“Nor I either. I suppose to-morrow you’ll want to go over and see Joe and Uncle Isaac, and go to Pleasant Cove.”
“Not till that orchard is done. I want to drive those oxen. O, father, won’t we have a good time burning the stumps, putting the ashes round the trees, making it look neat and nice, and picking up all the stones?”
“I see,” replied Ben, “you have brought back the same heart you carried away.”
“Why, father, how could I go right off, when you have got so much to do, and it is such a nice time to do it? Besides, I haven’t seen the maple, nor been up in the big pine; and I’ve only just looked over the fowl, and haven’t taken particular notice of any of them, nor of the birds; then there’s a leg gone out of mother’s wash-bench, a latch off the kitchen door, a square of glass broke in the buttery, and that yoke to be made, and the piece must be cut and put to season. You must have a better goad, father; it’s a shame to drive such a team with a beech limb. There’s a tough little white-oak butt, as blue as a whetstone, in the shop, that Uncle Isaac gave me: I’ll make a goad of that. Then I mean to make a pair of cart wheels, such as I saw in Portland, on the Saccarappa teams, and John says he’ll put tires on them. Why shouldn’t we have things on Elm Island as well as they up there.”
“If you’re going to do all that, or half of it, you wont get off the island this month.”
“I don’t know as I shall do it all now, but I’ll begin, and I’ll make the goad before it’s time to go to work to-morrow. Come, father, let us go and split up the butt before dark.”
They took the small oak butt, set it on end, Charlie held the axe to the end of it, Ben struck the pole of the axe with a piece of wood, and they split it in halves, saved one half for axe handles, and split the other up fine for goads. Charlie was up betimes in the morning, made a beautiful goad, scraped it with glass, then rubbed it with dogfish skin, oiled it, and put a brad in it. It was tough as leather. He made another for Bennie, Jr. Proudly the little chap strutted beside Charlie with his goad, kindled fires, heaped the brush and roots on them, roasted clams, baked potatoes in an oven Charlie made for him, and blessed his stars that Charlie had come.
Before two days Charlie had cut down an elm, roughed out a yoke, bored the bow-holes, and put it up in the smoke-hole to season, to be smoothed by and by. He counted sixteen partridges among the yellow birches, but by Ben’s advice abstained from killing any till they should have increased in numbers.
“Let them alone, and give them a chance to lay and breed another spring and summer,” said Ben, “and then we can shoot as many as we want to eat, and they will hold their own.”