“I,” said John, “mean to paint my steers’ yoke, my gunning float, sled, and the boat father made me, if we can get enough; and I’ll paint my bedroom, then put some into whitewash and paint the walls.”
“I,” said Fred, “have got a sled, a chest, and a writing-desk to paint; and I mean to paint the measures in the mill, and a little box for my sister.”
They worked with might and main, scooping it out of the hollows in the bed of the rock, as that was the most free from grit. Putting it into their dinner-pail, they turned it into the forward part of the canoe.
“Only see where the sun is!” cried John, looking up; “I declare it’s most night; we must start this minute, and we shan’t be able to go to the pond where the pickerel are.”
The wind had now moderated to a light breeze, and was sufficiently favorable to have laid their course with a boat, but a canoe will do nothing on the wind.
“What makes everybody have canoes?” asked Charlie. “In England they have boats with keels, masts, and sails, just like sloops and schooners; they will sail on the wind, and beat to windward as well as the Perseverance.”
“I never saw any such thing,” said John; “but I’ve heard father tell of them.”
“They have timbers, are planked up, and calked, just, for all the world, like little vessels; and in some of them the planks are lapped over each other and nailed.”
“I shouldn’t think,” said Fred, “anything could be tight without oakum.”
“Why not? A barrel and a pail is tight, and there is no oakum in them.”