“You know I would rather be with John alone; but if he made a sacrifice to get him good, I ought to help keep him good.”
“That’s right, Charlie; that is a good principle.”
“Do you know, father, it seems to me just like this about Fred. When I get out an ash rim for a basket, it is hard work to bend it; and if, after I have bent it, I don’t fasten it, but throw it down on the floor and leave it, in the morning it will be straightened out just where it was before; but if I fasten it till it gets dry and set, it will stay so; and I think we ought to do all we can to keep Fred good till he gets fairly set in good ways, and then he’ll stay set.”
Ben had scarcely removed the provisions from the canoe, and put it all under cover, when the weather suddenly changed. As night came on, the wind increased, with snow; and afterwards hauling to the south-east, blew a hurricane, the rain falling in torrents through the night; but at daylight hauled to the south-west, when it became fair.
Ben and Joe were at work in the front room making shingles. At morning high-water they heard a constant thumping in the direction of the White Bull for more than an hour, when it gradually ceased. At night they heard it again.
“Joe,” said Ben, “let us take the canoe after supper, and go over and see what that thumping is. It is not the surf, nor rocks grinding on each other, I know.”
When they reached the spot they found the bowsprit of a vessel, with the bobstays hanging to it, having been broken off at the gammoning, with the gripe attached to it. There was also the fore-mast and fore-topmast, with the yards and head-stays, the mast being carried away at the deck. The chain-plates also on the starboard side and channels had been torn out, and hung to the shrouds by the lanyards. On the port side there were only the shrouds and the upper dead-eyes. The sails were on the yards, while braces, clew-garnets, clew-lines, leach-lines, bunt-lines, and reef-tackles,—some nearly of their entire length, others cut and parted,—were rolled around the spars, and matted with kelps and eel-grass, in almost inextricable confusion. In the fore-top was a chest lashed fast, and filled with studding-sail gear, which having been fastened, the rigging remained in it. These ropes were very long, and had been but little worn.
“Well,” said Ben, looking upon the mass with that peculiar interest that a wreck always inspires in the heart of a seaman, “I am sorry for the poor fellows who have met with a misfortune; but this rigging, these sails and iron-work, are a most precious God-send to me.”
Iron and cordage were both very valuable articles in the country at that time, as the British government had forbidden the erection of rolling and slitting mills before the Revolution, and the manufactures of the country were just struggling into life. Withes of wood were used in lieu of ropes and chains.
“The long bolts in that gripe,” said Joe, “will make you a crane. A few more links put to the chain on that bobstay will make you a first-rate draught chain. The straps of the dead-eyes welded together, and a little steel put on the point, will make a good crowbar.”