Ben Comee Part 5

"You're just in time, Benny; old Francis Whittemore, down at the East Village, has had a fit; and I've got to go and see what I can do for him. The old man has too much blood, and it's gone to his head. We must bleed him. Take the lancets, Jonathan, and the basin too, and a bottle of Daffy's Elixir. There's nothing like it to tone up the stomach. Now we are all ready. Tie your rackets on behind and sit in the bottom of the sleigh, Ben."

The doctor and his son Jonathan got in, and I sat in the straw till the doctor pulled up and let me out not far from our house.

CHAPTER IV

TRADING IN THOSE DAYS--BEN IS APPRENTICED--THE ENLISTING SERGEANT--COURT DAY AT CONCORD

About this time my life changed a good deal. Bishop Hanc.o.c.k had died during the previous winter. Young John was adopted by his Uncle Thomas, the Boston merchant, and went to Harvard College. Edmund's mother, who had been a widow several years, married Squire Bowman, and went to live at his house at the south end of the town. As for myself, I was growing up, and had my stint of work with the others. In the spring, driving the oxen, while father held the plough. Then came sowing the land and planting corn. Then half-hilling and again hilling it. Then helping to hay, and to gather in the crops. In the fall, picking apples and making cider. And as the winter came on, I helped to kill and dress a steer and a couple of hogs, and to put them in the powdering tubs and pickle them. Then we hung the hams and sides of bacon up in the chimney to be cured. Beside these things the daily care of the cattle and milking kept me busy all the time.

And it seemed to me that we got but small return for our labour. We had a large barn full of cattle and horses, and the loft full of hay for them. A snug home for ourselves and plenty to eat and drink. We raised the flax and wool from which our clothes were made. When we killed an ox or a calf, the hide was tanned to make into shoes.

But we had very little ready money. Whatever dealings we had with our neighbours was done by exchanging goods,--trading we called it. Trading was going on all the time.

One morning, as we boys were walking up the road, and had reached the upper end of Captain Esterbrook's land, Edmund said, "h.e.l.lo, Ben, look over there. Captain Joe Esterbrook and Matthew Mead are trading.

Whenever you see one man sitting on a log and another walking up and down with a straw in his mouth, then they're trading. And the man with the straw in his mouth is the one anxious to have the trade go through.

See how nervous Matthew is, and Captain Joe, sitting on the log whittling, looks just as calm and contented as a frog in a puddle. When you trade, Ben, don't chew a straw, but sit down and whittle. Captain Joe probably wants the trade to go through as much as Matthew does. But the whittling keeps his hands and eyes busy, and steadies his nerves. It gives him a chance to look as if he didn't care a snap about it."

[Sidenote: TRADING]

"I don't think there's any need of Captain Joe whittling," said I. "He's as keen as a razor at a trade. I was going by his place a little while ago, and he had his old horse Bjax out in front of the stable, showing him to a fur trader from the Back Country, whose horse had gone lame.

"'Yes,' says he, 'he's a fine horse, kind and sound, and I wouldn't part with him for anything, if the other one hadn't died. I had a horse called Ajax, that I got of one of the professors down to the college, and the next one I bought I called Bjax. But now that Ajax is gone, there don't seem to be no sense to the name. When I had Ajax, Bjax was all right; but Bjax alone sounds sort of ridiculous, and I'll let you have him cheap.'

"His black boy, Prince, was hanging round, looking as if a funeral was going on. He stepped up, and said, 'Oh, ma.s.sa, ma.s.sa. Don't sell that horse. That's just the best horse we ever had.' Then the black rascal went behind the man, winked at me and grinned."

Late in the fall, after we had killed off some of the cattle, father would load a couple of pack-horses with beef and pork, which he sold in Salem. For in those days Salem was more easily reached than Boston.

Probably not more than one or two families in the town spent over twenty Spanish dollars in the course of the year.

Money came most readily to those who had a handicraft, and there was hardly a house on the main road in which there was not an artificer of some kind.

[Sidenote: BEN APPRENTICED TO A BLACKSMITH]

A prudent father took care that his son learned a trade. Edmund was sent to Concord and became a cordwainer or shoemaker. Davy Fiske was a weaver, and soon after the fox hunt I was apprenticed to Robert Harrington, to learn the blacksmith's trade. He was a large, strong man, of a kindly nature, and was an excellent ba.s.s singer. As we worked together in his shop, with his son Thaddeus, we frequently sang psalm tunes, and his younger son Dan piped in a treble.

One day Major Ben Reed rode up, and brought his horse in to be shod.

"Well, Robert, we're going to have war again with the French. Governor Shirley's got word that they are making a settlement and building a fort down on our eastern frontier, and has ordered Colonel John Winslow to raise a regiment, and go down there to put a stop to it. Captain Frye of Littleton is raising a company, and if any of the boys want to join the expedition, they'd better enlist with him."

Davy Fiske's two older brothers, Jonathan and John, did enlist. They joined this company, and so did Joe Locke.

The regiment went up the Kennebec, built a fort, and then half of them went further up the river, to the Great Carrying Place, but found no settlements, no French nor Indians, nothing but immense and terrible swarms of black flies, midges, and bloodsucking mosquitoes; and after considerable blood was shed on both sides, they retreated and returned home.

This was but the beginning of the great struggle that we had with the French for seven long years. In the next year, 1755, early in the spring, Colonel Winslow was again ordered to beat his drums through our Province, and raise a regiment to proceed against Acadia; and Captain Spikeman began to enlist a company in our county.

The captain made his headquarters in Concord at Rowe's Tavern, which was kept by Edmund's uncle, Captain Thomas Munroe.

Several times, a sergeant, corporal, and a couple of drummers came down to Lexington, and marched through the town, beating a rub-a-dub on their drums. The sergeant would speak to the crowd, and try to get them to enlist. He would promise them--well, what wouldn't he promise them?

Lands, booty, rich farms, the chance of becoming a general at least. He was an oily-tongued fellow, and Uriah Hall's son Uriah, Phineas Parker, and Tom Blanchard enlisted with him. He and his drummers stopped at our shop one day, and he came in. He placed his halberd in a corner, brushed the dust from the top of a box, and sat down.

[Sidenote: EXPEDITION TO ACADIA]

"Well, which of you young men is going to serve the King? There never was such a chance for a soldier as this. Here we are, going down to the richest country in the world, to turn these Acadians out of house and home; and any soldier who wants a farm can have it for the asking.

Richest soil in the world. You can raise anything there. Level as a table, all cleared, not a stone in it, farm tools, housen and outhousen, and everything all ready for you. Hundreds of acres for the asking, and lots of booty besides. What better chance do you want?"

Mr. Harrington, who was leaning on his hammer by the forge, asked:--

"But why do you turn them out? Why don't you let them alone?"

"Why do we turn them out? Because we must. That country has belonged to England for forty-two years. And not one of those people will take the oath of allegiance. They have the easiest time in the world. Not a penny of taxes was ever asked them, and they have been treated like pet lambs.

Their priests tell them not to take the oath of allegiance, and they expect every year that the King of France will retake the country."

"Well, what of it? They say they are neutrals, and if you leave them alone, and they mind their own business, and till their farms, they'll come round all right in the end."

"Will they? They're the funniest neutrals you ever saw. They are dead set against England, and claim to belong to France. If a garrison wants to buy food, not a bit will they sell. But when the French and Indians make an inroad into the country, they run to them, give them all they have, join in with them, and fight us. When the French are driven back, they scatter and go back to their farms, as innocent as can be. No, sir.

There's no getting on with them. It has been tried over forty years. The only way to stop this constant trouble and fighting is to carry the whole of them out of the country, and give their rich farms to good, honest young men like these here.

[Sidenote: THE ACADIANS MUST BE DRIVEN OUT]

"Come now! Take the King's shilling. Serve his Majesty, good King George, for a few months; and you can live like lords for the rest of your days."

Thaddeus and I were mightily tempted by the man's talk, but Mr.

Harrington said that he could not spare us, and that we were too young, anyhow. "And very likely, boys, instead of hundreds of acres, with housen and outhousen, and farm tools, and booty, all that you'd get would be six feet of ground and a pine box."

The days when the court sat at Concord were holidays with us, and the people flocked up there to see the court come in, and to watch the trials. And this spring, Spikeman's company was there too.

On the second day of court I rode to Concord, found Edmund at the tavern, and we went round the town together.

The court had disposed of some cases already. We saw a couple seated on the gallows, with ropes round their necks.

"Are they going to hang them, Edmund?"

"Not unless they tumble off and hang themselves. I suppose they put them up there to show that hanging would be none too good for them. Look at those fellows in the stocks. They don't belong here, and did not leave when warned out of town by the constable."

Near by the stocks was the pillory. There was a man standing in it, with his head and hands sticking out through the holes. Of all humiliating punishments, this always seemed to me to be the worst. A man in that position looks thoroughly mean and contemptible. He appears to be put there on purpose to have something thrown at him; and it offers a temptation that boys cannot withstand.

[Sidenote: THE PILLORY]

"Bill Wheeler's been missing his hens right along. He suspected this man, and caught him one night, and the judge sentenced him to stand in the pillory. There's Bill over there; listen to him!"

"Well, you miserable thief, how do you like it now? I had a good deal of trouble to catch you; but it was worth while. You like hens? I wonder how you will like hen-fruit."

He turned aside, and I heard him say to a boy: "Here's a shilling, Hiram. They tell me eggs are pretty cheap up at the store, specially poor ones."

The boys asked the man in the pillory all manner of impudent questions.