He measured his boat. She was eighteen feet long, four feet beam (wide), and eighteen inches deep. He then measured from the keel up to where the top streak entered the stem, when he found it was a half more than the depth amidships. He then measured from the keel to where the top streak met the transom. It was a quarter more than the depth amidships. Thus the rise from the dead level at the middle was nine inches at the stem and four and a half at the stern. To be sure this made the boat curve very much; but it was the fashion in that day, both in respect to vessels and boats, to give them a great sheer. It was not without its advantages. They were safer, for when laden there was more of them out of water.
Charlie had given his boat a rank sheer even for that day; but, as usual, he had a very good reason for it. He wanted room inside, and, as he could have only the width the log would allow, he had compensated for it by giving her all the length he thought prudent. He next endeavored to gain all the room he could in height at the ends, and this rise of nine inches forward and four and a half aft would, when he came to finish, afford him a splendid chance for lockers, in which to put all those matters that boys want to carry. He measured her width at the forward floor timber on top. It was three feet. At the after floor it was three feet eight inches.
“At any rate,” said he, “I have got some guide for the top. Now for the bottom.”
He chalked it out on the barn floor to see what it looked like, and set down the dimensions in his book, then measured across the head of the middle floor timber.
“Whew!” cried he; “it’s just half the length of the beam. Wonder if they’re all in that proportion.” By measurement he found they were.
“Now there’s a rule for you. The length of the floor timbers is half the breadth of the beam. Just half as fast as she narrows above she narrows below. I’ve got a water-line.”
Down goes that in his book. But, upon reflection, he perceived this was not all he wanted.
“I thought I’d got what I wanted, but I haven’t. This will give me a water-line along the heads of the floor timbers, but not the shape of the bottom below; that’s what I want. There are no rules and regulations, after all; you’ve got to make a frame, set it up, work a ribband along, and squint at it, cut and cut, fuss and fuss, till you get it to suit your eye; or else make a model and go through all the slavery with pieces of boards that I have in building this boat thus far. O, it’s an endless job to build a boat.”
Vexed and disappointed, he flung his rule into the boat; when the slight irritation had passed by, he took up his rule again.
He flung it with such violence between the two garboard planks that it had taken their shape and that of the sharp riser beside which it fell, and being new, and the joint stiff, retained it.