The father’s eyes twinkled; he coughed, and made one or two ineffectual efforts to speak; but all would not do—and he was obliged to quit the room precipitately, to hide his emotion. In a moment he was heard calling out to Scipio, in a voice between a sob and a shout, to bring out the sleigh; and now, his eyes dried and his throat cleared, Mr. Fayerweather was himself again.
“Come, my dear,” he said to madam as he returned, “put on your cloaks, you and Amy, and we’ll all have a sleigh-ride. There’s the moon just up, and it will be as light as day; the sleighing is like glass. George, my man, be quick, and go put on your own clothes, and wash your face—I intend you shall drive.”
The sleigh was brought out, and they all got in; madam and her niece on the back seat, and Mr. Fayerweather and the two boys on the front, where, having seen them comfortably seated, well cloaked and blanketed, their feet at the hot bricks, of which Vi’let always kept a supply at the kitchen fire, summer and winter, the reader and I will leave them, being somewhat in haste to finish this part of my story.
George from this moment put off childish things; his fair complexion and rosy cheeks became a source of serious mortification to him; and he endeavored by exposure to all kinds of weather, to bring them to a more manly hue. He began now to mingle with other boys of his age; and the noble and generous spirit which appeared in him, on every occasion that could call it forth, rendered him a great favorite with his companions. The smaller boys looked up to him as their champion; the weak and defenseless—as he considered the whole tribe of the lower animals to be—he took under his especial protection; and wo to the merciless boy who infringed on their rights, by depriving them of their liberty, or by any other act of cruelty toward them in his sight. His prodigious bodily powers, his fearlessness and spirit of adventure, made him a leader in every bold enterprise.
There is apt to exist, in every town, a rivalry and jealousy between the inhabitants of different parts; this spirit was maintained to an unusual degree between the population of the eastern and western sections of Salem—the “Down-in-towners” and the “Up-in-towners,” as they were respectively called. This feeling displayed itself among the boys particularly, and on every occasion of their meeting. It was even said that the flock of geese which led their goslings to feed in the vicinity of “Broadfield,” and often breasted the waters of “Mill Pond,” and those which, more adventurous, dared the waves washing the “Neck,” often took the field against each other in hostile array, when dire would be the hissing and great the loss of feathers. This, however, is not vouched for; but it is certain that the biped youth without feathers, had regularly a grand pitched battle of snow-balls every winter near the first of January; and the victorious party usually maintained their superiority for the remainder of the year, and held possession of the play-ground, then the common, constituting a kind of border territory, being situated at nearly an equal distance between the eastern and western extremities of the town. This common has since become a fine promenade, shaded with trees, forming Washington Square.
For several years the Down-in-towners had been victorious in the annual fight; probably they being mostly the sons of sea-faring men, their bringing-up had rendered them stronger and more fearless than the “land-lubbers,” as they called the boys of the west end. But as soon as George Fayerweather took the field, the face of affairs was wholly changed; the foe was routed in every engagement, and the play-ground was so quietly yielded to the Up-in-towners at length, that the possession, losing all its glory, ceased to be an object; and George prevailed on his band to cede it back to the Down-in-towners, urging that it properly belonged to them, and that it was a shame to keep them out of their right. This trait of magnanimity gained him many friends among the sons of Neptune at the east end, and finally brought about a peace between the hostile powers.
Among George’s new acquaintances was one whom he liked particularly, because he was almost as bold and fearless as himself; but more especially, because he had once done him the extraordinary favor of falling through the ice as they were skating down to “Baker’s Island,” thereby affording George a glorious opportunity of showing his prowess in pulling the lad out of the water at the manifest peril of his own life. It would be difficult to say which felt the most obliged on the occasion, George or Dick Seaward; but the foundation was then laid of a strong and lasting friendship between the parties.
About two months after this event Captain Seaward returned from a long voyage in the Two Pollys, and Dick lost no time in bringing about an acquaintance between his father and his friend. The latter went by special invitation one evening to eat cocoa-nuts, and see the curiosities which the captain had brought home. The old salt took a liking to George at first sight, and, in his rough way, spared no pains to entertain him. He appeared like some hero of romance to his wondering guest; and pleased with the lad’s admiration, he ransacked his memory, stored by voyages of five-and-twenty years, for marvelous adventures, unheard of perils by shipwreck, pirates, etc. His narrative, interlarded with high-sounding and mystic terms, such as “Mawlstroom,” “Tuffoon,” “Mousoon,” “Kamskeatshy,” and the “Chainymen,” produced much such an effect on his hearer’s excited imagination, as Don Quixote might have experienced at hearing the adventures of Amadis de Gaul from his own mouth.
The captain then displayed his curiosities; these were numerous and strange, and served in some sort as illustrations of his discourse. There were elephant’s tusks and ostrich’s eggs, the sword of the sword-fish, and the saw of the saw-fish; there was a nautilus’ shell, which might have carried a boat’s crew; and there was the entire skin of an enormous snake, which the captain intended to have stuffed and hung as a capital ornament round the best room. There was one upon which Mrs. Seaward set an especial value, it being the first gift the captain had brought her home, when he was “a courting her.” This gift of true love was an elephant’s tail, with about twenty black bristles on it, the size of darning-needles, and looking like polished whale-bone; but the one upon which her spouse particularly prided himself, was the gaping jaw of a monstrous shark, with its triple row of teeth, suggesting the pleasurable idea of one’s leg or arm, or half one’s body serving as a bonne bouche to the monster. These treasures were displayed before George’s admiring eyes, and he looked upon the possessor of them with a feeling almost amounting to awe.
A word or two more regarding these same curiosities: after being handed down through several generations, they were among the first deposited in the Salem Museum upon its being founded; and they there formed a nucleus, around which has been gathered, from time to time the present noble collection.