“I was afraid I should myself, and so am getting ready to go into the woods. Come, go into the house, all of you.”
The letter was from Isaac. He was at Cadiz, waiting for a cargo of salt.
“He says he wants a larger vessel; that the demand is for large spars for men-of-war, lower masts, yards, and bowsprits; that he can’t carry them in that vessel, and that the few he did carry he had to run over the rail forward and aft, and he liked to have lost his vessel going out by one getting adrift.”
“How large a vessel does he want, Captain Rhines?” asked Charlie.
“Seven hundred tons,—a proper mast ship,—large enough to carry real whoppers, one hundred and eight feet long and thirty-six inches through, with a port at each end big enough to drive in a yoke of oxen.”
Neither Charlie, nor even Fred, who thought the Hard-Scrabble a monster for size, seemed startled by this.
“Is he in a hurry for her?”
“No; he said he wanted you to be thinking about it; and he will let the masts alone, and take fish, boards, and staves to Madeira, or some of the Danish islands.”
“I will go to cutting the timber to-morrow. I’d rather cut it into ship-timber than burn it. It won’t be fifty rods from the yard. As I am clearing, I can save what I come across, and set up the vessel in the fall, if he is in no hurry. Who’ll be the owners?”
“Mr. Welch, Ben, Uncle Isaac, myself, and you ‘Hard-Scrabble boys.’ There’s eight of us. We’ll all own alike. Give her a hard-wood floor, white oak top, buy the timber of you, and take her at the bills.”