Sally was delighted; the birth of the calf opened a prospect not only of milk, of which they had been deprived for two months, but of butter. It was also the first domestic animal that had been born on the island; besides, there are so many pleasant memories of childhood connected with a “bossy,” that it seemed a great affair to Sally in her lonely situation. She scarcely ever came in from the barn but her sleeves were all chewed up, in consequence of stopping to pet the calf.
“How much it seems like home,” said she to Joe, “to have a calf to pet, and hear it crying for the cow! to hear a rooster crow, and hens cackle, and have eggs to hunt after! I used to think, when I first came on here, it would be music to hear a pig squeal.”
“I can give you music,” said Joe, and set up a cry so much like that of a pig in his last agonies, that Sally was glad to stop her ears. He then began to make a noise like a calf in trouble, which soon brought the mother running from the woods, where she had been browsing upon maples that Joe had cut down for her.
Peter Clash embraced the first opportunity in the spring to ship in a fishing vessel, being in mortal fear of Uncle Isaac, who, Joe Griffin had told him, had Indian blood in him, and would carry him into the woods and roast him alive, as he had been taught to do among the Indians. But he was determined, before he departed, to revenge himself upon Uncle Isaac, and inflict some injury upon John Rhines. He hated John, although he had never injured him, because he was a good boy, and Uncle Isaac and everybody liked him. Although two years older, he feared to attack him. He talked with the boys who were most under his influence, and by ingenious falsehoods contrived to prejudice them against him, by possessing them with the idea that John helped Uncle Isaac set the trap, and was in the bushes with him watching them when it sprung.
“I hate him, too,” said Jack Godsoe, whose mind Pete had completely warped to his own interest, and who was also older than John, and a smart, resolute boy.
“He thinks he’s too good to play with us, because his father is captain, and lives in a big house, and because he goes with Uncle Isaac; I hate him; let’s lick him, and take some of that grand feeling out of him.”
They seated themselves on the beach, under a great willow that hung over the bank, in earnest consultations as to the best means of revenging themselves upon Uncle Isaac. Jack proposed they should pull up his corn.
“That,” said Fred Williams, “is too much work, and he could plant it over again.”
“Let us put his sheep in the well,” said Sam Smikes.
“It’s too near the house,” said Pete; “we shall be caught; besides, it wouldn’t be bad enough for the ‘old cuss;’ he could get them out, and would save the wool and the pelts, for they are not sheared. O! I’ll tell you what we’ll do; we’ll kill his apple trees.”