Never was the widow so happy as when, over a good cup of souchong, she descanted upon the fine qualities of her daughter, utterly regardless of Sally’s blushes, and whispered, “O, don’t, mother.” “Yes,” the old lady would say, shoving her spectacles up on her cap, and stirring slowly her tea, “I’ll put my Sally, though I say it that shouldn’t say it, for taking a fleece of wool as it comes from the sheep’s back, and making it into cloth, against any girl in the town; and then she always has such good luck making soap, and such luck with her bread! she beats me out and out in hot biscuit. You see this table-cloth; well, she spun the flax, and bleached the thread, drew it into the loom, and wove it, all sole alone.”
Sally was not without some dim perception of Ben’s attachment to her. She knew that he was very fond of her brother Sam; and that if he wanted to borrow anything they had, he would always come himself, both to get it and to bring it home.
When he came home from sea, he always brought presents for the widow Hadlock. Many of them, though very beautiful, didn’t seem altogether adapted to an old widow; and then her mother would say, “Sally, these things are very beautiful, but I shall never put off my mourning for your dear father; they would be very becoming to you.”
Ben went to singing-school, in the school-house. A young man had recently come into the village from Salem, as a singing-master. He had a way that took mightily with the girls. This excited a general antipathy to him among all the young men in the place, who, since his advent, found themselves at a discount with the ladies. Latterly, his attentions had been directed particularly to Sally Hadlock, as the prettiest girl in the village.
The house being crowded one evening, Ben had gone into the seat usually reserved for the singers. The singing-master, who was an empty coxcomb, with nothing but good looks to recommend him, ordered him out. Ben, with his usual good nature, would have obeyed; but the tone was so contemptuous, and the place so public (probably Sally’s presence might have had something to do with it), that it stung; Ben replied that he sat very well, and remained as he was.
This drew the eyes of all upon him, as expecting something interesting. In a few moments his tormentor returned, and assured him, if he did not move, and that quick, he would be put out. Upon this, Ben rose up to his full height, and looking down upon the frightened man of music, said, “I don’t think there are men enough in this school-house to put me out.”
This sally was received with a universal shout by the audience, who not only had not the least doubt of the fact, but also rejoiced in the discomfiture of the puppy.
Sally was very much grieved at the master’s insulting treatment of Ben, who had done so much for her mother. It is said that all women are hero-worshippers.
When she saw him so completely frightened out of his impertinence, and made ridiculous, noticed the forbearance of Ben, who might have squat him up like a fly between his fingers and thumb, she became conscious of a tenderer feeling for her old schoolmate, who that night went home with her and her mother for the first time.
Ben now determined to make a bold push, and go and see Sally Sunday night, though he knew she, and everybody else, would know what it meant. It seems very singular that Ben Rhines, who had been half over the world, and in a privateer, should be afraid to go over to the widow Hadlock’s before dark; but he was: so he broke the matter to his most intimate friend, Sam Johnson, who offered to go with him the next Sunday night.