The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-10-30

gage he contriyed to give the rude. bOx-lke
cradle such tip us disturbed the slumber of
the hitherto quiet baby. Her cry soon brought
the mother to her side, and 10 saw. with
broad smile of satisfaction that his stratagem
was successful; for in soothing the child's grief
the mother forgot her own In few moments
they were all seated in the wagon, and had
turned their backs, as Mary Farnham earnestly
hoped, upon the salt water forever
Poor woman born and bred among the
green mountains of Vermont she had little
love for the ocean and nothing but the strong
affection she had borne her husband could
have overcome her repugnance to Its sights and
sounds But she had looked on it first through
his eyes Ben Farnham had been bred one
might almost say, born on the sea but, during
one of his short sojourns ON shore, some years
before he had accepted the offer of drover to
take cruise up into Vermont after horses and
mules for shipping. Here, in the house of a
farmer where they found lodgings for the night
amid group of children of all ages, the young
sailor first looked upon the face of Mary He
sooa ascertained that she was an orphan, vim
niag her bread BY nnremitting labor in the large
family of her uncle: and this knowledge added
depth and strength to the impression that her
upon him. for he too was an orphan. Sepa-
rated from her brother, the only living member
of her family, in childhood, by the stern pres
sure of poverty, Mary Brown had hitherto
layished the quick, warm affections of her
heart upon the constantly Embarrassing members
of her uncle's family, without any very rich or
visible return. Not that they were unkind or
misprized her services But their means were
far from ample, and the many and increasing
wants of their family fully'occupied the heads,
hands and, as it sometimes seemed, hearts of
her uncle and aunt besides, they were, like
many of their race, peculiarly undemonstra-
tive Ii was not strange therefore, that the
frank, cordial manners, and kiHs, cncsfiul
words OF the young sailor awakened a cores
t@sp<a21r inissse-t ~ Der nog1 beayt pnr tb9t
backed by the memory of his handsome face,
they should form fruitful source of medita-
ton to her through the long and somewhat dull
winter evenings that succeeded the departure
Of their guests What his dreams and fancies
were during a winters voyage to Malaga we
can partly guess, from the fact, that the next
spring found him again seated by her uncle's
Preside as her acknowledged and accepted
sutton. Acting upon his favorite adage that
time and tide wait for no man." Ben Farnham
hurried forward the preparations for his mar
riage at a pace that quite overturned all the
good housewives notions ofpropriety; but as Ben
had with the ready wit of a sailor, taken all
her bearings" as he expressed it, it was no very
difficult matter for him to overcome her objec-
tons. AS to Mary, she was too happy and too
much surprised at so suddenly becoming an OBJ
ject of Importance to the whole family and
neighborhoOd, to be able to say anything; SO
in two weeks time from Ben's arrival, they were
married.
But during this short time Ben, whose ad-
ventures made him quite a hero among the SIM
pie country folk, had related many a moving
accident by food" and we are not sure that
the love of mischief so common to his class
did not lead him to follow still farther Othellos
example and speak of
The anthropophagi. and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders"
Sure we are, that upon Mary his eloquence had
the same effect; for, like the high-born laugh
ter of old Brabantio, she loved him better for
the dangers he had passed" while the sea-
the great, unknown, unseen sea-became to her
n world CT beauty and Of terror and she could
not rest until shs. had won from her lover-hus-
band prolsil - leave his sea-faring life for a
nome ami0 ve mis-
They were so6if Settled in the village of Fair
Haven; but somehow, year after year slipped
by, and still the right time never came for Ben
to redeem this promise. With every alternate
year came a baby, and there were doctors and
nurses bills, and, alas undertaker's bills-foI
two of their little ones were gathered back tC
the fold of the Good Shepherd--increased family
expenses every way; and there was no way in
which Ben could SO readily obtain the means to
cancel all these demands, as by making just
one voyage more"
"Just one voyage more will make us all
straight, and then, hurrah for the hills of old
Vermont!n had been the standing remark with
which he had soothed her grief on the eve ofevery
voyage he had made for the six years preceding
the fatal one from which he never returned
Perhaps he never really comprehended the
depths of her fear; for when he was at home
during the short intervals that interviewed be-
tween his voyages the light, careless tone in
which he spoke of the perils that beset mari
ner's life made her almost ashamed of her cow
ardice and, then, she had 50 much to tell him
IF the children-of their wonderful precocity-
that she had no time to think of herself
But when he was gone, and she lay awake in
the long, stormy nights listening to the roaring
)f the sea, the old terror returned, and drawing
her children to her bosom, she inwardly vowed
hat they never should be exposed to the perils
Df sailors life So her words to them were
ever of the green country--her stories of the
simple agricultural life familiar to her girlhood;
of lambs and calves and birds and squirrels; of
apple orchards, white with clustering blossoms
or bending with golden fruit; and of the old
woods, where the shining water came rafting
down upon the leafstrcwn sward, like drops in
a summer shower.
Thus when the barque in which her husband
had sailed came home, bringing the sad news
of his loss, like Naomi Of Bethlehem as soon
as she could gather herself up from the dreadful
shock, she AROSE that she might return to her
own country"
She was no scholar--poT Mary and little
intercourse by better, had passed Between her
and her relations since her marriage; but from
the drovers who occasionally visited Vermont,
Ben had learned that her uncle was dead and
his family scattered but also that her brother
had married and was living in the vicinity Of
her native village. She knew that il was little
he might be able to do for her yet she felt that
the struggle for life could be better endured
among the old familiar places, than among
strangers, for she had never been able to make
the ways Of the people around her, her ways;
and, besides the voice of the sea had become a
torture to her, ever hooking her with her loss
and she felt that she could not die and leave
her children within sight or sound of its hated
waves.
CHAPTER III.
Kind was the welcome but humble enough
the shelter. which the narrow means of the
brother enabled him to give Mary Farnham
and her children. He had invested the savings
of one or two years hard labor in few acres
Of wild land portion of the large tract Of ma
tive forest that stretched away on the north of
the hamlet where they were born. Here he
had erected a comfortable lighthouse 10 shelter
his wife and babies for shall we blame If at
the age of twenty-one, without family tie in
the world save that which hmpd him IN his