The Young Ship-Builders of Elm Island
CHAPTER XII.
CHARLIE UNCONSCIOUSLY PREFIGURES THE FUTURE.
THE hay harvest was now secured. From the additional land cleared onthe island, and from the large field of natural grass on Griffin’sIsland, Ben had obtained a noble crop, and also one of rye.
He had a large piece of corn planted on a burn, also potatoes, flax,and wheat. The garden was in fine order, and everything wore theappearance of plenty and comfort. The land, at the burning of whichFred Williams had so nearly met his death, he had not planted again, ashe intended it for an orchard, and did not want to wear it out.
On this piece Charlie and his father now set to work. They cut all thesprouts that had come up from the stumps, cut down a good many oldstubs that had been left in clearing, picked up all the brands andpieces of logs, then mowed down all the fire and pigeon weed, that hadcome up in quantities, and when it was dry, set it all on fire.
Ben intended, in the fall, to set out his apple trees right amongthe stumps and ashes, and never to plough the ground, but to keep thegrowth of sprouts and weeds down with the axe and scythe.
When Charlie again resumed work upon his boat, a new train of thoughttook possession of his mind, which, although it troubled him not alittle, led eventually to very important results. It was this--thatnotwithstanding he had succeeded thus far, received the praises of Benand Sally, and felt sure he should complete his boat, yet thus far hehad been, and would still be, a copyist; that he had taken the modelof the West Wind from a mackerel, the model of this boat from the WestWind, and that all he had originated were the trifling alterations hehad made in the first model. Resolved to be something better than animitator, he set to work, and modelled a boat from a solid block, threefeet long, and entirely different from the West Wind.
“There,” said Charlie, “that is mine, at any rate; and now, if I takethe shape of that with pieces of boards and imitate it, it will be myown contrivance.”
It now struck him that this was a roundabout way to build a boat, andthat no person could ever get his living building boats in the way hewas doing--making a model, and then taking the shape of that withpieces of boards. There must be some general principles, as there werein framing buildings.
“There’s some rule, I know,” said he, “and I’ll not strike another cliptill I have done my best to find out what it is. I don’t like to workaltogether by guess, and in the dark.”
He measured his boat. She was eighteen feet long, four feet beam(wide), and eighteen inches deep. He then measured from the keel upto where the top streak entered the stem, when he found it was a halfmore than the depth amidships. He then measured from the keel to wherethe top streak met the transom. It was a quarter more than the depthamidships. Thus the rise from the dead level at the middle was nineinches at the stem and four and a half at the stern. To be sure thismade the boat curve very much; but it was the fashion in that day, bothin respect to vessels and boats, to give them a great sheer. It was notwithout its advantages. They were safer, for when laden there was moreof them out of water.
Charlie had given his boat a rank sheer even for that day; but, asusual, he had a very good reason for it. He wanted room inside, and, ashe could have only the width the log would allow, he had compensatedfor it by giving her all the length he thought prudent. He nextendeavored to gain all the room he could in height at the ends, andthis rise of nine inches forward and four and a half aft would, when hecame to finish, afford him a splendid chance for lockers, in which toput all those matters that boys want to carry. He measured her width atthe forward floor timber on top. It was three feet. At the after floorit was three feet eight inches.
“At any rate,” said he, “I have got some guide for the top. Now for thebottom.”
He chalked it out on the barn floor to see what it looked like, and setdown the dimensions in his book, then measured across the head of themiddle floor timber.
“Whew!” cried he; “it’s just half the length of the beam. Wonder ifthey’re all in that proportion.” By measurement he found they were.
“Now there’s a rule for you. The length of the floor timbers is halfthe breadth of the beam. Just half as fast as she narrows above shenarrows below. I’ve got a water-line.”
Down goes that in his book. But, upon reflection, he perceived this wasnot all he wanted.
“I thought I’d got what I wanted, but I haven’t. This will give me awater-line along the heads of the floor timbers, but not the shapeof the bottom below; that’s what I want. There are no rules andregulations, after all; you’ve got to make a frame, set it up, work aribband along, and squint at it, cut and cut, fuss and fuss, till youget it to suit your eye; or else make a model and go through all theslavery with pieces of boards that I have in building this boat thusfar. O, it’s an endless job to build a boat.”
Vexed and disappointed, he flung his rule into the boat; when theslight irritation had passed by, he took up his rule again.
He flung it with such violence between the two garboard planks that ithad taken their shape and that of the sharp riser beside which it fell,and being new, and the joint stiff, retained it.
“How much that looks like the letter V! That’s quite a different shapefrom the midship timber.” He put the rule beside this timber, andspread it apart till the shape corresponded. “How shoal it is!” holdingit up.
The sight put an idea into the head of the keen-witted boy in aninstant. He perceived that the shape of the bottom below the heads ofthe floor timbers corresponded exactly to the depth from the heads ofthe floor timbers to the keel; he laid a long rule across the headsof the middle floor timber, and measured the distance from the centreof that rule to the keel; it was three inches: he measured the forwardone; it was six; the after one; it was six and a half: she was sharperaft than forward. He found that there was a regular gradation in thedepth from the middle timber, both forward and aft. He took a board thelength of the floor timber, found the centre of it, which correspondedto centre of the keel; from this point he drew a line three inches inheight, then drew two others of the same height at an inch distance oneither side, to represent the width of the keel: he then drew two linesfrom the edges of the keel to the ends of the board (fig. 1),
_Fig. 1_]
when he found that he had the exact shape of the middle floor timber,and of course of the bottom at that place: he then took the shape ofthe forward one (fig. 2).
_Fig. 2_]
He had mastered the carpenter’s principle of the dead rise, although hedidn’t know what to call it.
“Hurrah!” shouted the exultant boy, flinging the mould up over hishead with such force that it knocked two hens, who were just settlingthemselves for the night, from the roost, and excited a generaluproar. “I’ve got something to start from now; it’s the rise from thekeel that shapes the bottom. When anybody is going to build a boat,they always know the length, width, and depth, and from that they canget all the rest. If I am going to build a boat eighteen feet long,four feet wide, and eighteen inches deep, she would be at the forwardframe three feet on top; aft, three feet eight inches; middle, fourfeet. A line drawn through these points to the stem and stern gives meher shape on top; a depth and a half forward and a depth and a quarteraft gives me her sheer; half of her width on top gives me her shape atthe heads of the floor timbers. Then all I’ve got to do to shape herbottom is, to lay off my rise, making it greater or less according asI want her full or sharp, dividing it up on the timbers, till I havetwice as much in the forward floor timber as amidships, and a littlemore than that aft. I have got the top and bottom; I can get the shapeof the side between those points by my eye; if I can’t I must be afool.” The forward and after floor timbers determine the shape of theboat forward and aft; the timbers after that are V shaped; they do notcross the keel; and all that is necessary is to have a true taper tothe stem and stern. “I feel kind of satisfied now; there seems to besome foundation, something to go upon; it ain’t all mixed up: now Ihave got all these moulds, it wouldn’t be half t
he work to timber outanother boat of the same dimensions. Boat-building is real nice workafter you know how; but to build a vessel--that would be the best. NowI’ll go in swimming, then look at my birds and go and see how my graftscome on.”
The next night, as he was busily at work after supper, getting out hisgunwale, a well-known voice exclaimed,--
“Halloo! What’s all this?--steam-box, boat-building. I guess Elm Islandwill be a city soon.”
“O, Joe! I’m so glad to see you.”
“You be? I thought you didn’t like to have critics round, when you wereat work.”
“O, yes, I do, _you_.”
“Who timbered out that boat?”
“I did.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, all alone; no soul helped me, or told me anything.”
“Where did you get your moulds?”
“Took them from the West Wind;” and he showed Joe the moulds.
“Well, I never should have thought of that way. I should like to knowhow you got those streaks on, especially the garboards.”
Charlie showed him the patterns, and told him all about it, and howterribly he was puzzled.
“How long did it take you to get on them garboards?”
“Two days.”
“I should have thought it would have taken you a week. It is donehandsome, my boy,”--patting him on the back; “nobody can better that.But, life of me, why didn’t you make a rule staff, and take spilings,instead of going to work in such a roundabout way as that? You couldn’thave done it any better; but you could have done it in a quarter partthe time, and no fuss about it.”
“Then, there’s a rule?”
“To be sure there is.”
“What is a rule staff? What do you mean by taking spilings?”
“I’ll show you by and by.”
Charlie then told his friend the discovery he had made in relation tothe floor timbers.
“That is what carpenters call the dead rise, and those middletimbers, that rise but little, are called dead flats. Now, my littleboat-builder, I’ll show you how to take spilings. I suppose youwouldn’t be willing to take that garboard off again, because taking thespilings of a garboard is a little different from the rest.”
“Yes, I would; it isn’t nailed fast.”
“It is a little too narrow, though it is _put on_ as well as I could doit.”
Joe took one of Charlie’s thin boards, planed and made one end of it aswide as the end of the streak he was to put on, and cut it somethingnear the shape of the stem, and of the length he wanted his plankto be; this, he told Charlie, was a rule staff. He then put the endvery near to the rabbet at the stem, and brought it along over thebow, close to the keel, just as it naturally came, without twistingsidewise, to the timbers, where he intended to make his butt, andfastened it; then took the rule, and measured, at frequent distances,from the outside edge of the rabbet at the stem, to the lower edge ofthe rule staff, till he had gotten round the sweep; then he measuredonly at the timbers, he made a scratch fit every measurement, andchalked down the measure on the rule staff.
He now took the rule staff and laid it on the board of which the streakwas to be made, and with the compass set off all these distances, thentook a ribband that would bend edgewise, put it on the compass pricks,and scratched the whole length of the plank.
“You see,” he said, “that this rule staff, being bent on, has followedexactly the twist of the timbers; so of course this line of pricks,taken from it, will do the same, and give the shape of the edge of thestreak; that is all the rule staff does; now you must measure the widthof your plank from them. I have made these measures at the end verynear together, because I am working for a very particular body, and Iwant my work to compare.”
He now steamed the plank and put it on, when it fayed to a hair.
“Now, Charlie, before I fasten this plank, I want you to squint alongthe edge of it.”
“I see a bunch on the luff of the bow.”
“Now look at the counter.”
“It is the same.”
“We must take out a little there; I should have done it when I linedthe plank, but I wanted you to see it; the twist throws the plank up:if you could take spilings of both edges, it would take it out.”
“How nice that is? Why couldn’t I have thought of it? I might by thistime have had the boat all done and in the water. Are ships’ planks puton in this way?”
“Yes, somewhat; but they do not have to be so particular, except at thefore and after woods: they line them as crooked as they can, and thenjam them down edgewise with wedges; and you can’t do that with boatplank, but must cut to a sixteenth of an inch, if you want your work tolook well.”
“You are very good, Joe; now all my difficulties are over; but I’m gladyou didn’t come before.”
“Why so?”
“Because, if you had shown me about the dead rise, I shouldn’t havefound it out myself. Joe, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, if I getthis boat off.”
“And she don’t split in two, you mean.”
“If she works well, I’m going to make one out of my own head, withoutany model to work from.”
“I tell you what it is, Charlie: there will be some staring when youappear out in this craft.”
“I guess there will; they all think what happened to the West Windsickened and discouraged me; but I reckon they’ll find out to thecontrary. I do hope that neither Uncle Isaac, nor Fred, your Hen,Captain Rhines, nor any of them, will find it out till I come out.Don’t tell; will you, Joe?”
“You will soon finish her now; you can take a spruce pole, split it intwo with a saw, and it will make a grand gunwale: that’s what they usein Nova Scotia.”
“A spruce pole! I guess I shall. I’ll have a nice piece of oak, planedand rubbed with dog-fish skin. Do you know what I want to do, Joe?”
“It would be hard guessing; you have so many projects in your head.”
“I want two things, and then I shall be satisfied.”
“Then you are more easily satisfied than most folks.”
“I want to build a vessel. Think I ever can?”
“Yes; you can learn to build a vessel as well as a boat; it’s prettymuch the same thing on a larger scale. But what is the other thing?”
“I want to own a piece of land: it’s what none of my folks ever did,to own a piece of land; a man must be rich to own a piece of land inEngland.”
“Well, you can certainly do that, for you have got money of your own,and can buy wild land for ten or fifteen cents an acre, and clear ityourself.”
“That’s what I mean to do, when I get my money back from Fred, and findsome place that just fills my eye, right by the water. I wouldn’t takethe gift of a piece of land that the salt water didn’t wash. Then Imust have a brook; I couldn’t live without a brook.”
“Nor I either: by the way, we are going to run to the westward and fishoff the cape; I think very likely I shall run into Portland, and seeJohn.”
“Then I’ll write him a letter; he don’t know anything about this boat,for I hadn’t thought much about building her when I saw him last.”
Charlie finished his boat, putting four knees to each of the middlethwarts, and two to both the forward and after one. He was resolvedthis boat should not split in two. At the bow and stern he decked herover, and made a splendid locker forward and aft, with doors, and inwhich he could put powder, fishing-lines, and whatever he wished totake with him. Under the middle thwart he made a locker, just the shapeof a gun, with a door hung on wire hinges, so as to keep his gun dry.He was already provided with spars, sails, rudder, and oars, as thisboat was just the size of the West Wind. His paints were all gone,except a little vermilion that the English captain had given him, andthere was none at the store. Indeed, there was seldom anything in theform of paint at the store, except lampblack, and red or yellow ochre,and they were used only on the inside of houses, or on vessels, andgenerally with fish oil. It was a rare thing that white lea
d or linseedoil was found there, it being so little called for. Captain Rhines’shouse was the only one in the place that was painted outside. He andsome others had one room painted lead-color; the general custom beingto keep the walls and floors white, and scour them. But Charlie wasdetermined to have paint for this boat, and sent to Portland by Joe forboth paint and oil.
The iron-work of the other boat was suitable for this, and she wasnow calked and all done except painting. Charlie had oiled the planksto keep them from renting, as he had no paint to prime her. How helonged for that paint to come! Indeed, he thought so much about it,that none of his usual sources of enjoyment seemed to afford him anygratification, or to occupy his thoughts. The flowers were passed byunheeded, the song of birds won no regard, and even the baby receivedslight attention. He enjoyed himself most when occupied about thatwhich was in some way connected with the boat. He passed a good manymoments in thinking how he should paint her. As she was altogether tooprecious to lie aground even in the quiet harbor of Elm Island, heprepared a mooring for her. He borrowed Uncle Sam’s drill, and made around hole in a large flat rock, then dug up a small tree by the roots,cut it off about fifteen feet from the roots, removed the bark, shavedthe trunk smooth, ran it through the hole in the rock, till the rootsprevented it from going farther, and then put it off in the harbor.Over this pole, standing upright in the water, he slipped an oak plank,which floated on the water, and travelled around the pole as the windveered, and slipped up and down on it as the tide rose and fell. Tothis traveller he fastened a rope, with an eye-splice in it to slipover the boat’s stem, and then he could go to her in the Twilight.
When all these preparations were made, he began to think of a name. Hedidn’t like to give her the name of the old boat, because he thoughtshe had been unlucky, and it would revive unpleasant memories.
“There’s only one thing about her I should like otherwise,” said he. “Iwish she was pink-sterned and lap-streaked. These square sterns lookchopped off to me. I think the eye requires that both ends should bealike. I wonder how a fish would look with a square stern? or a treewith a square top? Well, I’ll build another, when I shan’t be tied tothe dimensions of a log, and can have her wider and deeper, with plentyof room to knock about in. This boat will be like old Captain Scott’sboat, in Halifax, that was so small and full of trumpery, he said therewasn’t room enough in her to swear. Well, I don’t want to swear. Ithink it’s real mean. So there’ll be room enough for me.”
All at once he thought of something to divert attention and occupy hisleisure time, which was, to study surveying. The science of angles wascongenial to his mechanical tastes, and he was soon so absorbed inthe pursuit as well nigh to forget the paint, for which he had beenlonging. The evenings were growing longer, and he had a competentinstructor in Ben. Ben also had another scholar, Seth Warren, who hadcome over to the island to study navigation.
“Mother,” said Charlie, one night, as they were milking, “do yousuppose there will ever be a vessel built in this bay?”
“I don’t know. Not in my day, I guess.”
“Why not, mother? Didn’t father build the Ark on this island? andcouldn’t he, and Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac build a vessel if theyhad a mind to?”
“Why, Charlie, the people here have hardly got their land cleared up,and got to living themselves. There are no carpenters but Joe Griffinand Robert Yelf, no blacksmith but Peter Brock, and he’s worn out.Besides, there’s nothing for a vessel to do, except to carry wood toSalem or Boston, or to fish. Your father and Captain Rhines had ratherput their money into a vessel with Mr. Welch.”
“Mother, carpenters and blacksmiths go wherever there is work. I’m surethere’s lumber and spars enough here, and vessels come here to load. Idon’t see why a vessel couldn’t be built here, where there’s timber tobuild her, and lumber to load her, and take it to the West Indies, andget molasses and sugar to sell in Boston or Portland, just as CaptainRhines did the cargo of the Congress. I heard him say he had half amind to keep her, load, and run her.”
“I never saw such a boy as you are, Charlie! You’re always planningout something. What in the world put this in your head, just now?”
“Because I was thinking what a sight of ducks, chickens, geese, andturkeys there are around this barn. Why, you can’t step, hardly,without treading on a hen or a duck! I can’t hardly pitch a fork fullof hay off the mow without disturbing a hen’s nest! And only see thebeets, onions, and potatoes there are! I was thinking, if there wasonly some vessel here going to the West Indies, what a slap you and Icould make by sending a venture, as we did in the Ark! Why, only thinkhow much butter you could send! Then, I thought, here is Seth Warren,learning navigation. He ought to have a vessel built for him here,instead of going to Wiscasset; and Joe Griffin and Robert Yelf ought tohelp build her, instead of going out of town to work, as they often do.”
“Well, Charlie, you were born twenty-five or thirty years too soon!Such things may do to talk about, but they can’t be done in the woods,in a new country.”
“Captain Rhines was born and brought up in the woods; but he’s been allover the world, for all that.”
“Well, Charlie, you’d better leave alone building castles in the air,and take that calf away. He’s biting the cow’s teats all to pieces.”
“I tell you, mother, there will be a vessel built in this bay beforefive years. You mark my words for it.”
“Perhaps there may--a wood-coaster.”
“No; a vessel to go to the West Indies.”
“Well, when I see it, I’ll believe it, and I’ll send a venture in her.”