When the snow came, Charlie cut and hauled out spars enough to complete the deck-load of the vessel; but, although they piled them up ten feet above deck, they could not bring her deck to the water, she was so buoyant.
Captain March, as we must call him now, came home just as they were completing the lading.
John came home to see Isaac off, and to settle up the business. The crew were shipped, as in the Ark, for nominal wages and a privilege.
Sally had a liberal allowance of room given to her for a venture.
Peterson went before the mast, and his boy went as cook. Isaac persuaded Joe Griffin and Henry to go with him, Joe as mate. The rest of the crew were made up of the neighbors’ boys.
When they came to settle accounts, they found that the cost of outfit had been brought down to a thousand dollars, instead of fifteen hundred, as they estimated at first. There were several reasons for this. The canvas cost them much less than it would had they bought it at a warehouse. Captain Rhines had bought the rigging in New York, where he was well acquainted, cheap. Mr. Starrett had bought the cables and anchors for two thirds price, and would take no commission. Captain Rhines and Ben charged very low wages for making the sails, fitting and putting on the rigging, and the boys could not make them take any more.
“We’ve got the advantage of you now, boys,” said the captain. “You wouldn’t let us lend you money, but you can’t make us take more for our work than we like.”
On this account they were able to settle all their bills, provision the vessel for the voyage, load her, and even have something left, which exceeded their most sanguine expectations.
Isaac, whose proportion had all been paid in cash, had remaining but four dollars. John had nine shillings of the money resulting from his venture in the Ark, and the proceeds of hunting, although he had some wages due him in Portland. Fred, who had paid nearly every dollar of his proportion in orders, except what the cargo cost, could have advanced seventy-five dollars more without detriment to his business; while Charlie was better off in respect to ready money than either of them. There was sufficient reason for this. His wages as master workman had been more than the rest, and he had worked all the time in the winter making the spars, rudder, and windlass, and building the boats. He had also furnished the timber and spars for the cargo of the vessel. Fred could not pay this in orders; so he and the others had to pay Charlie one hundred and fifty dollars apiece in money, which left him better off than they, as he had his farm and a fourth of the vessel, while Isaac’s goods were the greater part on commission, and belonged to Captain Rhines, Ben, and Uncle Isaac.
It was a pleasant morning when the vessel weighed anchor, a fair wind, a little quartering, just right to make every sail draw; and all the population that could get there were assembled around the banks of Captain Rhines’s Cove. They had a singular fashion before, and for many years after, the revolution,—even till 1812 and later,—of rigging vessels into topsail sloops, and even sent them to the East Indies.