When Charlie returned the next night with his spars, they procured the cloth for the sails, and went back to the island.
Ben cut and made the sails; and, in order that everything might be in keeping, pointed and grafted the ends of the fore, main, and jib-sheets, and also made a very neat fisherman’s anchor; but he persisted in making the sails much smaller than suited their notions.
They had some large, flat pieces of iron that came from the wreck that drove ashore on the island the year before; these they put in the bottom for ballast, and upon them, in order to make her as stiff as possible, some heavy flint stones, worn smooth by the surf, which they had picked up on the Great Bull.
Until this moment they had been unable to decide upon a name, but now concluded to call her the “West Wind.”
They put the finishing touch to their work about three o’clock in the afternoon, and, with a moderate south-west wind, made sail, and stood out to sea, close-hauled.
All their hopes were now more than realized; loud and repeated were their expressions of delight as they saw how near she would lie to the wind, and how well she worked. The moment the helm was put down, she came rapidly up to the wind, the foresail gave one slat, and she was about; then they tried her under foresail alone, and found she went about easily, requiring no help.
“Isn’t she splendid?” asked John; “and ain’t you glad we built her?”
“Reckon I am: what will Fred say when he sees her? and won’t we three have some nice times in her?”
“It was a good thing for us, Charlie, that we had Ben to cut the sails and tell us where to put the masts.”