Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [141]
"Saver and Graystock," the captain said. "I'll be glad to have Henry here where I can keep an eye on him."
The doctor eyed Captain Dean peculiarly. "You've got some others that'll bear watching," he said.
"I know," Captain Dean said. "Langman and Mellen and White."
"If I was you, I wouldn't trust 'em," Dr. Packer said.
The captain snorted. "I don't trust 'em as far as I could throw a whale by the tail."
From my earliest days I had seen, wherever I'd gone in England, beggars of all sorts pleading, imploring, praying for alms, for food, for cast-off clothing; but never had I seen generosity freely offered. Now, in Portsmouth, where beggars were unknown, I saw what I would never have believed, unless I had seen it with my own eyesan out-pouring of all the good things of this earth to people, strangers, who had suffered adversity during the same storms which had howled around the sheltered homes of their benefactors.
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Captain Furber complained and fulminated at the surplus offerings of money, piles of clothing, fur hats, flowered weskits, boots and shoes that accumulated in his best roomthe room unused, except for funerals and weddings, in the front left corner of every large Portsmouth house. No matter how rapidly Widow Hubbard and Widow Macklin sorted them into piles of threeone pile for ourselves, one for Langman, White and Mellen in the Motley house, and the third for Graystock, Saver and Gray in the Swaine housethey continued to accumulate, so that Captain Furber, at Neal's suggestion, tacked to his front door a card reading, "The Grateful Survivors of Boon Island Have More Than Enough."
Another thing for which Neal was responsible was the writing of letters of thanks to those who had left their names with their offerings. "People like to be thanked," Neal said, "but my father said most people forget to teach their children to say 'thank you.' So if Captain Furber will buy us some paper, I'll write the letters."
More people came to see us or call on us than I would have believed lived in Portsmouth. Merchants, sea captains, tavern keepers, King's Councillors, Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth, John Plaisted, Theodore Atkinson, Colonel William Pepperrell, Richard Nason, Robert Almory, Roger Swaine, Edward Toogoodfine men: the finest, barring my father and Captain Dean and Swede Butler, I ever met.
Every one of the men who called upon us without being turned away by Dr. Packer was solicitous about our welfare, and in a few weeks' time I had more offers of positions than I would have had in England in half a century.
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As for Neal, word had gone around concerning the manner of his father's death, and everyone who saw him was instantly seized with the idea of planning his future.
Colonel William Pepperrell and his partner Governor Wentworth came to call on our second day in Portsmouth. Everything, Governor Wentworth said, would be done for us, and at the expense of the Province of New Hampshire. We were entranced by his elegance, his affability, and the attentiveness with which he listened to our answers to his questions. His companion, Colonel Pepperrell, seemed more remotemore interested in scrutinizing the ceiling than in listening to us.
Then Colonel Pepperrell came again alone. Neal, when the colonel walked in, was sitting at our gift-table. The gifts had been pushed away from the end at which he sat, and his pen was scratching diligently at one of his many letters of thanks.
The colonel went to the table, picked up one of the letters and read it aloud:
"Hugh Gunnison, Esqre.
The officers and the crew of the Nottingham Galley wish to express to you their profound gratitude for your sympathy and your kindness to them after their rescue by the citizens of Kittery and Portsmouth from their bitter days on Boon Island.
"John Dean, Master"
Colonel Pepperrell was a broad, powerful man with a bulldog face, and he waved the letter exultantly. "Look at that! I read every word of it, easier