You must remember, young readers, that Charlie was compelled to dig everything out as he went along. He was very differently situated from an apprentice, who has the instructions of his master, and learns all the rules of his art step by step. He was alone on Elm Island, thrown entirely on his own resources, and with only such information as he had derived from transient visits to a boat-builder’s shop.
He now wanted a mould for his floor timbers. As he had taken the whole measure of the side to the keel, this gave him the rise (crook) of the floor timbers, but he was at loss how long to make them. However, he had now become so full of boat that nothing would stop him.
The Perseverance lay at anchor in the harbor, having come in for bait. He cut out the ceiling in two places to look at her floor timbers, and made his, as he thought, of a proportionate length.
He now drew two lines on the barn floor as long as the keel, and as far apart as it was thick; then, placing his naval timber moulds against this line, he marked out the shape and length of the floor timbers, and made moulds for them, cut the rabbet on the keel, and at the stem and stern, to receive the plank. He then took his moulds, and, going to the woods, cut limbs and dug out roots to correspond to the shape of them, and with broadaxe, saw, and draw-shave, brought them to the right shape and dimensions, which was ten times the work it would have been to get them out of plank sawed at the mill to the right thickness, and bend them.
Fastening his timbers to the keel, and measuring the width of the West Wind, he brought them by cross-pawls to the same width. He next took some long, narrow strips of boards, called ribbands, and fastening one of them to the stem, he brought it along the heads of the floor timbers, and nailed it to the stern-post and floor timbers. He put another along the tops of the naval timbers, and one between; then made moulds for all the other timbers by shoving them out against these ribbands, and shaping them by his eye. After the timbers were all in, he carefully adjusted the tops by crossbands and shores on the outside, till a plumb-line, dropped from the centre of one stretched from stem to stern, struck the centre of the keel; then, by measuring from each side to this line, he knew she was just as full on one side as the other. He also ascertained that he could get the bevel of the timber by the ribbands by taking off the wood wherever they bore on the edges of the timbers.
As the boat sharpens, the timbers straighten, and take the form of the letter V. As they no longer require bending, the boat-builders saw them from straight plank, and crow-foot (notch) them to the keel, and at the stem and stern-post, and scarf them to the deadwood; but Charlie procured crotches, as there were plenty of them in the woods, where the branches of trees forked, presenting the most acute angles.
Working a narrow plank all around the inside for the thwarts to rest on, called a “rising,” he put them in, planing and putting a bead on the edges, and rubbing them smooth with dog-fish skin, Charlie’s substitute for sand-paper, although he could not knee them till the boat was farther advanced. He now found that she was not widest amidships, but that her greatest breadth was forward of the middle timber. Thus, in taking a fish for his guide he had obtained what is now ascertained to be the best proportion for speed.
He felt pretty nice when he had accomplished all, as he had done it by rising as soon as it was light, working at night as long as he could see, and on rainy days. He thought he had done the thing, and won the victory.
Looking all around to see if anybody saw him, he began to dance around the boat, and sing, “I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve got something that won’t split in two now! What will Fred, John, and Uncle Isaac say to this? Won’t I be proud showing her to Uncle Isaac and Joe Griffin! I must finish her up nice, for their eyes are sharper than needles. There’s Sam Chase, who laughed when the West Wind split in two, and said he was glad of it—mean, spiteful creature! I guess he’ll laugh t’other side of his mouth this time. Now, I should like to wrestle with somebody, or do something or other. Guess I’ll go look at the apple trees, and see if the scions have taken. There’s the horn for supper. Well, I’ll go after supper. It was well for me it rained this forenoon, or I should not have accomplished all this.”
After supper, as Charlie sat playing with the baby, and telling his father of his success with the boat, in came Ben, Jr., in high feathers, with both hands full of scions, and covered with tow, and flung them into his mother’s lap, laughing and crowing as though he had done some great and good thing.