Here, then, was Ben’s best suit, made in Liverpool by a professional tailor, soaked with sour milk, and covered with ashes; his light buff waistcoat all over smut, from the pot, crane, hooks, and trammels, that fell over him. Thus, though Ben’s temper was not easily roused, and soon subsided, he was now thoroughly mad, and, had he caught Joe, would probably have crippled him for life. Perhaps some such thought crossed his mind, as he said to his father on coming down, “He’s gone, and I’m glad of it; but I’ll be even with him before snow flies.”
Aunt Molly Bradish’s declaration that Ben Rhines had helped everybody that needed help, and that she should think somebody might give him a lift, was not lost. Seth Warren happened to be in there, and heard the old lady’s remarks. Seth was a kind-hearted, jovial fellow, who had been many a time with Ben on his errands of mercy, and loved any kind doings. He went directly to the store, where, as he expected, he found, as it was Saturday night, a good portion of the young men of the place assembled. He took them aside, and said, “You know what a good fellow Ben Rhines is; how he has always been getting up ‘bees’ to help everybody that was behindhand: now, what say for going on to the island next week, the whole crew of us, and giving him a lift with his house?”
Seth’s proposition was received with acclamations. “Now, boys,” he continued, “you know how such things always leak out, and that spoils the whole. Now, don’t say a word about it to neither sister, mother, or sweetheart, till they have gone back to the island Monday morning, and then we can talk as much as we please, and they cannot possibly get wind of it.”
This was solemnly assented to.
“I,” said Seth, “will go over and sleep with Joe Griffin Sunday night, and, without letting him suspect anything, find out how far they’ve got along with their work, that we may know when our help will be most needed.” This he did, when Joe told him what he did the night before at Captain Rhines’s.
“What do you suppose Ben’ll do to you? He’ll murder you after he gets you on to the island. I shouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”
“Poh! he won’t, neither; he’s like a bottle of beer, soon up and soon over. I think it is like enough he’ll throw me overboard; if he does, I don’t care; I’d be willing to be ducked twenty times for the sake of the fun I had that night, and for the better fun I shall have thinking about it and telling of it.”
The next morning Seth accompanied Joe to the shore; but no sooner was the gundelow fairly off, than getting on the horse with Hannah Murch, who had come to bring her husband, he let out the whole matter to her. Hannah, by no means backward in the good work, told everybody she met on the road, and went to the school-house and told the mistress.
The result of this was, that thirty-five young men agreed to go,—among whom were ten ship-carpenters from Massachusetts, who were there cutting ship timber, with their master workman, Ephraim Hunt; also, Sam Atkins, from Newburyport, who was at home on a visit.
The girls, under the direction of Hannah Murch, were to cook and furnish the provisions, while John Strout engaged to set them on in his fishing schooner, the Perseverance, an Essex pink-stern, of sixty tons.