The moment Uncle Isaac landed, he set out for Sam Elwell’s. Going along, he saw Yelf’s horse feeding beside the road, with the bridle under his feet, and, a little farther on, his master lying in a slough hole, to all appearance dead, but, as it turned out, only dead drunk. He pulled him out, and, as he was unable to stand, set him against the fence to drip, while he caught the horse; his gray hairs and face were plastered with mud; his nose had bled; the blood was clotted upon his beard, and soaked the bosom of his shirt.
“How came you in this mud hole?”
“Why, you see, Isaac, the mare went in to drink; the bridle slipped out of my hand; I reached down to get it, kind o’ lost my balance, and fell right over her head, and hit my nose on a rock. I think, Isaac, I must have taken a leetle drop too much.”
His friend scraped the mud from him as well as he could with a chip, put him on the mare (for Yelf could ride when altogether too drunk to walk), and left him at his own house, which lay in the direction he was going.
“That’s a bad sight,” said Uncle Isaac to himself, as he went on, “and it’s one that’s getting altogether too common. I remember the time when he was content with his three glasses a day, and perhaps a nightcap; but now he can’t stop till he stops in a ditch. There ain’t a man in this town but what drinks spirit, myself among the rest, and most of them more than’s good for ’em. I don’t see why people can’t use liquor with moderation, and without making a beast of themselves. If it was only these old, worn-out ones, like Yelf, ’twouldn’t be so much matter; but it’s amongst the young folks; and even boys get the worse for liquor. It’s natural they should; for if men sail vessels, boys’ll sail boats. It’s time something’s done, though what can be done I’m sure I don’t know. What an awful thing it would be, if, one of these days, Ben or Joe Griffin should pick me out of a ditch, and carry me home to my family looking like that! I’ll think about it, and talk with Hannah this blessed night.” He was aroused from his meditations by hearing the voice of Sam at his own door.
He was about the age of Isaac, but a much heavier man, being very thick set, with a stoop in his shoulders. His hands were of great size, full of cracks; his fingers crooked, from constant working with stone hammers and drills; many of the nails jammed off, and his face as hard as the stones he worked on. He was also a man of very few words, while Isaac liked to talk; yet they had been close friends from boyhood, took great delight in each other’s society (if it could be called society where one talked and the other listened), and always got together, and worked together, whenever they could. They were both passionately fond of gunning. Isaac was the quicker shot; but Sam could scull a float steadier and faster than any man along the shore. He could also lay brick well, but was possessed of a remarkable gift for working upon rocks. He knew just how to take hold of a great rock to move it, and could do a better quality of work than they ever had occasion for in that rude state of society, where nobody had hammered doorsteps but Captain Rhines, widow Hadlock, and a few others. He knew all about the nature and grain of rocks, could dress underpinning, or make a millstone out of a boulder in the pasture.
He had just come home from a long job, and was taking his tools out of the cart.
“Let them be,” said Isaac; “I’ve got another job for you:” as he spoke he pulled the clevis-pin out of the tongue.
Sam, without a word, unyoked the oxen, and went into the barn to feed them, while the other tied them up.
Isaac, without any invitation, followed Sam into the house. The table was in the floor, and Sam’s wife had just put on the victuals. “Set along,” said Sam, motioning Isaac to a chair. That’s the way they lived. If they chanced to be in each other’s houses about meal time, they always stopped. If they met on the road, or were at work together in the woods, or had been off gunning, they always went to the house that was nearest. Their wives never worried about them, for they knew where they were, and were as good friends as their husbands.