MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS.
One would naturally suppose that Charlie, returning to the quiet of Elm
Island after the exciting week he had passed, would have experienced
at least a transient feeling of loneliness; but he manifested no such
sentiment, and went to work at his cart-wheels with the greatest
assiduity and evident enjoyment.
In the course of the week he was most agreeably surprised by a visit
from John and Fred, bringing Isaac Murch, Jr., with them, now a tall,
strong young man, swarthy from long exposure to the East India suns
and sea-winds, bearing a very strong resemblance to his uncle, with
intelligence and energy in every feature.
It was past the middle of the afternoon when the boys arrived at the
island. After Isaac had spent some time with Ben and Sally, the four
friends strolled up to the old maple. They told Isaac the history of
the holes bored in it, and of all that had transpired in respect
to temperance while he had been away, and then listened with great
interest to an account of his life at sea, and the scenes he had
witnessed in the East. John at length inquired if he intended to
continue in the same employ; to which he replied that he did not.
“I see no prospect,” said he, “of being anything more than mate. Mr.
Welch has a great many relatives who follow the sea, and so have the
captains who have long sailed in his employ, and are at the same time
owners in the vessels they go in. Captain Radford, I’m with, is an old
man. If there was nobody in the way, he would give me the vessel in
a year or two, for he wants to retire. But he has a son who is going
second mate this voyage. The next voyage, or the next after, he’ll put
him in captain over my head if I am willing to remain; and so it is
all through. Now, if I had a vessel,--any kind of a thing, if it was
like the Ark,--to get a cargo of spars to Europe, or lumber, spars, and
other truck to the West Indies, I could pay for it, and build a better
one in a short time; with good luck, make more in one year than I can
going mate in five.”
“I believe that,” said John; “for I know by what I’ve heard captains in
Portland say, and what Mr. Starrett, that I learned my trade of, who
is concerned in several of these lumber vessels, has told me.”
“Some of those Portland captains have coined money; but it is a good
deal as you happen to hit. If you get to a West India port when the
market is empty, you get your own price; if not, you won’t make much.”
“Only see,” said Fred, “what Captain Rhines did in the Ark!”
“That was an exception. He arrived off the harbor of Havana in a
peculiar time. Lumber was scarce, they had no beef for their slavers,
they gave him a license to trade, and the captain-general remitted
the duties. He saved by that remission more than two thousand five
hundred dollars. The Federal Constitution was not formed then, and he
had no duties to pay in Boston. However, I’m going to stick where I am
this voyage, and perhaps another, till I get money enough to take a
part of some kind of craft, if it’s only a pinkie, go round among the
neighbors, scare up owners, and try my luck. I’d rather be a king among
hogs than a hog among kings. I’d rather be skipper of a chebacco boat
than mate of a ship,--to sail the vessel, take all the responsibility,
endure all the anxiety for somebody’s son or nephew, who runs away with
all the credit, and the money to boot, and don’t know how to knot a
rope-yarn, or handle a ship in a sea-way.”
There was now a pause in the conversation, when Charlie, who, though
an attentive listener, had not uttered a word, said, speaking
deliberately, “We will build you a vessel, Isaac.”
“_We!_” replied Isaac in astonishment. “Who’s _we_?”
“We three sitting here.”
“Three _boys_ build a vessel!”
“We may be boys, but we are all able to do a _man’s_ work. I think,
as you say you are in no hurry, give us time, we could build a cheap
vessel, that would be strong and serviceable to carry heavy cargoes for
a few voyages, which you say is all you want.”
“I think as much,” said Fred. “We three boys have always been together,
and have undertaken several things, and have never yet failed to
accomplish what we have attempted.”
“But you never undertook anything like this, or to be compared with it.
Building a vessel is quite another matter from making _baskets_.”
The reader will bear in mind that Isaac had been away during the
period in which the boys had developed most rapidly, and was not so
well aware of what they might be expected to accomplish as he otherwise
would have been.
“But,” asked Isaac, “where are the carpenters coming from? There are
none here but Yelf and Joe Griffin, and neither of them have ever been
master workmen. You must go to Portland or Wiscasset for a master
workman and blacksmith; and where is the money to pay them, fit up a
yard, build a blacksmith’s shop, buy tools and iron?”
“Charlie,” replied John, “can be master workman.”
“John,” said Fred, “can do the iron-work.”
He then told Isaac of their capabilities, and what they had done since
he had been gone, which greatly astonished him, and presented the
subject under discussion in a very different light, especially when
Charlie told him that he could cut the timber entirely on his own land,
the spars, and also spars and lumber to load her.
“But,” said Isaac, “you must have carpenters. You can’t build her
alone.”
“To build a vessel in the manner we shall build one, we don’t need but
three good carpenters, and there are plenty of men round here that can
hew, bore, drive bolts, and saw with a whip-saw. Yelf is a capital man
with an adze, and so is Ralph Chase. They can do all the dubbing.”
“My uncle can make the spars,” said Isaac.
“Peterson,” said John, “can calk and rig her, and father and Ben can
make the sails.”
“The next question,” said Charlie, “is, What kind of a vessel do you
want?”
“I want her built to lug a load and to steer well. Speed is no object
to what the carrying part is. The voyages will be short, and wages
and provisions are not high in comparison with the value of cargoes.
I don’t want one cent laid out for looks. We must go on the principle
of the man who goes on to new land. He lives in a log cabin, built as
cheap as possible, because he expects to have a better one.”
“But you wouldn’t have her look too bad,” said Charlie.
“That’s just the way I want her to look. All I’m afraid of is, you
can’t make her look bad enough. I want a sloop, with good spars,
rigging, cables, and anchors.”
“What makes you want a sloop?”
“Because she is cheaper rigged and handled.”
“How large?”
“Two hundred tons.”
At this all the boys expressed their astonishment.
“A sloop of two hundred tons! Why, who ever heard of such a thing!”
said Charlie. “The most of brigs are not more than that, many less. I
never saw a sloop bigger than eighty-five tons.”
“I saw one last week, in Boston, that had just arrived from Liverpool
with a load of salt, that was one hundred and fifteen. If you want to
carry timber, you must have some bigness, and if spars, some length.”
“But what an awful mainsail! How could you ever handle it?”
“I’ll take care of that part of it. Shorten the mast, and put a good
part of the canvas into a topsail, top-gallant sail, and jibs.”
“I never saw a sloop with a topsail,” said Fred.
“They are common enough,” said Isaac, “though not round here.”
“Now,” said Charlie, “it is best to have a fair understanding. I think
we can build this vessel, although you want a larger one than I had
expected. We are used to working together, are of one mind, and, as
Fred says, never undertook to do anything we didn’t accomplish; but it
will be a hard, trying thing, and we may have to leave off two or three
times, and go to work at something else to earn money to go on again.”
“I will go mate till you get her done, no matter how long it is. I
shall be contented if I have something to look forward to.”
“I suppose,” said Fred, “Captain Rhines or Mr. Ben would help us out if
we got stuck.”
“Not with my consent,” said John. “If we’ve got to fall back on the old
folks, I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
“That is just the way I feel. I only wanted to see what you would say.”
“My idea is just this,” said Charlie. “If we conclude to build her, go
to work and set her up, pay our bills as we go along, and before the
money quite runs out, stop and earn more. I’m one of those chaps that
want to know just how I stand every Saturday night.”
“If we begin,” said John, “we’ve got to go ahead, for everybody within
twenty miles will know it; and if we slump, we might as well leave the
country.”
“I know just what they’ll say,” replied Charlie. “They’ll say, there’s
a parcel of boys thinking they are going to build a vessel, and a nice
piece of work they’ll make of it! lose what little they’ve earned, and
find out they don’t know as much as they thought for. I wonder Captain
Rhines and Ben allow them to do it!”
“That,” said John, “is just what was said when we undertook to carry on
the farm; but they didn’t laugh when harvest-time came.”
“You say you want her two hundred tons, but you have said nothing about
the dimensions.”
“I want her a great carrier, and as good a sea-boat as she can be and
carry. I know enough to know that a vessel can’t be full and fast both;
but there’s a medium, to hit which you know more about than I do; if
you don’t, you know where to get information. I don’t care how rough
she is. We can’t afford to do anything for looks. She can’t look worse
than the Ark. I wish you could have heard all that was said when she
went into Havana! Why, the darkies laughed and opened their mouths
till I thought they never would shut them again. I couldn’t understand
Spanish, but Flour told me what they said. All I have to say about
dimensions is, I want her one hundred feet long, twenty-six feet beam,
eight and a half feet deep. There is length enough for spars, depth
enough for two tier of molasses. If you can make her any other than a
great carrier with that breadth of beam, you’re welcome to. Where would
you build her?”
“At my shore,” said Charlie. “The timber is at the water’s edge. Never
was a better place to set a vessel.”
“But there’s no house where you could live.”
“Build a log house,” said Fred.
“Ten men would build her,” said Charlie, “especially such men as Joe
Griffin, Peterson, and Yelf. Peterson can use a broadaxe or whip-saw as
well as a calking-iron. Uncle Isaac would work after haying, and Black
Luce could cook for us.”
“What would you do for a blacksmith’s shop?”
“Build a log one,” said John, “and burn our own coal.”
“The hardest nip,” said Isaac, “will be the sails, rigging, and
anchors.”
“I know that,” said Charlie; “but if I find the timber, and turn in my
work on the vessel, John turns in his, Fred pays the men in part out of
his store, then we shall economize what little money we have to pay the
men, buy sails and rigging.”
“Mine will be all cash. I’ll leave what I’ve got in Captain Rhines’s
hands, part of my two months’ advance, and I can leave a draw-bill on
the owners.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“About two years. We shall trade out there, or perhaps go from there to
Europe and back.”
“The _iron_ will be a heavy bill,” said John, “for it will have to be
imported.”
“If we make the timbers large, timber her close, put in plenty of
knees and treenails, we can save on the iron,” said Charlie. “There’s
a vast deal to be saved in a vessel if you don’t stand for looks,
especially if you have _time_, and the vessel will answer the purpose
just as well. If a man contracts to build a vessel for so much a ton,
in so many days, he has got to work right through, short days as well
as long, perhaps in bitter cold weather, when it will take a man one
quarter of the time to thrash his hands, and another quarter to stamp
his feet, and very often the timber has to be dug out of the snow;
then, if iron, wages, or pitch goes up, he must pay the price; he can’t
wait. But building as _we_ shall, we can take advantage of all these
things, and work in the long days, especially if we pay as we go along.
I’ve known ship-builders who were afraid to discharge a man, lest he
should ask for his money.”
“We are great fellows!” said Isaac. “Here we are talking about where we
will build, and what we will build, fixing our yard, boarding our men,
making all our calculations, and nobody has even _asked_ what she’s
going to _cost_. That’s neither according to reason nor Scripture.”
“Speaking about Scripture,” said Charlie, “just brings to my mind _one
thing_, that, now we are all together, I _must_ speak about. Here are
three of us that have professed religion, and Isaac, I know, respects
it.”
“To be sure I do. I wouldn’t have any _Murch_ blood in me if I didn’t.”
“Well, here we are, laying plans, as I may say, for life, just starting
out to do for ourselves, and we haven’t one of us done anything for the
Lord, or the support of his gospel.”
“I should think,” replied Fred, “that if we build this vessel, we shall
have about load enough to carry. When we are twenty-one we shall be
_called upon_.”
“I think it would be a great deal better not to wait to be _called_
upon. When we were so hard put to it, while father was paying for this
island, and had to live mostly on clams and sea-fowl, before we got
any news from the Ark, and didn’t know as we ever should, he, in his
_poverty_, paid something for the support of the gospel. I think, when
we are not pressed in any way, only pressing ourselves, we ought to do
_something_.”
“So do I,” replied John. “Don’t you know, Fred, how hard we worked to
make that garden, and cut the hay on Griffin’s Island, just to let Ben
and Sally know that we had hearts and consciences, knew when we were
well used, and who our friends were? I would like to show my heavenly
Father the same thing.”
“That’s the talk, John,” said Isaac. “I’ll do my part.”
“So will I,” said Fred, “and I’m ashamed I said what I did; but you
know I always was meaner than the rest of you.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” said John. “You’ve had your parents to
help, while we’ve had all we’ve earned, and all our clothes given us.
I didn’t mean we should give _much_, nor all alike, but we’ll make a
beginning. By and by, perhaps, we can do more.”
“Now I feel right,” said Charlie, “and we’ll talk _vessel_. I didn’t
say anything about the price, because this is all talk. We shouldn’t
feel like _doing_ anything,--at least I shouldn’t,--before asking
father, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac. They are the best friends
we’ve got in the world, know every crook and turn, and ain’t like some
old folks, who think everybody must be forty years old before they can
do anything.”
“We might as well talk about price,” said Isaac, “as about the rest.
What do you imagine she would cost?”
“The man I worked for in Portland sold a vessel of two hundred tons,
hull and spars, for sixteen dollars per ton. He bought the stump leave
of the timber, and hired it hauled six miles.”
“That would be three thousand two hundred dollars for the hull and
spars.”
“Yes; what it would cost for rigging, sails, and the rest, you know
better than I do.”
“It would cost about half as much more.”
Timber, labor, and board were cheap then--canvas, rigging, and iron
extremely high.
“But then it ain’t a going to cost us near that to build the same
number of tons.”
“Neither is it going to cost so much to rig and spar a sloop as a brig.”
“Nor so much for iron-work,” said John. “The more spars, the more
chain-plates, blocks, bolts, bands, boom-irons to make, and caps to
iron.”
“I believe she could be built in the way we should build her for twelve
dollars per ton, and I don’t know but less, hull and spars. The timbers
and spars are not much account here; the hauling is nothing. But she
will be an awful _looking_ thing, though!”
“Then she would cost two thousand four hundred dollars, six hundred to
a share, hull and spars, and half as much more to rig her.”
“Yes, I know she can be built for that; but there won’t be a brush full
of paint on her, and I don’t know but the name will have to be put on
with _chalk_. _I_ wouldn’t go to a foreign port in her.”
“_I_ will, though. I’m fire-proof. I’ve been in the _Ark_. Let us
calculate. Twelve dollars per ton. I can take a quarter at that rate,
and more on a pinch; for in addition to my wages, I have made something
by ventures.”
“I can take a quarter,” said Fred, “if I can have orders to pay some of
the men out of the store.”
“I,” said Charlie, “can take a quarter by turning in my labor. If I
hadn’t bought my land, I could have taken more.”
“Well,” said John, “I can take a quarter, and turn in my work.”
“What we want to know,” said Isaac, “is, how much _cash_ we can raise
to pay the men, buy iron, rig her, and for other materials. I can pay
my part in cash by the time it is wanted, and six hundred dollars of it
now.”
“I,” said Fred, “can pay in cash one hundred dollars.”
“I,” said John, “two hundred.”
“I,” said Charlie, “one hundred.”
“Well, there’s so much to begin with. Now the question is, _can_ we
begin with that?”
“We will carry all these calculations to father,” said Charlie, “and
ask him.”
It was dark when they arrived at the house.
“Why, boys,” said Ben, “where have you been all this time?”
“I should have thought,” said Sally, “hunger would have brought you
home before this. I told Ben you must have camped again in the top of
the old maple. I’m afraid you’ll have but a cold supper.”
“I declare,” said Charlie, “I never once thought about supper.”
“I thought I’d been to supper,” said John.
“You must have had some interesting matter on hand.”
“The most interesting thing in the world,” said Charlie.
“Do let me know what it is.”
“I’m going to after supper.”