The good impression produced by sickness upon both Ben and Sally was not confined to them, but extended to Captain Rhines, Seth Warren, Joe Griffin, John, and Fred, and was the means of bringing Uncle Isaac to make a public profession of faith, for which he had never before felt himself qualified. Captain Rhines, after a severe struggle, gave up the use of spirit. Before the boys separated, Fred told them he had done so well that summer, he meant to get timber in the winter, build a store in the spring, and make a T to the wharf, that vessels might lie safely there in any weather.
Reluctantly these youthful friends, whose aspirations and sympathies mingled like the interlacing of green summer foliage, parted each of them to their different places of labor. The next and concluding volume of the series, The Hard-Scrabble of Elm Island, will inform our readers how they bore themselves in life’s battle, when its responsibilities began to press upon their young shoulders, cares and trials to thicken around them, and when called to discharge sterner tasks, and face greater perils than they had yet encountered.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Boy Farmers, p. 176.