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

“If you will promise not to make it look unnatural, like an old man in a young man’s clothes and wig, and if you meddle with the roof (as most like you will) not to disturb the door that bears to-day the gash cut by the Indian’s tomahawk who chased your mother into the house, and that took the blow meant for her, nor meddle with the overhang above it, through which your father fired down and shot him.”

Bradford Whitman put a new roof on the house and ceiled the wall up inside with panel work, thus hiding the old logs. He also laid board floors instead of the old ones that were laid with puncheons (that is, sticks of timber hewn on three sides) that were irregular, hard to sweep over and to wash. But in his father’s bedroom he disturbed nothing, but left both the walls and the floors as they were before. The grandfather, though he made no remark, yet manifested some trepidation in his looks when the roof was taken off, and the floors taken up, and seemed very much relieved when he found that the walls on the outside were not disturbed, that the old door with its wooden latch, hinges and huge oaken bar, the former scarred with bullets and chipped with the tomahawks of the savages, remained as before. And when he found that his son, with a thoughtfulness that was part of his nature, had, after ceiling up the kitchen, replaced in its brackets of deer’s horns over the fireplace, the old rifle with which he had fought the savage and obtained food for his family in the bitter days of the first hard struggle for a foothold and a homestead, not only expressed decided gratification with the change but to the great delight of Alice Whitman desired that his bedroom might be panelled and have a board floor like the rest of the house. And the delighted daughter-in-law covered it with rugs, into the working of which were put all the ingenuity of hand and brain she possessed.

This was the family in which Robert Wilson desired to place James Renfew, for notwithstanding in his passion, he had wished that James had stuck the axe into his neck instead of his leg, he was really interested in, and felt for, the lad, and wanted to help him.

He knew Bradford Whitman well, knew that he was as shrewd as kindly-affectioned, and that he was bitterly prejudiced against the business of soul-driving in which he was engaged, as Wilson had for years vainly endeavored to persuade him to take a redemptioner; but he had heard from the miller that Mr. Whitman was coming to the mill in a few days with wheat, and he resolved to make a desperate effort to prevail upon him to take James.

“He’s a kindly man,” said Wilson to the miller, “perhaps he’ll pity the lad when he comes to see him.”

“Yes, he is a kindly man but if he could be brought to think that it was his duty to take that boy, your work would be already done, and if he should take him, the boy is made for life, that is, if there’s anything in him to make a man out of.”

“Can’t you help me old acquaintance?”

“I would gladly, Robert, but I don’t feel free to, for this reason. Bradford Whitman is a kindly man as you say, and an upright man, and a man of most excellent judgment, a man who knows how to make money and to keep it and is able to do just as he likes. We have always been great friends, but he is a man quite set in his way, and if I should influence him to take this boy, about whom I know nothing, and he should turn out bad (or what I think is most likely, to be stupid and not worth his salt) he never would forget it.”

But notwithstanding the backwardness of the miller to aid his friend, the Being who is wont to shape the affairs of men and bring about events in the most natural manner, and one noticed only by the most thoughtful, was all unbeknown to the soul-driver preparing instrumentalities and setting in operation causes a thousand times more effective than the efforts of the miller (had he done his best), to bring about the purpose Wilson had at heart.

As the Whitmans were seated at the supper-table of an autumn evening, Peter, the eldest boy, who had just returned from the store, reported that Wilson, the soul-driver, had come to the village and put up at Hanscom’s tavern, with some redemptioners, and that Mr. Wood, one of their neighbors, who had engaged one the last spring, was going over to get his man, and they said there was a boy he hadn’t engaged, and wanted some one to take him off his hands.

“From my heart I pity these poor forlorn creatures,” said the mother; “brought over here to a strange land with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and how they will be treated and whose hands they will fall into, they don’t know.”

After the meal they all drew together around the fire, that the season of the year made agreeable.

The children, hoping to obtain some old-time story from their grandfather, drew his large chair with its stuffed back and cushion, worked in worsted by the cunning hand of their mother, into his accustomed corner. Bradford Whitman sat in a meditative mood, with hands clasped over his knees, watching the sparks go up the great chimney.

“Bradford,” said the old gentleman, “I have sometimes wondered that you don’t take one of these redemptioners; you are obliged to hire a good deal, and it is often difficult to get help when it is most needed.”

“I know that there are a good many of these people hired by farmers; sometimes it turns out well, but often they are villains. Sometimes have concealed ailments and prove worthless; at other times stay through the winter, and after they have learned the method of work here, run off and hire out for wages in some other part of the country.”

“Husband, Mr. Wilson has been many years in this business, and I never knew him to bring any people of bad character.”

“He is too shrewd a Scotchman to do it knowingly, but he is liable to be deceived. I have thought and said that nothing would ever tempt me to have anything to do with a redemptioner, but when Peter came to tell about that boy it seemed to strike me differently. I said to myself, this is a new thing. Here’s a boy flung on the world in a strange land, with nobody to guide him, and about certain to suffer, because there are not many who would want a boy (for it would cost as much for his passage as that of a man), and he will be about sure to fall into bad hands and take to bad ways; whereas he is young, and if there was any one who would take the pains to guide him he might become a useful man.”

“That, husband, is just the light in which it appears to me.”

“So it seemed to me there was a duty for somebody concerning that boy, that there wouldn’t be allowing he was a man. When I cast about me I couldn’t honestly feel that there was any person in this neighborhood could do such a thing with less put-out to themselves than myself. Still I can’t feel that it’s my duty; he might turn out bad and prove a great trial, and I am not inclined to stretch out my arm farther than I can draw it back.”

“My father,” said the old gentleman, “was a poor boy, born of poor parents on the Isle of Wight. His father got bread for a large family by fishing, and by reaping in harvest; and his mother sold the fish, and gleaned after the reapers in wheat and barley harvest. The children as they grew large enough went out to service.”

“What was his name?” said Peter.

“Henry.”

“What relation was he to me?” said Bert.

“Your great-grandfather. When he was sixteen years old, with the consent of his parents, he came to Philadelphia in a vessel as passenger, and worked his passage by waiting on the cook and the cabin passengers. The captain spoke so well of him that a baker took him into his shop to carry bread. A farmer who hauled fagots to heat the baker’s oven offered to hire him by the year to work on his farm, and he worked with him till he was twenty-one. After that he worked for others, and then took what little money he had, and your grandmother who was as poor as himself, for her parents died when she was young and she was put out to a farmer, and they went into the wilderness. They cleared a farm and paid for it, raised eight children, six boys and two girls. I was the youngest boy; my brothers and sisters all did well, they and their husbands acquired property and owned farms. Your mother and I came on to this land when it was a forest. I with my narrow axe, she with her spinning-wheel; and a noble helpmate she was as ever a man was blessed with.”