“Oh, yes, there’s money in it,” responded Joe, “though the lobsters aren’t so plenty as they used to be, the fishermen say. But we couldn’t afford to buy any pots to fish with, because it costs so much to make them nowadays.”
Joyfully, they put the Surprise on its course again and gained the shelter of the little harbour.
Three days later, the crew might have been seen, at a point about three miles down the island from their camp, busily at work out on shore, with axe and saw and hammer and nails.
“Going to build some lath-pots, eh?” Captain Sam had queried, when they consulted him. “Yes, you can do it all right. Just go out and fetch one of mine in shore, and go by that.” Then he added, with a twinkle in his eye, and a shrewd Yankee smile, “You don’t need all them ’ere laths anyway. You give me one of them bundles, and I’ll go to work and make three of the slickest lath-pots you ever saw, for myself; and you can see just how I do it.”
“It’s a bargain,” replied Joe, “if you will let us take your tools after you get the pots made.”
“Reckon I will,” said Captain Sam, smiling.
It was a good bargain for the boys, at that; for Captain Sam was a clever workman at whatever he set his hand to do.
“One of these ’ere lath-pots,” said the captain next day, as he set to work, “is just as long as the length of a lath—four feet. Now we want three strips of board, two feet long, to lay down crosswise for the bottom pieces, at equal distances apart.”
He illustrated his remarks by splitting off the requisite pieces from a chunk of board. Next he took an auger and bored a hole in each end of the three pieces.
“Now,” he said, “we want three pieces of spruce that will bend up like you was going to make a bow to shoot arrows with. Here they be, too, and I’ve had ’em soaking in water all the morning, so they’ll bend better.”