"And that will be very soon!" says she. "The sea-water is life to me, and what with this sweet air, I grow stronger every day."
"Meantime there is much to be done and here sit I in idleness."
"Nay, you are sharpening your axe and I am talking to you and wondering what you will make next?"
"A lamp!" says I.
"How, Martin?"
"With a shell, the fat of our goat rendered down, and cotton from my shirt."
"Nay, if you so yearn for a lamp I can do this much."
"Good!" says I, rising. "Meantime I'll turn carpenter and to begin with, try my hand at a stool for you."
"But if you have no saw, Martin—?"
"I will make me a chisel instead." Crossing to the fire I found my iron red-hot, and taking it betwixt two flat pieces of wood that served me for tongs I laid it upon my stone anvil, and fell forthwith to beating and shaping it with the hammer-back of my hatchet until I had beaten out a blade some two inches wide. Having cooled my chisel in the brook I betook me to sharpening it on a stone moistened with water, and soon had wrought it to a good edge. I now selected from my timber a board sufficiently wide, and laying this on my anvil-stone began to cut a piece from the plank with hammer and chisel, the which I found a work requiring great care, lest I split my wood, and patience, since my chisel, being of iron, needed much and repeated grinding. Howbeit it was done at last, and the result of my labour a piece of wood about two feet square, and behold the seat of my stool!