Elijah Kellogg - The Unseen Hand - Or, James Renfew and His Boy Helpers (Elijah Kellogg) - illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition)

The tavern-keeper asked him to cut some firewood, and the awkward creature, who had never in his life handled any wood tool but an English billhook, had struck the whole bit of the axe in his leg. The blood was staunched, and a surgeon called to take some stitches, at which the boy neither flinched nor manifested any concern.

The doctor and the crowd of idle onlookers, whom the mishap of James drew together, had departed, the landlord had left the bar to attend to his domestic concerns. Mr. Wilson, his serenity of mind effectually broken, paced the floor with flushed face and rapid step, and talking to himself.

“Had it been his neck, I wad nae hae cared,” he muttered (getting to his Scotch as his passion rose) “here’s a doctor’s bill at the outset; and I maun stay here on expense wi’ twelve men, or take him along in a wagon.

“I dinna ken, Rob Wilson, what ailed ye to meddle with the gauk for an auld fool as ye are, but when I heard that cankered dame wi’ the tear in her een tell how his mother felt on her deathbed, and a’ about the minister taking sic pains wi’ him, it gaed me to think o’ my ain mither and the pains she took tae sae little purpose wi’ me. I thocht it my duty to befriend him and gi’ him a chance in some gude family, and aiblins it might be considered above, and make up for some o’ thae hard things I am whiles compelled in my business to do. I did wrang altogether; a soul-driver has nae concern wi’ feelings, nor conscience either. He canna’ afford it, Rob, he suld be made o’ whin-stone, or he canna thrive by soul-driving.”

Mr. Wilson arrived in Lancaster county, within a few miles of the residence of the Whitmans and their neighbors, the Nevins, Woods, and Conlys, with only three redemptioners, who were already engaged to farmers in the vicinity, and the boy Jim, who was so lame that he had been obliged to take him along in a wagon.

The starting of a boy in the right direction, and the imparting of that bent he will retain through life, is a work the importance of which cannot be overrated. That our readers may appreciate the force of these influences about to be invoked to shape the future,—to fling a ray of hope upon the briar-planted path of this pauper boy, and quicken to life a spirit in which the germs of hope and the very aroma of youth seem to have withered beneath the benumbing pressure of despair,—we desire to acquaint them with the character of Bradford Whitman, to whose guiding influence so shrewd a judge of character as Robert Wilson wished to surrender his charge (and moreover resolved to leave no method untried to effect it), and in no other way can this object be so effectually accomplished as by our relating to them a conversation held by Whitman and his wife in relation to the building of a new dwelling-house on the homestead.

Several of Whitman’s neighbors had pulled down the log-houses their forefathers built and replaced them with stone, brick, or frame buildings, but Bradford Whitman still lived in the log-house in which he was born; it was, however, one of the best of the kind, built of chestnut logs, with the tops and bottoms hewn to match, and the ends squared and locked.

Whitman was abundantly able to build a nice house, and only two days before the event we are about to narrate occurred, mentioned the subject to his wife, saying that several of the neighbors had either built or were about to build new houses, and perhaps she felt as though they ought to build one, but she replied,—

“Bradford, you cannot build a better house than the old one, a warmer or one more convenient for the work, nor could you find a lovelier spot to set it on than this. It is close to the spring from which your father drank when he first came here a strong lusty man, stronger, I have heard you say, than any child he ever had. There’s many a bullet in these old logs that were meant for him or some of his household.”

“True enough, Alice, for Peter dug a bullet out last fall that came from an Indian rifle, and made a plummet of it to rule his writing-book; but the same may be said of many other houses in this neighborhood that have been taken away to make room for others, for there are but few on which the savage did not leave his mark.”

“But I fear it would give the good old man a heartache to miss the house in which his children were born, his wife died, all his hardships and dangers were met and overcome, and his happiest days were spent.

“A little jar will throw down a dish that is near the edge of the shelf; the least breath will blow out a candle that’s just flickering in the socket, and though I know he would not say a word, I am sure it would make his heart bleed, and I fear hurry him out of the world. Besides, husband, while your father lives your brothers and sisters will come home at New Years, and I have not a doubt they would miss the old house and feel that something heartsome and that could never be replaced, had dropped out of their lives. I hardly think you care to do it yourself, only you think that as we are now well to do, I have got ashamed of the log-house, and want a two-story frame, or brick, or stone one, like some of the neighbors.”

“It would be very strange if you didn’t, wife.”

“No, husband; I am not of that way of thinking at all. We have worked too long and too hard for what we have got together to spend it on a fine house. Here are some of our neighbors whom I could name who were living easy, had a few hundred dollars laid by that were very convenient when they had a sudden call for money, or wanted to buy stock, or hold a crop of wheat over for a better market, but their wives put them up to build a fine house. It cost more than they expected, as it always does, and when they got the house, the old furniture that looked well enough in the old house, didn’t compare at all with the new one, they had to be at a great expense to go to the old settlements to buy fine things; it took all the money they had saved up, and now those same people, when they want to buy cattle or hire help, have to come to you to borrow the money.”

“That is true; for only yesterday a man who lives not three miles from here, and who lives in a fine house, came to me on that same errand.”

“No, husband; you and I are far enough along to be thinking less of mere appearances than we might have done once. We have three children to school and start in the world; a new house won’t do that, but the money it would cost will.”

“May the Lord bless you,” cried Bradford Whitman, imprinting a fervent kiss on the lips of his wife, “and make me as thankful as I ought to be for the best wife a man ever had. You have just spoken my own mind right out.”

Alice Whitman blushed with pleasure at the commendation of her husband so richly deserved, and said,—

“Husband, that is not all. If we have something laid by we can open our hearts and hands to a neighbor’s necessities as we both like to do, and I am sure I had much rather help a poor fatherless child, give food to the hungry, or some comfort to a sick neighbor, than to live in a fine house and have nice things that after all are not so comfortable nor convenient as the old-fashioned ones.”

“You are right wife, for when John Gillespie was killed by a falling tree last winter and all the neighbors helped his widow and family, William Vinton said his disposition was to do as much as any one, but he hadn’t the means, and the reason was that the cost of his new house had brought him into difficulties. I knew it gave him a heartache to refuse, and I believe he would have much rather have had the old chest of drawers and the log-house and been able to give something to the fatherless, than to have the new house and the nice furniture and not be able to help a neighbor in distress. I hope Alice you won’t object to having the old house made a little better and more comfortable, providing it can be done without much expense.”