The island stood alone in the ocean; and though you could land at any time when you could get there, yet there were weeks together in winter, when, in case of sickness or death, not a boat could live to cross from the main land; they were completely shut out from all the rest of the world. But you say, perhaps, these people must have been very poor.
O, not at all. If you mean, by being poor, that they had not much money, or horses, or carriages, or rich dresses, and servants to wait on them, why, then they were poor; but if you mean by the term poor, such poverty as you see in the cities or in the large country towns, where you may see aged women in rags begging from door to door; children with their little bare feet as red as the pigeons’ with the cold, picking the little bits of coal out of the ashes that are thrown out of the stores and houses; gathering pieces of hoops and chips around the wharves and warehouses to carry home to burn; with the tears running down their little cheeks, crying, “Please give me a cent to buy some bread,”—O, there was no such poverty as that there: they never knew what it was to want good wholesome food, and good coarse warm clothing to keep out the frost and snow.
“But how did they get it, if they had not much money to buy it?”
“Get it? Why, they worked for it; and if any one had called these island people beggars, they would have broken his head, or flung him overboard.”
You may think as you like, my young friends; but people did live on this island, and were happy as the days are long, though they had their trials and “head flaws,” as we all must.
CHAPTER II.
THE RHINES FAMILY.
In order that you may know all about them, we will resume the thread of our story, and trace the history of Captain Rhines and his family.
The captain was a strong-built, finely proportioned, “hard-a-weather” sailor, not a great deal the worse for wear, and seasoned by the suns and frosts of many climates. In early life he had experienced the bitter struggle with poverty.
His father came into the country when it was a wilderness, with nothing but a narrow axe, and strength to use it. His first crops being cut off by the frosts, they were compelled to live for months upon clams, and the leaves of beech trees boiled. There were no schools; and the parents, engaged in a desperate struggle for existence with famine and the Indians, were unable to instruct their children. Fishing vessels from Marblehead often anchored in the cove near the log camp, and little Ben, anxious to earn somewhat to aid his parents in their poverty, went as cook in one of these vessels when so small that some one had to hang on the pot for him. He was thus engaged for several summers, till big enough to go as boy in a coaster. During the winters, arrayed in buckskin breeches, Indian moccasons, and a coon-skin cap, he helped his father make staves, and hauled them to the landing on a hand-sled.