“Father,” said John, “a man came there lately who wears loose breeches that come clear to his shoes. They call ’em pantaloons. Captain Starrett says it’s because he’s spindle-shanked, and wants to cover his legs up.”
In the course of the afternoon, Captain Rhines put the saddle on the horse, and sent Elizabeth over to Uncle Isaac’s; and when she returned, both he and his wife came with her.
“Charlie,” said Captain Rhines, “in the morning you and John must go and see old Mrs. Yelf.”
“O, sir, I can’t go anywhere or do anything till I see father and mother.”
“You must see her, because the poor old lady won’t live long, and she longs to see you. It will take but a few minutes to go over in the morning, and then John can set you on to the island.”
CHAPTER VII.
CHARLIE AT HOME AGAIN.
The next morning, after making their call upon Mrs. Yelf, greatly to the old lady’s satisfaction, they started for Elm Island.
Ben and Sally, having been informed by Captain Rhines of the time at which the boys would start, and of the manner in which they expected to come, were equally, with him, eagerly expecting their arrival.
Many times she left her work during the day, and went to the door to see if they were coming. During the period that had elapsed since the brief but glorious career of the West Wind, the old dugouts had either passed into oblivion, or were debased to mere tenders for the whaleboats, which were kept afloat at their moorings, or even used as cars (cages) to keep lobsters and clams alive in. Whaleboats had also increased in numbers, by reason of the impulse given to fishing, and were frequently seen going to and fro in good weather; and Bennie, who took every sail, it mattered not in what direction they were heading, for the Perseverance, Jr., kept his mother in a constant state of excitement by running into the house, and bawling out, “Marm, they’re coming! They’re most here!” Ben also frequently, in the course of the day, swept the horizon with his spy-glass. They expected the boys would land at Captain Rhines’s first, stop all night, and then John come over with Charlie. Accordingly he frequently inspected the cove, and the adjacent shores, and if he manifested less outward show of interest than his father, it must be attributed to his sluggish temperament, which was less easily roused, and the fact that he had more to occupy him, and was just at that time engaged with his hired man upon a job that interested him exceedingly. He was at work in his orchard.
When Ben declared that he would make cider yet on Elm Island, it was no idle boast. He had gone to work in the best possible way to accomplish his designs. He had, in the first place, burned the land over, the same season in which the growth was cut, and before it was dry, on purpose that the fire should not burn too deep, and consume the vegetable mould down to a barren subsoil. The growth of wood was also of a kind that was rich in potash, an element in which the apple, of all the trees of the field, delights. Instead of waiting till he had taken several crops from the land, the stumps had decayed, and it was exhausted by many ploughings and plantings, he set out three hundred grafted trees, of choice fruit, that Mr. Welch had given him, right in the ashes, and among the stumps. Wherever a stump interfered with the regularity of the rows, he dug it up, otherwise set the tree close beside it, and the young tree fed upon its decaying roots. In addition to this, the soil was filled with the excrements of sea-fowl, that for centuries had bred upon the island, and it was abundantly supplied with lime from the shells of muscles, cockles, and bones of fish with which they fed their young.