The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 20

The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 20

“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 to

the floor timbers.

 

“That is what carpenters call the dead rise, and those middle

timbers, that rise but little, are called dead flats. Now, my little

boat-builder, I’ll show you how to take spilings. I suppose you

wouldn’t be willing to take that garboard off again, because taking the

spilings 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 do

it.”

 

Joe took one of Charlie’s thin boards, planed and made one end of it as

wide as the end of the streak he was to put on, and cut it something

near the shape of the stem, and of the length he wanted his plank

to be; this, he told Charlie, was a rule staff. He then put the end

very near to the rabbet at the stem, and brought it along over the

bow, close to the keel, just as it naturally came, without twisting

sidewise, to the timbers, where he intended to make his butt, and

fastened it; then took the rule, and measured, at frequent distances,

from the outside edge of the rabbet at the stem, to the lower edge of

the rule staff, till he had gotten round the sweep; then he measured

only at the timbers, he made a scratch fit every measurement, and

chalked down the measure on the rule staff.

 

He now took the rule staff and laid it on the board of which the streak

was to be made, and with the compass set off all these distances, then

took 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 followed

exactly 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 the

streak; that is all the rule staff does; now you must measure the width

of your plank from them. I have made these measures at the end very

near together, because I am working for a very particular body, and I

want 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 along

the 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 lined

the 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 this

time have had the boat all done and in the water. Are ships’ planks put

on in this way?”

 

“Yes, somewhat; but they do not have to be so particular, except at the

fore and after woods: they line them as crooked as they can, and then

jam them down edgewise with wedges; and you can’t do that with boat

plank, but must cut to a sixteenth of an inch, if you want your work to

look well.”

 

“You are very good, Joe; now all my difficulties are over; but I’m glad

you didn’t come before.”

 

“Why so?”

 

“Because, if you had shown me about the dead rise, I shouldn’t have

found it out myself. Joe, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, if I get

this 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, without

any model to work from.”

 

“I tell you what it is, Charlie: there will be some staring when you

appear out in this craft.”

 

“I guess there will; they all think what happened to the West Wind

sickened and discouraged me; but I reckon they’ll find out to the

contrary. 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 in

two with a saw, and it will make a grand gunwale: that’s what they use

in Nova Scotia.”

 

“A spruce pole! I guess I shall. I’ll have a nice piece of oak, planed

and 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 pretty

much 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 in

England.”

 

“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 it

yourself.”

 

“That’s what I mean to do, when I get my money back from Fred, and find

some place that just fills my eye, right by the water. I wouldn’t take

the gift of a piece of land that the salt water didn’t wash. Then I

must 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 fish

off the cape; I think very likely I shall run into Portland, and see

John.”

 

“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 middle

thwarts, and two to both the forward and after one. He was resolved

this boat should not split in two. At the bow and stern he decked her

over, and made a splendid locker forward and aft, with doors, and in

which he could put powder, fishing-lines, and whatever he wished to

take with him. Under the middle thwart he made a locker, just the shape

of 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 this

boat was just the size of the West Wind. His paints were all gone,

except a little vermilion that the English captain had given him, and

there was none at the store. Indeed, there was seldom anything in the

form 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, and

generally with fish oil. It was a rare thing that white lead or linseed

oil was found there, it being so little called for. Captain Rhines’s

house was the only one in the place that was painted outside. He and

some others had one room painted lead-color; the general custom being

to keep the walls and floors white, and scour them. But Charlie was

determined to have paint for this boat, and sent to Portland by Joe for

both paint and oil.

 

The iron-work of the other boat was suitable for this, and she was

now calked and all done except painting. Charlie had oiled the planks

to keep them from renting, as he had no paint to prime her. How he

longed for that paint to come! Indeed, he thought so much about it,

that none of his usual sources of enjoyment seemed to afford him any

gratification, or to occupy his thoughts. The flowers were passed by

unheeded, the song of birds won no regard, and even the baby received

slight attention. He enjoyed himself most when occupied about that

which was in some way connected with the boat. He passed a good many

moments in thinking how he should paint her. As she was altogether too

precious to lie aground even in the quiet harbor of Elm Island, he

prepared a mooring for her. He borrowed Uncle Sam’s drill, and made a

round 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, shaved

the trunk smooth, ran it through the hole in the rock, till the roots

prevented 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 wind

veered, and slipped up and down on it as the tide rose and fell. To

this traveller he fastened a rope, with an eye-splice in it to slip

over 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. He

didn’t like to give her the name of the old boat, because he thought

she had been unlucky, and it would revive unpleasant memories.

 

“There’s only one thing about her I should like otherwise,” said he. “I

wish she was pink-sterned and lap-streaked. These square sterns look

chopped off to me. I think the eye requires that both ends should be

alike. I wonder how a fish would look with a square stern? or a tree

with a square top? Well, I’ll build another, when I shan’t be tied to

the dimensions of a log, and can have her wider and deeper, with plenty

of room to knock about in. This boat will be like old Captain Scott’s

boat, in Halifax, that was so small and full of trumpery, he said there

wasn’t room enough in her to swear. Well, I don’t want to swear. I

think it’s real mean. So there’ll be room enough for me.”

 

All at once he thought of something to divert attention and occupy his

leisure time, which was, to study surveying. The science of angles was

congenial to his mechanical tastes, and he was soon so absorbed in

the pursuit as well nigh to forget the paint, for which he had been

longing. The evenings were growing longer, and he had a competent

instructor in Ben. Ben also had another scholar, Seth Warren, who had

come over to the island to study navigation.

 

“Mother,” said Charlie, one night, as they were milking, “do you

suppose 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? and

couldn’t he, and Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac build a vessel if they

had 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 Griffin

and 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 to

Salem or Boston, or to fish. Your father and Captain Rhines had rather

put their money into a vessel with Mr. Welch.”

 

“Mother, carpenters and blacksmiths go wherever there is work. I’m sure

there’s lumber and spars enough here, and vessels come here to load. I

don’t see why a vessel couldn’t be built here, where there’s timber to

build her, and lumber to load her, and take it to the West Indies, and

get molasses and sugar to sell in Boston or Portland, just as Captain

Rhines did the cargo of the Congress. I heard him say he had half a

mind to keep her, load, and run her.”

 

“I never saw such a boy as you are, Charlie! You’re always planning

out something. What in the world put this in your head, just now?”

 

“Because I was thinking what a sight of ducks, chickens, geese, and

turkeys 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 full

of hay off the mow without disturbing a hen’s nest! And only see the

beets, onions, and potatoes there are! I was thinking, if there was

only some vessel here going to the West Indies, what a slap you and I

could make by sending a venture, as we did in the Ark! Why, only think

how 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 to

help build her, instead of going out of town to work, as they often do.”