The Young Ship-Builders of Elm Island

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE WEST WIND.

  IT was now the middle of March, and the lower part of the house wasfinished.

  “Ben,” said Uncle Isaac, “we want to go off now. Charlie can finishthese chambers as well as I can.”

  “I have not seasoned stuff to finish but one of them now, and hardlythat. It’s too rough to go off in your canoe; stay till Saturdayafternoon, and part off some bedrooms up stairs with a rough boardpartition, and make some rough doors, so that we can use them forsleeping-rooms, and then Charlie can finish them next winter, for hewill have to go to making sugar soon. If you’ll do that I’ll set youoff in the schooner.”

  Uncle Isaac parted off the chambers, and they now had plenty of room.They put the best bed in one of the front rooms; the family bedroom wasoff the kitchen, and there were bedrooms above.

  Charlie was now desirous to complete his boat, but his mother wantedthe flax done out. He therefore concluded to put it off till John cameon to help him make sugar.

  When Uncle Isaac reached home, John’s school had been out a week; butthe weather was so rough he could not reach the island; and when hedid arrive, Ben and Charlie were just finishing up the flax. The boysnow cleared out the camp, scoured the kettles, put fresh mortar on thearch, hauled wood, and prepared for sugar-making. They resolved to tapbut few trees at first, in order to have more leisure to work on theirboat. The greatest mechanical skill was required to shape the outside.This pertained entirely to Charlie; but the most laborious portionof the work was the digging out such an enormous stick, and removingsuch a quantity of wood at a disadvantage, as, after they had choppedout about a foot of the surface, it would be difficult to get at, andthe work must be done with adze and chisel, and even bored out withan auger at the ends. They decided to remove a portion of it beforeshaping the outside, as the log would lie steadier. Charlie accordinglymarked out the sheer, then put on plumb-spots, and hewed the sides andthe upper surface fair and smooth.

  He then lined out the shape and breadth of beam, and made an insideline to rough-cut by, and at leisure times they chopped out the insidewith the axe, one bringing sap or tending the kettle, while the otherworked on the boat.

  “John,” said Charlie, stopping to wipe the perspiration from his face,“I’m going to find some easier way than this to make a boat; it’s toomuch like work.”

  “There is no other way. I’ve seen hundreds of canoes made, and this isthe way they always do.”

  “Don’t you remember when we were clearing land, that we would set ournigger[1] to burning off logs, and when it came night, we would findthat he had _burned_ more logs in two than we had cut with the axe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uncle Isaac told me one night, that the Indians burned out canoes, andI am going to try it.”

  “I thought they always made them of bark.”

  “He said they sometimes, especially the Canada Indians, made them of alog, in places where they had a regular camping-ground, and didn’t wantto carry them.”

  “You’ll burn it all up, and we can never get another such a log.”

  “You see if I do.”

  Charlie got a pail of water, and made a little mop with rags on the endof a stick, then got some wet clay, and put all around the sides of thelog where he didn’t want the fire to come. He then built a fire of oakchips right in the middle, and the whole length. The fire burned veryfreely at first, for the old log was full of pitch, and soon began todry the clay, and burn at the edge; but Charlie put it out with hismop, and forced it to burn in the middle.

  When the chips had burned out, Charlie took the adze, and removed aboutthree inches of coal, and made a new fire.

  “Not much hard work about that,” said John, who looked on with greatcuriosity.

  They now went about their sugar, once in a while stepping to the log toremove the coal, renew the fire, or apply water to prevent its burningin the wrong direction.

  When he had taken as much wood from the inside as he thought it prudentto remove before shaping the outside, he began to prepare for thatall-important operation; but as he was afraid the clear March sun andthe north-west winds would cause her to crack, he built a brush roofover her before commencing.

  Now came the most difficult portion of the work, as it must be donealmost entirely by the eye, by looking at the model and then cutting;but as the faculties in any given direction strengthen by exercise,and we are unconsciously prepared by previous effort and applicationfor that which follows, thus Charlie experienced less difficulty herethan he had anticipated, and at length succeeded in making it resemblethe model, in Ben’s opinion, as nearly as one thing could another. Nowtheir efforts were directed to finish the inside; and, having used thefire as long as they thought prudent, they resorted to other tools, asthey wished so to dig her out as to have the utmost room inside, and tomake her as light as possible. The risk was in striking through by someinadvertent blow. Though it may seem strange to those not versed insuch things, yet Charlie could give a very near guess at the thicknessby pressing the points of his fingers on each side, and when he wasin doubt, he bored a hole through with a gimlet, and then plugged itup. They at length left her a scant inch in thickness, except on thebottom and at the stern and bow. There she was so sharp that the woodfor a long distance was cut directly across the grain.

  “I wish,” said Charlie, “I had shaped the outside before digging herout at all.”

  “Why so?” said John.

  “Because, in that case, I could have left more thickness at the bow;but I couldn’t leave it outside and follow the model.”

  In order to avoid taking the keel out of the log, and to have all thedepth possible, they put on a false keel of oak; as the edge was toothin to put on row-locks, they fastened cleats on the inside, and putflat thole-pins in between them and the side, which looked neat, andwere strong enough for so light, easy-going a craft, that was intendedfor sailing rather than carrying; they also put on a cut-water, with abillet-head scroll-shaped, and with mouldings on the edges.

  As it was evident she would require a good deal of ballast, to enableher to bear sail, they laid a platform forward and aft, raised but avery little from the bottom, merely enough to make a level to step orstand on; but amidships they left it higher, to give room for ballast.

  Their intention was, at some future time, to put in head andstern-boards, or, in other words, a little deck forward and aft, withroom beneath to put lines, luncheon, and powder, when they went onfishing or sailing excursions; but they were too anxious to see herafloat to stop for that now. They therefore primed her over with leadcolor, to keep her from cracking, and the very moment she was dry, puther in the water.

  Never were boys in a state of greater excitement than they, when, uponlaunching her into the water, with a hearty shove and hurrah, she wentclear across the harbor, and landed on the Great Bull. They got intothe Twilight, and brought her back, and found she sat as light as acork upon the water, on an even keel, and was much stiffer than theyexpected to find her. She was eighteen feet long, and four feet inwidth, eighteen inches deep.

  Having persuaded Sally to get in and sit down on the bottom,--for asyet they had no seats,--they rowed her around the harbor.

  “Now we can go to Indian camp ground, or where we are a mind to,” saidCharlie.

  “Yes,” replied John, “we can go to Boston; and if we want to goanywhere, and the wind is ahead, we can beat: how I do want to get sailon her!”

  There was still much to be done--a rudder and tiller, bowsprit, thwartsfor the masts, and masts’ sprits, a boom and sails to make. They didnot, however, neglect their work; but now that they had succeeded intheir purpose, and the agony was over, though still very anxious tofinish and get her under sail, they tapped more trees, and only workedon her in such intervals as their work afforded. In these intervalsCharlie made the rudder, and tiller, and thwarts for the masts.

  We are sorry to say that he now manifested something like conceit,which, being a develo
pment so strange in him, and so different fromthe natural modesty of his disposition, can only be accounted forby supposing that uniform success had somewhat turned his head, andproduced temporary hallucination.

  From the time he made his own axe handle, when he first came on theisland, till now, he had always succeeded in whatever he undertook,and been praised and petted; and even his well-balanced faculties andnative modesty were not entirely unaffected by such powerful influences.

  Ben advised him to secure the mast thwarts with knees, as is alwaysdone in boats, to put a breast-hook in the bow, and two knees inthe stern, to strengthen her, as she was dug out so thin, and thewood forward and aft cut so much across the grain; but, flushed withsuccess, Charlie thought he knew as much about boat-building asanybody, and, for the first time in his life, neglected his father’scounsel. He thought knees would look clumsy, and that he could fastenthe thwarts with cleats of oak, and make them look neater; and thus hedid. They were now brought to a stand for lack of material, cloth forsails, rudder-irons, and spars.

  Elm Island, although it could furnish masts in abundance for ships ofthe line, produced none of those straight, slim, spruce poles, that aresuitable for boat spars. It was very much to the credit of the boys,that, although aching to see the boat under sail, and well aware thatBen would not hesitate a moment, if requested, to let them leave theirwork and go after the necessary articles, they determined to postponethe completion of her till the sugar season was over. Meanwhile, theypainted her, and, after the paint was dry, rowed off in the bay: theyalso put the Twilight’s sail in her; and, though it was not half largeenough, and they were obliged to steer with an oar, they could see thatshe would come up to the wind, and was an entirely different affairfrom the Twilight, promising great things.

  They hugged themselves while witnessing and admiring her performance,saying to each other,--

  “Won’t she go through the water when she gets her own sails, spars, anda rudder!”

  It must be confessed, Charlie was not at all sorry to see the flow ofsap diminished; and no sooner was the last kettle full boiled, than offthey started for the main land.

  Immediately on landing, Charlie bent his steps towards Uncle Isaac’s,on whose land was a second growth of spruce, amongst which werestraight poles in abundance.

  John, after bolting a hasty meal, hurried to Peter Brock’s shop; there,with some assistance from Peter, he made the rudder-irons, a goose-neckfor the main-boom, another for the heel of the bowsprit, which was madeto unship, a clasp to confine it to the stem, and the necessary staples.

  When Charlie returned the next night with his spars, they procured thecloth for the sails, and went back to the island.

  Ben cut and made the sails; and, in order that everything might bein keeping, pointed and grafted the ends of the fore, main, andjib-sheets, and also made a very neat fisherman’s anchor; but hepersisted in making the sails much smaller than suited their notions.

  They had some large, flat pieces of iron that came from the wreck thatdrove ashore on the island the year before; these they put in thebottom for ballast, and upon them, in order to make her as stiff aspossible, some heavy flint stones, worn smooth by the surf, which theyhad picked up on the Great Bull.

  Until this moment they had been unable to decide upon a name, but nowconcluded to call her the “West Wind.”

  They put the finishing touch to their work about three o’clock in theafternoon, and, with a moderate south-west wind, made sail, and stoodout to sea, close-hauled.

  All their hopes were now more than realized; loud and repeated weretheir expressions of delight as they saw how near she would lie to thewind, and how well she worked. The moment the helm was put down, shecame rapidly up to the wind, the foresail gave one slat, and she wasabout; then they tried her under foresail alone, and found she wentabout easily, requiring no help.

  “Isn’t she splendid?” asked John; “and ain’t you glad we built her?”

  “Reckon I am: what will Fred say when he sees her? and won’t we threehave some nice times in her?”

  “It was a good thing for us, Charlie, that we had Ben to cut the sailsand tell us where to put the masts.”

  They avoided the main land, as they did not wish to attract notice tillthey were thoroughly used to handling her, and knew her trim; and,after sailing a while, hauled down the jib, kept away, and went back“wing and wing.”

  “Some time,” said Charlie, “we’ll go down among the canoes on thefishing-ground, and when the fishermen are tugging away at their oarswith a head wind, go spanking by them, the spray flying right in thewind’s eye.”

  At length, feeling that they knew how to sail, they determined to goover to the mill and exhibit her.

  Notwithstanding their efforts to keep it secret, the report of theirproceedings had gone round among the young folks. Some boy saw John atwork upon the rudder-irons in Peter’s shop, though he plunged his workinto the forge trough the moment he saw that he was observed.

  Little Bob Smullen also saw Charlie hauling down the spars with Isaac’soxen, and when he asked Charlie what they were for, he told him, “Tomake little boys ask questions.”

  The wind came fresh off the land, which suited their purpose, as theywished to sail along shore on a wind, and desired to display theperfections of their boat to the greatest advantage, and above allshow her superiority to the canoes, which could only go before thewind, or a little quartering. The wind was not only fresh, but blew inflaws; and as they could not think, upon such an occasion, of carryinganything less than whole sail, they put in additional ballast, andtook a barrel of sap sugar, which Fred was to sell for them, and fivebushels of corn, to be ground at the mill.

  They were to spend the night at Captain Rhines’s, intending in themorning to go down to Uncle Isaac’s point and invite him to take a sailwith them. Charlie considered that the best part of the affair.

  They beat over in fine style, fetching far to the windward of themill, in order to have opportunity to keep away a little and run theshore down, intending to run by the wharf, and then tack and beat backin sight of whoever might be there. When about half a mile from theshore, they were espied by little Tom Pratt, who was fishing from thewharf. He had heard the talk among the big boys, and, rushing into themill, he bawled out, “It’s coming! it’s coming! I seed it! that thingfrom Elm Island.”

  Out ran Fred, Henry Griffin, Sam Hadlock, and Joe Merrithew. In a fewmoments another company came from the store and the blacksmith’s shop,among whom were Captain Rhines, Yelf, and Flour.

  John was steering, and every few moments a half bucket of salt waterwould strike in the side of his neck and run out at the knees of hisbreeches, while Charlie baled it out as fast as it came in.

  “Only look, Charlie! see what a crowd there is on the wharf! I seefather and Flour, and there’s old Uncle Jonathan Smullen, with hiscane.”

  “I see Fred and Hen Griffin,” said Charlie: “when we get a littlenearer, I mean to hail ’em.”

  “Slack the fore and jib sheets a little, Charlie. I’m going to keep heraway and run down by the wharf.”

  As they ran along seven or eight hundred yards from the wharf, Charlie,standing up to windward, waved his cap to Fred, and cheered. It wasinstantly returned by the whole crowd.

  At that moment a hard flaw, striking over the high land, heeled heralmost to upsetting; and as she rose again, she split in two, from stemto stern. Charlie, who was just waving his hat for a second cheer, wenthead foremost into the water. One half the boat, to which were attachedthe masts, bowsprit, and rudder, fell over to leeward; the cable, whichwas fastened into a thole-pin hole, running out, anchored that part,while the other half drifted off before the wind towards Elm Island.

  John and Charlie clung to the half that was left, while the barrel ofsugar, the corn, both their guns, powder and shot, went to the bottom.

  It was but a few moments before Captain Rhines, with Flour and FredWilliams, came in a canoe, and took them off.

  E
very one felt sorry for the mishap, and Fred felt so bad that he cried.

  It was the first boat that had ever been made or owned in the place, oreven seen there, except once in a great while, when a whaleman or somelarge vessel came in for water, or lost their way; the inhabitants allusing canoes, as did also the fishermen and coasters.

  As the anchor held one half the boat, it furnished a mark to tell wherethe contents lay; and while Fred and Henry Griffin were towing back theother half, the rest grappled for and brought up the corn, guns, andsugar, not much of which was dissolved.

  It was a bitter disappointment to Charlie and John, but they bore itmanfully, and went up to Captain Rhines’s to put on dry clothes andspend the night, Fred walking along with them, striving to administerconsolation.

  “I wouldn’t feel so bad about it, Charlie,” said he; “we’ve got theother half; why couldn’t you fasten them together again?”

  “So you could, Charlie,” said John, “and she would be as good as ever.”

  “But what would she look like? No, I never want to touch her again;let her go; but I know one thing, that is, if I live long enough, I’llbuild a boat that will sail as well as she did, and not split in twoeither.”

  Uncle Isaac, hearing of the shipwreck, came in to Captain Rhines’s inthe evening to see and comfort the boys.

  “It’s not altogether the loss of the boat makes me feel so bad, UncleIsaac,” said Charlie.

  “I’m sure I don’t see what else you have to feel bad about.”

  “It’s because father told me to fasten her together with knees, and puta hook in the eyes of her; but I thought I knew so much, I wouldn’t doit. I wanted her to look neat; and see how she looks now! I never wasabove taking advice before, and hope I never shall be again.”

  Notwithstanding Charlie’s resolution never to touch the boat again, hechanged his mind after sleeping upon it.

  The two boys now reluctantly separated, as it was time for John to goto his trade. Fred and Henry set Charlie on to the island, putting themasts, sails, &c., in their canoe, and towing the two halves. Ben neversaid to Charlie, “I told you so,” but did all he could to cheer him up,and told him he had made a splendid boat; that he watched them tillthey were half way over, and that she sailed and worked as well as anyVineyard Sound boat (and they were called the fastest) he ever saw. Theboys put the pieces of the boat and the spars in the sugar camp, andthen Henry and Fred returned.

  Charlie seemed very cheerful and happy while the boys were there; butwhen they were gone, he put his head in his mother’s lap, and fairlybroke down. Sally was silent for some time: at length she said,--

  “Charlie, I think your goose wants to set. I should have set her whileyou was gone, but the gander is so cross, I was afraid of him.”

  Charlie started up in an instant. This was a tame goose, that hadmated with a wild gander they had wounded and caught, and Charlie wasexceedingly anxious to raise some goslings, and instantly put the eggsunder the goose.

  The wild ganders have horny excrescences on the joint of their wings,resembling a rooster’s spur, with which they strike a very severe blow,and are extremely bold and savage when the geese are sitting. Theyseize their antagonist with their bills, then strike them with bothwings, and it is no child’s play to enter into a contest with them.