“O, my! if here isn’t an arch; what a nice place that will be to keep my milk, when I get it.”
“Now we’ve got a light, let’s look into the oven.”
“I know that oven will bake well,” said Sally; “it looks as though it would. Now, I think this is a real nice place, and that Ben has made a good trade; and, if we have our health, we can pay for it well enough. Only think how much we’ve saved by living in this house, which is good enough for young folks just beginning, and better than many have. Why, it ain’t a month since the trees were growing, and now it’s all done. Didn’t he make a good trade, Uncle Isaac?”
“He made a better one when he got you, you little humming-bird,” said Uncle Isaac, who was brim full, and could no longer restrain himself; patting her on the head, “you would suck honey out of a rock.”
“I’m much obliged to you, you good old man. I’ll tell you what we’ll do (that is, when we are able); you shall come over here with Aunt Hannah, and bring all your tools, and we’ll part off the front rooms, and have a front entry, ceil up the kitchen, have Uncle Sam to build fireplaces in the front rooms, and Joe Griffin to make fun for us. I’ll make you some of those three-cornered biscuit and custard puddings you like so well. In the evenings we’ll have a roaring fire; you can tell stories, and we will sit and listen, and knit. Ben says this is the greatest place for gunning that ever was; and you can bring on your float and gun, and you and Uncle Sam can gun to your heart’s content. Ain’t I building castles in the air?” cried Sally, with another laugh, that made the house ring; “but we must go off, or we shall be caught.”
A little breeze had sprung up, and Uncle Isaac putting up a bush for a sail, they landed on the other side without detection.
He said he never wanted to tell anything so much in his life, as he did to tell Ben how much Sally was delighted with the island; but he resolutely kept it to himself.
As it would be difficult getting off in the winter, Ben carried on provisions, hay for a cow, and for oxen that he might get occasionally. He put the hay in a stack out of doors. He bought the hay of Joe Griffin’s father, and Joe was to deliver it on the island. Being disappointed in respect to the man who was engaged to help him, he took old Uncle Sam Yelf, as better than nobody. There was a long easterly swell; the scow rolled a good deal, and, the hay hanging over the side and getting wet, she began to fill. At some distance from them Sydney Chase and Sam Hadlock were fishing. “Shall I holler, Mr. Griffin?” said Yelf, who was terribly frightened, and had a tremendous voice.
“Yes.”
“What shall I holler?”