The Last of the Bear.—Page 101.
The Last of the Bear.—Page 101.
Scarcely were the words uttered when their guns made a common report, and the bear tumbled to the ground perfectly dead.
“Ain’t you glad you didn’t go home yesterday?”
“Guess we are.”
“Ain’t a bit hungry, nor tired, now?”
“Not a bit.”
“It’s nearer five o’clock than four, and that bear must be got home and dressed to-night. I thought his leg was broken, but it was that stake dragging that made the trail, and helped greatly to tire him.”
Joe tied his legs together with the cod-line, and finding a dead spruce, they broke it down, and thrust it between his legs; Joe taking one end on his shoulders and the boys the other, they carried the carcass to the shore.
“This is a big one,” said Joe, drawing a long breath: “he weighs every bit of three hundred. Well, I’ve kept him well; he’s had all the corn he’s wanted, and the best of corn too; and there’s been any quantity of blueberries this year. Now let us take a drink at Cross-root Spring, leave our guns here, go home and get supper, then take the boat, come up and get the bear.”
“We are going to call it Quicksilver Spring now,” said Charlie: “you know what happened here.”
“Well, Quicksilver Spring, then.”
“It was a noble day’s work Uncle Isaac did that day.”
“He saved that young man; but we are not a going to have to fight the battle, a handful of us, with liquor much longer.”
“Why not?”
“Because people that have got larning, and that are looked up to, are beginning to take it up. James Welch sent a newspaper to Uncle Isaac that has printed what Dr. Franklin said about it long ago; and there’s a long piece that the College of Doctors in Philadelphia sent to Congress, about it, saying something ought to be done; that rum was ruining the country, and upsetting all we had done in getting our liberty: the paper’s at the house; you can read it. Now, when the papers take anything up, it’s a sartain sign that there are a good many people thinking about those matters, and want to hear about them; they never bark till the deer’s afoot; it will spread just like ile when you drop it on the water to spear a flounder.”
Thus beguiling the rough journey through the forest, they arrived home just before sundown.
“Now, boys, while Sally’s putting supper on the table, we’ll just set the trap again.”
After resting a while, and eating a substantial meal, having eaten nothing since six o’clock that morning, they took the boat, and being favored with a fair wind and tide, sailed leisurely up the bay under a bright starlight.
“We’ve got the night before us,” said Joe, “so needn’t hurry.”
“This is easier than walking,” said Charlie; “the tide will turn by the time we get there, and if we do have to beat or row back, we shall have a fair tide.”
They were favored in this respect; for by the time they had placed the bear in the boat, and were ready to start, it fell calm, and they rowed leisurely home with the tide.
It was much nearer morning than midnight, when, having dressed the animal and hung him up in the barn floor, they went to bed.
It was eight o’clock when the boys got up the next morning. Joe was stretching the skin on the barn door, and his wife frying bear’s steaks for breakfast. They had eaten but two meals the day before, and though the last was a very hearty one, yet, as they had been at work out of door, the greater part of the night, they awoke hungry. The smell of the meat was so savory, and it looked so tempting, as Sally piled up the large slices on the plate, and prepared to place them on the table, that, resisting the impulse to go out of doors, the boys sat down to await breakfast, which they saw was nearly ready.
“Where is Joe?” inquired John.
“Stretching the bear’s skin.”
“Has he been to the trap?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlie shoved back the sliding shutter of the window that commanded a view of the barn (therewas but one glazed window in the house; the others were furnished with wooden shutters, in two of which there were diamond-shaped holes cut, and small squares of glass set in them), where Joe was at work.
“Joe!”
No reply.
“Joe!”
Joe kept on driving the nails into the edges of the hide.
“Jo-o-o-o!”
“Well.”
“Have you been to the bear-trap?”
“Beenwhere?”
“Why, to the trap, to see if it was sprung.”
“How could I go, when I had this hide to take care of?”
“Will you say you haven’t?”
“Guess not.”
“Is there anything in it?” cried Charlie, stirred up by the evasive answers he received.
“How you do like to ask questions!”
“A bear! a bear!” roared Charlie, jumping out of the window and running full speed for the trap, with John at his heels. When they arrived at the spot, the trap was sprung, sure enough, andin it was a bear of the largest size, with his body across the lower log, the upper on his back, and his hinder parts on the ground.
“Ain’t he a big one!” said John: “see what handsome fur; a real jet black,”—passing his hand along his back; “they are not all so black; some of ’em are kind of brown and faded out.”
“See what claws!” said Charlie, taking up one of his fore paws and spreading apart the toes with his fingers.
“They are awful strong,” said John: “Uncle Isaac says they will stave the head of a barrel of molasses in with blows of their paws, and that he has seen ’em, when hunting after bugs and wood-worms in old rotten logs, strike with their paws, and split them right open.”
The horn now sounded for breakfast.
“How much is that bear-skin worth, Joe?” asked Charlie.
“About six dollars; perhaps more.”
“Then you’ll get some pay for your corn.”
“Yes; and then the meat is good.”
“And the fat is first rate to have in the house; it’s as good as lard,” said Sally.
“The worst of it is,” said Joe, “we have it all at once; now we’ve got the meat of two bears, and itwill spoil before we can eat half of it; then there are sea-fowl, lobsters, and pigeons, so that everything comes together. We ought to give some of this meat to the neighbors: bears ain’t so plenty down to the village as they are up here in the woods.”
“I’ll go over to Uncle Isaac’s,” said Sally, “and tell him he can send word to some of the neighbors, and to your father’s folks, to come and get some.”
“When the boys go home I will take them down to Captain Rhines’s in the boat, and carry some meat to him and Ben.”
“We’ll help you dress the bear, Joe, and then we must go,” said Charlie: “we can’t stay any longer; we should like to; we’ve had the greatest time that ever was, but we must go now.”
“Don’t want to hear any such talk as that; it’s no kind of use to talk that way here; can’t spare you; we’ve got just as much to do to-day as we can spring to, then fix the pigeon-bed, set the net, make a cage to put them in, dress this bear, and set the dead-fall for another.”
“A pigeon-net? What is that?”
“Why, Charlie,” said John, “don’t you know what a pigeon-net is?”
“No. I thought they shot ’em.”
“How should he know?” said Joe.
“Why, Charlie, they catch them by hundreds in nets.”
“Do?”
“Yes, and put them in a cage.”
“And put them in a cage?”
“Yes, they put them in a cage, or some place, and keep them, and fat them.”
“Don’t the net kill ’em?”
“No. Don’t hurt ’em one mite.”
“Then I shan’t go, if all that’s going on.”
No sooner was breakfast over, and the bear dressed, than Joe brought out his net. It was fifteen feet in length by ten in width.
“Who made this net?” asked Charlie.
“Sally: she spun all the twine on the flax wheel, and netted it.”
Taking the net, they went on to the wheat stubble. Near the woods was a place where there had been an opening when the land was in forest; consequently, when the fire had burned off the moss and leaves (duff, as Joe called it), the ground was mellow and free from roots. A portion of this he had dug up, carried away all the sticks and stones, raked it as smooth as a garden bed, and flung wheat on it.
Early in the morning and towards night the wild pigeons would come, light on the trees, look at the grain a while, then fly down and eat. He had baited the pigeons thus for several days, till they had become used to the spot, and quite tame: now he prepared to net them.
In the first place, they set down, at each corner of the bed (which was a little larger than the net), pieces of plank with their edges directed across the bed, about a foot above the surface of the ground: in the sides of two of them cut slots, on the inside of one and the outside of the other, that is, the corner ones; on the longest side, at the distance of about twelve feet from the planks and on the opposite side from the posts in which the slots are cut, they put down, three feet into the ground, and on a line with them, two tough green beech saplings, three inches through at the butt, and six feet in height. To the top of these posts he fastened a strong rope forty feet long, and the edge of the net to this rope. The lower edge of the net was fastened to the ground by little crotches, on the opposite side from the high posts, and merely slack enough left of the rope to admit of taking the net and rope across, and permitting the net to lie nicely folded in as compact a form as possible onthe ground along the edge of the bed. He then took two strips of stiff, hard wood board, an inch and a quarter thick and two inches wide, with a dove-tail notch in one end to hold the rope; one end of these he set against the plank posts, which were well over towards the middle of the bed on the side the log posts stood, put the notched end against the bight of the rope to which the net was fastened, and, pressing down with all his might, sprung the stiff beech posts enough to force the sticks (flyers he called them), with the rope attached to them, into the slots in the plank posts. The net, which lay nicely folded along the edge of the bed, was then covered over with earth; long limbs, thickly covered with leaves, were now cut and set up, forming a booth around one of the high posts at one end, bringing the line to which the flyers were fastened into the booth, thus enabling the hunter concealed there, at one twitch, to pull the flyers, which held the net down, out of the slots, when the tremendous spring of the beech poles would fling the net over the bed in an instant.
Wheat was now strown in a long row the whole length of the bed, and nearest to the side on which the net was folded, that the pigeons, when they came on, might be sure to be completely enveloped,being nearer the centre of the net. Some saplings were set in hollow stumps and in the ground to form lighting places, as pigeons like to have a chance to reconnoitre before flying down.
Joe had not intended to set the net so soon, but to have built the booth, set up the poles, and put on the rope, in order that the pigeons might get accustomed to the sight of these objects; but he had hurried up matters to keep the boys there and gratify them.
“We won’t spring it to-night, boys, but let them come here, get their supper, and see all these fixings. They will come and light on the trees, look round, see the grain; some of them will come to the bed, eat a little, and make up their minds that all is right. To-night we’ll put on fresh grain, and in the morning make a real haul.”
The forenoon was fully occupied with the bear and the pigeon-bed. In the afternoon they went to work to make a cage to keep them. They made it of logs, covering the top with small poles, that they might have plenty of light and air, put in roosts, and made a trough for water.
The cage, instead of being square, was made in the shape of a blunt wedge, and the apex lined with a net, so that they could be driven into thenarrow part into the net, and caught without difficulty.
At night they visited the bed, found the pigeons had been there, and having put on fresh grain, went home, and, being weary from the work of the previous night, retired early, with sanguine expectations for the morrow.
Joe called them before the dawn of day, and they were all three soon secreted in the booth. As the day broke, they began to hear a flapping of wings. First came three or four, then more, till long before sunrise the saplings, trees in the woods, and even the rope that ran from the spring-pole to the ground, were all covered with them.
Charlie was quivering with excitement. He had never seen anything like it in his life, and could scarcely contain himself as he watched them through the network of branches. There they sat, arching their necks, turning their heads first to one side and then to the other. At length one flew down to the grain, instantly followed by others; and then the whole flock came down, crowding together, and eating with the utmost voracity. As they were coming to the place, Charlie had entreated Joe to let him spring the net, and now stood with his hand on the rope;but when the crisis came, he felt that there was too much at stake, and made a sign to Joe. He gave a sudden jerk; whiz! went the rope. The fliers were flung twenty feet in the air, the whole front of the booth fell over, flung off by the rope, and such a fluttering of wings you never heard!
“O, my soul!” exclaimed Charlie. “There, there, I’ve lived long enough! Only see the—see the necks!”
“There’s forty dozen if there’s one,” said Joe.
“That’s what I call a haul,” said John.
“But,” said Charlie, “only see how pert they look, and happy, too! I thought it was going to hurt or kill some of them.”
When the net goes over the pigeons, they will stick up their necks through the meshes. It was this sight, so singular to one unaccustomed to it, that excited the wonder and prompted the exclamation of Charlie.
“I have made up my mind to one thing,” he continued. “Iwill notgo back to Portland if I can get my living here.”
“Nor I, either,” said John.
“Glad you’ve both got so much sense. What ails you to get your living? I’ll give both of you your board and clothes to come and work for me.”
“Much obliged, but we want to do a little more than that.”
“Well, haven’t you got a good farm, all paid for, or something to make one of? Ain’t you a boat-builder? Ain’t John a blacksmith?”
“If anybody was living here,” said John, “they could put in and do a lot of work, then go off and hunt, have a grand time, get straightened out, the kinks taken out of them, and then come back and work all the better.”
“Yes,” replied Charlie; “and it pays to net pigeons, kill bears and coons, and get the flesh to eat; also sea-fowl, seals, and deer, and have the feathers and skins to sell. But in Portland, if you’re out of work, all you can do is to sit on the anvil, or stand in the sun, leaning against an upright in the ship-yard, chewing chips, making up sour faces, and saying, ‘O, I wish somebody would give me a job! some farmer lose his axe and want another, or some ship would get cast away, so I could build one.’ I tell you, I won’t go back. The more I think of it, the more I don’t want to.”
“On the strength of that,” said Joe, “kill half a dozen of these pigeons, and we’ll go home and get some baskets to take the rest to the cage.”
Our readers know that Charlie was exceedingly fond, not only of the soil, but of trees and plants of all kinds. Born and reared in early life in a land where trees are comparatively rare, and prized accordingly, he was not at all pleased with the wholesale destruction Joe had made with axe and firebrand. Joe, on the other hand, possessed the true spirit of a pioneer, and had been educated to consider trees as natural enemies, and that a person’s pluck was to be measured by the number he could destroy.
“Joe,” said Charlie, “why didn’t you save some of those splendid great maples, ash, and birches to shade your homestead?”
“Save’em! I’ve had trouble enough to get rid of ’em. I’d rather have corn and wheat.”
“But after you get all this land into grass, and a frame house built, then you’ll wish you had, and go to setting them out; and by the time they’re grown you’ll be an old man. Don’t you think the trees around our brook, and before Captain Rhines’s house, look handsome?”
“Yes,” said his wife, “I’m sure I do; they look beautiful. There’s one tree I don’t believe Captain Rhines would sell for a hundred dollars.”
“You can’t save ’em. You got to put the fire into clear your lands, and do it when it’s dry, or you can’t get a good burn; and if you leave any trees, the fire will roast the roots and kill ’em. Those trees of Captain Rhines’s wasn’tsaved. His father set them out, and I’ve heard Uncle Isaac say people thought he was in his dotage for doing it.”
“They don’t think so now. I don’t see why you can’t pull the brush and other trees away from their roots.”
“I tell you, you can’t; for in a dry time the old leaves, moss, and the whole top of the ground will burn, or at any rate be hot enough to scald and kill the roots.”
“I don’t believe you ever tried very hard to save a tree, Joe.”
“I don’t care. I saw Seth Warren try to save some sugar maples, and he couldn’t.”
“Well, if ever I build a house on my place, I’ll save some, and a good many, too; see if I don’t.”
“We shall see. When is that happy time coming?”
“I don’t know, but hope it will be before you kill all the bears.”
“You and I ain’t much alike. You want to save all the bears and trees, and I want to use up both.”
“Joe, there’s one thing I wish you’d do for me.”
“What is that?”
“If you ever come across a little cub, save it for me, or a pair if you can.”
“You going to stock Elm Island with bears?”
“I would if I could. Joe, what’s the reason pigeons don’t come to Elm Island? Only once in a while half a dozen light as they go over.”
“’Cause there’s nothing for them to eat there. They live on what bears do—acorns, beech-nuts, and blueberries; but on your place there’s enough for both. Come, hurry up your cakes, and get on to it, and we’ll hunt in company.”
In the afternoon Joe carried the boys down to Captain Rhines’s in the boat, with pigeons and bear’s meat enough for his family and Ben’s. After meeting Sunday, Charlie returned to the island.
One would naturally suppose that Charlie, returning to the quiet of Elm Island after the exciting week he had passed, would have experienced at least a transient feeling of loneliness; but he manifested no such sentiment, and went to work at his cart-wheels with the greatest assiduity and evident enjoyment.
In the course of the week he was most agreeably surprised by a visit from John and Fred, bringing Isaac Murch, Jr., with them, now a tall, strong young man, swarthy from long exposure to the East India suns and sea-winds, bearing a very strong resemblance to his uncle, with intelligence and energy in every feature.
It was past the middle of the afternoon when the boys arrived at the island. After Isaac had spent some time with Ben and Sally, the four friends strolled up to the old maple. They told Isaac the history of the holes bored in it, and of allthat had transpired in respect to temperance while he had been away, and then listened with great interest to an account of his life at sea, and the scenes he had witnessed in the East. John at length inquired if he intended to continue in the same employ; to which he replied that he did not.
“I see no prospect,” said he, “of being anything more than mate. Mr. Welch has a great many relatives who follow the sea, and so have the captains who have long sailed in his employ, and are at the same time owners in the vessels they go in. Captain Radford, I’m with, is an old man. If there was nobody in the way, he would give me the vessel in a year or two, for he wants to retire. But he has a son who is going second mate this voyage. The next voyage, or the next after, he’ll put him in captain over my head if I am willing to remain; and so it is all through. Now, if I had a vessel,—any kind of a thing, if it was like the Ark,—to get a cargo of spars to Europe, or lumber, spars, and other truck to the West Indies, I could pay for it, and build a better one in a short time; with good luck, make more in one year than I can going mate in five.”
“I believe that,” said John; “for I know by what I’ve heard captains in Portland say, andwhat Mr. Starrett, that I learned my trade of, who is concerned in several of these lumber vessels, has told me.”
“Some of those Portland captains have coined money; but it is a good deal as you happen to hit. If you get to a West India port when the market is empty, you get your own price; if not, you won’t make much.”
“Only see,” said Fred, “what Captain Rhines did in the Ark!”
“That was an exception. He arrived off the harbor of Havana in a peculiar time. Lumber was scarce, they had no beef for their slavers, they gave him a license to trade, and the captain-general remitted the duties. He saved by that remission more than two thousand five hundred dollars. The Federal Constitution was not formed then, and he had no duties to pay in Boston. However, I’m going to stick where I am this voyage, and perhaps another, till I get money enough to take a part of some kind of craft, if it’s only a pinkie, go round among the neighbors, scare up owners, and try my luck. I’d rather be a king among hogs than a hog among kings. I’d rather be skipper of a chebacco boat than mate of a ship,—to sail the vessel, take all the responsibility,endure all the anxiety for somebody’s son or nephew, who runs away with all the credit, and the money to boot, and don’t know how to knot a rope-yarn, or handle a ship in a sea-way.”
There was now a pause in the conversation, when Charlie, who, though an attentive listener, had not uttered a word, said, speaking deliberately, “We will build you a vessel, Isaac.”
“We!” replied Isaac in astonishment. “Who’swe?”
“We three sitting here.”
“Threeboysbuild a vessel!”
“We may be boys, but we are all able to do aman’swork. I think, as you say you are in no hurry, give us time, we could build a cheap vessel, that would be strong and serviceable to carry heavy cargoes for a few voyages, which you say is all you want.”
“I think as much,” said Fred. “We three boys have always been together, and have undertaken several things, and have never yet failed to accomplish what we have attempted.”
“But you never undertook anything like this, or to be compared with it. Building a vessel is quite another matter from makingbaskets.”
The reader will bear in mind that Isaac hadbeen away during the period in which the boys had developed most rapidly, and was not so well aware of what they might be expected to accomplish as he otherwise would have been.
“But,” asked Isaac, “where are the carpenters coming from? There are none here but Yelf and Joe Griffin, and neither of them have ever been master workmen. You must go to Portland or Wiscasset for a master workman and blacksmith; and where is the money to pay them, fit up a yard, build a blacksmith’s shop, buy tools and iron?”
“Charlie,” replied John, “can be master workman.”
“John,” said Fred, “can do the iron-work.”
He then told Isaac of their capabilities, and what they had done since he had been gone, which greatly astonished him, and presented the subject under discussion in a very different light, especially when Charlie told him that he could cut the timber entirely on his own land, the spars, and also spars and lumber to load her.
“But,” said Isaac, “you must have carpenters. You can’t build her alone.”
“To build a vessel in the manner we shall build one, we don’t need but three good carpenters, andthere are plenty of men round here that can hew, bore, drive bolts, and saw with a whip-saw. Yelf is a capital man with an adze, and so is Ralph Chase. They can do all the dubbing.”
“My uncle can make the spars,” said Isaac.
“Peterson,” said John, “can calk and rig her, and father and Ben can make the sails.”
“The next question,” said Charlie, “is, What kind of a vessel do you want?”
“I want her built to lug a load and to steer well. Speed is no object to what the carrying part is. The voyages will be short, and wages and provisions are not high in comparison with the value of cargoes. I don’t want one cent laid out for looks. We must go on the principle of the man who goes on to new land. He lives in a log cabin, built as cheap as possible, because he expects to have a better one.”
“But you wouldn’t have her look too bad,” said Charlie.
“That’s just the way I want her to look. All I’m afraid of is, you can’t make her look bad enough. I want a sloop, with good spars, rigging, cables, and anchors.”
“What makes you want a sloop?”
“Because she is cheaper rigged and handled.”
“How large?”
“Two hundred tons.”
At this all the boys expressed their astonishment.
“A sloop of two hundred tons! Why, who ever heard of such a thing!” said Charlie. “The most of brigs are not more than that, many less. I never saw a sloop bigger than eighty-five tons.”
“I saw one last week, in Boston, that had just arrived from Liverpool with a load of salt, that was one hundred and fifteen. If you want to carry timber, you must have some bigness, and if spars, some length.”
“But what an awful mainsail! How could you ever handle it?”
“I’ll take care of that part of it. Shorten the mast, and put a good part of the canvas into a topsail, top-gallant sail, and jibs.”
“I never saw a sloop with a topsail,” said Fred.
“They are common enough,” said Isaac, “though not round here.”
“Now,” said Charlie, “it is best to have a fair understanding. I think we can build this vessel, although you want a larger one than I had expected. We are used to working together, are of one mind, and, as Fred says, never undertook todo anything we didn’t accomplish; but it will be a hard, trying thing, and we may have to leave off two or three times, and go to work at something else to earn money to go on again.”
“I will go mate till you get her done, no matter how long it is. I shall be contented if I have something to look forward to.”
“I suppose,” said Fred, “Captain Rhines or Mr. Ben would help us out if we got stuck.”
“Not with my consent,” said John. “If we’ve got to fall back on the old folks, I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
“That is just the way I feel. I only wanted to see what you would say.”
“My idea is just this,” said Charlie. “If we conclude to build her, go to work and set her up, pay our bills as we go along, and before the money quite runs out, stop and earn more. I’m one of those chaps that want to know just how I stand every Saturday night.”
“If we begin,” said John, “we’ve got to go ahead, for everybody within twenty miles will know it; and if we slump, we might as well leave the country.”
“I know just what they’ll say,” replied Charlie. “They’ll say, there’s a parcel of boys thinkingthey are going to build a vessel, and a nice piece of work they’ll make of it! lose what little they’ve earned, and find out they don’t know as much as they thought for. I wonder Captain Rhines and Ben allow them to do it!”
“That,” said John, “is just what was said when we undertook to carry on the farm; but they didn’t laugh when harvest-time came.”
“You say you want her two hundred tons, but you have said nothing about the dimensions.”
“I want her a great carrier, and as good a sea-boat as she can be and carry. I know enough to know that a vessel can’t be full and fast both; but there’s a medium, to hit which you know more about than I do; if you don’t, you know where to get information. I don’t care how rough she is. We can’t afford to do anything for looks. She can’t look worse than the Ark. I wish you could have heard all that was said when she went into Havana! Why, the darkies laughed and opened their mouths till I thought they never would shut them again. I couldn’t understand Spanish, but Flour told me what they said. All I have to say about dimensions is, I want her one hundred feet long, twenty-six feet beam, eight and a half feet deep. There is length enough for spars, depthenough for two tier of molasses. If you can make her any other than a great carrier with that breadth of beam, you’re welcome to. Where would you build her?”
“At my shore,” said Charlie. “The timber is at the water’s edge. Never was a better place to set a vessel.”
“But there’s no house where you could live.”
“Build a log house,” said Fred.
“Ten men would build her,” said Charlie, “especially such men as Joe Griffin, Peterson, and Yelf. Peterson can use a broadaxe or whip-saw as well as a calking-iron. Uncle Isaac would work after haying, and Black Luce could cook for us.”
“What would you do for a blacksmith’s shop?”
“Build a log one,” said John, “and burn our own coal.”
“The hardest nip,” said Isaac, “will be the sails, rigging, and anchors.”
“I know that,” said Charlie; “but if I find the timber, and turn in my work on the vessel, John turns in his, Fred pays the men in part out of his store, then we shall economize what little money we have to pay the men, buy sails and rigging.”
“Mine will be all cash. I’ll leave what I’ve gotin Captain Rhines’s hands, part of my two months’ advance, and I can leave a draw-bill on the owners.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“About two years. We shall trade out there, or perhaps go from there to Europe and back.”
“Theironwill be a heavy bill,” said John, “for it will have to be imported.”
“If we make the timbers large, timber her close, put in plenty of knees and treenails, we can save on the iron,” said Charlie. “There’s a vast deal to be saved in a vessel if you don’t stand for looks, especially if you havetime, and the vessel will answer the purpose just as well. If a man contracts to build a vessel for so much a ton, in so many days, he has got to work right through, short days as well as long, perhaps in bitter cold weather, when it will take a man one quarter of the time to thrash his hands, and another quarter to stamp his feet, and very often the timber has to be dug out of the snow; then, if iron, wages, or pitch goes up, he must pay the price; he can’t wait. But building asweshall, we can take advantage of all these things, and work in the long days, especially if we pay as we go along. I’ve known ship-builderswho were afraid to discharge a man, lest he should ask for his money.”
“We are great fellows!” said Isaac. “Here we are talking about where we will build, and what we will build, fixing our yard, boarding our men, making all our calculations, and nobody has evenaskedwhat she’s going tocost. That’s neither according to reason nor Scripture.”
“Speaking about Scripture,” said Charlie, “just brings to my mindone thing, that, now we are all together, Imustspeak about. Here are three of us that have professed religion, and Isaac, I know, respects it.”
“To be sure I do. I wouldn’t have anyMurchblood in me if I didn’t.”
“Well, here we are, laying plans, as I may say, for life, just starting out to do for ourselves, and we haven’t one of us done anything for the Lord, or the support of his gospel.”
“I should think,” replied Fred, “that if we build this vessel, we shall have about load enough to carry. When we are twenty-one we shall becalled upon.”
“I think it would be a great deal better not to wait to becalledupon. When we were so hard put to it, while father was paying for this island,and had to live mostly on clams and sea-fowl, before we got any news from the Ark, and didn’t know as we ever should, he, in hispoverty, paid something for the support of the gospel. I think, when we are not pressed in any way, only pressing ourselves, we ought to dosomething.”
“So do I,” replied John. “Don’t you know, Fred, how hard we worked to make that garden, and cut the hay on Griffin’s Island, just to let Ben and Sally know that we had hearts and consciences, knew when we were well used, and who our friends were? I would like to show my heavenly Father the same thing.”
“That’s the talk, John,” said Isaac. “I’ll do my part.”
“So will I,” said Fred, “and I’m ashamed I said what I did; but you know I always was meaner than the rest of you.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” said John. “You’ve had your parents to help, while we’ve had all we’ve earned, and all our clothes given us. I didn’t mean we should givemuch, nor all alike, but we’ll make a beginning. By and by, perhaps, we can do more.”
“Now I feel right,” said Charlie, “and we’ll talkvessel. I didn’t say anything about the price, becausethis is all talk. We shouldn’t feel likedoinganything,—at least I shouldn’t,—before asking father, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac. They are the best friends we’ve got in the world, know every crook and turn, and ain’t like some old folks, who think everybody must be forty years old before they can do anything.”
“We might as well talk about price,” said Isaac, “as about the rest. What do you imagine she would cost?”
“The man I worked for in Portland sold a vessel of two hundred tons, hull and spars, for sixteen dollars per ton. He bought the stump leave of the timber, and hired it hauled six miles.”
“That would be three thousand two hundred dollars for the hull and spars.”
“Yes; what it would cost for rigging, sails, and the rest, you know better than I do.”
“It would cost about half as much more.”
Timber, labor, and board were cheap then—canvas, rigging, and iron extremely high.
“But then it ain’t a going to cost us near that to build the same number of tons.”
“Neither is it going to cost so much to rig and spar a sloop as a brig.”
“Nor so much for iron-work,” said John. “Themore spars, the more chain-plates, blocks, bolts, bands, boom-irons to make, and caps to iron.”
“I believe she could be built in the way we should build her for twelve dollars per ton, and I don’t know but less, hull and spars. The timbers and spars are not much account here; the hauling is nothing. But she will be an awfullookingthing, though!”
“Then she would cost two thousand four hundred dollars, six hundred to a share, hull and spars, and half as much more to rig her.”
“Yes, I know she can be built for that; but there won’t be a brush full of paint on her, and I don’t know but the name will have to be put on withchalk.Iwouldn’t go to a foreign port in her.”
“Iwill, though. I’m fire-proof. I’ve been in theArk. Let us calculate. Twelve dollars per ton. I can take a quarter at that rate, and more on a pinch; for in addition to my wages, I have made something by ventures.”
“I can take a quarter,” said Fred, “if I can have orders to pay some of the men out of the store.”
“I,” said Charlie, “can take a quarter by turning in my labor. If I hadn’t bought my land, I could have taken more.”
“Well,” said John, “I can take a quarter, and turn in my work.”
“What we want to know,” said Isaac, “is, how muchcashwe can raise to pay the men, buy iron, rig her, and for other materials. I can pay my part in cash by the time it is wanted, and six hundred dollars of it now.”
“I,” said Fred, “can pay in cash one hundred dollars.”
“I,” said John, “two hundred.”
“I,” said Charlie, “one hundred.”
“Well, there’s so much to begin with. Now the question is,canwe begin with that?”
“We will carry all these calculations to father,” said Charlie, “and ask him.”
It was dark when they arrived at the house.
“Why, boys,” said Ben, “where have you been all this time?”
“I should have thought,” said Sally, “hunger would have brought you home before this. I told Ben you must have camped again in the top of the old maple. I’m afraid you’ll have but a cold supper.”
“I declare,” said Charlie, “I never once thought about supper.”
“I thought I’d been to supper,” said John.
“You must have had some interesting matter on hand.”
“The most interesting thing in the world,” said Charlie.
“Do let me know what it is.”
“I’m going to after supper.”
When the meal was concluded, the boys all surrounded Ben, and Charlie laid the whole matter before him. To their great delight and no little surprise, Ben gave his unqualified assent, told them they had a great and difficult enterprise before them, but that he admired their resolution, and to go ahead. When he concluded, there was a dead silence. Charlie was completely nonplussed, for he had arranged a series of arguments to meet the objections he supposed his father would make; and though he hoped, with the aid of his mother, to carry the point, he expected and was prepared to exert his powers of persuasion to the utmost. This hearty approval quite disconcerted him, and he was very much in the situation of Uncle Isaac, when he took Sally over to Elm Island to see her future home, prepared for tears, and, to his utter amazement, was greeted with a hearty, ringing laugh.
“But, father,” asked Charlie, “do you think we’ve got money enough?”
“Yes, indeed, plenty to begin with; you’ve got enough, upon the largest calculations, to set her up, plank her, get out all your deck plank, water-ways and spars, and have them seasoning;” and without paying the least attention to Charlie’s “ifs” and “ands,” Ben went right on, to inquire where he was going to build her.
“At my shore,” was the reply.
“But,” said Isaac, “ought we not, I especially, to ask your father’s advice? He was my earliest friend, set me agoing, and has always been interested in me. I shouldn’t have been alive to-day if it had not been for him.”
“Certainly; but he will approve of it; so we can go on and talk.”
“Mr. Rhines,” said Fred, “isn’t she a monster?”
“No, Fred, not one whit too large to carry lumber or molasses; she won’t be as big as the Ark; and the English mast and timber ships that come to Wiscasset and Portsmouth, are seven hundred tons and rising.”
“Isn’t she large for a sloop, sir?”
“Yes, but, as Isaac says, it will cost less to rig her, take less men to handle her, and if you findshe don’t work well, you can stick another mast in her any time. Boys, let me plan a little for you; build her here, Charlie.”
“O, father, what an awful job it would be to bring all the timber from Pleasant Point, over here! and how much it would cost!”
“It won’t cost near as much as it would to build her there. If you build her there, all you’ve got is the timber; you must build a house to live in with a chimney, and even if it is a log house, it will cost something; you must hire or buy cattle to haul your timber, hay to keep them on, and somebody to cook for you. I’ve got a piece of land that I want cleared: if you will fall the whole piece for me, you can take your timber out of it. I’ll board your men for less than it would cost you to board them, a great deal; you and John won’t have to pay any board, for you’ll be at home.”
“But it’spinetimber, father.”
“Well, build her of pine; the trees are big enough to hew all the sap off, and it will last as long as you want her to, and she will be so buoyant you can’t load her.”
“But,” said Isaac, “the keel, stem, stern-post, and keelson must be hard wood, or oak.”
“Well, there’s hard wood enough for that on thelot; there’s rock maple for keel, yellow birch for keelson, stem and stern knees, and spruce for knees above. Charlie can get oak stem, stern-post, breast-hooks, or any other particular sticks for bitts or rudder he may want, at Pleasant Point.”
“I never heard of a vessel being built of pine,” said Charlie.
“I have; the Russians build all their frigates of fir, that ain’t one quarter as good. There was a brig built at Salem of pine before the war, and I’ve heard she’s a capital vessel; she has been to India three or four times, and they say, though she is sharp, she is so light she carries first rate. This old-growth, thin sap, pumpkin pine will outlast any oak, and won’t eat up the iron, nor cost near as much to work it.”
“That’s so: there would be a great difference between dubbing pine and oak, or in sawing out plank with a whip-saw.”
“So there would in hewing, and all through; there’s nothing better for beams than a heart of hemlock.”
“O, father, folks think hemlock ain’t worth anything.”
“They will think differently one of these days: see how long a hemlock stub will stand, or a windfalllast, in the woods. There’s hemlock rails in our fence, that my grandfather put there more than a hundred years ago; they are worn thin in the weather, but are just as sound as ever. It’s all a notion about oak. Unless you want to build a vessel of six or seven hundred tons, to carry iron, salt, or stone, pine is just as good only make it larger.”
“I’m sure, father, it would be a great deal better for us to build her here, and we are all very much obliged to you.”
The others all expressed their gratitude to Ben.
“There are other things,” said he, “that will be quite an object with you: here is a good work-shop to shoot treenails, keep your tools in, and to work in rainy days. There’s the barn floor, where you can use the whip-saw in the winter if you want to; then here are six great fat oxen, doing nothing, that you can take to haul your timber, which will all come down hill, and you can haul it as well on bare ground as on the snow. Here is a whip-saw, a cross-cut saw, and a threefold tackle; thus, you see there are many advantages in building here rather than in the woods; besides, if I am round, you can call on me when you have a hard lift or a wale piece to lug; you can give mea lift in haying or hoeing, and that will be a mutual benefit.”
“We’ll do that, father; we’ll put the haying through.”
After the boys went up to bed, they expressed in no measured terms, to each other, their surprise at the readiness with which Ben had entered into their plans, and our readers may also feel the same; but the fact was, the boys had merely anticipated purposes which had for some time occupied the thoughts of Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, and Ben, and, indeed, been a matter of conversation between them.
They had long cherished the desire to make their property a source of benefit to their neighbors, the place where they lived, and the young men growing up around them. Captain Rhines wanted to take advantage of the facilities for ship-building furnished by the forests, and give to the young men growing up lucrative employment at home. He had, therefore, watched with great interest the development of Charlie’s capacities in that direction, and for the same reason did all in his power to train Isaac, not merely in the matter of seamanship, but also to inculcate those principles of integrity more valuable than silveror gold; and he was more pleased than he cared to show when John wanted to learn the trade of a blacksmith.
“When these boys get older,” said the captain to Ben and Uncle Isaac, “we’ll raise our own mechanics and seamen, and make the place what it ought to be.”
Thus, in Ben’s opinion, it mattered very little whether the boys had half money enough or not. He was pleased with their grit, told them to go ahead, intending, whenever their means failed, to help them out. The boys met with the like encouragement from Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac, none of them aware, however, of the compact the boys had entered into to receive no aid, or dreaming that they would refuse it if proffered.
Captain Rhines now drew up their building contract in due form, although it was good for nothing in law, since no one of them was of age, except Isaac, and he but just twenty-one, though he called the othersboys.
“Now, Mary,” said Captain Rhines, rubbing his hands, after the boys had gone, “we’ve got all our chickens at home once more, and we shall see what they will do.”
The boys lost no time in giving him the desired information.
The birch they were going to build on Indian Island, the pickerel they were to catch in Charlie’s pond, the bears they were to kill, and exploring expeditions to be undertaken, were forgotten, driven from their minds by the expulsive power of this new affection.
It is not our design to enter into the details of ship-building. Boys, if they want to build ships, must begin with boats, and go into the ship-yard, as Charlie did, where they will find competent instructors. We intend merely to give such details as may note the progress made, and show the indomitable energy of those who laid the foundations of our commerce, the difficulties with which they were compelled to struggle, and the rude beginnings from which the fleet, and beautiful specimens of naval architecture that now grace our seaports, have grown.
There was no scientific draughting of vessels then. No close models, or even rack models. There were, indeed, among carpenters, some few general principles; but the whole shaping of the vessel was by the eye, judgment, guess-work.
Let us see how Charlie went to work; for it wasnot much like the way ship-builders go to work now, and quite original. He took a piece of board, a little over two feet in length by one in width, and planed it perfectly smooth. This he dignified with the name of a draughting-board, although, as we proceed, our readers may think there was very little draughting about it. Charlie dearly loved a sharp model. He wanted something that would sail. His first model was a mackerel. His first efforts in boat-building had all been in that direction, and were successful. His tastes would have been gratified had he been set to build a clipper or a pilot-boat. He was now compelled to do violence to these inclinations, by stern necessity to abjure all ideas of grace and beauty, consult onlyprofit, and build this “box,” as he termed her. He was not devoid of experience in this direction. It was just the kind of vessel he had worked upon in Portland, designed for the same business, with the exception that there were some attempts at finish about them, the wales and bulwarks being foreplaned. In the cabin was some joiner-work; the wales and bulwarks were daubed with lampblack, fish-oil, and red ochre, but the bottom was left rough, and pitched. Here their means would admit of no such attempt at ornament.
Captain Rhines and Ben had determined to allow the boys to proceed entirely in their own way, giving no advice till it was asked, nor offering to aid till they were inextremity.
Charlie was by no means inclined to adopt notions without examination. He knew from the report of all the sea captains that the vessels Mr. Foss built, though carrying enormous cargoes, andprofitable, were, when deep loaded,—and that was nearly all the time,—terrible things to steer and live in, and would not sail much more than a raft, andthoughthe knew the reason. They were so full aft, and the transoms so low, that when this great buttock was brought into the water by a heavy cargo, they could not be otherwise than unmanageable. The bilge also went up with a square turn, resembling a scow. Without presuming to criticise, Charlie, while at work, had been constantly revolving these matters in his mind, listening to the criticisms made, and the improvements suggested, by masters and seamen. He knew the Perseverance sailed well and steered well, no matter whether she was deep or light, and so did his boats.
“I’ll see if I can’t make her steer and sail a little better than a log, and carry just as much,” saidCharlie, as he sat under the big maple with the board on his knees, a piece of chalk and compasses in his hand. “I’ll give her a round side, instead of a square knuckle.”
He at length determined, while giving her a long floor and large breadth of beam, to cut through at the bow and stern, and sharpen the ends something like his boats, instead of keeping them full, like the vessels he had worked on. Upon a scale of a quarter of an inch to a foot, he drew lines to represent his keel, stem, and stern-post. He then marked on the keel the dead rise amidships, forward, and aft, and with a limber batten drew a line through these points, forming a true sweep. This he called the rising line. On this line he divided up the rise on every timber, giving a very long floor, kept well out forward; next marked on the keel the length of his floor at the midships, forward and after frames, drew a line through these points, which he called his shortening line, to regulate the length of the floor timbers, and also dividing them up on this line, marked the respective lengths by letters of the alphabet, as he had their dead rise by numbers; marked on perpendiculars drawn from the keel the breadth both amidships, forward, and aft, and the depth, and drew a linethrough these points, representing the shape of the top and the hanging wale. The curve of the stem and the rake of the stern-post not suiting him, he rubbed out his work, and drew it again and again, till he was satisfied; then went to the shop, and with a pencil and dividers, took it off on the other side of the board, making some little further alterations. These three lines on a board were all that Charlie had to guide him, as far as lines were concerned, in building his vessel. He now wanted to represent the round of the side, that he might see how it would look on a larger scale than he could if on a board, and took a queer method to obtain his end.
At the mouth of the brook was a flat, smooth beach of white sand, so hard that when wet an ox would not print it with his foot. He tool a pole eighteen feet in length, drove a nail through one end of it, bored a hole in the other end, and made a long, pointed peg to fit it. He represented on the sand the actual length of the vessel, stem, stern, and floor timbers; then, fastening one end of the pole to the ground by the peg, in such a manner that it would revolve, he, by means of the nail in the other end, swept out the round of the whole side, till he got a shape to suithim, then took it off, and reducing it to a proper scale, transferred it to his board.
His draughting, such as it was, being thus finished, he was prepared, having the proportions and dimensions, to make his moulds.
By the modern process of scientific draughting, an exact mould of every timber in the vessel is made in the moulding loft, from lines drawn on the floor, the bevel of each timber ascertained, and marked on the mould. These moulds are then taken into the forest, or wherever the timber in its rough state is, and it is hewed out to these moulds.
They are often packed up, taken to Virginia or Delaware, and the whole frame of a vessel moulded with such accuracy, that when it is brought home and set up, if it does not come within half an inch, it is considered bungling work.
Thus a vessel can be commenced at different points, by different parties of workmen, and built with the greatest despatch. All that is needed is men and money enough. They can all be at work at once, and a large ship can be built in ninety days as well as in a thousand. One gang begin to stretch out and put together the keel, which isbrought into the yard rough-hewed, and put on the midship frames, which are put together and raised at once. While this is being done, another gang are at work upon the stern, another upon the stem, which are ready to go up with the rest, another making the windlass, and still another the rudder. In the mean time the blacksmith, knowing the exact model of the future ship, and size of everything, can make the iron-work ahead, before the stem and stern are set up. Another gang begin to put on the plank, and another, whose business it is, bore every hole and drive every bolt. The joiners plane the whole outside of the ship, smooth up everything, and do all that comes in their line. The calkers and painters follow close at their heels, and after them the riggers.
But all this accuracy and despatch, resulting from a division of labor, has been a work of time, brought about by the efforts of many minds, and from very rude beginnings.
We cannot go into detail. It is sufficient to say that, in the present system of what is termed close modelling in this country, the master workman puts together with screws or keys, so they can be taken apart at pleasure, some pieces of soft pine, half an inch in thickness, three feet, two, or eighteeninches in length, according as he intends to go upon the scale of a fourth of an inch or an eighth, more or less, to a foot.
From this block he cuts out half his future vessel, making it to suit his eye. As these pieces, being in leaves, can all be taken apart, he can take by measurement the exact proportions of every part on the floor of a large loft, mark them down, enlarged to the full size, and from these make his moulds of every timber.
It is evident that the mechanical genius here lies in making this model, shaping the vessel in the mind of the architect. All, after this, is a matter of measurement and arithmetic. It requires mathematical ability to take off this complicated system of lines from the model, a clear head and mechanical ability to make the moulds; but after this any one who can handle tools can follow the patterns, and cut out the timber. But carpenters were hundreds of years getting as far as this, although they were building vessels all the time, some very good, where the workman was possessed of superior genius; but the great majority were wretched models, requiring an enormous waste of time, labor, and timber.
The first decided approach to the present methodwas the rack model, which consists in fastening several pieces of board edgewise to a flat surface, to represent the frames of a vessel, and cutting out the model on the edges of these. By measurements from these, the moulds were made, which insured accuracy, economized labor and timber. The first water-line model now in use was made by Orlando B. Merrill, of Newburyport, in 1794; but, like all new things, there were prejudices against it. The old carpenters would have nothing to do with the “newfangled thing.”
It was a long time before it was used in Massachusetts, and thirty-six years getting into Maine. The first vessel built from the new plan there was the ship Burmah, of Portland, built by Water-house, from New York, in 1831, for the Messrs. Oxnards, who came there and modelled her; but, after all, she was not so good a vessel as many built on the old plan, to the great delight of the old carpenters, who “knew it would turn out just so.” Even then they got no farther than the forward and after frames, but had to timber out the ends by guess for a long time. The fact is, the ground of success lies in originating the model. Thus the same principles are involved in both methods, whether a man holds all the proportions of avessel in his mind to a great extent, sets her up, and makes his model as he goes along, altering his ribbands and cutting his frames to suit his ideas, or does it all on a block of wood beforehand. The same man will build as good a model in one way as the other. The difference is, that in one case he knows, when he has made his model, precisely what kind of a vessel he will have. The draughting from the model is a matter of mathematics. The result must follow as inevitably as a sum in the rule of three, if rightly stated and accurately worked. In the other way he cannot know this till she is timbered out. To work by the first method, some little education is needed; in the other, not the least.
Another more important matter is the great saving of time, rendering it possible for all parts of a vessel to go on together, and the great saving of timber.
The man who works from the modern plan knows just what wood he needs to form every timber; whereas, in the old way, some of the timbers were half cut off, some had to be thrown away, and others that would not fill up the ribband furred out; but neither time nor timber was worth a third as much then as now. A mast that costsixty dollars then now costs two hundred and forty dollars, while those of the largest size cannot be obtained at all, but must bemadein pieces and hooped. A carpenter who was worth a dollar a day then is worth four now, and it costs twice as much to feed him.
You will perceive, my young friends, there is the same, and even greater, scope for ability now than there was then, with this difference, that there is a greater opportunity for sham. Ship-carpenters can now pony in ship-building as well as in these days of mathematical keys and translations; students can “pony” in algebra and Æschylus. Then they had to make their own keys and unlock their own doors.
All the way a carpenter, who was a good mechanic, but not possessed of ability to model a vessel, could build one, was to get some one who had to timber her out to the ribbands, after which he could finish her; but then everybody knew it. Now a person, by paying for it, may (privately) get any kind of a model he likes, build from it, and nobody—or but a very few—the wiser. Thus a man with modern helps can build vessels, and good ones, who, for the life of him, could not have gone to work, set up, and built a vessel, as Charlie did on Elm Island.
A master workman meant brains then, though the workmanship was rough and the beginnings rude. Even in this first rudest form of building, accuracy, by a person of genius, could be obtained. If they made one side of the vessel fuller than the other, it was the result of negligence, not of necessity, by suffering their shores to slip, or not proving their work by a plumb line.
Mr. Foss was one of those rude beginners. He built vessels on the same general principle as the May Flower. Charlie was another; but having received the instructions of Mr. Foss, listened to the remarks of seamen, the result of experience in the actual management of vessels, and with greater genius than his master, he had already, and even in this rude craft, made improvements. What is more, they were improvements that he had originated, and the principles of which were first suggested to his mind by taking the model from the fish.
We have seen how perfectly prepared the scientific draughtsman is to go with his moulds into the forest, and mould his timber. Let us now ascertain how our young ship-builder, alone on Elm Island, went to work from the scanty data he had to make moulds to cut timber by. All histhree lines told him was the shape of the floor timbers, the proportional length of them, the shape and sheer of the top; and his pole, with a nail in it, the sweep of the side.
He made moulds from his rising line of the floor timbers, of the stem and stern-post from their shape on the board; his shortening line gave him a water line along the heads of his floor timbers, the rising-line the shape of the bottom.
But now his lines fail him. He has not, like the scientific draughtsman, a line for every timber, from which to make his moulds. Well, he don’t make any more, except five or six, of what he calls “scattering frames.” His third line has given him the length of the vessel, and general shape on top, and the sweep on the sand of the way in which her side will round; and he goes to work, and makes by his eye, and what aid he can derive from these moulds futtocks, naval, and top timbers, which, put together, form the side, cuts and alters them till they suit his eye; and that is all there is about it. When he gets them done, he calls them the moulds of the scattering frames. He makes five or six of them, perhaps more—one amidships, one at the forward and one at the after floor timber. They are called scattering frames becausethey are scattered along the keel for guides. By and by we shall see what he will do with them. Instead of making, as is now done, a mould for every timber, amounting to hundreds, and occupying weeks, he makes no more. His moulds are all made, and he is ready to cut his timber. He will, however, lose four times the amount of time, fussing, guessing, and moulding his vessel as he goes along, and doing work over two or three times, than he would if he had known the present method.
In cutting timber there is a great deal of work to be done with the narrow axe, and a great deal of digging out roots for knees, for which it is not necessary to employ skilled labor. There were also, in this new country, many men who had been used all their lives to handling a broadaxe, hewing ton timber for exportation to Europe, and ranging timber for the frames of buildings. The saw-mills, in those days, especially in new places, where there were not means to purchase machinery, were in a very imperfect state, possessed but little power, could not saw greater length than twenty feet, while the carriage, instead of being run back by touching a lever, and by the power of the water-wheel, as at the present day, was slowlyand laboriously pushed back by turning a wheel with the foot. Mill-cranks were all imported from England, and people, under the pressure of necessity, made cranks of a crooked root, sometimes hunting for weeks in the woods to find one that had the right turn, and was of tough wood. This was the case with the mill in Charlie’s vicinity, which, however, was six miles off.
In this state of things there was a great deal of sawing done with a whip-saw. It was cheaper, in many cases, to do this than to haul the timber a great distance to a mill. There was no other way when plank and boards were required longer than the mills; but with the whip-saw you could have it whatever length you wished. In ship-building it is especially desirable to have the stuff as long as can be worked, as there will be fewer joints to calk, less danger of leaks, and greater strength. Even now a great deal of long stuff is sawed with a whip-saw.
This species of labor then being so much in vogue, plenty of men could be found, who, from youth, had been accustomed to the use of the broadaxe and whip-saw. They were not carpenters, could not edge planks, fay knees, make scarfs in keels, as Joe Griffin, Uncle Isaac, andYelf could; but for cutting timber in the woods, beating it out, with a master workman to boss them, and for two thirds of the work in the ship-yard, they were just as good, and would work for a great deal less wages.
John Rhines, who would not have any blacksmith work to occupy him till they began to put the timber together, was equally useful with the narrow axe in cutting, and as a teamster in hauling the timber. Charlie, who was keenly alive to all these matters, sat down, pencil in hand, to calculate.
“My plank,” he said, “and wales must be sawed with a whip-saw. My deck plank, I need about nine thousand five hundred feet; wales, three thousand three hundred; outboard and ceiling plank, two thousand four hundred feet.”
Knowing the price of sawing at the mill per thousand, how many feet two men would saw in a day, and about what it would cost to hire the kind of men I have described, who could saw and hew both, he found he could saw his deck plank for less on the island than it would cost to raft the logs to the mill, have them sawed, and get them back.
In addition to this, he knew what length themill would saw, and that, as the planks must butt on the beams, there would be a piece to cut off of almost every plank, when he would lose the timber, and expense of sawing and cutting; whereas, knowing the exact dimensions of his deck, he could cut his logs the length he wanted them, lose no timber, and only pay for cutting and sawing what he used.