VICTORY AT LAST.
THE sun had nearly reached the meridian, and the wind, due north, was
of moderate strength; the time, the last week of August.
Henry Griffin had concluded to stay at home for one trip, and was
fishing with Sam Hadlock, in a canoe, about three miles to the
southward of Elm Island. Tempted by the fineness of the day, a large
number of the neighbors were fishing near them. Among the rest, Uncle
Sam, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac, all in Captain Rhines’s big canoe.
“What’s that, Hen, coming down the bay?”
“Whereabouts?”
“Why, off the sou’west pint of Elm Island.”
“A canoe.”
“It don’t look like a canoe to me.”
In a short time Sam said,--
“That’s not a canoe; she’s got two sails, and is coming down ‘wing and
wing;’ there’s no canoe round here with two sails.”
Henry now viewed the strange craft more narrowly as she came nearer. At
length he said,--
“That’s not a canoe; she’s painted, and has got a bowsprit. I know what
it is. Charlie has built another boat, and he’s showing off in her.
That’s it; I know it is. Good on his head.”
“I thought he’d give up after the other one split in two.”
“Give up! Them words ain’t in his dictionary. If you want Charlie to do
a thing, just trig the wheels, and tell him he can’t. I know that’s it,
for I’ve suspected it all along.”
“What made you suspect it?”
“A good many things. In the first place, I overheard him say to John,
when he came out of the water, the day they got spilt, ‘If I live, I’ll
build a boat that won’t split in two;’ and I know he never gives up
anything. Another thing, he and I have always been very thick: whenever
we’ve met, he has always urged me to come over to the island; but
this summer he has never asked me once. Then the last time we were at
Portland, there was some privacy going on between John and Joe, that
they didn’t mean I should know; there was a great long box that went
to Elm Island. I know there was paint in it by the smell, and it was
paint for that boat; that’s what it was, though I don’t see what it
was so long for.”
The strange craft was now in full view, coming down before the wind and
tide, like a race horse. There was evidently but one person in her, and
he was hidden by the sails. Presently the helmsman altered his course a
little, and jibing the mainsail, exposed himself to view.
“It’s Charlie,” cried Henry. “O, ain’t he a happy boy this minute?
See how straight he sits; and isn’t she a beauty? How long she is!
tremendous long!”
“How handsome she’s painted!” said Sam. “I wish he would come here.”
“He will; he’s going alongside of Captain Rhines, and then he’ll come
here.”
But, contrary to Henry’s opinion, Charlie kept to leeward of the whole
fleet of canoes, and stood right out to sea. He then hauled his wind,
and brought both his sails on one side, Sam said, “to show _himself_.”
“Yes,” was the reply; “and he’ll be coming back soon, to show what the
_boat_ can do. Here he comes, Sam,” shouted Henry.
After running out to sea about half a mile, Charlie hauled aft his
sheets, set his jib, and brought her on a wind.
“Look there, Hen! See her go right straight to windward! That jib is
what takes my eye!”
“How is he going to handle three sails alone, when he tacks, I should
like to know?”
“He’s got the jib-sheets to lead aft to where he sits. I’ve often seen
that done.”
“I think it’s queer that our Joe, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac, who
can do anything they are a mind to, should never have built a boat, but
always went about in these dug-outs,--enough to wear a man’s life out
to pull ’em.”
“What in the world is he doing now, Hen? He’s hauled down his jib, and
taken in his mainsail.”
“He’s going to show what she’ll do under a foresail.”
“Look! He’s putting his helm down! If she’ll go about in this chop of a
sea, without help from an oar, under a foresail, she’ll do more than I
think she will.”
“There, she’s about, by jingo!”
“The Perseverance couldn’t beat that, Hen, and she carries sail well,
too; but then he’s got a good deal of ballast in her, by the looks.”
“She is so crooked, and there is so much of her out of water, that he
can carry sail hard on her. Sam, I’ll have that boat, if it costs all
I’ve earned this summer to buy her.”
“There goes up his mainsail and jib! He has let us see what she will
do.”
“Yes, he knows very well that Captain Rhines, and we, and Uncle Isaac
are watching him.”
“The captain will buy that boat, Hen. She’ll just take his fancy. What
a nice thing she would be for him when he wants to run over to see Ben!”
“No, he won’t, Sam; for we will follow Charlie home, and if money will
buy her, I’ll have her.”
“I don’t believe he’ll sell her, at any rate till he has shown her
round a little. I’m sure I wouldn’t if I had a boat like that. I guess
you and Captain Rhines will both have to wait till she’s an old story.
He’ll want John and Fred to have a sail in her before he sells her.”
Charlie soon beat up alongside Captain Rhines, then came alongside
Henry. When he was within a few yards, he hauled aft his main-sheet,
flowed his fore-sheet, hauled his jib to windward, put his tiller hard
down in the notch-board, and she lay to, just like a vessel, while he
leaned over the gunwale, and talked with Henry and Sam. When he had
shown them how she would lie to, Henry flung him a rope, and the boat
being made fast to the canoe, they had an opportunity to inspect her.
“Charlie, will you sell this boat?” asked Henry.
“I don’t know. I guess not.”
“Yes, you will, to me.”
Charlie’s taste had become somewhat chastened since he made the
Twilight and West Wind. They rejoiced in painted ports, and all
varieties of stripes and colors, but this boat was quite in contrast.
She was bright-green to the water-line, white above, with a narrow
vermilion bead on top. Inside, she was a straw-color up to the rising,
above that blue--not a lead-color, made by mixing white lead and
lampblack--but blue. The spars were white, the blades of the oars
green, the rest white.
“Charlie, who told you how to build this boat?”
“Nobody. After I had her almost done, Joe told me how to take spilings.”
“‘_Wings of the Morning_,’” said Henry, looking at the stern. “What a
singular name! What made you think of that name, Charlie?”
“I’ll tell you, Henry. I had been thinking for some time what I should
call her, and one morning I went out just at sunrise. I stood on the
door-stone, and looked off in the bay. The water was as smooth as
glass. There was an eagle sitting on the edge of his nest on the big
pine. They are not shy of me at all, for I am very often up in the
tree, and feed them. By and by he pitched off, and came sailing along
slowly, moving his great wings, just clearing the ridge-pole of the
house, and close to me. While I watched him, this came right into my
head. I couldn’t get it out; so I put it on the boat.”
“Charlie, what was in that long box we brought down in the schooner?”
“Paint to paint this boat, and putty and oil.”
“I thought so. But what was the need of so long a box?”
“To hold this,” holding up the anchor. “John made it, and for this
boat, while you were there.”
The canoes now began to run in. Charlie made sail, and soon left them
all astern, tugging away at their oars against wind and ebb tide. He
had been at home a long time,--indeed, it was after supper,--when Henry
and Sam came into the cove.
“Charlie,” said Henry, “I shall never pull a canoe any more. I must
have that boat, for I am going to fish a good deal this fall. What will
you take for her?”
“I don’t want to sell her. I haven’t hardly been in her myself.”
“Well, there’s time enough to talk about that.”
“Come to the house, and get some supper. You won’t go from here
to-night.”
After supper, Henry repeated his request for the boat, adding, “You
don’t want her, Charlie. You only built her to see what you could do,
and can build another. You are no fisherman; but I want her to catch
fish in to sell to Isaac.”
“Yes, I do want her,” replied Charlie. “If I want to go anywhere, I
must go by boat; for we are on an island, six miles from the main, and
if I sell this boat, I must go in a canoe. I don’t like to pull a canoe
any better than you do.”
“But it’s different with you. You can go to the main on pleasant days,
and, if you are obliged to go in rough weather, you can take the
Perseverance; while I go out fishing in the morning, when perhaps it
is as pleasant as can be; before night it comes on to blow, and I’ve
got to pull in, or go to sea. You know old Uncle Jackson was blown off,
last winter, and never heard from; whereas, in that boat, with reefed
sails, I could beat in any time. It might be a matter of life and death
with me. Come, Charlie, let me have her--that’s a good fellow! You can
build another. I’ll give you a dollar a foot for her.”
That was a tremendous price in those days, when corn was four shillings
a bushel, pork six cents a pound in the round hog; when the best of
men, in haying-time, got only a dollar a day, and at other times
could be hired for fifty or seventy-five cents. Besides, it must be
remembered that Charlie had built this boat on rainy days, and at hours
outside the regular day’s work.
“I’ll give you a dollar a foot,” continued Henry, “just for the boat.
You may take everything out of her--sails, spars, anchor, and cable.
The sails are larger than I want, for I don’t want to be bothered with
reefing in cold weather. I can get Joe to cut and make sails for me.
He’s a capital hand, I can tell you.”
“The truth is, Henry, I’ve built this boat by hard knocks. I’ve got
up as soon as I could see to work on her, and have worked after I had
done a hard day’s work, and was tired. I have puzzled over her till my
brains fairly ached, and on that account think more of her. To-day is
the first time I’ve ever been out of the harbor in her, and I don’t
feel as if I could part with her.”
“I’ll give you nine shillings a foot for her.”
“Sell her, Charlie,” said Ben. “Let him have her.”
“I would, Charlie,” said Sally. “He needs her, and you can build
another, as he says. He has offered you such a great price, too!”
But Charlie remained firm. Henry was about to give up the matter, when
he said, “Henry, I don’t want you to think I am holding off to make you
bid up. You offered me all the boat was worth when you offered a dollar
a foot. I’ll do this with you: I’ll sell her to you, the bare hull, to
deliver the first day of October, at a dollar a foot. I shan’t take any
more, and I won’t part with her till then.”
“I’ll do it, Charlie; and when Joe comes in, I’ll go another trip with
him.”
“I don’t see,” said Ben, after the boys had gone to bed, “what makes
Charlie so loath to sell that boat. I should think he would be proud to
have an offer for her so quick. He likes Henry, too, and I have always
thought he was rather too willing to put himself out for other folks.
Besides, he has spent some money for tools and paint, and that would
make him all whole again.”
“I’m sure I don’t think it at all strange he is loath to sell her. Any
one thinks a great deal of the first things they make. I’ve got a pair
of clouded stockings in the chest of drawers. I spun the yarn and knit
them when I was eight and a half years old, and had to stand on a plank
to reach the wheel, and I don’t think Henry Griffin or anybody else
could buy them.”
“I don’t believe but there’s some other reason.”
“Perhaps so.”
“It may be that he wants to go off, and have a sail and a grand time
with Fred somewhere, as they did before.”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Perhaps he’s got some word from John, by Joe Griffin, that he’s coming
home, and he’s keeping her for that.”
“If he’d heard anything of that kind, he would have told us the first
thing.”
“Well, whatever the reason is, he’ll tell you when he gets ready.”
But he didn’t tell Sally, nor did he tell the boys after they had gone
to bed that night, but chose a very different confidant.