CHAPTER X.
WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY.
When Charlie had put his garden in order, and accomplished other necessary things, he began again to work at his boat.
If he had flattered himself that his difficulties were over when the boat was timbered out, he now found they had but commenced. It was now time to put on the binding streak. He measured up from the keel at the stem and stern for his sheer, and marked it on the timbers; then marked the depth of the old boat on the midship timbers, and measured down from these marks for the width of his top streak. He then worked a ribband along these marks from stem to stern. Those marks, which formed the guide for the lower edge of his top streak, also answered for the top of his binding streak. He had made the top streak of one uniform width, but he now perceived that the distance was so much greater from the keel to the gunwale of the boat, over the middle than at the ends, that he should get up at the ends before he was more than two thirds up at the middle. He also saw that, by reason of the greater fulness aft, the planks must be wider at the ends aft than forward. He therefore divided them into proportionate widths to fill up; but as he thought he had noticed that the upper streak on boats was of a uniform width, he resolved to let that remain. He now measured down from the ribband for his binding streak, got it out by the marks, and put it on; but to his mortification it stuck up in the air at both ends. He could scarcely believe his eyes. He went over his marks again. They were all right, and yet the ends stuck up far above the marks. Had these marks been made on a flat surface, the plank would have gone on fair. It was the twist of the boat that threw them up. He now saw, to his cost, that planking a boat was quite a different thing from boarding a barn. The upper edge of the plank came all right along the marks, but the lower edge stood away off, and the moment he crowded that down to its place, up came the upper edge.
“Guess I’ve got a job before me now,” said Charlie. Foreseeing that he should spoil many plank, and that they would be too stiff to bend and work with as patterns, with Ben’s aid he sawed out some oak pieces very thin, and as these were green, they would bend easily.
“Father, how do carpenters put plank on a vessel?”
“I don’t know. I never noticed.”
“Didn’t you put the wales and garboards on the Ark?”
“No; Joe Griffin and Uncle Isaac put them on, while you and I were towing rafts to the mill.”
But Charlie had not the least idea of relinquishing effort, or yielding to difficulties, however great.