HARD-SCRABBLE.
In a few days after the occurrences related in the previous chapter,
Peterson came to Captain Rhines, declaring that he could by no means
consent to be passed by in the sail-making; that no one in the place
felt more interest in his young captain than himself; for had he not
taught him seamanship? and that his old woman could weave with the best
of them.
“Indeed, James,” said the captain, “Luce shall have all the cloth to
weave that she wants; you shall help make the sails and rig, and we
reckon upon you to calk her.”
Charlie continued to work with his small crew till the first of May,
when, the days being long and the weather warm, he recalled his
hands, and the work went on apace. Not having conveniences, as at
present, to bring the plank to the timbers, when they came to bend the
ceiling-plank at the bow and stern, they spiked two pieces of plank
across the butts of a couple of elms that grew side by side; then
taking the plank hot from the steam-box, they put the end of it under
one plank and over the others. Four or five men then took hold of it,
while Charlie struck on it with the edge of his broadaxe, whang! when
the men would bear down, and bend the plank, then he would strike in
another place. This was to make it bend by cutting it part way off,
just as joiners sometimes saw scarfs in a board when they want it to
bend, as in building a front-yard fence at the corner of a street, only
the joiner saws on the inside, and, when he bends his board, the scarf
closes up; whereas, they cut on the outside, and when the plank was
brought to, the cuts gaped, and the plank was no stronger for the wood
between.
They did not make any tar. Fred contrived a method to obtain it much
cheaper than they could have made it, and leave a handsome profit for
himself--a twofold advantage, as he was obliged to take the money
expended on the vessel from his business, which was a great detriment.
He needed every cent to buy goods, as his business was increasing, and
he would not buy on credit, although Mr. Welch was ready to trust him.
But as the lack of means tended directly to develop the mechanical
ability of John and Charlie, by compelling contrivance and effort,
thus did it sharpen the wits of Fred. He bought potash for half money,
half goods; fish for all store pay, or one fourth money, thus making
a profit on his goods; sent the potash and fish to Boston, sold them
for cash, and bought tow, cotton cloth, and shoes, for negro clothing.
He filled the Perseverance up with these articles, and a cheaper
quality of fish; paid Ben out of his store for the boat; went captain
himself, with Peterson for pilot and sailing-master, Sydney Chase and
young Peterson as crew; bartered his cargo in Carolina for tar, pitch,
turpentine, and corn, and came back to Boston; sold part of the corn,
and all the tar, pitch, and turpentine he did not want for the vessel,
for cash, bought a stock of goods to bring home with him, and ground
the corn in his own mill.
“That,” said Captain Rhines, delighted, “is what I call a calculation.”
The vessel was completed in August, and launched the 29th of September,
the very day Charlie was twenty-one. In addition to building the
vessel, they had, in the mean time, cleared all the growth from the
land on which they cut their timber, burnt over and fenced it for Ben;
also helped him cut his hay and hoe his corn. Built of pine, and now
well seasoned, she was as light on the water as a cork.
The whole town came to the launching, for all were interested in her,
even Parson Goodhue, with his new hat and wig; but he kept a respectful
distance from the gander. There was much diversity of opinion among
the owners in respect to a name. Some wanted to call her Charlie Bell;
but Charlie declared she looked too bad to be named for anybody. Some
wanted to call her the Pioneer, others, Enterprise.
“I’ll tell you what to call her,” said Joe Griffin. “You’ve had such
a hard scratch to build her, and ain’t done scratching yet, call her
Hard-Scrabble.”
This was unanimously assented to. It had, indeed, been a hard scrabble,
and the conflict was by no means ended. The boys feared the worst was
to come. She was to be fitted for sea.
Charlie was certainly right in saying that she looked too bad to be
named for anybody, though it was allowed on all hands that she was
an excellent model, true in all her proportions, and not a bunch or
a slack place could be found anywhere. Yet she was rough as rough
could be. Even then it was customary to plane the wales and bulwarks,
and paint them black, with a turpentine streak, and the spars were
generally painted black. But the wales of the Hard-Scrabble were just
as the adze left them, although with the narrow adze, used in those
days, the timber was left much smoother than after the wider ones now
in use. The men were also skilful dubbers. The deck beams, which are
now planed and smoothed with sand-paper, they left rough; but then they
dubbed them, without breaking their chip, the whole length of the beam,
leaving a succession of little ridges, which were thought very fine;
and there are not many workmen at the present day can do that: as for
bulwarks, she had none.
Aft she had a high quarter-deck, about twenty feet long, under which
were the accommodations, where a fireplace was built, the cooking done,
and all hands lived, the men being separated from the officers by a
bulkhead. When she was loaded, this would be the only dry place in her,
as the lower deck would be at the water’s edge, perhaps under water.
A pole, called a rough tree, was run along from forward to aft, and
fastened to stanchions to prevent falling overboard. The top timbers,
however, came up all along, and there was a short rail at the bows,
and all along the quarter-deck; also some heavy pieces of white oak,
made to run across the vessel in several places, with a mortise in the
ends, which slipped over the heads of the top timbers above the deck
load, giving great support to the upper works, as the waist was deep.
The deck was as rough as it came from the saw; not a board about the
cabin, inside or out, was planed, except where it was necessary to make
a joint.
As Charlie had predicted, there was not a brushful of paint on her,
except that the name was put on the bare white plank with lampblack
and oil, instead of chalk, as he thought would be the case. Her wales
looked the funniest. They could not afford pitch to go all over her, so
they only put it on the seams; and, as the plank were not painted, she
looked queer enough with a white stripe and a black one. They wanted to
economize pitch for the bottom, which must have a solid coat of pitch
and brimstone, to prevent the worms from eating her up in the West
Indies. Into this pitch they put some of the yellow ochre, which the
boys got on their excursion to Indian camp-ground. The knees were but
half bolted; there was not a butt-bolt in her; the butts were merely
spiked; spruce limbs took the place of bolts.
Captain Rhines said she would do well enough to go one voyage or two,
till she earned something, and they could put in fastenings when they
were better able.
She had neither figure nor billet-head, only a gammon knee. In short,
with her handsome proportions and fine model, she appeared like a
well-built man in most vile apparel.
The cloth for the sails now began to come in, and the bolts were
piled up in the corn-house. In consequence of all this hard work,
contrivance, and pinching economy in every direction, she stood them at
the wharf, with her mast in and spars made, twelve dollars per ton.
The canvas and remaining expense, which they were now able to estimate,
they found would be about one thousand five hundred dollars. Their
money was nearly all expended; but they had paid their bills as they
went along, and the vessel was in the water. They could now do but
little more in the way of saving, as they could not turn in their own
labor, but must have cash. They therefore put their heads together to
devise means for raising it.
Captain Rhines and Ben both offered them the money to fit her for sea;
but, to their astonishment, they refused it. The captain endeavored in
vain to prevail on them to permit him to lend them the money.
“Just think of it, John! Here is this vessel lying idle at the wharf,
and you are losing the interest of what she cost you, and it will be
another year before you can earn the money, and rig her. Before that
time, you might send her to the West Indies, and make her pay for
herself. Ben and I will charter and load her the moment she’s ready for
sea; we’ll let Seth Warren take her, and go out to the West Indies this
winter.”
“But, father, the cloth for the sails ain’t made.”
“There’s enough done for the mainsail: you wouldn’t want to go out
there till the middle of January, so as to come on the coast in good
weather; the cloth will be ready by that time. Ben, Peterson, and I can
go right to work on the mainsail.”
“But we built her for Isaac; he owns a quarter of her, and I shouldn’t
like to have him come home and find we had taken another into our
concern, and sent him off with his vessel; then, if the man should have
bad luck, he certainly wouldn’t like it.”
“Then I’ll go myself. I don’t think Isaac would object to my having
been in her, especially if he found she had paid for herself.”
Mrs. Rhines made a sign to John to remain firm; for of all things she
dreaded, it was her husband’s going to sea.
“Father,” said John, at length, “you are real kind and good; but we
solemnly agreed, when we were all together, to build this vessel
ourselves, and not to run in debt. I can’t break that pledge,
especially in the absence of one of the contracting parties. I don’t
think it would be right.”
“No more it wouldn’t. I didn’t know that, but thought it was only a
boyish notion of yours.”
“If we are _losing_ interest, we are not _paying_ interest: we don’t
owe for her.”
It required more money to rig her, in proportion to the cost of the
hull, than it would in ordinary cases, they had economized so much on
the hull, she being only half fastened, and no expense having been laid
out for finish or paint.
Fred calculated to raise his money by some smart stroke in business: he
had no other way. John and Charlie had many plans under consideration.
Charlie could build boats, John could go to work at Portland, or, as
they wanted to be together, Charlie could go to Stroudwater.
But it was now October. Isaac would be at home in a year: they could
not in that time earn money enough to fit her for sea, and they wanted
to be able to load her with lumber from Charlie’s land, as Ben did the
Ark.
After looking at the matter in every possible light, and puzzling their
heads to make something out of nothing, this committee of ways and
means determined to go and consult with Uncle Isaac.
After stating the case fully to him, Charlie said,--
“Suppose John goes to Portland, and I to Stroudwater, to work, and
while I’m gone this winter, get Joe Griffin to cut the wood off of
Indian Island, and put it on the bank, send it to Boston or Salem,
that, with what we could both earn, would, I think, with what we shall
save by having the canvas and sails made at home, fetch us out. If I
should ever go on my place to live, I should want a sheep pasture; and
that would make a nice one if it was cleared. I could keep sheep there:
in the winter they could live on kelp, rock-weed, and thatch round the
shores, with a very little hay, as father’s do on Griffin’s Island.”
“I shouldn’t want to do that: you’d have to give Joe fifty cents for
cutting and putting it on the bank. It would bring nine shillings
in Boston: that wouldn’t leave you more than two hundred and fifty
dollars, at the outside.”
“Yes; but it’s going to take me almost a year to earn that in a
shipyard, and I can be earning all the time while they are cutting the
wood.”
“If you cut the wood off that island, which lies right off the mouth
of your harbor, and shelters it from the winds, it will leave it much
exposed. It isn’t large enough to make much of a sheep pasture: you
can’t keep sheep there in winter; for, besides there not being dulse,
Irish moss, and kelp, as there is on Griffin’s, and the outer islands,
the bay freezes in the winter, and the wolves would go over on the
ice and kill them. I wouldn’t cut it off, and expose my harbor, for
anything.”
“Potash brings cash: couldn’t I cut the white oaks and rock maples at
the shore, and make potash?”
“What a way that would be!--to cut down good ship timber and sugar
trees, that would make keels for ships, burn them up for potash, and
that is the end of it. If we get to building vessels here, you will
want it all for ship timber, because it is right on the spot. Let the
folks back in the country, where ship timber isn’t worth anything, burn
it up for potash: that would be saving at the tap and losing at the
bunghole.”
“But I shall never build another vessel if I don’t get this one done,
and I want the money.”
“I see what you want,--to raise the money quicker than you can earn
it in the yard or shop, and be together, too. You’d be willing to do
almost anything to bring that about.”
“That’s it, exactly, Uncle Isaac,” said John.
“Well, then, listen to me. You’ve got money enough to buy the bolt-rope
for your sails--haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, start right off for Portland and Stroudwater as fast as
you can go. Don’t lose a minute. Send down the bolt-rope and twine for
Captain Rhines and Ben to make the sails with at their leisure. Be
back here by Christmas; and you, Joe Griffin, and myself will go back
to the Canada line, spend the winter, and hunt bears, beavers, otters,
and moose. If we don’t get furs enough to bring you out clear, and
something more, then my name ain’t Isaac Murch.”
The boys listened, with staring eyes and open mouths, till he
concluded, then making a rush, both caught him round the neck.
“Just what we’ve always been longing to do!” said Charlie. “Just what
we’ve been talking, dreaming about, and telling we meant to do some
time.”
The boy-nature, which had been in abeyance a long time, and kept down
by hard work and anxiety, was all up now, fresh and blithe as May.
“How glad I am we got stuck!” said Charlie. “Now we’ll make money, and
have a good time, both together. O, I wish Fred could go!”
“But will Joe go?” asked John.
“Will he eat when he’s hungry? He’s almost as well acquainted as I
am. He’s been logging and hunting up that way. He saw a hunter last
week, that came out of the woods because his folks were sick. He’s a
great friend of Joe’s, and told him of places where the beavers are
getting ready to build their houses, and where the moose are going to
make a yard, and said, as he couldn’t go into the woods this winter,
he would lend him his steel traps. I’ve got a few traps, and know
where I can hire a few more, and we must make up the number we lack
with dead-falls. I’ll make snow-shoes for you and John, and arrange
everything. We can’t start without snow, and therefore if there’s no
snow when you come home, we must wait till there is.”
“But,” asked John, “can’t we hunt round here?”
“Yes, indeed. Kill bears and wolves, and get the bounty--anywhere
within fifty miles.”
“Perhaps,” said John, “we shan’t have to come to the wooden shrouds,
after all.”
“I hope we shan’t. I didn’t think we should,” said Charlie.
Thus encouraged, the boys started off for Portland in exuberant
spirits, having first made an arrangement with Fred that he should
employ Ricker and the Eatons to cut logs enough on Charlie’s land to
make one hundred and seventy-five thousand of boards, begin to haul
them to the mill on the first snow, in order to have them seasoning, to
load the Hard-Scrabble.
“We thought Fred wouldn’t have so good a chance as ourselves,” said
Charlie, “because, not being a carpenter nor blacksmith, he couldn’t
turn in his work, but he’s turned in his goods. He sent those poor
hake, that nobody here could eat, out South to feed the negroes, and
got pitch, turpentine, and corn. He’ll pay for most of the flax, and
for the weaving, in goods. He’s taken a good many orders since we’ve
been building. He’ll pay the Eatons for cutting and hauling the timber,
and the mill men for sawing, from the store. He won’t get much out of
Ricker only his tobacco; so I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t have to
pay much money, after all.”
“I guess,” said John, “it will be you, and I, and Isaac that will have
to pay the money. His goods will come to more than our labor.”