“There’s our supper to-night, at any rate,” said Ben; “and were we in anything else than this scow, I’d have those wounded ones.”
They reached the island, and luffing round its eastern point, ran the “gundelow” on the beach at the mouth of the cove. Joe, making a leaping-pole of an oar, sprang ashore. “Throw us a rope, and you go astern, and I’ll haul her in.” While Joe pulled on the rope, Ben stepping overboard, put his little shoulders to the stern of the “gundelow,” and shoved her so high up on the beach that Isaac Murch stepped out without wetting his feet.
“I say, Ben,” exclaimed Joe, “suppose you take an ox under each arm, and bring them out. I never was here before, but if this ain’t just the handsomest place I ever set eyes on. Such a nice little harbor to keep a craft; and a brook, and this little green spot in the lee of the woods; then such a master growth of timber; there’s a pine that’ll run seventy feet without a limb. I say it’s great, I do.”
Let us glance a moment at the character and capacities of these three men, as they stand together on the beach of this little gem of the wild Atlantic coast.
They represent the yeomanry of the nation. They are of the old stock; not technically religious men, and yet no word of profanity, or disrespect to religion, finds utterance or countenance from them. That which, in their estimation, is of the greatest importance, is to have something which they have earned with their own hands. Look at them, as they stand there at the water’s edge, and know them. Physically considered, they are noble specimens of manly vigor and power.
What would some of the effeminate dandies that throng our streets, or the scions of nobility in the old world, be good for on that wild sea-beach? But these men can live there, and cause others to live, and turn the wilderness into a garden.
Isaac Murch is five feet eleven inches in height, fifty-three years of age, without a gray hair on his head, of powerful, compact frame, with a world of intelligence and kindness in his face, and something about him that, without the least assumption, caused his neighbors to respect his opinion, and look up to him as a leader. His early advantages for learning were very slight; but since he has been in easy circumstances, he has improved strong natural capacities by reading and observation.
Joe Griffin was twenty-two—a boy, as Isaac Murch called him; and a great red-cheeked, corn-fed boy he was, too; six feet in his stockings, and weighing a hundred and eighty pounds; loose-jointed, big-boned, thin in the flanks, not long-legged, but getting his length between his shoulders and his hips. He is of less capacity, and more interested in physical matters. He can read and write, cipher as far as the “rule of three,” and cast interest; but he has a knack of handling tools that comes by nature. As the neighbors say, he has an eye,—that is, he can judge of proportions, and, with his great clumsy fingers, do anything with wood that he likes; but his great ambition is, to go ahead and do the work. He’s smart, and knows it, and likes to have other people know it. He don’t calculate to let anybody go ahead of him with a scythe, or chop into the side of a tree, or put hay on to a cart, quicker than himself. Indeed there were very few that could; for he was not only strong, but tough, and possessed infinite tact, laying out his strength to the best advantage.
Let us consider the type of labor presented to us. Here are three live Yankees, in whom all the shrewd, inventive genius of the race has been stimulated by necessity,—all of them, from early life, having been flung upon their own resources.
They are helping one of their number to build a house for himself and his young wife to live in. One of them has already passed through that experience of life which their employer is about to enter. The other expects to, for he also intends to be married, and have a home and land of his own. They therefore go about their work with interest and sympathy.