CHAPTER IV.

THE WEST WIND.

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

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

“I have not seasoned stuff to finish but one of them now, and hardly that. It’s too rough to go off in your canoe; stay till Saturday afternoon, and part off some bedrooms up stairs with a rough board partition, and make some rough doors, so that we can use them for sleeping-rooms, and then Charlie can finish them next winter, for he will have to go to making sugar soon. If you’ll do that I’ll set you off 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 was off the kitchen, and there were bedrooms above.

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

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

He then lined out the shape and breadth of beam, and made an inside line to rough-cut by, and at leisure times they chopped out the inside with the axe, one bringing sap or tending the kettle, while the other worked 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 too much like work.”

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

“Don’t you remember when we were clearing land, that we would set our nigger[1] to burning off logs, and when it came night, we would find that 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, and I am going to try it.”

“I thought they always made them of bark.”

“He said they sometimes, especially the Canada Indians, made them of a log, in places where they had a regular camping-ground, and didn’t want to 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 end of a stick, then got some wet clay, and put all around the sides of the log where he didn’t want the fire to come. He then built a fire of oak chips right in the middle, and the whole length. The fire burned very freely at first, for the old log was full of pitch, and soon began to dry the clay, and burn at the edge; but Charlie put it out with his mop, and forced it to burn in the middle.

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

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

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

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

Now came the most difficult portion of the work, as it must be done almost 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 application for that which follows, thus Charlie experienced less difficulty here than he had anticipated, and at length succeeded in making it resemble the model, in Ben’s opinion, as nearly as one thing could another. Now their efforts were directed to finish the inside; and, having used the fire as long as they thought prudent, they resorted to other tools, as they wished so to dig her out as to have the utmost room inside, and to make her as light as possible. The risk was in striking through by some inadvertent blow. Though it may seem strange to those not versed in such things, yet Charlie could give a very near guess at the thickness by pressing the points of his fingers on each side, and when he was in doubt, he bored a hole through with a gimlet, and then plugged it up. They at length left her a scant inch in thickness, except on the bottom and at the stern and bow. There she was so sharp that the wood for a long distance was cut directly across the grain.

“I wish,” said Charlie, “I had shaped the outside before digging her out 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 the depth possible, they put on a false keel of oak; as the edge was too thin to put on row-locks, they fastened cleats on the inside, and put flat thole-pins in between them and the side, which looked neat, and were strong enough for so light, easy-going a craft, that was intended for sailing rather than carrying; they also put on a cut-water, with a billet-head scroll-shaped, and with mouldings on the edges.

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

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

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

Having persuaded Sally to get in and sit down on the bottom,--for as yet 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,” said Charlie.

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

There was still much to be done--a rudder and tiller, bowsprit, thwarts for the masts, and masts’ sprits, a boom and sails to make. They did not, however, neglect their work; but now that they had succeeded in their purpose, and the agony was over, though still very anxious to finish and get her under sail, they tapped more trees, and only worked on her in such intervals as their work afforded. In these intervals Charlie 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 development so strange in him, and so different from the natural modesty of his disposition, can only be accounted for by supposing that uniform success had somewhat turned his head, and produced temporary hallucination.

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

Ben advised him to secure the mast thwarts with knees, as is always done in boats, to put a breast-hook in the bow, and two knees in the stern, to strengthen her, as she was dug out so thin, and the wood forward and aft cut so much across the grain; but, flushed with success, Charlie thought he knew as much about boat-building as anybody, and, for the first time in his life, neglected his father’s counsel. He thought knees would look clumsy, and that he could fasten the thwarts with cleats of oak, and make them look neater; and thus he