“I tell you, though it seems to be a very simple thing, there’s a great knack in making a float. I can make a hog’s trough, and christen it a float, but to make one that will be stiff and light, and scull steady and true, there’s only one man round here can do it.”
“Who’s that?”
“Uncle Sam Elwell.”
“Uncle Sam!” replied Ben, in amazement; “I didn’t know he could work in anything but rocks.”
“It’s my opinion that he can work in anything he has a mind to; but he won’t touch anything but rocks, except it is a float or a gun-stock. He will make as neat a gun-stock as ever a man put to his face, or a snow-shoe; but if he wanted a door made to a pig-sty or a hen house, he would go and build wall for Uncle Isaac, while he made them for him; or if his wife wanted a chopping-tray or a bread-trough, she might want it till she could get Uncle Isaac to make it for her. Whatever he wants for hunting or fishing, he’ll find a way to make, fast enough; it’s my solid belief he’d make a gun-barrel if he couldn’t get one in any other way.”
“Do you think he would come over here in the winter, and make a float?”
“To be sure he would; he is doing nothing in the winter but taking care of his cattle; and there’s not a calm day but he and Uncle Isaac are out in their float after game. Why, I’ve known them old critters, when they wanted to be in a certain place at half tide to shoot harvest ducks, to lie down on the beach in the night and go to sleep, till the water flowed up around their knees and woke them up.”
“We’ll hew it out, at any rate; that’ll save him some work.”
“I wouldn’t; he’s a particular old toad, and would rather have it just as it grew; but if you touch it, he’ll think you’ve taken off some where you ought not to, and spilte it; he’ll no more thank you for saving him labor on a float-piece, than a feller would thank you for courting a girl for him; he’d rather do it himself.”
Ben sent word to Uncle Sam, who replied that same day, that when he and Isaac were out gunning they would come and look at it.