The Young Ship-Builders of Elm Island

  CHAPTER XV.

  THE SURPRISER SURPRISED.

  THE next morning, as they were chatting after breakfast, the dooropened, and in walked Captain Rhines.

  “Why, father,” cried Ben, overjoyed, “you took an early start.”

  “I had pressing business.”

  “It is an age since you have been here. I’m real glad to see you,” saidSally; “I thought you had forgotten us. I’ll have some breakfast on thetable in a few moments.”

  “Charlie, I want to buy that boat. I hailed you after you pulled awayyesterday; but you didn’t hear me. We had a hard pull yesterday,against the wind and tide; I told Isaac and Sam, we had pulled canoesabout long enough, and it was time we had some easier way of gettingback and forth.”

  “You’re too late, Captain Rhines,” said Henry. “I’ve bought her.”

  “You have? Then, Charlie, you must build another for me, right off,just like her.”

  “I will do that, sir, for I have got stuff enough to make the keel,stern, and transom, all sawed out, and crooks for timbers. I’ll beginto-morrow; that is, if father can spare me.”

  “I’ll paint her, and make the spars and sails. Uncle Isaac wants you tobuild him one: he would build one himself, but he can’t get the time.He expects to go over to Wiscasset, to work on spars, and is driving onto get his work at home done.”

  “Does he want her the same dimensions as this one?”

  “Yes; but he is in no hurry for her; you’ll have boats enough to build,Charlie; so you had better lay out for it.”

  “I shouldn’t dare to build a boat for Uncle Isaac.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, he’s such a neat workman himself, I’m afraid I shouldn’t suithim.”

  “I’ll risk you; you’ll suit him to a hair, and ’twill be a feather inyour cap to work for him.”

  Such a thing as a wood-shed did not exist at Elm Island; indeed,there was not the necessity then for many things that are now reallynecessary. There were always plenty of dry limbs and trunks of treesin the woods to start the fire with, and the tremendous heat generatedin one of those old fireplaces (with a log four feet long and threefeet thick, a back-stick on that half the size, and a fore-stickeight feet long), would burn green red oak, and even black ash, whenonce fairly under way. When dry wood was wanted, Ben or Charlie wouldgo into the woods and soon find a tall pine which had been dead foryears, the bark all fallen off, and nearly all the limbs, and streakedwith pitch, which had exuded and hardened in the sun on the outside.Laid low by the axe, the top would be broken into many pieces, thusrendering the cutting up a light labor. To be sure, when hauled to thedoor, it lay in summer exposed to all the rains, and in winter halfburied in snow. But what did that matter. When night came, Charliefilled the great oven--which, being in the back, was always nearlyhot enough to bake--with this pine, and great clefts of green beech,which in the course of the night would get warm, and a little dry onthe outside. In the morning there would be a bushel of live coals onthe hearth, the remains of the old log. Raking them forward, on go thegreen log and back-stick, the green fore-stick, dry pine, half pitch,on top of the glowing coals, top of that the clefts of beech, andperhaps a dry bush crowns the summit.

  A few waves of a hemlock broom--whew! up goes a column of spiral flameroaring up the chimney.

  Away goes Charlie to feed the cattle. Thus you see a wood-shed wasvery far from being felt a necessity on Elm Island, where many otherthings, more needed, had hitherto been lacking. But _now_, among otheradded comforts, Ben thought it would be well to have one: it wouldsave digging the wood out of the snow, and thus bringing water andsnow into the house, and also be convenient for many purposes. Anotherconsideration was, they would soon need a workshop, as the space inthe barn now devoted to that purpose would be needed for hay; neitherdid he like to have shavings around the barn, and there was leisurebefore the fall harvest to build it. He did not wish to interferewith Charlie’s boat-building, as he saw he was very much pleased withthe idea of building a boat for Captain Rhines. It was an excellentopportunity for this good boy, who was always ready to assist everybodyelse, to do something for himself.

  Charlie, as our readers well know, was never better pleased than whenhe could plan some pleasant surprise for his adopted parents. Ben,therefore, determined to surprise Charlie; he resolved to build theshed a story and a half in height, to admit of having a corn-housein a portion of the upper story. Corn-houses were set up on logs, orstone posts, three feet from the ground, and detached from all otherbuildings, on account of rats; but there was no objection to making itin the shed, there, as neither rats nor mice had found their way to ElmIsland.

  While Charlie was busily at work in the daytime upon his boat, and inevenings studying surveying, Ben had got his timber from the woods forthe frame, and hauled it to the door. He then hired a man by the nameof Danforth Eaton, who was a shingle weaver, and a good broadaxe man,to help him.

  Together they sawed up the shingle bolts, and then Ben set Eaton atwork shaving shingles, while he hewed the timber. To Ben, who, since hehad lived on the island, had become an excellent axe man, it was meresport to hew pine timber: with his heavy axe and enormous strength,striking right down through, every clip he sliced off the chips almostas fast as he could walk, and soon began to frame it.

  It was pretty lively times on Elm Island now: in the barn Charlie wasbuilding a boat; under a rude shelter, made by setting four poles inthe ground, and placing some boards on them, Eaton, who was a splendidshingle weaver, was shaving shingles;--I can’t tell you why shinglemakers are called weavers, unless it is on account of the motion oftheir bodies back and forth when shaving;--and Ben mortising and boringthe timber.

  Charlie’s boat grew with great rapidity; for besides knowing just howto go to work, he had the command of his whole time, and moreover, theboat being just like the other, had all his moulds ready. On rainydays, Ben and Eaton sawed out his planks, helped him get out histimbers, and put on his plank.

  Charlie had been so completely absorbed in his boat, that he paid butvery little attention to what his father and Danforth were doing: tobe sure he glanced at their work as he passed back and forth from thebarn to the house; noticed that Danforth had done making shingles, andwas making clapboards, and that the timber was of great length; butsupposed his father had hewn his sticks of double length, intending tocut them up. But a few days after, looking at a sill that was finished,he perceived by the mortises that it was intended to be used thewhole length: he put on his rule and found it was fifty feet, and thecross-sill was twenty-five.

  “Why, father, are you going to have a shed as big as all this? Youwon’t need a quarter part of this space.”

  “You know I’m a big fellow: I want considerable room to turn round in;almost as much as a ship wants to go about.”

  “But you’ll not want half of this.”

  “You know I want a corn-house overhead, and if we finish the rooms inthe chamber of the house, your mother would like to have some roughplace for her spinning and weaving in the summer, and to keep her flaxand wool in; and then what a handy place it would be to keep ploughsand harrows, the Twilight, my canoe, and their sails, when we want tohaul them up in the fall! O, there’s always enough to put in such aplace; besides, you know I shall want a cider-house.”

  Charlie burst into a roar of laughter.

  “A cider-house! and the orchard ain’t planted yet.”

  “Well, the ground is cleared for it, and the chamber will be a niceplace for Sally to dry apples.”

  “Yes, when we get them.”

  “We shall get them; I like to look ahead.”

  The frame was raised and covered, and Ben parted off twenty-five feetfrom the end farthest from the house, and laid a plank floor in it; theother half had no floor. After laying the floor overhead, in that partnext to the house, he parted off the space for the corn-chamber, andmade stairs to go up to it.

  The Perseverance had come in, and was landing fish at Is
aac’s wharf.Ben told Charlie he was going to Wiscasset in her, to get some nails toput on the clapboards and shingles; but when he came back, he not onlybrought nails, but bricks, lime, glass, putty, and Uncle Sam Elwell,whom he set to building a chimney and fireplace in the farther end ofthe shed, where he had laid a plank floor.

  Charlie was now thoroughly mystified, and his curiosity greatlyexcited. When Uncle Sam had laid the foundation, he proceeded to make afireplace, and by the side of it built an arch, and set in it a kettle,which Ben had brought with him.

  “Father,” asked Charlie, “what is the fireplace and the kettle for?”

  “Well, it is very handy to have a fire; you often want to use such aplace late in the fall.”

  “I should have thought you would have made the wood-shed at this end,and put this place nearer the house; it would have been handier formother.”

  “Your mother will want to go into the wood-shed ten times where shewill want to come in here once.”

  “But what is the kettle for?”

  “I’m sure I shouldn’t think you would ask such a question as that:wouldn’t it be very handy in the spring, when the sap was running veryfast and driving us, to have a place where Sally could boil some on apinch; and wouldn’t it be nice for heating water to scald a hog?”

  “Yes, I suppose it would.”

  But Charlie was far from satisfied; he noticed that his father didn’tsay directly that the room was for such and such purposes, only askedif it wouldn’t be suitable and convenient: he was more puzzled thanever.

  “Mother, what is father laying a floor, building a fireplace, andsetting a kettle in the wood-shed for? and he’s going to put in glasswindows, for he’s got glass and putty.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know any more than you do: he don’t tell me.”

  “I expect he’s fixing it for Sally and Joe to go to housekeeping in.”

  “I’m sure he ain’t,” replied Sally. “I don’t expect to have half sogood a place as that. I expect to go into a log house or a brush camp.”

  Sally and Joe had been engaged a long time. Joe had been saving upmoney, and so had Sally. He had bought a piece of wild land, and theywere expecting to begin as Ben and his wife had. Sally was not hired.She was a cousin to Ben on his mother’s side, and was making it herhome there, while getting ready to be married. A right smart Yankeegirl was Sally Merrithew. She could wash, iron, bake, brew, card, spin,and weave. A noble helpmeet for a young man who had to make his way inthe world.

  Sally Merrithew had six sheep, which her father had given her in thespring. Ben put them on Griffin’s Island to pasture, and when hesheared his sheep, sheared them for her. She had spun and was weavingthe wool into blankets. She had also bought linen yarn, which she wasscouring, and meant to make sheets of. She calculated to help Mrs.Rhines enough to pay her board, and was not very particular whethershe did more or not. They bleached linen, washed, and sang together,with the bobolinks and robins at the brook, and had the best timesimaginable.

  Aunt Molly Bradish thought she was running a dreadful risk to marrysuch a “harum-scarum cretur” as Joe Griffin; but Aunt Molly wasmistaken there. Sally knew Joe a great deal better than she did, andknew that he was a smart, prudent, kind-hearted fellow as ever lived,without a single bad habit, except that of playing rough jokes. She wasto the full as fond of fun as he, but did not approve of manifestingit in that way, and exerted a constantly restraining influence uponhim, probably a great deal more than one would, who, of a lesssanguine temperament, was incapable of appreciating a joke, and had notemptations of their own to struggle against.

  There are people in this world who assume great merit for resistingtemptations they never experienced. Sally manifested that common sensethat is generally the accompaniment of true wit, when she replied toAunt Molly by saying, that if Joe was to undergo all the hardshipsof clearing a farm in the wilderness, and experience the trials anddisappointments that were the lot of most people, he would need all thespirits he possessed to keep him up.

  When Joe Griffin came over for the schooner, Fred came with him; hesaid, “to see Charlie’s boat.” Perhaps he did; but it was very evidentthat was not all, nor the principal reason, since he had somewhatto say to Charlie of so private a nature, that neither the barn norCharlie’s bedroom were retired enough for the purpose, but they mustneeds resort to the old maple, and climb to the platform in the topof it, and it was sufficiently interesting to keep them there tilldinner-time,--although Charlie had left a hot plank in the steambox,--after which Fred returned in the schooner.

  Charlie sent word to Captain Rhines by Fred that his boat would be donein three days, for he was putting on the last plank, and the thwartsand gunwale were in and kneed off.

  Captain Rhines came on at the time specified, and brought his paint,oars, and sails with him. Charlie assisted him in painting her, andwhen she was dry, went home in her, taking Uncle Sam and Eaton withhim, who had completed their work.

  “Now, Charlie,” said Ben, when they had all gone,” that end of the shedis yours for a workshop, chimney, fireplace, and boiler. You can finishit, make the doors, windows, and sashes, and arrange it to suit youown notions and convenience. A boy that will do what you have done isworthy of a good place to work in.”

  “O, father, I thank you a thousand times! There’s nothing in this worldyou could have done that would have made me so happy. A fireplace--onlythink! I can be so happy working here in the winter, and you can behere with me, and mother can come and see us, and Ben, and the baby,when it’s a little bigger.”

  “Yes, and you can set up a boat here, twenty-four feet long, and thatis as long as ever you will want to build.”

  “I can have a bench all around, it is so wide, and set up two boats atonce, if I like.”

  “Yes, Charlie, and room enough to split up boards with thesplitting-saw, and to have a keyblock, and hew anything, and such anice steam kettle!”

  “O, that’s the greatest.”

  “Look overhead, Charlie. See, I’ve laid the floor only about two thirdsthe way over.”

  “Yes, father--what is that for?”

  “We can put any log up there that is not very large,--cedar, forinstance,--and one of us up there, and the other down here, split itwith the whip-saw.”

  “Then, on the other side, that’s floored, we can pile up the boards andplank, and keep them dry.”

  “Just so; and at the end I have left space for a door to run stuff inat.”

  “I can keep all my moulds, knees, and everything I need up there andbelow. Father, don’t you think I shall take a sight of comfort makingthe benches, and putting up shelves, racks for my tools, my steam box,making the window-sashes and doors, and building Uncle Isaac’s boat inhere?”

  “I think you will, Charlie.”

  “I’ll tell you what I mean to do.”

  “What?”

  “Cut a lot of cedar for planks, oak and maple for keels and transoms,raft it over to the mill and get it sawed, dig a lot of knees, andfill this chamber full of stuff before winter. But,” he said, pausing,“perhaps I shan’t have any more boats to build after I finish UncleIsaac’s.”

  “No fear of that, Charlie. It will be but a very little while, afterfather and Henry go down fishing among the canoes, before you will havea call to build boats. I know our people around here well enough toknow that they won’t stand it a great while to see others sailing bythem, while they are tugging at their oars.”

  “Father, Uncle Isaac is at home now. Next trip he is going with Joe.He has often asked me to come and see him. If you are willing, I’ll gobefore I begin on the shop.”

  “Go, Charlie, and make him a good visit.”