“That tells the story,” said the captain; “we’ll give her a few more; there’s nothing like an empty cask; I’ll find a use for them when we get out there.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Joe; “why didn’t you put them way down in the bottom of her, and fill her floor? she would have floated as light as a feather.”
“If I had,” replied the captain, “she would have done like the boy who went in swimming with the bladders.”
“How was that?”
“A boy had heard tell that bladders would float a person, and thought he would walk on the water with them; so he went down to the pond, tied the bladders on to his feet, and waded into the water: they found him, a few hours afterwards, feet up and head down, as dead as a herring; and that would have been the way with our craft.”
“What an ass I am!” said Joe; “ain’t I?”
“No; but you didn’t happen to think of that.”
“Joe,” said Ben, one night after work, “can you make a float?”
“No.”
“Then I’m all ashore. I’ve been thinking that, after you came back, you and I could make one before the kitchen fire this winter.”