“Boys,” said he, “you have come to see the last of Uncle Isaac. John, won’t you turn that hour-glass. The sand is run out. We have spent a great many pleasant hours together; they are all over now; but I want to tell you that they have been as pleasant to me as to you. It is a great comfort to me that I have been spared to see my children, and you, who seem as near to me as my own children, grow up to be God-fearing, useful men in the world, and settled in life. It would have been a comfort to me to have seen Isaac once more; but you must tell him that his Uncle Isaac did not forget him in his last hours. I have been a strong and a tough man in my time. I never was thrown, seldom pulled up; very few could lift my load, plan work better, or bring more to pass with an axe or scythe. I never saw but one man who could outdo me in trapping game or with a rifle, and that was a Penobscot Indian, and my foster-brother, John Conesus. I have left my rifle with the walnut stock to him. I don’t fetch up these things in any kind of a boasting way, but only to say to you that all these matters that appeared great to me once, and no doubt do to you, seem very small now. What I like most to think about ain’t what I’ve done for myself, but to help others, especially to start young men, and get ‘em canted right, because any good done to the young always seemed to me to go a great ways. I always did love to set a scion in a young stock; it ain’t like grafting an old hollow tree, which, if it bears a little fruit, soon rots down or blows over. If, at your time of life, you feel and do thus, like as when you caught the fish and gave them to poor Mrs. Yelf, and when you tried to make a good boy of Fred here—”
“We never should have done either,” said John, “if you hadn’t put it into our heads.”
“More especially, if you should be owned of the Lord as a means of grace to some fellow-creetur, you will find they will be the pleasantest things to look back on, when you come to be where I am; more so than chopping, wrestling, and getting property, though they are all good in their place; such thoughts smooth a sick pillow wonderfully. Not that I put any dependence in them, but in the marcy of Him who gave me the heart to do them.”
After resting a while, and taking some stimulant, he motioned for Walter and Ned to come near.
“I hear that Captain Brown gives you a good name, Walter, and that you came home his first officer. We were about to go into the woods together when I was hurt. I used to think you loved to go into the woods with me.”
“O, Uncle Isaac, the happiest hours of my life have been spent in the woods with you.”
“We never shall go there again; I am going to a better place—to heaven. Walter, I hope we shall meet there. I haven’t strength to say more; but you will remember the talks we’ve had at the camp fire. So this is the little boy we took off the raft; he is not very little now, though. Don’t cry, my son,” he said, laying his hand upon Ned’s head, who had buried his face in the bed-clothes, and was sobbing audibly. “It seems to me I am the best off of the two.”
“How can that be, Uncle Isaac, when you are hurt so dreadfully, while I am well?”
“Because, my son, I have got about through; I have run all the risk, while you have just begun, have all the risk to run, and may be shipwrecked. I know what is before me—a better world; you don’t know what is before you. I have had all my trials; yours are to come. Captain Rhines tells me you have a Christian mother.”
“Yes, Uncle Isaac, she’s the best mother that ever was.”