THIS was Edmund Griffin, the proprietor of seven hundred acres of excellent land, a very large stock of cattle, and money besides—the strongest man in town (leaving out Lion Ben, who was an exception to everybody), now that Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac were getting in years. He was not remarkably tall, being barely six feet in his boots, but of vast proportions. There was no beauty about Edmund; his hair was coarse as rope-yarn, inclining to red, and, where it was not confined by a cue, bristling; his waist was small in proportion to the great breadth of his shoulders and hips, his joints large, his lips and teeth very prominent, which gave him the appearance of coming at you. The whole expression of his face was extremely rugged, and would have been fierce, had it not been neutralized by the kindly expression of a clear, mild eye. His voice, also, was rather loud and hearty than harsh in its tones. A skein of woollen yarn was tied round him for a belt, his breeches of dye-pot blue, and a flannel shirt that had once been bright red, but so bleached by the sun and perspiration as not to show any red save under the armpits and below the girdle, from a pocket in the breast of which stuck out the end of a purse made of a sheep’s bladder; his open collar revealed a finely-formed throat, and a breast covered with a thick mass of curling brown hair. This great, brawny man was possessed of remarkable mechanical genius. With those great fingers of his he could execute the nicest jobs, and he was constantly resorted to by the neighbors; and yet there was not a sled or cart on the premises that had a decent tongue in it; they were all made by cutting down a forked tree, and sticking in the fork with the bark on.
“You’re getting fat, parson—fat as a porpoise; you don’t do work enough; you ought to have been in the woods with me this forenoon; ‘twould make the gravy run, and take some of the grease out of you.”
“What are you going to do with those poles, Edmund?”
“Make pike-poles to drive logs with, in the fall freshet.”
Parson Goodhue was much attached to Edmund Griffin, who had grown up under him, and whom he had married when he was but twenty and his wife nineteen, and, though now surrounded by a large family, was in the very maturity of his strength; for he well knew that, though the outside was as rough as the coat of the alligator, there was a noble and generous nature within, and a kindly heart throbbed beneath that hairy bosom and faded shirt.
For many a long year he had been seeking his good, and striving in vain to impress him with religious ideas; but it was like lifting a wet cannon ball; he eluded all his efforts; he could find no chink in his armor. He was always at meeting with his family, rain or shine, and an attentive hearer. Anything, everything he would do for Parson Goodhue, except listen to religious conversation; that he would always avoid. He had no sympathy in that direction, nor his wife either, and the children naturally grew up with the same ideas. Even the old father, ninety years of age, and tottering on the verge of eternity, seemed to have no notions beyond the present; and all his talk was about lifting, wrestling, and the Indian fights, in which he had played a most conspicuous part, and, though he could with difficulty get across the room, would, every few weeks, have his rifle brought to him, and clean and oil the lock.
“Lizzy,” shouted Mr. Griffin, in a voice that might be heard a mile.
This brought to the door a woman of a noble form, dark-brown hair, and one of the sweetest faces the eye ever rested upon, and, though evidently just from the cheese-tub, very neatly dressed.
“Lizzy, here’s Parson Goodhue come to stay to dinner, and a fortnight longer, I hope.”