“They have?”
“Yes; Tom saw ‘em on board a Guineaman in Havana; they pretended not to know him, but he knew them. Just the place for them. Father says these Guineamen have a long gun in the hold, and mount it when they get outside, and are all pirates in disguise.”
The country, especially around the sea-coast, was now in a prosperous condition. The settlements were pushed back to the head waters of the streams, roads made, townships surveyed, town incorporated, and vessels built; the timber trade assumed vast proportions, and money was abundant, men began to break away from the rigid manners of the primitive times, and ape the style of dress and living that prevailed in England, which they had either seen or heard of.
Great numbers of cattle were raised on the lands newly burnt over. Instead of driving the cattle to Brighton or Cambridge, as at the present day in seaport towns and country villages, they were butchered, and the beef packed at home, shipped to Spain and other countries of Europe, and smuggled into Cuba for the use of the Spanish slavers. Fred had added to his other business that of packing beef, and Uncle Isaac and Joe Griffin bought the cattle for him. He had imported a cooper, by the name of Wallace, from Standish, to make the barrels, who had taken three boys as apprentices, thus increasing the business of the place.
Charlie, who as our readers know, was strongly attached to the cultivation of the soil, had neither engaged in vessel or boat building since the Arthur Brown was launched. John Rhines likewise found plenty of employment upon the home farm, occasionally working in the yard of Reed and Atherton, who came from Massachusetts, and set up ship-building, built vessels, and took them to Massachusetts for sale.
Charlie, Fred, and John intended only to build vessels as they wanted them, and repair old ones, or aid some industrious, enterprising young man, who wanted a vessel.
They were influenced to this line of conduct very much by the opinions of Uncle Isaac, who had a most wonderful power of making people think as he did; one reason of which was, that he never manifested the least assumption, and another, that he always placed matters in such a light that those with whom he conversed seemed to convince themselves.
One day Uncle Isaac and the boys went pigeon shooting together; as they were sitting by the fire after dinner, he said. “Where did that corn come from that Seth Warren carried last vige in the Hard-scrabble?”
“From North Carolina,” replied Fred.
“Yes, and where did that cargo you are grinding now, that’s going into the logging camps, come from?”