The Sandman: His Sea Stories

by William John Hopkins

"MANY TIMES HAD SHE BEEN TIED UP AT THAT WHARF"

And, at last, after more years had passed, the Industry was so old that she needed to have a lot done to her to make her safe. And her owners decided that it wasn't worth while to rebuild an old vessel, but they would build a new one instead; for they didn't build the kind of ship that the Industry was any more, but they built a kind that they thought was better and faster. So, when she got in the next time from that far country, they told her captain what they had decided to do. That captain wasn't Captain Sol. He didn't go to sea any more, but he lived in Boston.

So, when she had been unloaded, the captain and some sailors sailed her down to the wide river that the little city was beside. It took them only about a half a day to go there from Boston, and the Industry sailed into the river for the last time, and up to the wharf that was all falling down. And the men tied her to the wharf with great ropes. Many times had she been tied up at that wharf, and she had loaded there and had been unloaded there many times. But she now would never again go sailing out of the river into the great ocean.

And the captain went to the riggers of ships, and he had hard work to find them; but at last he found some riggers of ships that were left, and he told them to come to the wharf and take the sails and the yards off the Industry, and the masts out of her, because she was going to be broken up. And the riggers came, and they took the sails off the yards and they took the yards down; and they took down the topmasts, and they took off the bowsprit, and they took out the great masts that had felt the strain of the winds blowing on the sails for thousands and thousands of miles. And the Industry was nothing but an old hulk lying at an old wharf that was falling down.

Then some junk men came, and they stripped off the copper sheets that were on her bottom, and they took the iron work out of her, and they carried the copper sheets and the iron to their shop. Then they untied the great ropes which held the hulk to the wharf, and they towed all that was left of the Industry to a shallow place, up the wide river, and there they pulled it high up on the shore. And some more men came and began stripping off the sheathing of thin boards that had been put on outside of her planking, and they sawed this sheathing up until it was small enough to go in a fireplace, and they split it up into small sticks. For the sheathing, that has been next to the copper sheets and has gone in the salt water for so many years, would burn with pretty green and blue flames and little flashes of red. And then they began to take off her thick planking of oak.

Lois's son, that had been little Jacob, was Squire Jacob when he had grown up. And he heard of it, and he came to see the end of the Industry. And, when he saw the remains of the ship lying there on the shore, and saw where the men had taken the planks off, so that her great ribs showed, like a skeleton, the sight filled his heart with sadness. He thought of the voyage that he had made in her, when he was a little boy, and he thought of the many times that she had sailed to that far country and had always brought the sailors and the captains back safe; and he stood there, looking, for a long time. But, at last, he turned away, and he went to the men who had the sheathing all sawed and split into small sticks, and he bought that sheathing, every bit of it. And he told the men that he would like to have the rudder and one or two of the ribs. And the men said that they would be glad to give him the rudder and some of the ribs.

Then he went back to the little city, and he found an old sailor who had sailed in the Industry. That sailor was an old man and he didn't go to sea any more, he was so old; but he lived in a nice kind of a place that was for old sailors to live in, and he liked to whittle things with his knife. He could whittle pretty well, for sailors are great whittlers. And Lois's son, Squire Jacob, told this old sailor about the Industry, and how he had bought all the sheathing that there was, and that he would have the rudder and some of the ribs. And he asked the sailor if he could manage to make a model of the brig Industry out of the rudder, and fit it with sails and everything just as the Industry really had been. And the sailor was sorry when he heard about it, and he said he would like nothing better than to make the model, and it should be exactly like the Industry, down to the smallest block and the least rope. And he said that he would make the model for nothing if he might have the rest of the rudder to make a model for himself, too.

So Squire Jacob was glad, and he told the old sailor that he could have the rest of the rudder and welcome, and that he must come up sometimes and sit in front of his fire when the sheathing was burning; for he had a good deal of it, and it would be a long time before it was all burned up. And the old man thanked him and said that he would be glad to come.

Then Squire Jacob went to some cabinet makers, and he said that he would like to have them make a chair for him out of the ribs of the Industry. It would be an arm-chair and would have a picture of the brig carved in the wood up at the top of the back. And the cabinet makers understood, and they said that they would make him the arm-chair.