The Hard-Scrabble returned, having made a profitable voyage; and, as the spring opened, Charlie had leisure to attend to farming. He planted among the trees, whose naked branches flung no shadow, and whose dead limbs and seasoned trunks, continually dropping, afforded an inexhaustible supply of dry fuel.
At leisure intervals he hewed out timber for a house and barn frame; and, as he now had money, hired Ricker, and, after the harvest was gathered in the fall, cut down and burned up all the dry trunks of the trees, when the ground was wet, and there was no risk of the fires running.
He now had a large belt of cleared land between the grove—behind which he had resolved to place his permanent buildings—and the great elm and forest, also many beautiful trees scattered here and there over the slope trending to the shore.
“It has made some work,” said he, “to save these trees; but they are a life-long source of beauty and happiness.”
As the next spring opened, he was about to attack the forest in earnest, when his plans were entirely changed by a communication from Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PROGRESS.
Charlie now possessed what in those days was considered a handsome property.
As the spring came on, he made sugar, and determined to cut and burn the growth of white maple, birch, and ash that covered the flat, that he might have field pasturage, and indulge his taste for farming. But his plans were brought to a sudden termination, and the land was to be cleared in a manner quite different from that which he had anticipated.
About four o’clock one afternoon, as he and Ricker were grinding their axes, in preparation for the morrow, Ben, Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, and Fred landed in the cove. As Charlie went to meet them, Fred held up a letter.
“We’ve come to set you to work,” said Captain Rhines. “We were afraid that, living here by yourself, with plenty of money, you would get rusty and lazy.”