“If you can’t do it, with Mr. Brookbine’s assistance, I might as well discontinue this school at once. I find that boys work best, and enjoy it more, when their labor is to accomplish a result. You will not only build the house, but you will, I hope, make the plan for it. When you get a little farther along with your drawing, you will be competent to do it.
“I shall offer several prizes for the best plan, and build upon it when it is accepted. We shall also build a wharf of stone at the same time, and that will be a part of the plan. I want you to think how you would do it all as you have opportunity.
“For the present,” continued the captain, “the first class will be machinists; and the second class, carpenters. I think it is better, therefore, to give one boat to the first class, and the other to the second. Each of the classes may organize a boat-club at once. I should like to have each one choose a coxswain now, before you get into the boats. Don’t do as the American people often do,—select one who don’t know any thing about the work he is to do. Elect one whose orders you will be willing to obey.
“This election will be of temporary coxswains. In a week or two, when you have learned more about boats, you can do it more understandingly than now.”
The students were delighted with the idea, and a lot of them fell to electioneering as naturally as the average American citizen. In the first class, Matt Randolph was elected; in the second class, Dory Dornwood received very nearly a unanimous vote. The coxswains were directed to take the command at once, and they proceeded to number their men. Then they were assigned to their places. Dory was the first to get his boat off, and he led the way out into Lake Champlain.
Each coxswain exercised his crew for an hour; and, of course, they had to have a race. As Dory had all the Goldwing Club with him, his boat won it; though the boys in the first class were older and stronger than those of the second. Captain Gildrock had told them that each club might name their own boat, and every student was requested to propose a good name at the next meeting. They had a great deal of fun over this subject.
When the name of “Leader” was first suggested,
it met with favor; but Ned Bellows, who had proposed “Winooski,” said he would vote for “Leader” if the other boat would call their barge “Follower.” The joke was carried so far that a committee was appointed to wait on the other club, and suggest the name of “Follower.” Of course, the first class were indignant; as the suggestion was a reflection upon their position at the end of the first race. The names finally adopted were “Gildrock,” in compliment to the captain, and “Winooski,” one of the rivers of the State.
Perhaps the students enjoyed themselves more in these elegant barges than even in the Sylph. Before the season closed, they made many excursions in the Gildrock and the Winooski; and with all the practice they had, under the best instructors, they could not well avoid becoming first-class oarsmen.
As they continued their work in the shop, some of the boys developed a very decided taste for the mechanic arts; some preferred carpentering; others were fascinated with wood-turning, after the lathes were in use; not a few desired to be working machinists; and some desired to learn only