“So she will; I never thought of that.”
It seemed to the boys the shortest day they had ever spent; it certainly had been a very happy one. In the morning they separated, John going half way home with Charles in his float.
CHAPTER VI.
CHARLIE IN A SNOW SQUALL.
Charles would have been more than human if he could have rested easy without a sail for his canoe, after seeing John’s, and sailing with him in his float. He tried a hemlock bush, but he came near filling his boat by means of it. He didn’t like to ask Sally to weave him cloth to make one, as she had to buy her flax and cotton, nor to ask Ben to let him sell fish for it. He therefore set his wits to work to compass his end. He noticed the bottom of the chairs, and asked Ben what they were made of: he told him, of basket-stuff, and how it was made.
He cut down an ash, pounded it, and stripping it very thin, wove it into a mat, and made a sail of it. A great deal of wind went through it, to be sure; but then it answered a very good purpose, and saved him a deal of rowing.
At length he espied a birch-bark dish, that Uncle Isaac had made for Sally to wash dishes in. He examined it very attentively, and thought he had at last found the right stuff; but, to his great disappointment, the bark wouldn’t run at that time of the year. Joe told him to make a fire and heat the tree, when he found it would run. He obtained some large sheets, and made it very thin; he found some difficulty in making the stitches hold, as the bark was so straight-grained it would split, and let the thread out; but he found a way to remedy this, by sewing some narrow strips of cloth with the bark at the seams and edges. He now found that he had a sail that was a great deal handsomer and lighter than the other, and that not a bit of wind could get through. Having by this time got a birch-bark fever, he made himself a hat of it, and a box to carry his dinner in.
He continued to fish every pleasant day, and, as fast as the fish were cured, he put them in the chamber; and the larger the pile grew, the more anxious he became to add to it.
There had been a week of moderate weather for the time of year, with light south and south-west winds, and Charles had caught a great many fish, sailing home every afternoon as grand as you please. At length there was an appearance of a change in the weather. Ben thought he had better not go; but seeing he was eager to do so, did not prevent him. It was a dead calm when Charlie rowed on to his ground, and continued thus till nearly noon; but the clouds hung low, and the sun was partially hid. The fish bit well, and Charlie was too busy in hauling them in to take note of a black mass of clouds, which, having first gathered in the north-east, were gradually coming down the bay, accompanied with a black mist reaching from the water to the sky, till in an instant the wind struck with a savage shriek; the waters rolled up green and angry, and he was wrapped in a whirlwind of snow, so thick that he not only lost sight of the island, but could not even see three times the length of the canoe. His first impulse was to haul up his anchor and row for the island; but the moment he put his hand to the cable he was convinced that he could make no progress, nor even hold his own against such a sea and wind.
There was nothing for him but to remain where he was, in the hope that Ben would come to seek him. But perils now multiplied around him; the wind, and with it the sea, increased continually. The cold became intense; the spray flew into the canoe, which was deeply laden with fish, freezing as it came. It seemed very doubtful to him whether Ben could find him in the darkness, which, as the day drew to a close, became every moment more intense.