AS TOLD BY HIS GRANDSON.
He is my grandfather now—Charley Otis is—and he told my brother Hal and me this story. He's a regular fine old gentleman, is my grandfather Otis. There isn't a bit of old fogy about him, and he likes to see us boys have any amount of fun. He isn't hard on a fellow either, when he gets into trouble through some of his mischief; though he looked pretty sober when Hal and I and Uncle Timothy's boys painted Squire Dexter's Chester Whites one time, and the Squire caught us at it, and thrashed us, and made father and Uncle Timothy pay ten dollars apiece to get out of having a lawsuit.
"Don't have any more of that sort of fun, boys," says grandfather.
"No, sir," says we; and we don't mean to, for there isn't any fun in it. Some folks in story-books are all the time preaching up how funny it is to paint pigs. It isn't. If it is, it is mean fun, and I don't like that kind. For besides making a fellow feel cheap, there's almost always something not so nice to top off with.
"Boys will be boys, Susan." That's what grandfather says to mother time and again.
"Well, they needn't be wild Indians," says mother. But she doesn't tell father that time. You see, my grandfather was a boy once himself, and he knows we can't keep bottled up all the time. We have to "let nature caper"—that's what grandfather calls it—once in a while, or we would burst, Hal and I, and go off like two rockets maybe. I hope when I grow up I'll be just the kind of a grandfather my grandfather is.
Last Washington's Birthday we boys had planned to have no end of fun, skating on the pond, and snapping crackers at folks, and playing shinney. But when Hal and I got up in the morning, everything was dull gray; and when breakfast was over, it was snowing as if the witches were emptying all their feather-beds at once up in the sky.
Hal looked out of the window, and turned away, and shut his lips. Then I looked out, and—well, I'm not very old, and small of my age—and I cried. At that grandfather put down his paper.
"Hoity-toity!" said he; "what's all this about?"
We told him.
"Well," said grandfather, "this snow will make first-rate coasting, and while you're waiting for enough of it to come, I'll tell you a story."
So here is the story. You ought to have heard Grandfather Otis tell it, though, with his funny twinkles and wrinkles to set it off; but because you couldn't, I'm going to tell it my own way, in regular story-book style:
Early one Twenty-second of February, more than fifty years ago, my grandfather and my two great-uncles, Stephen and Samuel, were out looking for something to have fun with. "Trouble was," says grandfather, "there was ice enough, but we hadn't a pair of skates to our feet." Pretty soon, while they were standing around on the door-step, a man came along leading a horse and sleigh, and hitched it to the fence. The man's name was Mr. Nutt.
"Good-morning," said the boys, wondering to themselves what made him walk and lead the horse, instead of riding. Catch a boy doing it!
"Mornin'," said Mr. Nutt. "Father to home, boys?"
"Yes, sir," said they.
"I'm going after the doctor," said Mr. Nutt, "and that critter runs away so'st I can't do nothin' with him. It's Lawyer Chadbourne's horse, down to Westport, 'at I took for his keep, and that's more'n I'll get out 'n him. S'pose I can get your father's team, boys?"
"Wouldn't wonder," said they. "Father's chopping wood in the north lot."
With that Mr. Nutt started off across the field, and the boys walked down to the gate to look at the horse. He was a red horse, with "three-white-feet-and-a-white-nose—take-off-his-shoes-and-give-him-to-the-crows."
The boys walked around him, and looked at him, and felt of the harness.
"Looks kind enough," said Steve.
"Don't believe he'll run away," said Sam.
"The harness is stout," said Charley.
Then they all looked at each other and laughed.
"S'pose we do," said they; "and be spry about it."
So Sam and Charley got into the sleigh, and Steve unhitched the horse, and got on behind, with one foot on each runner, and Charley took the reins, and away they all went. The horse didn't go so very fast at first, but he kept going faster and faster and faster; and pretty soon the sleigh hit his heels. Then didn't he go!
"Stop him!" yelled Sam. "Whoa!"
"Whoa!" sung out Steve, a-hanging on to the sleigh back for dear life. "We've go-go-gone far enough."
But there wasn't any whoa to that horse. And Steve made up his mind that he'd ridden about as long as he wanted to, and so he dropped off. He fell flat, and slid for as much as a rod on the ice before he stopped. "Took every one of his wesket buttons off," says grandfather, "slick and clean as you'd cut 'em with a knife."
But that didn't stop the horse—no, sir! On he went, with the old sleigh clattering at his heels, and the ice his shoes cut up flew like sleet into the faces of the two boys. All Charley could do was to keep him in the road, and that's more than a good many would, I say. And the horse kept going faster and faster.
"Whe-ew!" said Sam, catching his breath. And he jumped out, and turned two first-class summersets before he struck on his head in a snow-bank beside the road. And there he was.
Then Charley, my grandfather, was left all alone. That's why I call it "Charley Otis's Ride." And the horse kept going faster and faster. And Charley couldn't see a rod ahead of him, for the wind blowing and the bits of ice flying, until, pretty soon, he began to go up a little hill. And because for a minute the ice didn't fly so thick, Charley saw, just ahead, and hobbling along as fast as his two poor shaky legs and his knotty cane would carry him, old Grandsir Herrin, who wasn't anybody's grandfather really, though everybody called him so. And Grandsir Herrin was as deaf as the deafest kind of a post—and right in the middle of the road! Now, sir—
No use to ask me what I'd have done if I'd been there. I wasn't there. But I can tell you what Charley did, and I don't believe anybody could have done any better. His heart thumped so he could almost hear it through all the noise of the bells. But, quick as a flash, he put all his strength on the right rein, and pulled that horse with a flying jump into a big bank of snow drifted up against the road fence. And Charley kept right along.
He picked himself up in a minute, and looked around. The horse was deep in the snow, standing quiet enough, but trembling like a leaf. Charley unharnessed him and got him out of the snow, and turned the sleigh, and harnessed up again, and led the horse back to where he started from. Sam and Steve were waiting by the gate.
Charley hitched the horse, and just then another man drove along, and stopped.
"It's Lawyer Chadbourne," whispered Sam.
"Who left that horse there?" said the man, in a deep-down, pie-crusty kind of a voice.
"Mr. Nutt, sir," answered Charley; "and he said he would run away. But he don't look like he would."
"Well, well, I'm glad of it," growled the lawyer, and away he went. And—
"Hello!" said grandfather, breaking off right here.
There was a thundering noise in the hall, and the door flew open.
"It's the Broomstick Brigade!" cried grandfather; for there were the May boys and the Berry boys and Uncle Timothy's boys, and each one of 'em carried a broom.
"Come along with you," said Ben May; "we're going to sweep the ice. It's stopped snowing."
So it had, though we hadn't noticed. And so we took our skates and brooms, and went along, Hal and I; and grandfather took up his paper again.
[A BRAVE LITTLE SISTER.]
One cold day this winter, as it was growing late, Mrs. Ivy, whose home is in Pictou, Nova Scotia, was obliged to go out, leaving her two children alone. Their father was dead.
Little Alice was only seven and Henry was five years old. They played together awhile, and Alice told Henry stories, and they tried to think that the time was slipping away very fast, and that mother would soon be back.
But presently it began to get dark in the room where the careful mother had left them, locking them in for safety. The stars were twinkling in the sky, and the lamps were lighted in the street. Alice knew where the matches were kept, and she had often seen her mother light their lamp, so she thought she would do it now.
Unfortunately neither she nor little Henry observed that they had set the burning lamp very near their mother's working dress and Alice's white apron, which were hanging quite close to the mantel.
The first thing they knew, these had caught fire, and the room was in a blaze.
What should little Alice do? How could she save Henry? She never thought about her own danger. The key was in the lock, alas! on the other side of the door.
Quick as a flash she raised the window, and creeping out to the end of the projecting shelf, lowered herself till she hung at arm's-length, and then dropped to the ground.
It was a distance of thirty-five feet, but the air buoyed up her clothing, something as it does that of a little girl when she whirls round and drops down in what we used to call a pot-cheese. Alice reached the ground unhurt.
She flew up stairs and unlocked the door. No Henry was there. Frightened and desperate, she screamed and cried so that the neighbors came running to see what had happened.
They found the little fellow on the ground, where he had fallen, having crawled out on the window-sill to see what had become of his sister. It was a mercy that he too had escaped with only a few bruises.
Brave little Alice Ivy! She showed unselfish love, courage, and promptness in action. We think she was a heroine. Do you agree with us? Her behavior was the more worthy of praise that she had to do something at once, and that she did the best thing under the circumstances. We are sure her mother felt thankful for such a noble daughter.
[PERIL AND PRIVATION.]
BY JAMES PAYN.
I.—ON THE KEYS OF HONDURAS.
Most readers know well the adventures of what real personage the admirable story of Robinson Crusoe was founded; and in the history of disaster connected with the sea there are the materials of ten such tales, had we only another Defoe to write them. Still, not even the mind of that master of fiction, the man of all others who knew how "to paint the thing that is not as the thing that is," could have conceived such events as it is now my purpose to describe. His fine sense of what was life-like would have resented them as being too amazing and extraordinary to have happened to the same person, and that too on a single voyage.
To be seized by pirates; to become one of them by force; to escape at the peril of one's life, but only to find one's self upon an uninhabited island, "remote from the track of navigation," and to remain there for sixteen months alone—seems too sensational to be crowded into three years of existence. Yet these things happened to Philip Ashton, an Englishman, little more than a century and a half ago.
The schooner which Ashton, who hailed from Salem, Massachusetts, was on board was seized in Port Rossaway by the famous—or infamous—Ned Low. In The Lives of Highwaymen and Robbers, which I am sorry to say was one of my favorite books when I was a boy, the story of Low's life is told, but his behavior in pirate life is not described. Ashton gives some curious particulars of it. In some respects this "bold bad" rover of the seas was by no means so black as he is painted. For example, on our hero's being carried on board Low's vessel, "which had two great guns, four swivels, and about forty men," that gentleman comes up to him with a pistol in each hand, with the inquiry, "Are you a married man?"
Terrified, not without reason, "lest there should be any hidden meaning in his words," Ashton did not reply. He did not know whether it would be wiser to say he was married or a bachelor. You see, it was very important to make a favorable impression.
"'YOU DOG, WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER?' CRIED LOW."
"You dog, why don't you answer?" cried Low, cocking one of the pistols and putting it to the other's ear. Thus compelled, and yet not knowing what to say, Ashton hesitated no longer, but did what he might have done at firsthand which is always the best thing to do—he told the truth.
"I am a bachelor," he said, whereupon Low appeared to be satisfied, and turned away.
The fact was that this scoundrel, who seemed so heartless, had had a wife of his own, whom he had loved tenderly, but who was dead. She had left him a child, now in the care of trustworthy people at Boston, for whom he felt such tenderness that on any mention of him, in quieter moments—that is, "when he was not drinking or revelling"—he would sit down and shed tears. Judging others by himself, he would never impress in his service married men, who had ties, such as a wife and children, to render them desirous of leaving it.
Moreover, Low would never suffer his men to work on Sunday. What is still more strange, Ashton tells us that he has even "seen some of them sit down to read a good book upon that day."
For all that, he had to join the ship's company, and become a pirate like them, or die. His name was accordingly entered on their books; whereas, when opportunity offered, the married men who had been captured were put on shore.
Ashton was sometimes fired at, and slashed with cutlasses, upon the supposition—which was quite a correct one—that he was planning how to escape. Otherwise he was not, on the whole, ill-treated. He assisted, much against his own will, in the capture of many vessels.
Though very successful in her depredations, the pirate ship was at one time pursued by The Mermaid, an English man-of-war, when Ashton's feelings were more uncomfortable than they had ever been, "for I concluded that we should certainly be taken, and that I, being found in such company, should be hung with the rest, so true are the words of Solomon, 'A companion of fools shall be destroyed.'"
However, one of the ship's men showed Low a sand bar over which his vessel could pass and The Mermaid could not.
"So we escaped the gallows on this occasion." Nor was it only hanging that was to be feared, for it was proposed by these desperate fellows that in case their capture became certain, they should "set foot to foot and blow out each other's brains"—a suggestion which, though he pretended to approve of it, did not please Ashton.
There was now a plot among the more honest portion of the crew to overpower the rest. It was unfortunately discovered, and one Farrington Spriggs, the second in command, informed Ashton that he should "swing like a dog at the yard-arm," as being one of the conspirators. To this our hero meekly replied that he had had no intention of injuring any one on board, but should be glad if he could be allowed to go away quietly.
Perhaps this soft answer had the effect of turning away Mr. Farrington Spriggs's wrath, for Ashton presently remarks, "In the end this flame was quenched, and, through the goodness of Providence, I escaped destruction."
About this time they were in the Bay of Honduras, which is full of small wooded islands, generally known in that part of the world as "keys."
At one of these, which lay altogether out of the track of ships, the pirate touched for water, and the long-boat was sent ashore with casks to get a supply. Low had sworn that Ashton "should never set foot on shore again," but that chieftain was not on board at the time, and the cooper, who was in charge of the boat, granted his request to go with the party. As to running away, there was nowhere, as he reflected, for the man to run to.
When they first landed, Ashton made himself very busy in helping to get the casks out of the boat and in rolling them to the spring; but presently he began to stroll along the beach, picking up shells. On getting out of musket-shot, he made for a thick wood.
"Where are you going?" cried the cooper.
"Only for cocoa-nuts," was Ashton's reply, pointing to where some were hanging.
When once out of sight he ran as fast as the thickness of the bushes and his naked feet permitted him. His clothing was "an Osnaburgh frock and trousers and a knitted cap, but neither shirt, shoes, stockings, nor anything else."
The wood was so thick that he could hear the voices of the party while he himself was quite invisible and secure.
When they had filled their casks they hallooed for him loudly; and then said to one another, "The dog"—they always called him the dog—"is lost in the wood, and can't get out again." In a short time they put off without him.
Then came reflections very similar to those we read in Robinson Crusoe: "Thus was I left on a desolate island, destitute of all help, and remote from the track of navigators, but, compared with the state and society I had quitted, I considered the wilderness hospitable and the solitude interesting. True, I was in a place there was no means of leaving; my clothing was scanty, and it was impossible to procure a supply. With the trifling exception of cocoa-nuts, I was altogether destitute of provisions, nor could I tell how my life was to be supported. But as it had pleased God to grant my wishes in being liberated from those whose occupation was to devise mischief against their neighbors, I resolved to account every hardship light."
In five days the pirate vessel set sail without him, and Philip Ashton found himself alone.