CHAPTER VIII.
CHARLIE’S HOME LIFE AND EMPLOYMENTS.
Though every boy, almost, in America knows that baskets are made of ash and oak, it was an entirely new thing to Charles. However, by the instruction of Ben, and the practice of making his sail, he had acquired a knowledge of its properties, and how to pound and prepare it for making baskets. By pounding an ash or oak log the layers of wood may be made to separate, and then the end being started with a knife, they may be run into long, thin strips, suitable for the purpose.
In stormy days he pounded and prepared his material, and in the long winter evenings that were now approaching, he wove it into baskets, as he sat and chatted with the rest before the blazing fire. He made them beautifully, too; some of them open, and others with covers.
“Well, Charlie,” said Joe, as he sat watching him, “you are a workman at basket-making, any how.”
“I ought to be,” said he, “for I have worked enough at it; but in our country they don’t make them of such stuff as this.”
“What do they make them of?”
“Sallies,” replied Charles.
“Sallys! they must be a barbarous people to cut women up to make baskets of. What makes them take Sallys? why don’t they take Mollys and Bettys, too; it ain’t fair to take all of one name.”
“It is not women,” said Charlie, laughing, “but a kind of wood.”