“Well, it won’t fit, anyhow. Master Hunt says ’twont.”
“O, if I could only get a little spirit to rub on it,” said Uncle Isaac, in great perplexity, “I’ll bet ’twould fit; but I’m sure I don’t know how I can get it on this island.”
“There’s some aboard the schooner,” said John Strout; and, as it was passed up the frame, Joe announced that the ridge-pole fitted first rate.
“Now, boys, the frame is up, and must be named. Who shall name it?”
“Seth Warren,” was the cry; “he got up the scrape.” Seth, all at once, became extremely diffident, and required as much urging as a distinguished man at Commencement dinner, but finally was prevailed upon, at a great sacrifice of his own feelings, to gratify his friends. With a bottle of rum in his right hand, and astride the ridge-pole, he gave vent to the following effusion:—
Here, in the woods, yet out at sea,
Where robins sing amid the surf,
Where ivy clasps the moss-grown tree,
And flowers are breaking from the turf,—
We’ve reared, where house ne’er stood before,