“I should think it would have run out.”
“They always made these fields by the salt water, and put fish in the hills. They taught the white people how to raise corn.”
“I have heard they made log canoes. How could they cut the trees down with their stone hatchets? and, more than all, how could they ever dig them out?”
“I will tell you, Mr. Inquisitive. An Indian would take a bag of parched corn to eat, a gourd shell to drink from, his stone hatchet, and go into the woods, find a suitable tree,—generally a dead, dry pine, with the limbs and bark all fallen off,—and at the foot of it would build a camp to sleep under. Then he would get a parcel of wet clay, and plaster the tree all around, then build a fire at the bottom to burn it off. The wet clay would prevent its burning too high up. Then he would sit and tend the fire, wet the clay, and beat off the coals as fast as they formed, till the tree fell; then cut it off, and hollow it in the same way.”
“I should think it would have taken a lifetime.”
“It did not take as long as you might suppose; besides, time was nothing to them. They did no work except to hunt, make a canoe, or bow and arrows. The squaws did all the drudgery.”
Uncle Isaac now went home to stay a week, and see to his affairs, and Atkins with him. In this interval, Charlie began to think about his long-neglected boat. He had already the exact model of the fish, but he wished to get it in a shape to work from. Mixing some more clay and sand, he filled the mould with it, into which he had pressed the fish, having first greased it thoroughly, that it might not stick. He now set it to dry, putting it in the cellar at night. When thoroughly dry, he turned it out, made an oven of stones, and baked it, so that it was in a state to be handled without crumbling. He did not wish Ben or Sally to observe his proceedings; and, as it was too cold to stay in the woods or barn, he resorted to his bedroom. Uncle Isaac, when there, slept with Charlie, and kept his chest beside their bed.
Charlie was sitting on the bed, with the model in his hand, looking at it, and contriving how to work from it; and so intently was he engaged, that Uncle Isaac, who, unknown to him, had returned, and wanted something from his chest, came upon him before he could shove it under the bed.
“What have you got there, Charlie?”
“O, Uncle Isaac, I’m so sorry to see you!”