He invited Isaac to take wine with him, which he declined.
“I’ve seen strange things to-day,” said the Frenchman. “A captain that would sell the mast out of his vessel, and wouldn’t drink a glass of wine.”
In the intercourse which grew out of this trade, the Frenchman noticed Isaac’s boat,—his own had been riddled with shot,—and he wanted to buy her.
“There’s not a boat in this harbor,” said Isaac, “that can pull or sail with her. I’ll sell her. I’ll sell anything but my country and my principles. If you want her enough to give me one hundred dollars for her, take her.”
The Frenchman took her. The boatswain’s crew of the man-of-war brought the yard alongside, and took out the mast.
Isaac and Joe got the spar on board, sawed it off square where it was cracked, then took a whip-saw and split it into halves the whole length, turned the halves end for end, and put it together again, thus bringing the joint in another place, and making the spar just as long as it was before, and then treenailed it together.
A yard is differently shaped from a mast, being biggest in the middle. By their turning the halves, although the length was the same, there was a slag in the place of the joint, and a bunch at the ends. They filled up the slag with plank, the bunch at the bottom helped out the step of the mast, and that at the top to form the masthead. They then put on the hounds and the old trestle-trees. Joe, who was no mean blacksmith, hooped the whole with iron, above and below the wake of the mainsail. They now put in the mast, and set up the rigging.
As the mast was so much smaller than the other, they did not dare to send up the top and top-gallant masts; but they gave additional strength to the masts by putting the topmast backstays and also the headstays on to the head of the lower mast, thus leaving the stays of the two masts on one, to compensate for the smaller size of the spar. They were not afraid now to carry a whole mainsail and fore-staysail. They also sent up the fore-yard, and bent the topsail on it for a square-sail.
In order that she might not look stunt, Joe made a light spar to take the place of a topmast, to set colors on. They put the top-gallant rigging and backstays on it, and the flying-jib for a gaff-topsail. Thus they had nearly as much sail as before, and all the large sails, without cutting a foot of rigging or a yard of canvas.
“It takes us ‘Hard-Scrabble boys’ to do things,” said Joe, when the whole was completed. “Hurrah for the Hard-Scrabble!” and jumping on to the windlass-bitts at one bound, and slapping his hands against his sides, he crowed most lustily.