From the counting-house on the wharf and the talk with Ichabod Sterns, Master Torrey went to the workshop of Job Chippit, who in those days was famous for his skill in the carving of figure-heads.
In these times Job would probably have been a sculptor, have gone to Rome and been famous in marble and bronze. But the idea of such a thing had never entered his brain, and he went on from year to year making his wooden figures without any thought of a higher calling. He was a little dried, brown old man, with bright eyes slightly near-sighted. Year after year he carved Indian chiefs, eagles and wooden maidens for the Sally Anns and Susan Janes that sailed from the New England ports, portraits of public men, likenesses of William and Mary. He had once made a full-length figure of Oliver Cromwell for a certain stiff-necked old merchant of Boston who called his best ship after the great Protector—a statue which every one thought his finest work. “It was so natural,” said the good folks of Salem, and really I don’t know that they could have said anything better even if they had been art critics and had written for the newspapers.
True it was that all Job’s works had a certain live look to them that was almost startling sometimes. The Indians clenched their hatchets with a savageness quite alarming; they looked as though they might open their wooden lips and whoop. His female figures had life and character. Each governor, senator or general had his own peculiar expression and style.
Job was an artist, and, what was more, he was a well-paid artist. He quite appreciated his own genius, and got almost any prices he liked to ask for his signs and figure-heads. Job was the fashion, and no ship of any pretension sailed from a harbor along the coast but carried one of his masterpieces on the bow.
As Master Torrey entered his shop he was just putting the last touches of paint on an oaken bust destined to adorn Captain Peabody’s little schooner, The Flora. “So you have nearly finished The Flora’s figure-head,” said Master Torrey, whose tastes led him to be a frequent visitor at Job’s shop.
“And a pretty creature she is,” said Job, suspending his paint-brush full of the yellow-brown pigment with which he was tinging the rippled hair of the wooden lady, which was crowned with a garland of flowers carved with no mean skill.
“And the flowers! Don’t you think they are an improvement? What did Captain Peabody say to them?”
“He didn’t jest like them at first,” replied Job, continuing his work. “I didn’t myself, to begin with, for you know the ship is called after his wife, and nobody ever see old Mis’ Peabody going round with flowers in her hair; but the captain, sez he, ‘Job, I want to have you make it somethin’ like what Mis’ Peabody was when she was a young woman, ef you kin,’ sez he. ‘She was a most uncommon pretty girl when I went a-courting in Salsbury.’ Well, I was kind of struck with the idee, and the next day I went to meeting, and I sot and sot, and kind of studied the old lady’s face all through meetin’-time; and when they stood up to sing, the choir sang ‘Amsterdam.’ You know it’s a kind of livening sort of hymn. The old lady, she kind of brightened up, and it seemed as if I could see the young face sort of coming out behind the old one. Thinks I, ‘Job Chippit, you’ve got it,’ and when I come home, though it was the Sabbath day, I couldn’t hardly keep my hands off the tools, and the minute the sun was down I went at it. Then when you come in the next day and told me about the Flora them old folks used to think took care of the flowers and the spring, it seemed to suit so well with my notion of the old lady when she was young I couldn’t help stickin’ the flowers onto her head, like a fool as I was, for they wa’n’t in the bargain, and I sha’n’t get no extry pay for ’em.”
“And what did Captain Peabody say?” asked Master Torrey, whose own nature found sympathy in that of the artist.
“Oh, he was as tickled as could be when I’d persuaded him about the flowers. Lucy Peabody, she’s been to see it. She says she expects that’s the way her mother’ll look when she gets to heaven, and the flowers was like the crowns we read about in the Revelations. She’s an awful nice girl, Lucy Peabody. Anna Jane Shuttleworth was with her.”