"Captain," said Sewall Lancaster, "may I speak in meeting?"
"Free your mind, brother."
"Wal, what's the matter they couldn't take frames all ready to put up for nigger quarters, small timbers not very bulky, sell 'em, not by the foot, but for so much right out? I was out there three years ago in the John and Frederick, with old Cap'n Treadwell. No! How time runs away! 'Twas four years ago this very month, because it was three days before we sailed, that Lion Ben sarved Joe Bradish such a rinctum."
"What was that?" asked Captain Brown; "let us hear it, Lancaster."
"Wal, you see the Lion, besides being so all-fired strong, is a great teamster; they say the greatest in town (now Uncle Isaac Murch is gone). He won't abuse an ox, neither, nor let anybody else; but Joe (he's no teamster at all, nor much else; when he gits stuck, he takes off the forrard cattle), he can't make four oxen pull together; he's real cruel, too. I've seen him stand with one foot on the tongue, and the other on an ox's back, and beat him with a stake. Wal, he got to the foot of Merrithew's Hill with a heavy load and four oxen; the cattle wouldn't haul for him; he licked his goad up about 'em, and hollered, and screeched, and cursed. They wouldn't haul; he looked round for a stake, but it was stone wall both sides of the road, and he had to go a good ways down, over the first little rise, to get one. Lion Ben comes to the top of the hill; he'd heard the screeching; saw the team standing there. Frank Chase told me this; he was picking rocks in their field, and saw the whole of it. He said the Lion came along, went to the cattle, patted 'em, lifted up the yokes, pulled up a last year's mullein stalk, flourished that over 'em a few times, put his pretty little shoulders to the wheel, and spoke to the cattle. Frank said he didn't speak loud enough for him to hear; and they went right up the hill with it; then Ben squats down behind the log fence. Joe came back with his stake to whale 'em, and there was no team there. Frank said it was comical enough to see him rub his eyes and stare round. Bime by he went up the hill. There was his team. Frank said he looked under the load, on the top of the load, and everywhere. Frank held his tongue, and Joe allers thought that the cattle started for fear of the licking they would get when he come back."
"Did he ever find out?" asked Walter.
"Yes; the Lion met him one night at the store, and told him, before all hands, that if ever he saw him beat cattle with a stake, or heard tell on't, he'd pay his respects to him. I reckon you kin guess what Lion Ben's respects would be."
"All the satisfaction," said the captain, "I wish of the villain that sold and the villain that bought Peterson is, that Ben might get his mud-hooks on them both. If the blood and brains wouldn't fly when he smashed their heads together, I'll never guess again. But about the frames, Sewall?"
"Wal, the upshot was, the planters almost quarrelled to see who should git 'em, they were so taken with 'em, and gave him his own price. The old man said he wished he'd loaded with 'em."
"Just the things for us, Sewall," said the captain. "I've heard people speak in meeting, when I thought they had better have held their tongues, but you have spoken to the purpose."