Charlie lost but very little time, after his arrival at the island, before he began to set out his trees, and, having completed this work, was ready to graft them. He wisely determined not to graft them all, fearing, as he was new in the business, they might not take.
Going to the brook, he procured some blue clay, made it soft with water, mixed the hair and manure of cattle with it, and after putting in his scions, covered the cleft with the composition (the use of wax was not known then); but the clay, after all, is better, though it takes three times as long to put it on, and is less agreeable to handle.
He then covered the clay with tow, and almost every day went to look at them, to see if they were going to take, and then grafted a large number of thorn bushes and wild cherry trees.
The crops were now in the ground, Fred set up in business again, and the baby in his new cradle. The swallows had completed their nests, and were twittering from the eaves of the barn. A pair of robins had established themselves at the fall of the brook, in the birch that flung its shadow over Sally’s tubs, and the spout which Charlie had made to carry the water into them; adjoining to which was a little green plat bordering the brook, and fringed with wild flowers that had come to Elm Island with the birds; here was where Sally washed and bleached her linen, singing meanwhile, as though washing was the most delightful occupation in the world.
Robins are a right sociable bird, and they didn’t seem to be the least mite disturbed by Sally’s operations, but, whenever she sang, replied to her with all their heart. Whenever she left the tub to sprinkle water on the linen spread out to whiten, they would light on the edge of it and sing. More tardy in their arrival than the others, but not less welcome, were four bobolinks. Many times in a day, Charlie would come racing down to the brook, and say,—
“Mother, do listen to that fellow, singing on the top of that fire-weed; don’t he go it as if it did him good? Come, mother, let’s you and I sing;” and they would strike up, “Johnny has gone to the Fair.”
When all these excitements were over, those natural impulses which can never be suppressed for any great length of time began to assert their claims, and Charlie’s thoughts to run in their wonted channel; his fingers itched to be once more handling tools. He began to talk with his father, while they were hoeing together, in respect to the best kinds of wood for boat-building, who told him that ships’ boats were generally built of oak, both plank and timbers, because they had to undergo a great deal of hard usage, and were often beached with heavy loads in them; but that he had seen a great many boats made of pine and spruce; that they were more buoyant, would carry more, were lighter to handle, and if kept afloat, and off the rocks, were just as good. We would observe here, that the covering of a boat is called plank, though it has only the thickness of a board.
Ben also told him that cedar was an excellent material to build boats of; that in Bermuda he had seen vessels of thirty tons built entirely of cedar; that it was strong enough, very durable, and would not soak water; that a boat built altogether of cedar would live forever in a sea, they were so buoyant, just like an egg-shell, top of everything; you couldn’t get any water into them; and that was the wood whale boats were built of.
The moment Charlie began to talk with his father on this subject, the smouldering fire began to burn. He remembered how gloriously the West Wind was streaking it just as she split in two; again he heard the music of the water at her bows, and felt it rushing along under her counter, and thought how gracefully she rose on a sea, as he put his helm down to shake out a flaw.