Joe took one of Charlie’s thin boards, planed and made one end of it as wide as the end of the streak he was to put on, and cut it something near the shape of the stem, and of the length he wanted his plank to be; this, he told Charlie, was a rule staff. He then put the end very near to the rabbet at the stem, and brought it along over the bow, close to the keel, just as it naturally came, without twisting sidewise, to the timbers, where he intended to make his butt, and fastened it; then took the rule, and measured, at frequent distances, from the outside edge of the rabbet at the stem, to the lower edge of the rule staff, till he had gotten round the sweep; then he measured only at the timbers, he made a scratch fit every measurement, and chalked down the measure on the rule staff.
He now took the rule staff and laid it on the board of which the streak was to be made, and with the compass set off all these distances, then took a ribband that would bend edgewise, put it on the compass pricks, and scratched the whole length of the plank.
“You see,” he said, “that this rule staff, being bent on, has followed exactly the twist of the timbers; so of course this line of pricks, taken from it, will do the same, and give the shape of the edge of the streak; that is all the rule staff does; now you must measure the width of your plank from them. I have made these measures at the end very near together, because I am working for a very particular body, and I want my work to compare.”
He now steamed the plank and put it on, when it fayed to a hair.
“Now, Charlie, before I fasten this plank, I want you to squint along the edge of it.”
“I see a bunch on the luff of the bow.”
“Now look at the counter.”
“It is the same.”
“We must take out a little there; I should have done it when I lined the plank, but I wanted you to see it; the twist throws the plank up: if you could take spilings of both edges, it would take it out.”
“How nice that is? Why couldn’t I have thought of it? I might by this time have had the boat all done and in the water. Are ships’ planks put on in this way?”