"Can't we each get into a big tub, and float there?" returned he. "I have often sailed splendidly like that, round the pond at home."
"My child, you have hit on a capital idea," cried I. "Now, Ernest, let me have your tools, hammers, nails, saws, augers, and ax; and then make haste to collect any tubs you can find!"
We very soon found four large casks, made of sound wood, and strongly bound with iron hoops; they were floating with many other things in the water in the hold, but we managed to fish them out, and drag them to a suitable place for launching them. They were exactly what I wanted, and I succeeded in sawing them across the middle. Hard work it was, and we were glad enough to stop and refresh ourselves with wine and biscuits.
My eight tubs now stood ranged in a row near the water's edge, and I looked at them with great satisfaction; to my surprise, my wife did not seem to share my pleasure!
"I shall never," said she, "muster courage to get into one of these!"
"Do not be too sure of that, dear wife; when you see my contrivance completed, you will perhaps prefer it to this immovable wreck."
I next procured a long, thin plank, on which my tubs could be fixed, and the two ends of this I bent upward so as to form a keel. Other two planks were nailed along the sides of the tubs; they also being flexible, were brought to a point at each end, and all firmly secured and nailed together. I felt satisfied that in smooth water this craft would be perfectly trustworthy. But when we thought all was ready for the launch, we found, to our dismay, that the grand contrivance was so heavy and clumsy, that even our united efforts could not move it an inch.
"I must have a lever," cried I. "Run and fetch the capstan bar!"
Fritz quickly brought one, and, having formed rollers by cutting up a long spar, I raised the fore part of my boat with the bar, and my sons placed a roller under it.
"How is it, father," inquired Ernest, "that with that thing you alone can do more than all of us together?"