I've Been Thinking Part 4

It was a very warm day, and Uncle Sam was sitting outside his shop, on what had once been the hub of a large cart-wheel; there was a fine shade where he sat, a large apple tree which stood in an adjoining lot, extending its branches almost to his shop door. He had his hat in his hand, and was using it violently as a fan; the heat was making terrible work with him, for on his bald head and down his fat cheeks and sunburnt breast, the perspiration was running in streams.

'A pretty warm day, Uncle Sam, ain't it?'

'Here, you young rogue, take this, and blow a little wind on to me, if there's any to be got, for I'm most dead,' (handing Sam his great broad-brimmed chip hat.) 'I guess you'd think it warm, blowing them tarnel old bellows all day long, with such a lump of fat lugging to you as I've got; I can't hardly waddle under it, let alone handling them bellows.'

'Why don't you have the boys blow for you, Uncle Sam?'

'The boys! ah yes, the boys! I'd like any one to tell me what the hul kit on 'em is good for, but to eat mush and milk. Do blow away Sam, if there's any wind in all creation any more. I want to git this carca.s.s o' mine cool a little, just so I shan't go all to soap-grease. Talk of the boys, they're wus than wild cats; I wouldn't give my old mare for all the boys between this and the barrens--don't talk to me about boys, Sam--don't stop blowing, or I'm a dead man. Here, Jim, my good fellow, spell him a little.'

'Yes, that I will, with pleasure, sir.'

'That's like a man, there's no boy about that--ah, Jim, I knew your father well, and a likelier man never came to this place; but what he came here for was more than I could ever see--it seems to me there's a cus on it; the men are bad enough, but the boys are the old Nick's property altogether. I tell you what, if we don't have a preacher, or something of that kind, along here pretty soon, we're a gone case; there'll be another sort of bellows blowin' than my old groaner, I tell you. Ah, Jim, that feels good, I won't touch a hammer agin' to day; if Grizzle wants his old plough mended, he may come and sweat away at it himself, it will do his old dry carca.s.s good, won't it Sam? It won't hurt him, will it?' And the old man went off into a good hearty laugh, his whole body shaking like a lump of jelly--the idea of sweating Grizzle amused him so much, that he forgot about the heat, and taking his hat clapped it on his head.

'And now, boys, what are you up to? going crabbing down to the mill, I know; for my boys have been there this hul blessed morning.'

'Oh, no sir,' said Jim, 'we were not thinking about that this morning; but are wishing to find out who would be willing to engage some beans and potatoes for the fall.'

'Beans and potatoes? why, you blessed child, are you crazy? You ain't grown up here, not to know better than to try to sell sich things in this place. You must go to Grizzle with them, and he won't take them only for jist what you owe him.'

'Ah, but we don't want to sell, but to buy.'

'Want to buy!--you're wus off than I thought you was. Why, didn't you plant any? How did you think you was goin' to live? like Bill Moore and his brother down the lane here? eh?'

'Oh, no sir, we have plenty for our use; but we can sell quite a quant.i.ty of these articles, more than we shall have.'

'And pray tell me what you call a quant.i.ty, mister.'

'Why, we want two or three hundred bushels.'

'Two or three hundred bushels!' And the old man took off his hat and began to fan himself again very fast. 'Two or three hundred bushels!--you boys wasn't neither on you brought up to lie, but I don't know but you've taken up the trade; it's pretty easy larnt, to be sure.'

'It's true, Uncle Sam, what Jim tells you; true as we stand here.'

'Sam Oak.u.m, them eyes o' yourn warn't made to help a lyin' tongue; so don't stand there looking so honest, and telling me sich stuff as that.'

'It is true, Mr. Cutter, just as Sam says; we are telling you the truth, and no joke about it.'

But the old man kept shaking his head and fanning himself; so that Jim felt called upon to tell their whole story.

'Now boys, is this true, you're tellin' me? Sam, you're a smilin'; there's some catch about it, ain't there, you rogue?'

'No, there ain't, Uncle Sam, upon my honor.'

'Well, it's a queer story, any how; three hundred bushels potatoes; why you'll take all that's raised, and Grizzle won't have none for Cross this year; you know he sends all he takes in up to Cross, who keeps the store or tavern, or whatever they call it, in the barrens; but it ain't much matter, they're two precious rogues, both on 'em. And you say you want to know where you can find so many: I raally can't say; but the Widow Andrews would be like to have some. Bill tell'd me he had planted a considerable patch, beans and potatoes too; but whether they'll come to any thing I don't know, for he's got like the rest on 'em--he's round to Grizzle's too much, I guess. Sorry for it; Bill's a likely fellow if he'd mind his own business. And then there's my namesake, Cutter; he may have a few, not a great many. I tell you what, you'll have to hunt considerable, boys, afore you'll find all you want. And then there's Billy Bloodgood, deaf Billy, you know him; but you'll have to holler loud enough to wake the dead to make him hear--he ought to have a speakin' trumpet fastened into his ear, it's enough to give a man the consumption to talk with him. And may be I'll have a few myself, and I would as leave you'd have them as Grizzle, the old varmint; I don't believe I shall owe him much this year. What are you goin' to give, boys?'

Sam looked at Jim for an answer.

'Why, if they are fair-sized potatoes, we can give twenty-five cents a bushel.'

'I wish I had more on 'em, for that's double what Grizzle gives; and beans you want too; well, I guess I shall have three or four bushels. I can't say but they ought to be hoed now, and I can't do it, no how; for a man like me to work out in the sun, it's idle to talk about it. Why I should die in the operation, and the boys don't care for nothin'; but when they hear what a price you're givin', it may spur them up a little.'

The boys thanked him for his information, and started off at a good pace on their way to the Widow Andrews'. Bill was at work in the field, fighting manfully with a large growth of weeds; he greeted them kindly, but continued his labors.

'You will excuse me if I don't stop working; things are so behind-hand with me, that if I don't labor hard, I shall not catch up with my work, all summer.'

'By no means stop,' said Jim; 'we can say what we wish to, just as well while your hoe is going.' He made known their errand in few words, but no sooner did Bill hear what Jim had to say than he stopped hoeing, and looked with some surprise, first at one and then at the other of the boys.

'Yes, certainly, you shall have them; how many bushels do you want? Haven't you planted any this year?'

Jim then acquainted him with his reasons for wanting them, and the quant.i.ty he wished; stating also the price he could afford to give.

'And the money shall be paid to you when you deliver them.'

'You shall have every potato and bean I have for sale. I supposed I should be obliged to let Grizzle have them, but he may whistle for them, for all me; he allowed me last year but ten cents for potatoes, and fifty cents for beans. He will be angry, probably, but if I can have the money to pay, I shall not fear him any more than you seemed to the other day'--looking at Sam.

'No, I don't fear him; and all I wish is that father didn't owe him any thing.'

'Well, he is a very bad man, and will injure us all, if he can in any way, when he finds he is to be disappointed in getting things at his own price. He and Cross work into each other's hands, and they will not, if they can help it, have any one interfere with them; but I don't well see how they can.'

William Andrews was not mistaken in his views of the effect these things would have upon the minds of such men. But it will be time enough to meet trouble when it comes; at present we must hasten with our boys on their way to Billy Bloodgood's, much elated with their success, and with the change which seemed to have taken place in the views and feelings of young Andrews.

Mr. William Bloodgood--or Billy, as he was generally called--was the best to do of any of the folks for miles round, that is, he had more land, and a few more head of cattle, and managed a little better than his neighbors. But his house was rather a small concern, and his fences were in all sorts of shape, and his barn had far too many rents in it, and things lay in all directions around. Still, he did better than his neighbors, for Billy did not drink, and he kept himself busy, flying round on his farm, and made out almost always to raise quite a respectable quant.i.ty of one thing and another. He was a very good-natured man, and was blessed, as many good-natured men are, with a wife that could take his part, and her own too, sometimes. He had a peculiar way with him of going from one piece of work to another, without finishing either. Before his field of corn was half hoed, he would begin the potato patch, and leaving that unfinished, would be among the beans; and so on. This habit he carried with him into smaller matters, to his disadvantage, certainly, and very much to his discomfort; for his good woman was sorely annoyed by it, and whatever troubled her, he was sure to be obliged to bear a part of it. They lived happily however; for although Billy did not practise sound philosophy in his work, he did in that very delicate matter of conjugal relationship. He knew it would never answer for both to have their own way, one or the other must rule sometimes; and as he saw very soon that it would be a very difficult matter, if not an impossibility to get his better half to yield, unless she had a mind to it, he very properly decided to give up the reins to her. He was a wiser man than many took him to be.

As the boys entered the gate, Billy was coming out of the house, having just finished his dinner; he had a knife in one hand, and a piece of pigtail in the other, from which cutting a fair allowance, he put it into his mouth with a manifest relish. Without apparently noticing the boys who were walking towards him, he made directly to a great pile of brush which lay in the yard, and commenced chopping. They walked up to him, and endeavored to catch his eye, but he took no notice of them. After cutting a few sticks, he threw down the axe, and, looking at Jim, asked in a very loud voice, 'Did you speak to me?'

Jim shook his head in the negative, and then began to say something about his errand; he spoke, as he thought, in a pretty loud voice. But Billy only noticed his negative reply to the question he had put, and started for another corner of the yard, where lay a heap of farming utensils, and began dragging forth an old one-horse plough. After separating it from the rest, he commenced tinkering the rigging; Jim, in the meantime, trying to catch his eye, long enough to let him know that, although he had not yet spoken to him, he wished to do so. Twice, as he raised himself, Jim made a desperate effort, and called out as loud as he thought necessary, 'Mr. Bloodgood!'

But it availed nothing. He stared at him an instant, and then ran across to another side of the yard to a little old corn crib; and jumping into it, began to overhaul a box of old irons, for something probably that belonged to the plough. In the midst of all his hurry, however, he would find time every now and then to put his hand into his vest pocket, and taking out large pinches of snuff, would regale his olfactory sense, and apparently with great zest. The boys began to feel that it was a desperate case, and at the same time were so amused, that they could with difficulty refrain from showing it. In fact, Jim did once or twice give a kind of whine, just the beginning of a peculiar laugh he had, and Sam would go off with a very slight sneeze. As Billy appeared to be in no hurry to come out of the crib, they walked slowly across to where he was.

'You try him this time, Sam? see if you can make him hear.'

'I can't, Jim, no how. I should burst out laughing in his face.'

'I am afraid, then, we must give it up, for I can't get him to look at me.'

Mrs. Bloodgood, however, saw their dilemma, and out she came. The boys hardly knew whether she was for peace or war, for she advanced towards them with tremendous strides, muttering as she came. Her appearance was indeed rather dubious, for her hair was flying, and her face was very red, from the joint exercise of cooking and eating, and helping half a dozen children. And as to the dress, having great respect for the female s.e.x we will say nothing about it; it was, moreover, very warm weather, and a Calamink petticoat was warm enough without the burden of its upper companion, the short gown--but she was just as she was, and we cannot help it. She had a little more nose than most women, that is, it was a very long, sharp, and crooked nose; but the good woman had use for it. And never were boys more astonished when they saw how well it answered her turn; it was a veritable speaking-trumpet, and, although the sounds which issued from it were rather of the nasal order, they were the better calculated to penetrate the very narrow pa.s.sages to her husband's sounding-board. Having been so long accustomed to use a very high pitch in her communications with the good man, she made no allowance for the more delicate organs of other people, but so drove the sounds into them as truly made their ears to tingle, not only at the time, but a great while after.

'What is it you're wanting?'

Jim started; he could not help it.

'Do you want to speak to Bloodgood?'

'Yes, ma'am; I should like to speak with him about some beans and potatoes.'

With that she made off to the crib, where she met her good man coming out with a piece of old iron in his hand, and making for the other side of the yard where the plough was. He seemed as regardless of her as he had been of the boys; but as he was stooping over the plough, she put her hand on his shoulder, and gave such a blast in his ear that his soul must have stept out of his body not to have heard it; he immediately raised himself, and, looking at the boys, roared back to her in a strain scarcely less loud,-- 'What do they want?'

'I don't know; something about potatoes and beans.'

'Bees? We 'aint got no bees;' and with that he took one of his tremendous pinches of snuff.

'Beans, beans! don't you hear that?' And then turning to Jim and Sam, who had walked up beside her-- 'He grows wus and wus; and it's my candid belief that it's his snuffin' and snuffin' all the time so; his ears, I s'pose, is all stopped clean up; and the only way the sound can git into his head is through his nose, like; and when he stuffs that full, it's like hollerin' agin' a log.'

But he did hear beans, as she last spoke it.

'Beans? What of 'em?'

'Well, do tell me, boys, what you want on 'em, and I'll try to make him hear, for you never can.'

With that Jim communicated to her his business, and when she understood it clearly, appeared not a little pleased.

'I didn't know but you'd come from Grizzle's, and I don't like him; he's a good-for-nothin' old varmint, and he's spilin' all the men and boys in the place; and I told Bloodgood I'd rather throw the potatoes in the creek than let him have one on 'em.' So she went to work with a good will to tell their errand.

'Who sent 'em? Grizzle?'

'No, no; you think there is n.o.body in the whole creation world to buy anything but Grizzle.' And then raising her voice to the very loudest-- 'n.o.body sent 'em; they come o' themselves, and they'll pay you the money right down when you take 'em the things.'

'Well, well, that will do,'--and he smiled then, for the first time, as he looked at the boys--'that'll do; you shall have 'em; let me know when you want 'em.'

And now Mrs. Bloodgood would insist upon their going in, and taking something to eat. In vain it was they protested that they were not hungry, having eaten a lunch on their way.

'I know better than that. I know what boys are; they can always eat; so if you won't go in, don't either on you stir one step till I come out.'

In she ran, and in a moment appeared again with one-half of a large bread-cake, which she had just taken from the griddle, with a lump of b.u.t.ter on the top of it, and she with a knife spreading it on; but there was no occasion for the knife, for the b.u.t.ter was running like snow in summer, and dripping over the sides of the cake.

'Here, boys, take this;' breaking it in two, and giving each half 'I know it will taste good.'

CHAPTER VI.

A few evenings after the events recorded in the last chapter, Sam started from home on his way to meet Jim and Ned. When but a short distance from his house, to his surprise he met William Andrews; he was on his way to visit the Montjoys, and designed calling upon Sam that he might accompany him to their house.

'I am going to see them,' said Sam; 'but they will not be at the house. Such fine evenings as this we meet at a large rock near by--they will be as glad to see you as I am.'

The rock was large enough to accommodate the whole of them; but Ned preferred the gra.s.s for his seat; he and Jowler had always some business of their own to attend to, and very frequently they would both be rolling together on the ground. The moon was rising beautifully, and a long streak of light played across the expanse of water at a distance, dancing on the waves that were formed by the fresh sea-breeze, and, nearer the sh.o.r.e, where the water lay smooth and unruffled, marking a line of clear silver light, as from the surface of a mirror.

There is always something peculiarly fascinating in the formation of youthful friendships--everything seems so fair; the interchange of confidence is so mutual, so whole-hearted--there is no secret standing on our guard--no cautious feeling of our way, to see whether we can safely trust. The heart has not yet been deceived, and therefore yields implicit confidence. One short hour, in our boyhood's days, will do more to knit our hearts in bonds strong and true, than months can accomplish, after the coldness and selfishness of the world have set us on our guard.

William Andrews had yielded to the impulses of a kind and social disposition, and thereby had been led sadly astray; but the charm was now broken, and he turned away with disgust and loathing from his past habits and companions. He had formed no friendships with those who were his partners in the idle hour, and the place of temptation. His heart was yet in its freshness, with a love of the pure and good, more intense for what he had seen of impiety and evil. His spirit panted for communion with those on whom it could confide, and longed to pour out its breathings into the ear of virtue and truth.

And now, under the great oak-tree, seated on the large flat rock, he confessed all his delinquencies, related the narrative of what he believed to be a change for life, and its happy influence upon his daily routine of duties.

'I can work, now, without being wearied; I can go home and meet my mother without the fear of rebuke; and I can lie down to rest at night without my head throbbing, or my body burning as in a fever; and when I awake in the morning, the stupor of deadness I used to feel is gone; I am happy, and ready for my business.'

Jim and Sam had no such personal experience of their own to tell. Sam might, indeed, have unfolded scenes of misery in his own past history; but in his own bosom must now for ever rest all that had been bitter in his own experience.

But there was no lack of subjects, and the evening was gone before they had said the one half they had to say; and long before the evening was spent, they were as intimate, and as much one in their feelings, as though they, had a.s.sociated for years.

Sam's heart was full of happiness that night as he walked along the sh.o.r.e, and saw the water glistening in the moonlight, and heard the soft sound of the distant waves; and as he beheld the little light that twinkled in his lowly home, it seemed as bright to him--yea, brighter than does many an illuminated palace to its princely owner. Dark is the heart, Sam, that would bring a cloud over your pleasant sky; but such there are, sitting in council beneath the same pleasant moonlight which you are enjoying;--well for you that you see them, hear them not.

Had we the power of knowing what is going on at the same time in different places--could we look into the hearts of the actors in these various scenes--could we know how very near, sometimes, are the plotters of mischief and spite to the unconscious, inoffensive objects of their malice, it would be a cause of misery to us, unless our power was equal to our knowledge. Happy is it for us, that but one place, and one set of circ.u.mstances, can engross our minds.

Not far from where these happy youths held sweet counsel together, encouraging each other in the path of manliness and virtue, beneath the same clear sky and bright shining moon, sat two specimens of humanity, beneath the shed that ran along the front of Mr. Grizzle's store:--one of these the owner thereof, and the other a miserable-looking bloated youth, of about eighteen years of age.

'Do you say, Bill Tice, that they've been round buying up all the potatoes, and giving twenty-five cents a bushel?'

'Yes, it's fact. Old Sam Cutter told his boys on it, and they told me; and they said the old man wanted them to go to work and hoe 'em out, because they were goin' to bring sich a price, and he didn't mean to let old Grizzle have none on 'em.'

'He did, ha? Ay, ay, well, well.'

'And they'd bought all Billy Bloodgood's, and Bill Andrews', and ever so many more.'

'They have, eh? and gin' twenty-five cents a bushel, you say? that's a putty business, Bill.' And Grizzle turned his bleared and spectacled eyes full upon his companion. 'A putty business, Bill, ain't it? And who is to have potatoes and sich things to sell in the dead o'winter to poor folks, who may be ain't raised none? What would your folks have done last winter in sich a case?'

'Sure enough, we might starve; they wouldn't care.'

'And then if you was jist to help yourself a little,' (giving him a slight hunch,) 'why they'd be the first to complain on you; and away you must go another three months in the old cage.

'I hate them Montjoy boys, they always look as if no one was good enough for 'em; goin' round with their shirt collars on their necks, and shoes on their feet.'

'And you say Oak.u.m is with 'em, ha?'

'Why yes, Oak.u.m's boy is with 'em, and you know it must be the old man that does it; the boy aint got nothin'.'

'No, nor the old one neither, when his debts is paid; but I'll see, I'll see. Folks musn't git in debt to me, and then come out agin' me; that won't do, Bill Tice.'

'I shouldn't think it would.'

'And you say Oak.u.m is goin' to build a boat for his boy?'

'That's what d.i.c.k Cutter tell'd me.'

'To carry away everything we've got here, and make things so high, poor folks must starve or else work hard, one or the two.'

'They don't care.'

'I tell you what, Bill, you and I know one another; you've done some little jobs for me, and may be I've done some little things for you.'

'Yes, I know that.'

'Well now, Bill, this business must be stopped by fair means as foul.'