CHAPTER XX.
THE FIRST TROUBLE, AND THE FIRST PRAYER.
Being somewhat lonely in the absence of Charlie, Ben employed himself in getting timber to build a scow, that he meant to construct with a mast, sails, and a sliding-keel, or, as they are now termed, centre-boards, to take cattle and hay to and from Griffin’s Island.
Uncle Isaac and Captain Rhines came on New Year’s Day. They told Ben and Sally it was so cold, and the weather uncertain, that they needn’t expect to see them again till April.
The next day, Danforth Eaton and two more came and hired the Perseverance. Ben told them, when they were done with her, to leave her in Captain Rhines’s Cove.
They were now left entirely alone. During the latter part of the same week, Ben, who had been out gunning all day, crawling round on the rocks, and getting wet, complained at night of pain in his head and back, and of chilliness. He made use of the usual remedies for a cold, but without avail. He continued to grow worse rapidly, and it was evident that he was to have a run of fever. Sally was in great extremity, her husband dangerously sick, neither physician nor medicine at hand,—save those simple remedies that necessity had taught our mothers,—with two children, one a baby, a stock of cattle to take care of, and utterly alone as respected any human aid. It was a bitter thought to her, as she sat listening to the wanderings of her husband she tenderly loved, and for whom she had sacrificed so much, that, while so rich in friends, all were ignorant of their necessity.
“If they only knew it at home,” said she to herself, “how soon should I see the Perseverance’s sails going up, and help coming!”
Sally had not what is sometimes termed a religious temperament. There was no sentiment about her. She was extremely conscientious in respect to keeping the Sabbath, or making light of serious things, was very decided in all her convictions, and never temporized. If it was wrong to do anything, it was wrong, and that was the end of it with her. She never read religious books from choice,—like many who never arrive at any satisfactory results in religious matters,—but only as a duty, as she did the Bible. She never cared to hear religious conversation, and, though she listened with the greatest respect to her mother in relation to these subjects, it went in at one ear and out at the other. Uncle Isaac’s description of her was perfect. She was lively as a humming-bird, and had too good a time of it in this world to think much about the other. But under the terrible pressure that now came upon her, the resolute nature and iron frame of the true-hearted, loving woman began to give way.
With the exception of some large logs for back logs, the wood which was cut was exhausted, and she was obliged to dig it from the snow and cut it.