“I’ve always told you it is very wrong for a girl to marry a man whom she doesn’t love; it isn’t right in the sight of God, and always leads to misery. Ben isn’t so good-looking as some young men, nor rich in this world’s goods; but he has good learning and good manners: he is of a good family; can do more work than any three young men in town; and for all he is such a giant, never gives a misbeholden word to any one. You’ve known him from childhood. It’s a great deal better to marry him with only the clothes to his back, and the good principles that are in him, than to marry some one who is rich and handsome now, may die a drunkard, and perhaps, some time, throw up to your poverty.”
“O, I know all that, mother; but there’s something else, which, perhaps, I ought not to have done without asking you. I’ve promised to go and live on Elm Island, right in the woods, and among the breakers;” and then she told her mother every word that she and Ben had said, from beginning to end, throwing in, as a sweetener, a circumstance which she knew would have great influence with her parent; “but then, you know, he has promised never to go to sea any more.”
She was most agreeably disappointed when the widow, after a little pause, replied in her mild way, “I not only approve of what you’ve done, but should have been very sorry if you had done otherwise. Your grandmother, girl, was born in old Rowley, Massachusetts, was brought up to have everything she wanted, and knew nothing of hardships; but she married your grandfather because she loved him, though he was a poor man. They came down here, and took up this farm when it was all woods. I’ve stood in the door of our old house, and seen eleven wolves come off Birch Point and go on the ice to Oak Island: one of them had lost his leg in a trap, and could not keep up with the rest, and they would squat down on the ice and wait for him. They burnt up their first house in clearing the land, and had to live in a brush camp till they built another. I’ve heard mother say, a hundred times, that the happiest years of her life were those hard years; that the anticipation of living easier by and by, and having a good farm, was better than the good farm when they got it; that there was nothing in her well-to-do life afterwards to compare with the satisfaction of looking back to those hard times when she had the strength to endure those hardships. Then her face would light up, her eyes kindle, and the color come into her old cheeks; and as I looked at her, I used to hope that I should live to see such pleasant hardships, to be glad of and tell about when I was old.
“Well, Sally, I’ve had troubles, and bitter ones; the sea has been a devourer to me; but not hardships, because I married and lived at home; but you have the chance, girl, to know something about it. Don’t be afraid of being poor; people here don’t know what poverty is. Go to Liverpool, if you want to see what real poverty is, as I have been many a time with your poor father, who is dead and gone. A man with a farm is sure of a living, and a good one, too; the farmers feed the world, and they are great fools if they don’t lick their own fingers. Two thirds of the merchants fail; a great many seamen die at sea, and it’s a dog’s life at best. The sailor is only anxious when the wind blows; but the wind blows all the time for the poor wife at home, and her pillow is often wet with tears.
“The last time I was in Rowley, I saw rich men’s sons; whose fathers scorned your grandfather because he was a farmer, going about killing hogs and cutting wood for folks. For a farmer to kill his own hogs, or to change work with his neighbors to kill theirs, then they help him kill his, or to cut his own wood, is a very different thing from what it is for people, who felt as large as they did once, and, in their pride and prosperity, looked down on every one that labored, to have to do it for a living. Your grandmother said, it used to make her blood run cold to see them come into the house of God with such an air, getting up and sitting down two or three times, flaunting with their ‘ribbins,’ and chattering like a striped squirrel on the side of a tree. I was up there the year before Sam was born; and now to see how they live! just the least little scriffin of bread and butter, or a little pie; the least little piece of meat, about as big as your hand, which they run to the butcher’s to get, for they never have anything in the cellar; then, instead of doing as we do, cutting it thick, and telling everybody to help themselves, they cut it into little slices and help them, for fear, I suppose, they should take too much; and then so many compliments to so little victuals! But they put it on their backs, Sally; that’s what they do with it; they put it on their backs. As they have no hearty victuals and hard work to give them color, they paint their faces, and look out of the windows, as Jezebel did: they spend most all their time looking out of the windows.”
Sally rejoiced to find that, when following the inclinations of her own heart, she had done just right; and with a face from which every trace of tears had vanished, replied, “I thought I knew your mind, mother; but I must go and get breakfast, for I thought I heard Sam getting up.”
CHAPTER VI.
BEN BUYS ELM ISLAND.
Ben went to Boston to see the old merchant, whom he knew very well, having often seen him at his father’s when he was on his summer visits. The good merchant, who had been a poor boy, and earned his property by his own industry, and was both too wise and too good to value himself by his wealth, received Ben so kindly, that he told him all his heart; what he wanted the island for, of the promise he had made to Sally, and all about it. He commended Ben; told him he knew Sally’s father (that he had sailed for him), and her mother, too; she was of good blood; there was a great deal in the blood. He told him he would have a happy life; that he had always regretted he had not been a farmer himself. He had worked night and day, amassed a large property, educated his family, and looked forward to the time when they would be a source of happiness to him; but his children were indolent, knew he had wealth, and had no desire to do anything for themselves; he feared they would spend his money faster than he had earned it. “Indeed, Ben,” replied the merchant, with a sigh, “I would much rather take your chance for happiness, and a comfortable living in this world, than that of either of my sons.”
Ben was utterly amazed. He had thought, when looking upon that splendid furniture, and wealth and taste there displayed, that people in such circumstances must be extremely happy; but, as he was not deficient in shrewdness, he learned a lesson that effectually repressed any desire to murmur at his own lot.