by night the house was full.

“Who will take the Perseverance, and go to Portland for the boys, if they are well paid for it?” asked Captain Rhines.

“I,” replied Joe Griffin; “but not for pay.”

“And I,” said Henry.

“And I, too,” said Joe Merrithew.

In less than an hour the swift little craft was cleaving the waves, her sheets well aft, the smoke pouring from the wooden chimney into the clew of the foresail, and the spray freezing as fast as it came on board.

When Charlie came, he was so shocked by the emaciated appearance of Ben, and the alteration in Sally, who had grown pale and thin, that he burst into tears.

“Charlie,” said Sally, as they sat together, after the rest had retired, and Ben was asleep, “do you remember that the first night you came here, you said your mother’s dying counsel to you was, when trouble came, to pray to God, and he would take care of you?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Do you ever pray now?”

“I say the Lord’s prayer; and the first time I went on to my land after it was mine, I thanked the Lord, or tried to; but I’ve been so happy here, that I have not prayed as I did before. Don’t you think,” said he, fairly getting into her lap, “that we are more for praying when we are in a tight place?”

“Yes, Charles; and so the better God uses us, the worse we use Him. The night you came here, a poor outcast boy, like drift-wood flung on the shore, you said you thought God had forgotten you; and now that he has given you a mother in me, and a father in Ben, and a brother in John, you have forgotten Him.”

“O, mother, I know I am a wicked, ungrateful boy.”

“No more so than the rest of us. Since you left home, I have suffered all but death; but I have also experienced a great joy. When Ben was first taken sick, he had a high fever; then he was out of his head; after that he went into a sog. At last there came a night, O, what a night! I could scarce get wood to keep from freezing; the sea roared as though it would come into the house; I thought Ben would die before morning. As I sat here, just where I do now, something seemed to say, ‘There’s no help for you on this earth; look to God!’ I did look to God; and I made a promise that I mean to keep! I looked for Ben to die when the tide turned; and such horrible thoughts as passed through my mind, that I could not move him from the bed, nor bury him; and to be here alone with a corpse! but when the day broke, I saw he was better. What sweet joy and love sprang up in my heart! You must pray to God this night, this moment, Charlie.”

“I will do anything you want me to, mother.”

“You must do it because it is right, not because I want you to.”

“I feel ashamed to, when I think how good He has been to me, and how meanly I have used Him; but if you will pray for me right here, I will pray for myself when I go to bed.”

When Ben had regained in some measure his strength, Sally told him all her heart.

“These things,” replied he, “are not new to me. In boyhood, yes, even in childhood, they were familiar to and grew up with me. There are trees growing on our point that were bushes when I prayed under them. After I went to sea, these impressions faded out; but the death of John brought them back; and since I have left off drinking spirit, they have increased in power. The day before I was taken sick, as I lay on the rocks watching for birds, and thinking of John, and how quick he went, the thought, Are you ready to follow him? came in my mind with such distinctness, that I turned round to see who spoke to me. On the rocks, right there, I cried to God, which I had not done since I was fifteen. I think I see men as trees walking; and I mean to follow after the little glimmering of light that I have.”

Ben now improved, the great bones were again clothed with flesh, and the sinews regained their tremendous power.

In a fortnight the boys returned to their work, Charlie having filled the shed with dry wood, and the door-yard with green, cut for the fire. He also left a boy of fifteen to take care of the cattle till Ben recovered his strength.

The good impression produced by sickness upon both Ben and Sally was not confined to them, but extended to Captain Rhines, Seth Warren, Joe Griffin, John, and Fred, and was the means of bringing Uncle Isaac to make a public profession of faith, for which he had never before felt himself qualified. Captain Rhines, after a severe struggle, gave up the use of spirit. Before the boys separated, Fred told them he had done so well that summer, he meant to get timber in the winter, build a store in the spring, and make a T to the wharf, that vessels might lie safely there in any weather.

Reluctantly these youthful friends, whose aspirations and sympathies mingled like the interlacing of green summer foliage, parted each of them to their different places of labor. The next and concluding volume of the series, The Hard-Scrabble of Elm Island, will inform our readers how they bore themselves in life’s battle, when its responsibilities began to press upon their young shoulders, cares and trials to thicken around them, and when called to discharge sterner tasks, and face greater perils than they had yet encountered.