The first thing Charlie did, after making these calculations, was to construct fixtures for four men to saw, both out of doors and in the barn, make a gin, with a windlass and a tackle on it, to hoist the timber up on the stage. Thus, in fair weather, they could work beside the vessel, and in stormy weather in the barn.
When the two boys had arranged these matters, Charlie hired four men, such as we have described. Two of them were Eaton and his brother; one of whom, Danforth, shaved the clapboards for Ben’s house. The others were Thorndike, that smart man who worked with Uncle Isaac, and helped the boys plough the garden; the other, our old acquaintance, Joel Ricker, who came to Elm Island to wrestle with Ben. By the advice of Uncle Isaac, Charlie sent for him.
“You don’t want many men,” said Uncle Isaac,“because Ben has not room for a great crowd; so you must have them strong. He’s a master strong, smart man, and he’ll be a real pleasant fellow, now Ben has brought him to his bearings, and taken the wind out of him. Then, when you come to have Joe, Yelf, and one or two more, you’ll have a whole team, I tell you.”
“And you, Uncle Isaac, O, do come!”
“Well, if I can get anybody to do my harvesting, I will, when you begin to put timber together, and need carpenters.”
Charlie hired the four men for three shillings each, per day. The first thing he cut was the stocks for deck plank, hauled them out, and some of them into the barn, in order to keep his men at work sawing in rainy weather, and in order to permit the plank to season. He next began to cut his floor. We have said that the modern carpenter takes a mould for every timber into the woods. What do you suppose Charlie did? He took a pole, thirteen feet long, the length of his longest floor timber, with the dead rise of each timber marked on one side, and the length of each, in letters of the alphabet, on the other. This he called the rising rod. When the men cut a stick, he laid this across it, and measured down from the middle for his rise,according to the scale on the rod, and lined it out; then they cut it the right length, and beat off the wood to lighten it for hauling. As for the other timber, knowing the length, he guessed at the shape.
In this rude way, to modern eyes, he cut his frame; and in about forty days the timber was in the yard, and the stocks for planks and wales at the saw-pit. It required no small degree of mechanical ability to build a vessel in this way. Sometimes they got them fuller on one side, so they would sail faster on one tack than the other. It was just like preaching without notes. Sometimes you’ll hit first rate, and then again you won’t.
In the modern mode of building, the carpenter will stretch out his keel, begin to timber out in the middle, perhaps timber out as far as the forward and after frames, and even put in some ceiling, before raising the stem and stern, because the vessel is all modelled, and he can put every timber in her, and hold her together with ribbands without putting on a single plank. But in the old mode, nothing could be done without the stem and stern-post, as they were needed to shape her by. We shall now see what use Charlie made of his scattering frames, as he called them, since they are to play a very important part.
Although Charlie was not working by contract, and limited as to time, yet he thought he should need ten men to handle the timber, which was all green and of large size, especially as, being on an island, it was not very easy to procure more. He already had six; Uncle Isaac, Joe, and Yelf wouldmake nine: four of these, however, would be employed in sawing, and the whip-saw must be in steady use, in order that plank and wales might be in readiness, since, in his method of working he must plank up as he went along; it was also necessary that his deck plank should be sawed out and stuck up to season. This would leave him but five men to work on the frame and handle the timber. He therefore hired four more. He could, upon occasion, call the men from the saw-pit, John from the anvil, and, more than all, he could have the aid of Ben, in case of a heavy lift. Ben’s house now very much resembled a bee-hive, both as to the number of its inhabitants and their industry. There was no ten-hour system then. It was, begin with the sun and work as long as you can see to pick up your tools. But on the other hand, as the men were not so particular as at the present day, to work just so long to a minute, insomuch that, if the axe is uplifted, and the clock strikes six, they won’t let it fall, so neither was the employer. The master workman was not always on the watch to see if a man stopped to rest his back or light his pipe; whether he ground his tools in his own time or that of his employer: if a man had a first-rate story, not too long to tell, he told it.
Sometimes, if a coon ran across the yard, or a squirrel got in among the timbers of the vessel, the master workman would go for him with the whole crew at his heels; and then, enlivened by a little fun, they would work enough faster to make it up. Where all were neighbors, men of principle, and calculated to earn their wages, and unwilling to be outdone, there was no necessity for drawing lines, as with the kind of labor often found in yards at the present day.
Henry Griffin, coming home from sea, resolved to give it up, and learn the blacksmith’s trade, as he was, like all the Griffins, strong, willing, and ingenious. John gladly received him as an apprentice. Thus the family, including the children and Sally’s hired girl, numbered twenty-two. Taking away the partition between the workshop and the wood-shed, they threw it all into one room, which made a splendid workshop in rainy weather, large enough to hew timber or joint deck plank. The chamber overhead they filled with beds, while Charlie, John, Henry, and Ben, Jr., slept in the sap camp. It was such a handy place, after they had worked from sun to sun, to run out and shoot a coon among the corn in the moonlight evenings!
The stem and stern-posts were bolted on to the keel, lying on the ground; the whole was raised together and held in position with shores, and the transom bolted on when it was half up. Charlie now took the moulds and moulded his scattering frames, and fastened them, together with the floor timbers, to the keel. These frames, extending from the keel to the deck, and ranged along at intervals from stem to stern, kept in position by spruce poles spiked to them and to the stern and transom, and also to cross pawls at their tops, gave the outline of the whole vessel. In the modern process of working, the timber, being all accurately moulded from the draught, the timbering out is a very rapid process—the planking, fastening, and finishing occupying a much greater length of time.
But in respect to Charlie, the regulating of these scattering frames, being accomplished entirely by the eye, was not only a good deal of work, but it was a very anxious period, since upon this depended the whole shape of his vessel.
It was no light matter for a boy, not quite twenty, with such men as Uncle Isaac, Joe, and Yelf looking on, to model a vessel.
They offered no advice; Charlie asked none. He would set up a scattering frame, squint at it,draw it in or let it out, cut it away, shape it with the axe or adze to suit his eye, then put up another. He proved his work by a plumb-line, as he was determined that one side should not be fuller than the other.
This doing and undoing,—for some of the frames were cut half off,—occupied a vast deal of time, as nothing could be prepared beforehand. It was not so very slow work when they tumbled them in any how, letting anything go that came within hail, not concerning themselves whether she was fuller one side than the other; but itwasin Charlie’s way, who would have everything in proportion, however rough it might be, no matter how much time it occupied.
The weather was cold, the ground hard-frozen. Charlie was anxious to plank up before he left off. The custom was to plank up to the heads of the floor timbers, then put in another set, plank up to them, and so on.
“Uncle Isaac,” said he, “the scattering frames are all in, and nearly all the others. You can see the shape of her. How do you like her? I’ll make any alterations that you or father think for the best.”
“Don’t disturb anything. Don’t start a cross-bandor a ribband. She’ll steer well, carry like blazes, sail well for a full vessel, or I’m much mistaken. Joe and your father are of the same opinion.”
“She looks better than I expected,” said Charlie, drawing a long breath, struggling to conceal his delight under an appearance of indifference. “I wish we were able to finish her in good shape, smooth her up, and paint her.”
“I can see the boat-model in her. You haven’t got that out of your head, and I hope you never will.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Uncle Isaac. I’ll build a yawl for her, that shall be as handsome as any of the boats Isaac will run afoul of—you see if I don’t. Do you think it would do to plank with these green plank? or would they shrink all up—make an open seam to eat up oakum?”
“Shrink? No, indeed! They are froze as hard as a rock, and won’t shrink one mite if you put them on frozen.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, indeed. A piece of timber, hard-frozen, is as small as ever it will be. I’ve laid a house-floor with boards green from the mill, in the dead of winter, put them down froze, and the next July you couldn’t put a pin in the joints.”
“Then I will plank her up, and knock off till spring. It is not profitable to hire in these short, cold days. John and I will do what we can this winter, which will make our money hold out.”
“What are you going to make your treenails of?”
“White oak, of course.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“What would you make them of?”
“Spruce limbs.”
“Spruce limbs? That’s a funny thing to make a treenail of!”
“They are better than white oak. They are hard, stiff, all heart, and full of pitch. They’ll never rot.”
While Charlie and his men were hewing the timber, John Rhines and his apprentice were getting ready to do the iron-work.
They built a blacksmith’s shop of logs,—the floor was of earth,—made a bench, and shove-windows. Leaving the rest to complete in rainy days, they began to prepare coal. Very little coal, except charcoal, was then used by blacksmiths, small quantities being imported from England into the seaports, but none at all used in the country shops.
The boys could not afford to buy it. John and Henry went into the woods, and cut birch and maple into proper lengths for their purpose. Then, on a flat piece of ground they built up a little cobwork of small sticks of dry wood, forming a little chimney about six feet high. They then set green sticks of cord-wood up around this chimney in a slanting direction, filling the intervalbetween with short sticks. When a sufficient quantity of wood was set up, they rounded the top with shorter sticks. They dug green, strong turf, and covered the pile all over with it, grass-side down, except the top of the chimney, and some air-holes at the bottom, to make draught enough to keep the fire steadily burning. Then they threw earth all over it, and stopped the cracks where the pieces of turf came together, filled the chimney full of shavings and dry stuff, and kindled it at top. When it had burned down into the body of the kiln, and the whole mass of wood was hot and fairly on fire, they put turf on top, and made all tight, the air-holes at the bottom affording just draught enough to make the wood coal, without burning to ashes, as it would in an open fire. By these air-holes they could regulate the draught. If the wind blew hard, and the draught was too great, stop them up on the windward side; if too weak, open them.
Boys will have fun out of anything. One wouldn’t think there was a great deal of fun in watching a coal-kiln night and day, so as to be ready to fling on earth, or put on turf, if the fire should burst out anywhere; but they had lotsof fun out of it, and the best times imaginable. They built a camp, made it rain-proof by putting a board roof on it, built a chimney of stones, where they could cook in rainy weather, though in fair weather they always built their fire before the door of the camp, hunter fashion. They loved to see the stars, the fire flashing through the trees; and somehow things tasted sweeter when the kettle hung by the crotch out of doors. The care of the coal-kiln did not occupy much of their time; but one of them was always obliged to be there, in the event of the fire breaking out. Thus, while one kiln was burning, they cut the wood for another. Rare times they had of it in the evening! They roasted coons, that could always be found round the edge of the corn, clams, and ears of corn, baked potatoes, and had all the maple sugar they wanted, roasted eggs, and sometimes a chicken. Neither did they lack for company. Charlie, Uncle Isaac, and Joe were pretty sure to be there every night. Sometimes Sally would take her knitting-work and come up; and it was by no means rare for all on the island, except the baby and whoever had the care of him, to come; and there was not a happier visitor at the camp than Tige Rhines, who insisted on coming to the islandwith John, and could not be persuaded to return without him, although Captain Rhines, who was a frequent visitor to the island, used all the arts of persuasion he was master of to engage him to return with him.
It is no marvel the coal-kiln was a popular resort. The captain never failed, when he came on, to bring apples, pears, plums, and a jug of new cider to John. He was by no means chary of his treasures; and it was quite agreeable to tired men to sit around a blazing fire, eat apples and pears, perhaps a piece of baked coon, with a roast potato, drink a mug of sweet cider, and tell, or listen to, a good story.
Upon such occasions Joe Griffin generally kept the company in good humor. Ricker, who had now become a universal favorite, contributed a song. The change in this man was most remarkable. From being a bully and a brag, he had become a most agreeable, pleasant companion. He had also manifested a great capacity for handling tools; since latterly, the four men having sawed out all the plank that was needed for present use, Charlie had taken him and Thorndike from the saw-pit, and set them at work on the vessel.
“The best thing that ever happened to me,” said he to Uncle Isaac, “was when I fell into the hands of Lion Ben. Before that, I thought there was nobody could handle me, and the idea came near ruining me. I left off work, thought of nothing but wrestling; was running to every launching, raising, hauling, muster, and log-rolling I could hear of, and was straining myself all to pieces.”
“I,” replied Uncle Isaac, “used to wrestle a good deal in my young days, and I know that in some of those scrapes I have injured and worn myself out more than I have in a year’s work; yes, more than in two.”
“No doubt you have. I wrestled once, at North Yarmouth, till the blood spun from my nose a stream, and I was as sore the next day as though I had been pounded with an ox-goad. Then I was always treating and being treated, and got so I couldn’t settle myself to work; and liquor was fast getting the upper hands of me; but after I went home from here, I thought of Mr. Rhines’s advice, and determined to follow it. I never was among such people as the folks are here. They don’t drink as they do up our way,—at least those that I’ve seen and worked with,—and are just like brothers.”
“There’s plenty of drinking here, but you have been among those who have seen the evil of it, and left it off. There’s not a man you work with, myself included, but, three years ago, drank spirit. Now we think we’ve found a better way, one that is more pleasant, better for the pocket, the health, and the conscience.”
“Itisa better way, and I’m going to join you, and do as you do.”
“You are a young man, Mr. Ricker. Have you any parents depending on you?”
“No, sir. My parents both died when I was a child. My father was killed by a falling tree. My mother took sick and died, and my uncle brought me up.”
“Well, then, just stay here amongst us. There is plenty of work to do round here—chopping, logging, and river-driving. There will be more vessels built here, too. I don’t know whether Charlie will work much longer or not; but if he don’t, I will give you and Thorndike work all winter, logging and making shingles; and when you are not at work, you’re welcome to make my house your home.”
“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Murch, and shall be right glad, if Master Bell don’t work, to take up with your offer.”
“There’s plenty of land here, that can be bought cheap—good land, too; and there’s plenty of nice young women, that know how to spin and weave, and would make a striving man a good wife, take care of whatever he brings into the house; and, though I say it myself, there’s not a more industrious, neighborly set of people in the United States of America than live in this town; and you travel the country through, and you won’t find a better principled, more enterprising set of young men; and I mean to do what little I can to encourage them, and there’s others feel just as I do.”
“I mean to be governed by your counsel, Uncle Isaac. But, to tell the truth, there’s a young woman up our way that I’ve had some dealings with, and we were engaged once; but she didn’t like my drinking, wrestling, and carousing about, and neglecting my work, and her folks set in, and that made a coldness between us. I love her as the apple of my eye, and I drank more to drown trouble.”
“You ought to think the more of her for not approving of your drinking and idleness.”
“So I do.”
“Well, then, all you have to do is, just to go on asyou are now doing, stay here out of the way of temptation, and build up a good reputation. The news won’t be long getting back to your place. They’ll miss you at musters and raisings, and begin to inquire, ‘Where’s Ricker? We want him to take hold of this man that’s throwing everybody.’ The answer will come back, ‘Ricker’s given up drinking and wrestling, and is at work on Elm Island, having the best of wages. People there think everything of him, and won’t let him go. He’s going to buy a farm, and live among them.’ Take my word for it, the young woman will be the first one to hear of it; and in time matters will right themselves.”
The first kiln that John and Henry burned contained forty bushels; the next, eighty. They burned one more, drew the kilns, and put the coals in a pen in one corner of the shop.
Captain Rhines came over to see how matters progressed, and spent the night. In the evening Charlie and John held a consultation in respect to iron, which would soon be wanted, and fixtures for the blacksmith’s shop.
“We can get along,” said John, “with an anvil, bellows, two pairs of tongs, hand hammers, sledges, and cold chisels.”
“Won’t you need a vice?” asked Charlie.
“It would be handy; but there won’t be any screws to cut. I can get along without it.”
“What do these things cost?”
“An anvil will cost about fifteen dollars, a pair of bellows about thirteen, and a good vice about twenty-five.”
“That’s a good deal of money, just for tools, when we’ve got so little. We must pinch all we can on the hull, in order to be able to obtain the sails and rigging. That will be a heavy bill, and must be all cash.”
“Yes; but I can do without a vice, make the hammers, tongs, and other tools, and I think I can make the bellows; so there will be only the anvil, the steel, and iron to buy.”
Captain Rhines sat and listened, as they were talking in low tones in a corner, till he could bear it no longer; and taking Ben and Uncle Isaac aside, he told them what he had overheard.
“It’s too bad, Ben, to let such boys as these struggle along so! I’ll take the Perseverance, go to Portland or Boston, and buy them a complete set of blacksmith’s tools. If we build vessels, we shall want them.”
“Don’t you do it, Benjamin,” said Uncle Isaac;“for the life of you, don’t you do it! You’ll do them more hurt than good. Hardship don’t hurt boys. It didn’t you and I. They are doing first rate—making grand calculations! It’s drawing out what’s in ’em. If James Welch had been put to it as they are, it would have been better for him, and saved his parents much misery.”
Ben siding with Uncle Isaac, the captain relinquished his purpose.
Perhaps most of our young readers have seen a pair of house bellows,—some have not,—stoves and coal fires having consigned them, for the most part, to oblivion; but they were a great institution once—from the homely kitchen to the highly-ornamented and gilded parlor ones.
Those boys who have not seen them can ask their grandmothers, which will save us some detail; and, as we have so many “last things” to say to you in this volume, it is quite an object.
A blacksmith’s bellows is double. The wood is six feet long, three feet four inches wide. Instead of having merely top and bottom of wood, they consist of three pieces of plank, and are double, having two clappers. The upper piece is solid; the middle piece has a hole and a clapper; the bottom, another hole with a clapper. The top andbottom covers rise and fall by means of hinges at the end. The middle piece is permanent, and the bellows are hung in a frame by iron gimbals driven into the edge of the middle piece. They are worked by a long lever attached to the handle of the bottom board, the space between the boards being leather, which is distended by bows to prevent its collapsing too much when empty. The smith puts weights on the top plank to press it down, and force the air into the fire, and hangs another on the handle of the lower one to bring it down, and open the bellows to admit air. He lifts the lever, the bellows fill through the bottom. The moment he brings it down, the air is forced into the fire, and the upper portion of the bellows, where it is retained by the upper clapper. When the lever is raised again to refill, the weights on the upper cover are still pressing the air into the fire. Thus it is a draught all the time.
They made their covers, middle piece, and clappers, hung them with leather hinges, made the bows of ash, and in default of leather, covered them with new canvas, that was left from the sails of the Ark, closing the seams with pitch,—which they procured from the woods,—mixed with charcoal dust.
They found an old bolt, cut it in two on the edge of an old axe, made a fire heat, and pointed the ends on a stone for an anvil, and made gimbals to drive into the middle piece to hang their machine.
“What under heavens shall we make a nose of?” said John. “That beats me! If I had iron, I could make it; but there’s not a scrap more on the island.”
The nose of a blacksmith’s bellows is tunnel-shaped, and at the extremity enters an iron tube, called a tewel, which goes into the forge, and lies just under the fire.
“We could make the tewel out of a gun barrel. I’ve got an old Queen’s arm, at home, that’s spoilt.”
“Yes; but what shall we make the nose of? That must be broad-mouthed, and twice as big.”
“Make it of clay, and burn it in the fire.”
“It would be breaking. The heat would crack it; and I don’t know how we could fay it to the wood to make it tight.”
“Then make it of a piece of wood that has been soaking in salt water. It will be some way from the fire. We can keep watch of it, and wet it with a mop.”
“I don’t believe but we shall have to.”
“Why don’t you ask your brother Ben, or Uncle Isaac?”
“Let us make the frame to hang it on. Perhaps we shall think of something.”
Before they had finished the frame, John exclaimed, “I’ve got it, Hen! Just the thing! I’ve seen an old blunderbuss barrel, without any stock to it, kicking round Uncle Isaac’s shop. It will make nose and tewel, both in one. I know he’ll give it to me. ‘The lame and the lazy are always provided for.’”
“What is a blunderbuss?”
“A short gun, bell-muzzled, and with an everlasting great bore, made to fire a whole handful of slugs and balls. They don’t use them now.”
“Go ask Uncle Isaac. Then take the boat, and go after it. As you come along, stop into Peter Brock’s shop, ask him to put it into his vice, and start the breech-pin for me.”
When they had obtained the old gun barrel, they completed their bellows, made a forge and forge-trough. They had no chimney—the gas went out through a hole in the roof.
John put some coal on the forge, kindled the fire, and started the bellows. They worked capitally.
“Hen,” said John, in high spirits, “that is what I call ‘raising the wind’ in more ways than one. We were only two days making these bellows, and one of them was a rainy day. That’s pretty good wages—six dollars and fifty cents per day!”
John and Henry now took the Perseverance, and went to Portland. John went directly to Mr. Starrett, who received him most cordially. He told him all the circumstances from beginning to end, upon which Mr. Starrett lent him an anvil that was rather small for his heavy work, and told him that Captain Pote had just got home from the West Indies, and brought a lot of old iron that he had bought there for little or nothing, and would sell for one fourth the price he would have to give at the warehouse. Probably he could pick out a great deal that would answer his purpose; that it lay on the wharf just as it was thrown out of the vessel.
John and Henry went to the wharf, and spent the whole day picking over the heap. They found cold chisels, punches, sledges, hand hammers, spikes, and ship’s bolts; eye bolts, ring bolts, studding-sail boom irons, straps for mast circles and caps.
John bought what he thought would answer hispurpose, and threw it into the schooner. Mr. Starrett bought the rest of his iron for him cheaper than he could have bought it himself, because he knew just what description and quantity of metal were wanted. When it was all on board the vessel, Mr. Starrett came and looked it over.
“John,” said he, “you will make a great saving by buying that old iron. With very little labor, you will get the larger part of your fastening out of it, a good deal of iron-work for the spars, and all your thimbles. My boy, you will have a hard job with so few tools, to do what you’ve got before you; but you’ll win through it. If you have to hang up, and go to work to raise money, come to me. I’ll find you work.”
John thanked his friend, and they separated. He arrived home, got his iron into the shop, his anvil on the block, his tongs made, handles in the hammers and sledges two days before the carpenters put the keel together and wanted to bolt it. He had no tool to head spikes; so he just turned them over the anvil, making a head on one side, like a railroad spike. They looked queer, but answered the purpose just as well. Persons do not know what they can do till they are compelled toexert their faculties to the utmost. It was this rude training in the school of stern necessity that has made this nation what it is.
We are to-day reaping the benefits of their trials, and shall continue thus to do, if we do not, by prosperity, become effeminate. The Pilgrims suffered terribly the first winter, because they came fresh from the homes of Old England, with the habits of that country, and were comparatively helpless. But suppose their children, born and reared in this country, had been placed in just the same circumstances, or a band of western hoosiers, how soon would they have built up log shanties, found clams and lobsters on the beach, fish under the ice, coons and bears in their dens, and when the spring opened, planted corn on a burn? The Pilgrims had been reared among conveniences, never been drawn out by necessity in that direction, and most of them died in the seasoning, being too old to learn.
But we see how Charlie conforms to the necessities of his position. Once put on the track, and encouraged by Ben and Uncle Isaac, he seems not one whit inferior to John Rhines in contrivance or resources to meet exigencies as they come along.
Charlie finished planking up the last day of December, and discharged all his men, except Ricker. Planking up a vessel was slow, hard work in those days, as they had none of the modern appliances to bring their plank to the timber, and nothing better to bore the innumerable holes through the hard timber than an old-fashioned pod augur, which must be started in a hole cut with a gouge. They bored from inside outward, because, the augur being destitute of a screw, it was easier.
There was no blacksmith work of any amount to be done till the carpenters began to work in the spring.
Henry Griffin went to work with Ricker in the barn, sawing out ceiling plank and other stuff. Charlie and John burnt coal enough to finish the iron-work, cut the small spars, and hauled them out. The mast and main boom were so large that Charlie was afraid to fall them till the snow was deeper, for fear of breaking or injuring them; however, as he knew the size of the spars, he made the caps, and John ironed them, after which he learned to saw with a whip-saw: this liberated Ricker, who was a most excellent broadaxe-man, having been accustomed all his life to hewing timber. Charlie set him at work upon the spars, while he himself,having plenty of seasoned stuff, built a long-boat and yawl-boat for the vessel. In this way he could employ the two men, John, and himself profitably: the wages were less in the winter; the weather did not interfere with the sawing, which was done under cover. Ricker, indeed, worked under cover in the shop with Charlie, when it was stormy or severely cold, and helped him on the boats and the windlass.
Charlie built a beautiful yawl-boat, putting in gratings at the bow and in the bottom, with a fancy yoke of mahogany, using up the last of his West India wood in the operation, and in sheaves for the blocks. When she was done, he painted her handsomely.
“There,” said he; “they may laugh at the sloop, but I reckon they won’t at the boat. Isaac shall go ashore in as good shape as the best of them.”
Uncle Isaac had a lathe, and Charlie engaged him to make the blocks and turn the sheaves in the course of the winter.
They next made the rudder. Nowadays, when vessels are steered with wheels, the tillers are a straight stick of timber; but an old-fashioned one required a stick of very peculiar form, something the shape of the letter S; and what made it moredifficult to get them, was the fact that a great strain came on them, and they must be of tough wood. Joe Griffin had engaged to hunt up a stick in the woods, rough-hew it, and bring it to the island.
Time now passed very pleasantly; there was a smaller family; they were not exposed to the weather, and in the evenings enjoyed themselves very much. Charlie employed himself in the study of surveying, and was more or less occupied in making models of imaginary vessels and boats, poring over an old English work on the sparring of vessels, which he had borrowed of Mr. Foss. At that day labor was not divided, as it is now; carpenters were both spar-makers and joiners, bored all the holes, and put in the fastening, the blacksmith only riveting the bolts.
John occupied himself in contriving how to economize his iron to the greatest possible extent, and in what method, with the means and appliances at his disposal, he should make the rudder-irons, which, for a vessel of the size of the sloop, was a heavy, difficult job. There was a great deal more hard sledging connected with blacksmith workthen than at present. The smith can now purchase iron of almost any size and shape he wants; at that time there was no round iron, and the iron for small work must be drawn, or split up from large, square bars; it was this that made the old iron peculiarly valuable to John; it was of the right size, as the greater part of it had come out of old vessels; he found a great many bolts that only needed straightening, or a piece cut off the end.
One evening Charlie was studying, Ben reading a newspaper, Ricker asleep in his chair, and Hen Griffin making a windmill for Ben, Jr. John had been sitting for half an hour on a block in the chimney corner, the tongs in his hands, with which he took up little pieces of coal and squat them, without uttering a word. At length he flung down the tongs, and, jumping upright, cried,—
“Ben! Ben! look here!”
“Well, I’m looking straight at you.”
“You know we are going to be desperately put to it to raise money enough to buy sails and rigging, and are pinching all we dare to on the hull and fastening on that account.”
“Yes.”
“You know how they make booms in a river to hold logs; they take long sticks, and fasten themtogether with iron, and sometimes with withes and ropes, and they hold acres of logs against the whole force of the freshet; and don’t you know what a master-strain spruce poles, not more than six inches through, will bear—how they will buckle before they’ll break?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, what’s the reason we couldn’t make wooden shrouds by bolting some tough spars to the mast-head and wales, and save shrouds and chain-plates, which would be atremendoussaving.”
“There wouldn’t be any give to them: when the mast sprung, it would bring all the strain on the poles, and carry them away.”
“But,” asked Henry, “why couldn’t you put a dead-eye to the lower end, set it up with a lanyard, just like any rigging? Then there would be spring enough; or, if you didn’t like to bolt to the masthead, put rope at both ends: you wouldthensave a good deal. I’m sure there would be no danger of losing the spars by the stretching of the rigging.”
“They would be strong to bear an up-and-down strain, as strong as rope, but would be liable to be broken by anything striking them, when set up taut: suppose the boom should happen to strike them, or the yards, anchor-stock, or jib-boom ofanother vessel hauling by in the dock? They wouldn’t stand anything of that kind, like rigging.”
“You say she’s going to carry a topsail and top-gallant-sail; the topmast backstays would protect them from the boom; and as for the rest, you could carry spare ones in case of accident.”
“That might do; but wouldn’t the straps of your dead-eyes split the end of the stick?”
“Treenail it.”
“Where could you get spars long enough, without having them two thirds as large as the mast?”
“Make them in pieces,” said Charlie. “Split up a large tree with the whip-saw: I can find a big ash that will make four, or a spruce or yellow birch.”
“Well, youcando it; but I should prefer rope.”
“To be sure, father; but if we are hard up, put right up snug to it, we’ll do it, sure.”
When, afterwards, Ben told his father of this novel method of economy, the captain laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
“I wonder,” said he, “what they won’t think of next. I always thought myself indifferently good for contrivance; but they go ahead of me.”
“They’ve made first-rate calculations, thus far, in everything.”
“I guess Isaac was right: he said difficulty would spur ’em up, and draw ’em out. I should think it was doing it, if it has drawn that out of ’em.”
While this conversation was going on, Sally was sewing with all her might, improving the moments while the children were asleep: she had, nevertheless, been an attentive listener. At length, laying down her work, she said, “Charlie, I don’t suppose you would think very highly of any advice or opinion coming from a woman in regard to these affairs.”
“Yes, I would, mother; I would think a great deal of your opinion about anything.”
“Well, then, I think I can help you about your sails.”
“You, mother!” cried Charlie, in astonishment.
“Yes, me. I think that I, and other women that I can find could weave thegreaterpart, if not the whole, of the duck for your sails, if we could get the flax, and a good deal cheaper than you can buy it: perhaps it wouldn’t look so well, but I’ll be bound ’twould wear as well.”
“You’ve done it now, Sally,” said Ben. “That is the most sensible plan for saving I’ve heard yet. But do you know what an undertaking you’ve laid out for yourself? Why, there’ll be over seven hundred yards of cloth in the mainsail alone.”
“Did you ever know me set out to do anything I didn’t accomplish?”
“No; except this.”
“I shall accomplish this.”
“But,” said John, quite bewildered, “I didn’t know canvas was made in looms, like other cloth.”
“All cloth is made in looms.”
“Yes; but I didn’t think sail-cloth was made in such looms as yours.”
“In England,” said Ben, “all the sail-cloth for their merchant and naval service is wove in such looms, as no English vessel is allowed to wear any other. If we were under England, as we were a few years ago, Sally couldn’t make this cloth if she wanted to; it would have to be made there; but they import the hemp and linen yarn from Russia and other places. It used to be all spun by hand, on a little wheel; but I understand of late they’ve got mills to go by water that spin.”
“But I shouldn’t think a woman could weave such heavy stuff.”
“Can’t they?” said Sally, going to a drawer, and taking out a piece of bed-tick that she had woven with four treadles, and beat up thick. “What do you think of that? Would any wind get through that?”
“Well, I’ll give up now; but still, I don’t seehow so much cloth as they use in England, and send over here, and, I suppose, everywhere else,canbe made in such a small way.”
But this, which was entirely new to John, excited his wonder, and was so difficult of belief, was no matter of surprise to Charlie.
“Small way!” he exclaimed: “a good many strands make a rope. O, you don’t know much about England. Why, the people there are thicker than flies around a dead herring, glad to turn their hand to anything to get their bread, and thousands can’t get it; not because they are too lazy to work, but can’t get the work to do, are helped by the parish, and often die of hunger.”
“Die of hunger!That’s awful.”
“No more awful than true, though. There are whole villages in England—and I’ve heard my father say it’s just so in Ireland and Scotland—where, from year’s end to year’s end, all that the greater part of the people do is to raise, spin, and weave flax; those that are able to, hire land; but the poor, that can’t hire land, why, the merchants find the yarn, and give them so much a yard to weave it; and old people, seventy and eighty years old, that can’t do anything else, will do a little something at that; an old wife, that can’t getacross the floor without her crutch, and her head as white as a sheet, will sit in the corner and croon a song, because hunger drives her to it: men and women weave the year round.”
“Men weave?”
“Yes, indeed; hundreds and thousands of them never do anything else all their lives—couldn’tdo anything else.”
“I declare! a man weaving, sitting down behind a loom, doing women’s work!”
“Yes, sitting down behind a loom; and thank God for the privilege.”
“I guess they would keep me there a good while. I’d put on a petticoat, and take a dish-cloth in my hand, and done with it. Only think of Joe Griffin, Uncle Isaac, and our Ben weaving!”
“It is so there; and you go to one of their houses, knock at the door, and a man will come to open it, with his beard stuck full of thrums and lint.”
“So you see, John,” said Sally, “where sail-cloth comes from. You know old Mr. Blaisdell?”
“Yes.”
“He was a weaver before he came to this country; and they say sometimes, of a rainy day, when his son’s wife has a piece in the loom, he’ll get in and weave like everything.”
“But, mother, the vessel would rot on the stocks before you could spin and weave cloth enough for her sails: besides, where could you get the flax?”
“I’ve planned it all out; for I’ve been thinking of it ever since you set out to build the vessel, and will have the sails done before you do the hull, I can tell you.”
“I should like to know how,” said her husband.
“I’m going to begin right off, while my family is small. I want Charlie to go over to Fred in the morning, and tell him to buy all the flax and linen yarn he can get; he can pay in goods, or half goods and half money, and that will help him; the yarn will do for the light sails: what we spin, we’ll spin a coarser thread, for the larger sails. Fred can send potash to Boston, and buy the flax. I think there’s flax enough round here: if not, there is in Boston; it is not long since a vessel-load of it was sent from there to Ireland. I’ll risk Fred for getting flax.”
“So will I,” said Charlie; “because he don’t have any opportunity to turn in his work, as John and I do, and will jump at the chance.”
“But the spinning and weaving!” said Ben.
“There’s Sally Griffin—she’s only Joe and herself to take care of; last time I saw her, she toldme they had only one cow; that she hadn’t half enough to do: she’ll weave a lot, and spin, too; so will Hannah Murch, and they’ve got the flax; so will my mother, and our Jane, Mary Rhines and Elizabeth. There’s Danforth Eaton’s wife hasn’t chick nor child in the world, and old Mrs. Smullen’s a capital spinner, and Mr. Blaisdell, a born weaver, who never did anything else till he came to this country, is getting rather old for hard work; his wife, too, and his son’s wife and daughters, are weavers. I know as well as I want to that he wouldn’t like anything better than to weave till spring work comes on, and every rainy day after; then there’s the three Godsoe girls and their mother, living with their brother Jacob; the girls take in weaving, and the old lady can spin; there won’t be much spinning; we can buy most of the yarn. When we begin to build, I will hire two girls, and one of them can weave most of the time in the corn-house. I know of lots more I can find. I’m going over with Charlie in the morning, and get Hannah Murch to help me hunt them up, and then give it all into the hands of Fred: there will be no trouble; everybody will be for it, because they see we are trying to start something to help the place. Just calculate for yourself: there’s morethan a year to do it in; of that coarse cloth, a person would weave twelve yards in a day—three hundred and twelve yards a month, at least. Old Mr. Blaisdell alone would weave your mainsail in two months, or less; for he would weave fourteen yards a day. I have reckoned up seventeen now, and can find fifty. Now what do you think, Ben?”
“I think you’ll do it; for if you, Hannah Murch, and Uncle Isaac get together, you’ll set the town on fire.”
“O, mother,” cried Charlie, “you are the best woman that ever was, or ever will be. Now, mother, you didn’t think, when I told you that night at milking that there would be a vessel built here before five years, there would be one built before your own door in two, and you would make her sails.”
“But you remember I told you, when itdidcome to pass, I would send a venture in her: I’ve got lots of hens, and I want some money to buy an eight-day brass clock with, that shows the changes of the moon.”
“O, mother, we’ll raise lots of hens, and you shall have all the room in the vessel you want.”
The next morning Sally went round among her old friends and school-mates, who received herwith open arms, and entered heart and soul into her plan. Uncle Blaisdell was delighted, and told Sally he would oversee the whole work.
“If you had all the canvas these old fingers have wove,” said he, “it would make sails for a good many such vessels.”
Old Mrs. Yelf, contrary to all expectations, had recovered: Sally found her sitting by the fire, and she was greatly interested.
“Sally, tell Fred to bring me the yarn. I’ll weave enough for a small sail, if I die for’t. I shall glory in it, and an old lady’s blessing shall go with it. They’re good boys; they have begun right; they’ve sought the Lord in their youthful days, and to whatever they set their hands they’ll prosper.”
“We’ve got the sails under way,” said Charlie, “and got our iron: we shall want a good deal of tar, for she must have a brimstone bottom, or the worms will eat her all up in two months at the West Indies.”
“We can make that,” said John.
“Make tar?”
“Yes, indeed: cut down pine trees, take the limbs where we have cut timber and knees, and make a tar-pit. I know all about that.”
It was now the latter part of winter; the snow was deep; Charlie began to think about cutting his mast, main boom, and bowsprit. He did not at first contemplate having anything above the top-gallant sail; but when Sally came home and related her conversation with Mrs. Yelf, Ben said, “Charlie you must gratify the old lady; it would be bad luck and a sin not to do so.”
“But, father, there is no sail that she could weave cloth enough for.”
“Well, then you must have one on purpose for her; have a flying royal; there will be no braces, the sheets will make fast to the top-gallant yard, it will furl right in with the top-gallant sail, the yard will be underneath the top-gallant stay and when the yard hoists up, the stay will go with it; it will be a little thing, not more than forty or forty-five yards: she can do that well enough.”
The lower mast was no less than twenty-eightinches in diameter when made, and eighty feet long. This required a tree of great size; there was no such one left in the lot from which the boys were to cut their timber, and they were obliged to buy one. The bowsprit, which was shorter, and the boom, which, though seventy-five feet in length, was much smaller, they could obtain on their own lot. There were trees enough on the island of much larger size; but those enormous trees, that would make a thirty-six inch mast for a man-of-war Ben didn’t like to cut, now that the pressure of poverty was removed.
It would have been a great deal of work for Charlie to have gone on to his own land, broken a road through the deep snow to the back end of his lot to obtain it; then, to tow so large a stick six miles would have been a great undertaking in the winter time.
“Charlie,” said Ben, “there’s a tree stands a couple of rods to the north-east of the big pine that has the eagle’s nest on it, large enough to make your mast. There’s a short crook in it near the top; if it is long enough below that, I will sell it to you cheap, because the crook spoils it for a mast for a ship of the line, though it is large enough otherwise: let us go and look at it.”
When they came to view it, Ricker, who was a man of great experience in the woods, thought it was long enough; Ben thought it was not; Charlie didn’t presume to give an opinion, but his knowledge of surveying helped him out of the difficulty. “I’ll measure it,” he said.
“You can’t climb it,” said Ben, “and there’s no scrubby tree to fall on to it, to climb: how are you going to measure it?”
The ground around was level; Charlie made a mark on the tree where it was to be cut off, then measured a distance from it equal to the length of his mast, and drove down a stake; then cut two straight ash sprouts, one two feet, the other one foot long, found the middle of the longest, made a hole in it with the point of his jackknife, whittled the end of the short one to a wedge, and stuck it into it. He now got down on his hands and knees at the stake, held the short stick as nearly level with the mark on the butt of the tree as possible, then sighted over the ends of the two sticks; his eye struck the tree a short distance below the crook.
“It’s a snug rub, but I guess ’twill go; cut it down. I’ll risk it.”
Ricker and John soon brought the great tree tothe ground, when it was found to be seven inches longer than required. These two ash sprouts were Charlie’s theodolite, and answered his purpose as well as one that would cost two hundred dollars.
“Well done, my boy,” said Ben, who had watched the operation with great interest. “That’s a capital application of the principle that the two sides of a right-angled triangle are equal.”
“I could have hit it exactly if I had brought a plumb line, to have taken a true level of the base.”
The reason that Charlie made the perpendicular stick longer than the other was, that he might get his eye down to sight at the trunk of the tree; otherwise he must have dug a hole in the ground.
In a few days after the occurrences related in the previous chapter, Peterson came to Captain Rhines, declaring that he could by no means consent to be passed by in the sail-making; that no one in the place felt more interest in his young captain than himself; for had he not taught him seamanship? and that his old woman could weave with the best of them.
“Indeed, James,” said the captain, “Luce shall have all the cloth to weave that she wants; you shall help make the sails and rig, and we reckon upon you to calk her.”
Charlie continued to work with his small crew till the first of May, when, the days being long and the weather warm, he recalled his hands, and the work went on apace. Not having conveniences, as at present, to bring the plank to the timbers, when they came to bend the ceiling-plank at the bow and stern, they spiked two pieces of plankacross the butts of a couple of elms that grew side by side; then taking the plank hot from the steam-box, they put the end of it under one plank and over the others. Four or five men then took hold of it, while Charlie struck on it with the edge of his broadaxe, whang! when the men would bear down, and bend the plank, then he would strike in another place. This was to make it bend by cutting it part way off, just as joiners sometimes saw scarfs in a board when they want it to bend, as in building a front-yard fence at the corner of a street, only the joiner saws on the inside, and, when he bends his board, the scarf closes up; whereas, they cut on the outside, and when the plank was brought to, the cuts gaped, and the plank was no stronger for the wood between.
They did not make any tar. Fred contrived a method to obtain it much cheaper than they could have made it, and leave a handsome profit for himself—a twofold advantage, as he was obliged to take the money expended on the vessel from his business, which was a great detriment. He needed every cent to buy goods, as his business was increasing, and he would not buy on credit, although Mr. Welch was ready to trust him.
But as the lack of means tended directly todevelop the mechanical ability of John and Charlie, by compelling contrivance and effort, thus did it sharpen the wits of Fred. He bought potash for half money, half goods; fish for all store pay, or one fourth money, thus making a profit on his goods; sent the potash and fish to Boston, sold them for cash, and bought tow, cotton cloth, and shoes, for negro clothing. He filled the Perseverance up with these articles, and a cheaper quality of fish; paid Ben out of his store for the boat; went captain himself, with Peterson for pilot and sailing-master, Sydney Chase and young Peterson as crew; bartered his cargo in Carolina for tar, pitch, turpentine, and corn, and came back to Boston; sold part of the corn, and all the tar, pitch, and turpentine he did not want for the vessel, for cash, bought a stock of goods to bring home with him, and ground the corn in his own mill.
“That,” said Captain Rhines, delighted, “is what I call a calculation.”
The vessel was completed in August, and launched the 29th of September, the very day Charlie was twenty-one. In addition to building the vessel, they had, in the mean time, cleared all the growth from the land on which they cut their timber, burnt over and fenced it for Ben; alsohelped him cut his hay and hoe his corn. Built of pine, and now well seasoned, she was as light on the water as a cork.
The whole town came to the launching, for all were interested in her, even Parson Goodhue, with his new hat and wig; but he kept a respectful distance from the gander. There was much diversity of opinion among the owners in respect to a name. Some wanted to call her Charlie Bell; but Charlie declared she looked too bad to be named for anybody. Some wanted to call her the Pioneer, others, Enterprise.
“I’ll tell you what to call her,” said Joe Griffin. “You’ve had such a hard scratch to build her, and ain’t done scratching yet, call her Hard-Scrabble.”
This was unanimously assented to. It had, indeed, been a hard scrabble, and the conflict was by no means ended. The boys feared the worst was to come. She was to be fitted for sea.
Charlie was certainly right in saying that she looked too bad to be named for anybody, though it was allowed on all hands that she was an excellent model, true in all her proportions, and not a bunch or a slack place could be found anywhere. Yet she was rough as rough could be. Even then it was customary to plane the wales and bulwarks,and paint them black, with a turpentine streak, and the spars were generally painted black. But the wales of the Hard-Scrabble were just as the adze left them, although with the narrow adze, used in those days, the timber was left much smoother than after the wider ones now in use. The men were also skilful dubbers. The deck beams, which are now planed and smoothed with sand-paper, they left rough; but then they dubbed them, without breaking their chip, the whole length of the beam, leaving a succession of little ridges, which were thought very fine; and there are not many workmen at the present day can do that: as for bulwarks, she had none.
Aft she had a high quarter-deck, about twenty feet long, under which were the accommodations, where a fireplace was built, the cooking done, and all hands lived, the men being separated from the officers by a bulkhead. When she was loaded, this would be the only dry place in her, as the lower deck would be at the water’s edge, perhaps under water.
A pole, called a rough tree, was run along from forward to aft, and fastened to stanchions to prevent falling overboard. The top timbers, however, came up all along, and there was a short rail at thebows, and all along the quarter-deck; also some heavy pieces of white oak, made to run across the vessel in several places, with a mortise in the ends, which slipped over the heads of the top timbers above the deck load, giving great support to the upper works, as the waist was deep. The deck was as rough as it came from the saw; not a board about the cabin, inside or out, was planed, except where it was necessary to make a joint.
As Charlie had predicted, there was not a brushful of paint on her, except that the name was put on the bare white plank with lampblack and oil, instead of chalk, as he thought would be the case. Her wales looked the funniest. They could not afford pitch to go all over her, so they only put it on the seams; and, as the plank were not painted, she looked queer enough with a white stripe and a black one. They wanted to economize pitch for the bottom, which must have a solid coat of pitch and brimstone, to prevent the worms from eating her up in the West Indies. Into this pitch they put some of the yellow ochre, which the boys got on their excursion to Indian camp-ground. The knees were but half bolted; there was not a butt-bolt in her; the butts were merely spiked; spruce limbs took the place of bolts.
Captain Rhines said she would do well enough to go one voyage or two, till she earned something, and they could put in fastenings when they were better able.
She had neither figure nor billet-head, only a gammon knee. In short, with her handsome proportions and fine model, she appeared like a well-built man in most vile apparel.
The cloth for the sails now began to come in, and the bolts were piled up in the corn-house. In consequence of all this hard work, contrivance, and pinching economy in every direction, she stood them at the wharf, with her mast in and spars made, twelve dollars per ton.
The canvas and remaining expense, which they were now able to estimate, they found would be about one thousand five hundred dollars. Their money was nearly all expended; but they had paid their bills as they went along, and the vessel was in the water. They could now do but little more in the way of saving, as they could not turn in their own labor, but must have cash. They therefore put their heads together to devise means for raising it.
Captain Rhines and Ben both offered them the money to fit her for sea; but, to their astonishment,they refused it. The captain endeavored in vain to prevail on them to permit him to lend them the money.
“Just think of it, John! Here is this vessel lying idle at the wharf, and you are losing the interest of what she cost you, and it will be another year before you can earn the money, and rig her. Before that time, you might send her to the West Indies, and make her pay for herself. Ben and I will charter and load her the moment she’s ready for sea; we’ll let Seth Warren take her, and go out to the West Indies this winter.”
“But, father, the cloth for the sails ain’t made.”
“There’s enough done for the mainsail: you wouldn’t want to go out there till the middle of January, so as to come on the coast in good weather; the cloth will be ready by that time. Ben, Peterson, and I can go right to work on the mainsail.”
“But we built her for Isaac; he owns a quarter of her, and I shouldn’t like to have him come home and find we had taken another into our concern, and sent him off with his vessel; then, if the man should have bad luck, he certainly wouldn’t like it.”
“Then I’ll go myself. I don’t think Isaac would object to my having been in her, especially if he found she had paid for herself.”
Mrs. Rhines made a sign to John to remain firm; for of all things she dreaded, it was her husband’s going to sea.
“Father,” said John, at length, “you are real kind and good; but we solemnly agreed, when we were all together, to build this vessel ourselves, and not to run in debt. I can’t break that pledge, especially in the absence of one of the contracting parties. I don’t think it would be right.”
“No more it wouldn’t. I didn’t know that, but thought it was only a boyish notion of yours.”
“If we arelosinginterest, we are notpayinginterest: we don’t owe for her.”
It required more money to rig her, in proportion to the cost of the hull, than it would in ordinary cases, they had economized so much on the hull, she being only half fastened, and no expense having been laid out for finish or paint.
Fred calculated to raise his money by some smart stroke in business: he had no other way. John and Charlie had many plans under consideration. Charlie could build boats, John could go to work at Portland, or, as they wanted to be together, Charlie could go to Stroudwater.
But it was now October. Isaac would be at home in a year: they could not in that time earnmoney enough to fit her for sea, and they wanted to be able to load her with lumber from Charlie’s land, as Ben did the Ark.
After looking at the matter in every possible light, and puzzling their heads to make something out of nothing, this committee of ways and means determined to go and consult with Uncle Isaac.
After stating the case fully to him, Charlie said,—
“Suppose John goes to Portland, and I to Stroudwater, to work, and while I’m gone this winter, get Joe Griffin to cut the wood off of Indian Island, and put it on the bank, send it to Boston or Salem, that, with what we could both earn, would, I think, with what we shall save by having the canvas and sails made at home, fetch us out. If I should ever go on my place to live, I should want a sheep pasture; and that would make a nice one if it was cleared. I could keep sheep there: in the winter they could live on kelp, rock-weed, and thatch round the shores, with a very little hay, as father’s do on Griffin’s Island.”
“I shouldn’t want to do that: you’d have to give Joe fifty cents for cutting and putting it on the bank. It would bring nine shillings in Boston: that wouldn’t leave you more than two hundred and fifty dollars, at the outside.”
“Yes; but it’s going to take me almost a year to earn that in a shipyard, and I can be earning all the time while they are cutting the wood.”
“If you cut the wood off that island, which lies right off the mouth of your harbor, and shelters it from the winds, it will leave it much exposed. It isn’t large enough to make much of a sheep pasture: you can’t keep sheep there in winter; for, besides there not being dulse, Irish moss, and kelp, as there is on Griffin’s, and the outer islands, the bay freezes in the winter, and the wolves would go over on the ice and kill them. I wouldn’t cut it off, and expose my harbor, for anything.”
“Potash brings cash: couldn’t I cut the white oaks and rock maples at the shore, and make potash?”
“What a way that would be!—to cut down good ship timber and sugar trees, that would make keels for ships, burn them up for potash, and that is the end of it. If we get to building vessels here, you will want it all for ship timber, because it is right on the spot. Let the folks back in the country, where ship timber isn’t worth anything, burn it up for potash: that would be saving at the tap and losing at the bunghole.”
“But I shall never build another vessel if I don’t get this one done, and I want the money.”
“I see what you want,—to raise the money quicker than you can earn it in the yard or shop, and be together, too. You’d be willing to do almost anything to bring that about.”
“That’s it, exactly, Uncle Isaac,” said John.
“Well, then, listen to me. You’ve got money enough to buy the bolt-rope for your sails—haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, start right off for Portland and Stroudwater as fast as you can go. Don’t lose a minute. Send down the bolt-rope and twine for Captain Rhines and Ben to make the sails with at their leisure. Be back here by Christmas; and you, Joe Griffin, and myself will go back to the Canada line, spend the winter, and hunt bears, beavers, otters, and moose. If we don’t get furs enough to bring you out clear, and something more, then my name ain’t Isaac Murch.”
The boys listened, with staring eyes and open mouths, till he concluded, then making a rush, both caught him round the neck.
“Just what we’ve always been longing to do!” said Charlie. “Just what we’ve been talking, dreaming about, and telling we meant to do some time.”
The boy-nature, which had been in abeyance a long time, and kept down by hard work and anxiety, was all up now, fresh and blithe as May.
“How glad I am we got stuck!” said Charlie. “Now we’ll make money, and have a good time, both together. O, I wish Fred could go!”
“But will Joe go?” asked John.
“Will he eat when he’s hungry? He’s almost as well acquainted as I am. He’s been logging and hunting up that way. He saw a hunter last week, that came out of the woods because his folks were sick. He’s a great friend of Joe’s, and told him of places where the beavers are getting ready to build their houses, and where the moose are going to make a yard, and said, as he couldn’t go into the woods this winter, he would lend him his steel traps. I’ve got a few traps, and know where I can hire a few more, and we must make up the number we lack with dead-falls. I’ll make snow-shoes for you and John, and arrange everything. We can’t start without snow, and therefore if there’s no snow when you come home, we must wait till there is.”
“But,” asked John, “can’t we hunt round here?”
“Yes, indeed. Kill bears and wolves, and get the bounty—anywhere within fifty miles.”
“Perhaps,” said John, “we shan’t have to come to the wooden shrouds, after all.”
“I hope we shan’t. I didn’t think we should,” said Charlie.
Thus encouraged, the boys started off for Portland in exuberant spirits, having first made an arrangement with Fred that he should employ Ricker and the Eatons to cut logs enough on Charlie’s land to make one hundred and seventy-five thousand of boards, begin to haul them to the mill on the first snow, in order to have them seasoning, to load the Hard-Scrabble.
“We thought Fred wouldn’t have so good a chance as ourselves,” said Charlie, “because, not being a carpenter nor blacksmith, he couldn’t turn in his work, but he’s turned in his goods. He sent those poor hake, that nobody here could eat, out South to feed the negroes, and got pitch, turpentine, and corn. He’ll pay for most of the flax, and for the weaving, in goods. He’s taken a good many orders since we’ve been building. He’ll pay the Eatons for cutting and hauling the timber, and the mill men for sawing, from the store. He won’t get much out of Ricker onlyhis tobacco; so I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t have to pay much money, after all.”
“I guess,” said John, “it will be you, and I, and Isaac that will have to pay the money. His goods will come to more than our labor.”