“Well, then, just stay here amongst us. There is plenty of work to do round here—chopping, logging, and river-driving. There will be more vessels built here, too. I don’t know whether Charlie will work much longer or not; but if he don’t, I will give you and Thorndike work all winter, logging and making shingles; and when you are not at work, you’re welcome to make my house your home.”
“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Murch, and shall be right glad, if Master Bell don’t work, to take up with your offer.”
“There’s plenty of land here, that can be bought cheap—good land, too; and there’s plenty of nice young women, that know how to spin and weave, and would make a striving man a good wife, take care of whatever he brings into the house; and, though I say it myself, there’s not a more industrious, neighborly set of people in the United States of America than live in this town; and you travel the country through, and you won’t find a better principled, more enterprising set of young men; and I mean to do what little I can to encourage them, and there’s others feel just as I do.”
“I mean to be governed by your counsel, Uncle Isaac. But, to tell the truth, there’s a young woman up our way that I’ve had some dealings with, and we were engaged once; but she didn’t like my drinking, wrestling, and carousing about, and neglecting my work, and her folks set in, and that made a coldness between us. I love her as the apple of my eye, and I drank more to drown trouble.”
“You ought to think the more of her for not approving of your drinking and idleness.”
“So I do.”
“Well, then, all you have to do is, just to go on as you are now doing, stay here out of the way of temptation, and build up a good reputation. The news won’t be long getting back to your place. They’ll miss you at musters and raisings, and begin to inquire, ‘Where’s Ricker? We want him to take hold of this man that’s throwing everybody.’ The answer will come back, ‘Ricker’s given up drinking and wrestling, and is at work on Elm Island, having the best of wages. People there think everything of him, and won’t let him go. He’s going to buy a farm, and live among them.’ Take my word for it, the young woman will be the first one to hear of it; and in time matters will right themselves.”
The first kiln that John and Henry burned contained forty bushels; the next, eighty. They burned one more, drew the kilns, and put the coals in a pen in one corner of the shop.
Captain Rhines came over to see how matters progressed, and spent the night. In the evening Charlie and John held a consultation in respect to iron, which would soon be wanted, and fixtures for the blacksmith’s shop.
“We can get along,” said John, “with an anvil, bellows, two pairs of tongs, hand hammers, sledges, and cold chisels.”