“That,” said Captain Rhines, delighted, “is what I call a calculation.”
The vessel was completed in August, and launched the 29th of September, the very day Charlie was twenty-one. In addition to building the vessel, they had, in the mean time, cleared all the growth from the land on which they cut their timber, burnt over and fenced it for Ben; also helped him cut his hay and hoe his corn. Built of pine, and now well seasoned, she was as light on the water as a cork.
The whole town came to the launching, for all were interested in her, even Parson Goodhue, with his new hat and wig; but he kept a respectful distance from the gander. There was much diversity of opinion among the owners in respect to a name. Some wanted to call her Charlie Bell; but Charlie declared she looked too bad to be named for anybody. Some wanted to call her the Pioneer, others, Enterprise.
“I’ll tell you what to call her,” said Joe Griffin. “You’ve had such a hard scratch to build her, and ain’t done scratching yet, call her Hard-Scrabble.”
This was unanimously assented to. It had, indeed, been a hard scrabble, and the conflict was by no means ended. The boys feared the worst was to come. She was to be fitted for sea.
Charlie was certainly right in saying that she looked too bad to be named for anybody, though it was allowed on all hands that she was an excellent model, true in all her proportions, and not a bunch or a slack place could be found anywhere. Yet she was rough as rough could be. Even then it was customary to plane the wales and bulwarks, and paint them black, with a turpentine streak, and the spars were generally painted black. But the wales of the Hard-Scrabble were just as the adze left them, although with the narrow adze, used in those days, the timber was left much smoother than after the wider ones now in use. The men were also skilful dubbers. The deck beams, which are now planed and smoothed with sand-paper, they left rough; but then they dubbed them, without breaking their chip, the whole length of the beam, leaving a succession of little ridges, which were thought very fine; and there are not many workmen at the present day can do that: as for bulwarks, she had none.
Aft she had a high quarter-deck, about twenty feet long, under which were the accommodations, where a fireplace was built, the cooking done, and all hands lived, the men being separated from the officers by a bulkhead. When she was loaded, this would be the only dry place in her, as the lower deck would be at the water’s edge, perhaps under water.
A pole, called a rough tree, was run along from forward to aft, and fastened to stanchions to prevent falling overboard. The top timbers, however, came up all along, and there was a short rail at the bows, and all along the quarter-deck; also some heavy pieces of white oak, made to run across the vessel in several places, with a mortise in the ends, which slipped over the heads of the top timbers above the deck load, giving great support to the upper works, as the waist was deep. The deck was as rough as it came from the saw; not a board about the cabin, inside or out, was planed, except where it was necessary to make a joint.
As Charlie had predicted, there was not a brushful of paint on her, except that the name was put on the bare white plank with lampblack and oil, instead of chalk, as he thought would be the case. Her wales looked the funniest. They could not afford pitch to go all over her, so they only put it on the seams; and, as the plank were not painted, she looked queer enough with a white stripe and a black one. They wanted to economize pitch for the bottom, which must have a solid coat of pitch and brimstone, to prevent the worms from eating her up in the West Indies. Into this pitch they put some of the yellow ochre, which the boys got on their excursion to Indian camp-ground. The knees were but half bolted; there was not a butt-bolt in her; the butts were merely spiked; spruce limbs took the place of bolts.
Captain Rhines said she would do well enough to go one voyage or two, till she earned something, and they could put in fastenings when they were better able.