A few waves of a hemlock broom—whew! up goes a column of spiral flame roaring up the chimney.
Away goes Charlie to feed the cattle. Thus you see a wood-shed was very far from being felt a necessity on Elm Island, where many other things, more needed, had hitherto been lacking. But now, among other added comforts, Ben thought it would be well to have one: it would save digging the wood out of the snow, and thus bringing water and snow into the house, and also be convenient for many purposes. Another consideration was, they would soon need a workshop, as the space in the barn now devoted to that purpose would be needed for hay; neither did he like to have shavings around the barn, and there was leisure before the fall harvest to build it. He did not wish to interfere with Charlie’s boat-building, as he saw he was very much pleased with the idea of building a boat for Captain Rhines. It was an excellent opportunity for this good boy, who was always ready to assist everybody else, to do something for himself.
Charlie, as our readers well know, was never better pleased than when he could plan some pleasant surprise for his adopted parents. Ben, therefore, determined to surprise Charlie; he resolved to build the shed a story and a half in height, to admit of having a corn-house in a portion of the upper story. Corn-houses were set up on logs, or stone posts, three feet from the ground, and detached from all other buildings, on account of rats; but there was no objection to making it in the shed, there, as neither rats nor mice had found their way to Elm Island.
While Charlie was busily at work in the daytime upon his boat, and in evenings studying surveying, Ben had got his timber from the woods for the frame, and hauled it to the door. He then hired a man by the name of Danforth Eaton, who was a shingle weaver, and a good broadaxe man, to help him.
Together they sawed up the shingle bolts, and then Ben set Eaton at work shaving shingles, while he hewed the timber. To Ben, who, since he had lived on the island, had become an excellent axe man, it was mere sport to hew pine timber: with his heavy axe and enormous strength, striking right down through, every clip he sliced off the chips almost as fast as he could walk, and soon began to frame it.
It was pretty lively times on Elm Island now: in the barn Charlie was building a boat; under a rude shelter, made by setting four poles in the ground, and placing some boards on them, Eaton, who was a splendid shingle weaver, was shaving shingles;—I can’t tell you why shingle makers are called weavers, unless it is on account of the motion of their bodies back and forth when shaving;—and Ben mortising and boring the timber.
Charlie’s boat grew with great rapidity; for besides knowing just how to go to work, he had the command of his whole time, and moreover, the boat being just like the other, had all his moulds ready. On rainy days, Ben and Eaton sawed out his planks, helped him get out his timbers, and put on his plank.
Charlie had been so completely absorbed in his boat, that he paid but very little attention to what his father and Danforth were doing: to be sure he glanced at their work as he passed back and forth from the barn to the house; noticed that Danforth had done making shingles, and was making clapboards, and that the timber was of great length; but supposed his father had hewn his sticks of double length, intending to cut them up. But a few days after, looking at a sill that was finished, he perceived by the mortises that it was intended to be used the whole length: he put on his rule and found it was fifty feet, and the cross-sill was twenty-five.
“Why, father, are you going to have a shed as big as all this? You won’t need a quarter part of this space.”