The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 5

The Young Ship Builders of Elm Island 5

They now set up their joiner’s bench in the front part of the house,

where they could have a fire in cold days. Ben and Charlie worked with

them, and the work went on apace. At Sally’s request, they began with

the kitchen, removing the dressers from the western end, and finishing

off a bedroom, leaving room sufficient at the end for a stairway to

go down into a nice milk cellar, which Uncle Sam had parted off, and

floored with brick, and the joiners put up shelves, with a glass window

in the end, and another in the top of the door that led to it from the

kitchen. They also replaced the dressers in the kitchen. At the eastern

end they made an entry, on one side of it a dark closet to keep meats

in from the flies, and on the other chamber stairs, instead of the

ladder, and under these cellar stairs, replacing the old trap door.

 

They then finished the room, ceiling it, both the walls and overhead.

It was not customary then to paint. Everything was left white, and

scoured with soap and sand. Carpets were not in vogue, and floors were

strewn with white sand.

 

Sally was jubilant, and declared it was nothing but a pleasure to do

work, with so many conveniences.

 

“I thought I was made,” said she, “when I got a sink, and especially

a crane, instead of a birch withe, to hang my pot on. Now I’ve got a

sink, a crane, porch, meal-room, cellar stairs, chamber stairs, milk

cellar, and kitchen, all ceiled up.”

 

In the front room the work proceeded more slowly, as there was a good

deal of panel-work, and this occupied a great deal of time.

 

There were then no planing mills, jig saws, circular saws, or mortising

machines, but all was done by hand labor. There were no cut nails then,

but all were wrought, with sharp points that split the wood, which made

it necessary to bore a great deal with a gimlet.

 

A happy boy was Charlie Bell in these days, as Uncle Isaac and Atkins

gave him all the instruction in their power; and to complete the sum

of his enjoyment, after he had worked with them six weeks, Uncle Isaac

set him to making the front and end doors of panel-work, under his

immediate inspection. He also had an opportunity to talk about the

Indians, and seemed to be a great deal more concerned to know about

their modes of getting along, and manufacturing articles of necessity

or ornament, without tools of iron, than about their murdering and

scalping.

 

Uncle Isaac could not, from personal knowledge, give him much

information in respect to these matters, as, at the time he was among

them, they were, and had been for a long period, supplied, both by the

French and English, with guns, knives, hatchets, needles, and files;

but he could furnish Charlie with abundant information which he had

obtained from his Indian parents; for, as they have no books, but trust

to their memories, they, by exercise, become very accurate, and their

traditions are, in this way, handed down from father to son.

 

“But,” said Charlie, who had heard about Indians having cornfields,

“how could they cut down trees and clear land with stone hatchets?”

 

“They didn’t cut them down; they bruised the bark, and girdled them,

and then the trees died, and they set them on fire.”

 

“I should think it would have taken them forever, most, to clear a

piece of land in that way.”

 

“So it did; but they did not clear one very often. When they got a

field cleared, they planted corn on it perhaps for a hundred years.”

 

“I should think it would have run out.”

 

“They always made these fields by the salt water, and put fish in the

hills. They taught the white people how to raise corn.”

 

“I have heard they made log canoes. How could they cut the trees down

with their stone hatchets? and, more than all, how could they ever dig

them out?”

 

“I will tell you, Mr. Inquisitive. An Indian would take a bag of

parched corn to eat, a gourd shell to drink from, his stone hatchet,

and go into the woods, find a suitable tree,--generally a dead, dry

pine, with the limbs and bark all fallen off,--and at the foot of it

would build a camp to sleep under. Then he would get a parcel of wet

clay, and plaster the tree all around, then build a fire at the bottom

to burn it off. The wet clay would prevent its burning too high up.

Then he would sit and tend the fire, wet the clay, and beat off the

coals as fast as they formed, till the tree fell; then cut it off, and

hollow it in the same way.”

 

“I should think it would have taken a lifetime.”

 

“It did not take as long as you might suppose; besides, time was

nothing to them. They did no work except to hunt, make a canoe, or bow

and arrows. The squaws did all the drudgery.”

 

Uncle Isaac now went home to stay a week, and see to his affairs, and

Atkins with him. In this interval, Charlie began to think about his

long-neglected boat. He had already the exact model of the fish, but

he wished to get it in a shape to work from. Mixing some more clay

and sand, he filled the mould with it, into which he had pressed the

fish, having first greased it thoroughly, that it might not stick. He

now set it to dry, putting it in the cellar at night. When thoroughly

dry, he turned it out, made an oven of stones, and baked it, so that it

was in a state to be handled without crumbling. He did not wish Ben or

Sally to observe his proceedings; and, as it was too cold to stay in

the woods or barn, he resorted to his bedroom. Uncle Isaac, when there,

slept with Charlie, and kept his chest beside their bed.

 

Charlie was sitting on the bed, with the model in his hand, looking at

it, and contriving how to work from it; and so intently was he engaged,

that Uncle Isaac, who, unknown to him, had returned, and wanted

something from his chest, came upon him before he could shove it under

the bed.

 

“What have you got there, Charlie?”

 

“O, Uncle Isaac, I’m so sorry to see you!”

 

“Sorry to see me, Charlie? Indeed, I’m sorry to hear you say so.”

 

“O, I didn’t mean that,” replied Charlie, excessively confused.

“I--I--I--only meant that I was sorry you caught me with this in my

hand.”

 

He then told Uncle Isaac what he was about, adding, in conclusion,

“You see, when I am trying to study anything out, I don’t like to have

folks that know all about it looking on; it confuses and quite upsets

me.”

 

“But if you ever make the boat, you will have to make it out of doors,

in plain sight.”

 

“Yes, sir; but if I succeed in making a good model, I know I can

imitate it on a large scale, and shan’t be afraid then to do it before

folks; but if I can’t, why, then I will burn the model up, and nobody

will be the wiser for it, or know that I tried and couldn’t. I’m not

afraid to have any one see me handle tools.”

 

“You have no reason to be, my boy. Yet, after all, it was a very good

thing that I surprised you before you got any farther; for, had you

built a large boat after these lines, she never would have been of any

use to you.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because this is precisely the shape of a mackerel, to a shaving.”

 

“Well, don’t a mackerel sail?”

 

“Yes, sail like blazes, _under_ water; but I take it you want your

boat to sail on top of water. All a fish has to do is to carry himself

through the water; but a boat or vessel has to carry cargo, and bear

sail. A vessel made after that model wouldn’t stand up in the harbor

with her spars in, and a boat made like it would have to be filled so

full of ballast, to keep her on her legs, that she would be almost

sunk; and the moment you put sail on her, in anything of a working

breeze, her after-sail would jam her stern down, and she would fill

over the quarter.”

 

Charlie looked very blank indeed at this, which seemed at one fell blow

to render abortive all his patient toil, and annihilate those sanguine

hopes of proud enjoyment he and John had cherished, when they should

appear in their new craft among the fleet of dug-outs, then below

contempt, and witness the look of mingled astonishment and envy on

the faces of the other boys, especially as he began to feel a growing

conviction that what Uncle Isaac had said was but too true. Still

struggling against the unwelcome truth, he replied, after a long pause,

“But a mackerel keeps on his bottom.”

 

“Yes, because he’s alive, and can balance himself by his fins and tail;

but he always turns bottom up the minute he is dead.”

 

“I heard Captain Rhines say, one time, that if a vessel could be

modelled like a fish, she would sail. I thought he knew, and so I

determined to try it.”

 

“Captain Rhines does know, but he spoke at random. He didn’t mean

_exactly_ like a fish, but somewhat like them,--sharp, and with a

true taper, having no slack place to drag dead water, but with proper

bearings.”

 

“Then this model, with proper alterations, would be the thing, after

all,” said Charlie, a gleam of hope lighting up his clouded features.

 

“Sartain, if you should--”

 

“O, don’t tell me, Uncle Isaac, don’t! It’s no use for me to try to

make a boat if I can’t study it out of my own head. I think I see what

you mean. I thank you very much, and after I try and see what I can

do, I want you to look at it, and see how I’ve made out, and tell me

how and where to alter it. I hope you won’t think I am a stuck-up,

ungrateful boy, because I don’t want you to tell me.”

 

“Not by any means, Charlie; it is just the disposition I like to see in

you. I have no doubt you will think it all out, and then, my boy, it

will be your own all your life.”

 

“Yes, sir; for, when I went to school, I minded that the boys who were

always running up to the master with their slates, or to the bigger

boys, to be shown about their sums, were great dunces, while the smart boys dug them out themselves.”