The old people had fed, clothed, and sheltered him when he had no place to put his head, for which the little labor he performed was by no means an equivalent, as he generally contrived to be out of the way just when his help was needed.
In those days nobody thought of hauling up a year’s stock of wood, and having it cut and dried; but they picked it up as they wanted it, and hauled it home on a sled, as wheels were by no means common in those days. The old folks were in the habit of getting on the sled, and riding out in the woods with Peter, helping him load, and then riding back.
Peter had found a large hornet’s nest in a heap of beech limbs; so he drives the sled right over it, and stops the cattle; when the enraged insects, who were of the yellow-bellied kind, and the most cruel of stingers, attacked the old people, and stung them terribly, as they were too feeble to get quickly away.
It was thought the old gentleman would never see again. They then turned upon the oxen, who, frantic with fear and agony, ran into the woods, tore the sled in pieces against the trees, and ran into the water, where they would have been drowned but for Joe Bradish and Captain Rhines.
Peter pretended that he didn’t know the hornets were there, and the kind old people believed him; but it came out afterwards that he had done it on purpose.
He used also to torment small boys, whenever he could get a good opportunity.
It was the influence of these boys which Mrs. Rhines feared; but she apprehended danger where none existed. Peter, John despised: as to the others, they were too much below him in point of intelligence and force of character to exert any influence over him.
He was now in his fifteenth year, very large of his age, beautifully proportioned, with his father’s gray eyes and dark hair; excelled in wrestling, swimming, and all kinds of boys’ sports, and bade fair almost to rival Ben in strength. He had an eye that you could look right into, as you can look down into the depths of a clear spring. The whole expression of his face was so manly and frank, it was felt at once to be an index of his character. According to Fred Williams, John Rhines was just as full of principle as he could stick; and the boys never thought of proposing to him any plan which their consciences told them was of doubtful morality. John was less accessible to temptation, for the reason that he loved out of doors, and the stimulus his nature craved was of a healthy character. He delighted in everything that required great physical force and endurance; and we cannot but think that the wrestling, jumping, pulling up, and rough out-door sports of that period, though a man’s leg was broken now and then, or somebody killed outright, were infinitely preferable to the effeminate amusements of the present day, which turn boys into coxcombs and men-milliners, and destroy both soul and body. Nothing was more agreeable to him than the pleasure derived from contrasts between great extremes. Those pursuits which promised neither peril nor hardship possessed for him very little attraction.
He loved to fly through the water in a boat, with all the sail she would suffer, while the spray came by bucketfuls on to the side of his neck, and then, rounding a densely-wooded point, run her into a calm, sunny nook, among the green leaves, exchanging the dash of the cold spray and the shrill whistle of the wind for the warm sunshine and the song of birds.
His father used to say he believed that John would pound his finger for the sake of having it feel better when it was done aching; not considering that the boy inherited his own temperament, and that he had manifested the same disposition, when, basking in the warmth of a blazing fire, filled to repletion with sea pie and pudding, he told his wife how much the recollection of his past perils added to his present happiness.