Chapter XV

DIFFICULTIES WHET THE EDGE OF RESOLUTION.

While Charlie and his men were hewing the timber, John Rhines and his apprentice were getting ready to do the iron-work.

They built a blacksmith’s shop of logs,--the floor was of earth,--made a bench, and shove-windows. Leaving the rest to complete in rainy days, they began to prepare coal. Very little coal, except charcoal, was then used by blacksmiths, small quantities being imported from England into the seaports, but none at all used in the country shops.

The boys could not afford to buy it. John and Henry went into the woods, and cut birch and maple into proper lengths for their purpose. Then, on a flat piece of ground they built up a little cobwork of small sticks of dry wood, forming a little chimney about six feet high. They then set green sticks of cord-wood up around this chimney in a slanting direction, filling the interval between with short sticks. When a sufficient quantity of wood was set up, they rounded the top with shorter sticks. They dug green, strong turf, and covered the pile all over with it, grass-side down, except the top of the chimney, and some air-holes at the bottom, to make draught enough to keep the fire steadily burning. Then they threw earth all over it, and stopped the cracks where the pieces of turf came together, filled the chimney full of shavings and dry stuff, and kindled it at top. When it had burned down into the body of the kiln, and the whole mass of wood was hot and fairly on fire, they put turf on top, and made all tight, the air-holes at the bottom affording just draught enough to make the wood coal, without burning to ashes, as it would in an open fire. By these air-holes they could regulate the draught. If the wind blew hard, and the draught was too great, stop them up on the windward side; if too weak, open them.

Boys will have fun out of anything. One wouldn’t think there was a great deal of fun in watching a coal-kiln night and day, so as to be ready to fling on earth, or put on turf, if the fire should burst out anywhere; but they had lots of fun out of it, and the best times imaginable. They built a camp, made it rain-proof by putting a board roof on it, built a chimney of stones, where they could cook in rainy weather, though in fair weather they always built their fire before the door of the camp, hunter fashion. They loved to see the stars, the fire flashing through the trees; and somehow things tasted sweeter when the kettle hung by the crotch out of doors. The care of the coal-kiln did not occupy much of their time; but one of them was always obliged to be there, in the event of the fire breaking out. Thus, while one kiln was burning, they cut the wood for another. Rare times they had of it in the evening! They roasted coons, that could always be found round the edge of the corn, clams, and ears of corn, baked potatoes, and had all the maple sugar they wanted, roasted eggs, and sometimes a chicken. Neither did they lack for company. Charlie, Uncle Isaac, and Joe were pretty sure to be there every night. Sometimes Sally would take her knitting-work and come up; and it was by no means rare for all on the island, except the baby and whoever had the care of him, to come; and there was not a happier visitor at the camp than Tige Rhines, who insisted on coming to the island with John, and could not be persuaded to return without him, although Captain Rhines, who was a frequent visitor to the island, used all the arts of persuasion he was master of to engage him to return with him.

It is no marvel the coal-kiln was a popular resort. The captain never failed, when he came on, to bring apples, pears, plums, and a jug of new cider to John. He was by no means chary of his treasures; and it was quite agreeable to tired men to sit around a blazing fire, eat apples and pears, perhaps a piece of baked coon, with a roast potato, drink a mug of sweet cider, and tell, or listen to, a good story.

Upon such occasions Joe Griffin generally kept the company in good humor. Ricker, who had now become a universal favorite, contributed a song. The change in this man was most remarkable. From being a bully and a brag, he had become a most agreeable, pleasant companion. He had also manifested a great capacity for handling tools; since latterly, the four men having sawed out all the plank that was needed for present use, Charlie had taken him and Thorndike from the saw-pit, and set them at work on the vessel.

“The best thing that ever happened to me,” said he to Uncle Isaac, “was when I fell into the hands of Lion Ben. Before that, I thought there was nobody could handle me, and the idea came near ruining me. I left off work, thought of nothing but wrestling; was running to every launching, raising, hauling, muster, and log-rolling I could hear of, and was straining myself all to pieces.”

“I,” replied Uncle Isaac, “used to wrestle a good deal in my young days, and I know that in some of those scrapes I have injured and worn myself out more than I have in a year’s work; yes, more than in two.”

“No doubt you have. I wrestled once, at North Yarmouth, till the blood spun from my nose a stream, and I was as sore the next day as though I had been pounded with an ox-goad. Then I was always treating and being treated, and got so I couldn’t settle myself to work; and liquor was fast getting the upper hands of me; but after I went home from here, I thought of Mr. Rhines’s advice, and determined to follow it. I never was among such people as the folks are here. They don’t drink as they do up our way,--at least those that I’ve seen and worked with,--and are just like brothers.”

“There’s plenty of drinking here, but you have been among those who have seen the evil of it, and left it off. There’s not a man you work with, myself included, but, three years ago, drank spirit. Now we think we’ve found a better way, one that is more pleasant, better for the pocket, the health, and the conscience.”

“It _is_ a better way, and I’m going to join you, and do as you do.”

“You are a young man, Mr. Ricker. Have you any parents depending on you?”

“No, sir. My parents both died when I was a child. My father was killed by a falling tree. My mother took sick and died, and my uncle brought me up.”

“Well, then, just stay here amongst us. There is plenty of work to do round here--chopping, logging, and river-driving. There will be more vessels built here, too. I don’t know whether Charlie will work much longer or not; but if he don’t, I will give you and Thorndike work all winter, logging and making shingles; and when you are not at work, you’re welcome to make my house your home.”

“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Murch, and shall be right glad, if Master Bell don’t work, to take up with your offer.”

“There’s plenty of land here, that can be bought cheap--good land, too; and there’s plenty of nice young women, that know how to spin and weave, and would make a striving man a good wife, take care of whatever he brings into the house; and, though I say it myself, there’s not a more industrious, neighborly set of people in the United States of America than live in this town; and you travel the country through, and you won’t find a better principled, more enterprising set of young men; and I mean to do what little I can to encourage them, and there’s others feel just as I do.”

“I mean to be governed by your counsel, Uncle Isaac. But, to tell the truth, there’s a young woman up our way that I’ve had some dealings with, and we were engaged once; but she didn’t like my drinking, wrestling, and carousing about, and neglecting my work, and her folks set in, and that made a coldness between us. I love her as the apple of my eye, and I drank more to drown trouble.”

“You ought to think the more of her for not approving of your drinking and idleness.”

“So I do.”

“Well, then, all you have to do is, just to go on as you are now doing, stay here out of the way of temptation, and build up a good reputation. The news won’t be long getting back to your place. They’ll miss you at musters and raisings, and begin to inquire, ‘Where’s Ricker? We want him to take hold of this man that’s throwing everybody.’ The answer will come back, ‘Ricker’s given up drinking and wrestling, and is at work on Elm Island, having the best of wages. People there think everything of him, and won’t let him go. He’s going to buy a farm, and live among them.’ Take my word for it, the young woman will be the first one to hear of it; and in time matters will right themselves.”

The first kiln that John and Henry burned contained forty bushels; the next, eighty. They burned one more, drew the kilns, and put the coals in a pen in one corner of the shop.

Captain Rhines came over to see how matters progressed, and spent the night. In the evening Charlie and John held a consultation in respect to iron, which would soon be wanted, and fixtures for the blacksmith’s shop.

“We can get along,” said John, “with an anvil, bellows, two pairs of tongs, hand hammers, sledges, and cold chisels.”

“Won’t you need a vice?” asked Charlie.

“It would be handy; but there won’t be any screws to cut. I can get along without it.”

“What do these things cost?”

“An anvil will cost about fifteen dollars, a pair of bellows about thirteen, and a good vice about twenty-five.”

“That’s a good deal of money, just for tools, when we’ve got so little. We must pinch all we can on the hull, in order to be able to obtain the sails and rigging. That will be a heavy bill, and must be all cash.”

“Yes; but I can do without a vice, make the hammers, tongs, and other tools, and I think I can make the bellows; so there will be only the anvil, the steel, and iron to buy.”

Captain Rhines sat and listened, as they were talking in low tones in a corner, till he could bear it no longer; and taking Ben and Uncle Isaac aside, he told them what he had overheard.

“It’s too bad, Ben, to let such boys as these struggle along so! I’ll take the Perseverance, go to Portland or Boston, and buy them a complete set of blacksmith’s tools. If we build vessels, we shall want them.”

“Don’t you do it, Benjamin,” said Uncle Isaac; “for the life of you, don’t you do it! You’ll do them more hurt than good. Hardship don’t hurt boys. It didn’t you and I. They are doing first rate--making grand calculations! It’s drawing out what’s in ’em. If James Welch had been put to it as they are, it would have been better for him, and saved his parents much misery.”

Ben siding with Uncle Isaac, the captain relinquished his purpose.

Perhaps most of our young readers have seen a pair of house bellows,--some have not,--stoves and coal fires having consigned them, for the most part, to oblivion; but they were a great institution once--from the homely kitchen to the highly-ornamented and gilded parlor ones.

Those boys who have not seen them can ask their grandmothers, which will save us some detail; and, as we have so many “last things” to say to you in this volume, it is quite an object.

A blacksmith’s bellows is double. The wood is six feet long, three feet four inches wide. Instead of having merely top and bottom of wood, they consist of three pieces of plank, and are double, having two clappers. The upper piece is solid; the middle piece has a hole and a clapper; the bottom, another hole with a clapper. The top and bottom covers rise and fall by means of hinges at the end. The middle piece is permanent, and the bellows are hung in a frame by iron gimbals driven into the edge of the middle piece. They are worked by a long lever attached to the handle of the bottom board, the space between the boards being leather, which is distended by bows to prevent its collapsing too much when empty. The smith puts weights on the top plank to press it down, and force the air into the fire, and hangs another on the handle of the lower one to bring it down, and open the bellows to admit air. He lifts the lever, the bellows fill through the bottom. The moment he brings it down, the air is forced into the fire, and the upper portion of the bellows, where it is retained by the upper clapper. When the lever is raised again to refill, the weights on the upper cover are still pressing the air into the fire. Thus it is a draught all the time.

They made their covers, middle piece, and clappers, hung them with leather hinges, made the bows of ash, and in default of leather, covered them with new canvas, that was left from the sails of the Ark, closing the seams with pitch,--which they procured from the woods,--mixed with charcoal dust.

They found an old bolt, cut it in two on the edge of an old axe, made a fire heat, and pointed the ends on a stone for an anvil, and made gimbals to drive into the middle piece to hang their machine.

“What under heavens shall we make a nose of?” said John. “That beats me! If I had iron, I could make it; but there’s not a scrap more on the island.”

The nose of a blacksmith’s bellows is tunnel-shaped, and at the extremity enters an iron tube, called a tewel, which goes into the forge, and lies just under the fire.

“We could make the tewel out of a gun barrel. I’ve got an old Queen’s arm, at home, that’s spoilt.”

“Yes; but what shall we make the nose of? That must be broad-mouthed, and twice as big.”

“Make it of clay, and burn it in the fire.”

“It would be breaking. The heat would crack it; and I don’t know how we could fay it to the wood to make it tight.”

“Then make it of a piece of wood that has been soaking in salt water. It will be some way from the fire. We can keep watch of it, and wet it with a mop.”

“I don’t believe but we shall have to.”

“Why don’t you ask your brother Ben, or Uncle Isaac?”

“Let us make the frame to hang it on. Perhaps we shall think of something.”

Before they had finished the frame, John exclaimed, “I’ve got it, Hen! Just the thing! I’ve seen an old blunderbuss barrel, without any stock to it, kicking round Uncle Isaac’s shop. It will make nose and tewel, both in one. I know he’ll give it to me. ‘The lame and the lazy are always provided for.’”

“What is a blunderbuss?”

“A short gun, bell-muzzled, and with an everlasting great bore, made to fire a whole handful of slugs and balls. They don’t use them now.”

“Go ask Uncle Isaac. Then take the boat, and go after it. As you come along, stop into Peter Brock’s shop, ask him to put it into his vice, and start the breech-pin for me.”

When they had obtained the old gun barrel, they completed their bellows, made a forge and forge-trough. They had no chimney--the gas went out through a hole in the roof.

John put some coal on the forge, kindled the fire, and started the bellows. They worked capitally.

“Hen,” said John, in high spirits, “that is what I call ‘raising the wind’ in more ways than one. We were only two days making these bellows, and one of them was a rainy day. That’s pretty good wages--six dollars and fifty cents per day!”

John and Henry now took the Perseverance, and went to Portland. John went directly to Mr. Starrett, who received him most cordially. He told him all the circumstances from beginning to end, upon which Mr. Starrett lent him an anvil that was rather small for his heavy work, and told him that Captain Pote had just got home from the West Indies, and brought a lot of old iron that he had bought there for little or nothing, and would sell for one fourth the price he would have to give at the warehouse. Probably he could pick out a great deal that would answer his purpose; that it lay on the wharf just as it was thrown out of the vessel.

John and Henry went to the wharf, and spent the whole day picking over the heap. They found cold chisels, punches, sledges, hand hammers, spikes, and ship’s bolts; eye bolts, ring bolts, studding-sail boom irons, straps for mast circles and caps.

John bought what he thought would answer his purpose, and threw it into the schooner. Mr. Starrett bought the rest of his iron for him cheaper than he could have bought it himself, because he knew just what description and quantity of metal were wanted. When it was all on board the vessel, Mr. Starrett came and looked it over.

“John,” said he, “you will make a great saving by buying that old iron. With very little labor, you will get the larger part of your fastening out of it, a good deal of iron-work for the spars, and all your thimbles. My boy, you will have a hard job with so few tools, to do what you’ve got before you; but you’ll win through it. If you have to hang up, and go to work to raise money, come to me. I’ll find you work.”

John thanked his friend, and they separated. He arrived home, got his iron into the shop, his anvil on the block, his tongs made, handles in the hammers and sledges two days before the carpenters put the keel together and wanted to bolt it. He had no tool to head spikes; so he just turned them over the anvil, making a head on one side, like a railroad spike. They looked queer, but answered the purpose just as well. Persons do not know what they can do till they are compelled to exert their faculties to the utmost. It was this rude training in the school of stern necessity that has made this nation what it is.

We are to-day reaping the benefits of their trials, and shall continue thus to do, if we do not, by prosperity, become effeminate. The Pilgrims suffered terribly the first winter, because they came fresh from the homes of Old England, with the habits of that country, and were comparatively helpless. But suppose their children, born and reared in this country, had been placed in just the same circumstances, or a band of western hoosiers, how soon would they have built up log shanties, found clams and lobsters on the beach, fish under the ice, coons and bears in their dens, and when the spring opened, planted corn on a burn? The Pilgrims had been reared among conveniences, never been drawn out by necessity in that direction, and most of them died in the seasoning, being too old to learn.

But we see how Charlie conforms to the necessities of his position. Once put on the track, and encouraged by Ben and Uncle Isaac, he seems not one whit inferior to John Rhines in contrivance or resources to meet exigencies as they come along.

Charlie finished planking up the last day of December, and discharged all his men, except Ricker. Planking up a vessel was slow, hard work in those days, as they had none of the modern appliances to bring their plank to the timber, and nothing better to bore the innumerable holes through the hard timber than an old-fashioned pod augur, which must be started in a hole cut with a gouge. They bored from inside outward, because, the augur being destitute of a screw, it was easier.

There was no blacksmith work of any amount to be done till the carpenters began to work in the spring.

Henry Griffin went to work with Ricker in the barn, sawing out ceiling plank and other stuff. Charlie and John burnt coal enough to finish the iron-work, cut the small spars, and hauled them out. The mast and main boom were so large that Charlie was afraid to fall them till the snow was deeper, for fear of breaking or injuring them; however, as he knew the size of the spars, he made the caps, and John ironed them, after which he learned to saw with a whip-saw: this liberated Ricker, who was a most excellent broadaxe-man, having been accustomed all his life to hewing timber. Charlie set him at work upon the spars, while he himself, having plenty of seasoned stuff, built a long-boat and yawl-boat for the vessel. In this way he could employ the two men, John, and himself profitably: the wages were less in the winter; the weather did not interfere with the sawing, which was done under cover. Ricker, indeed, worked under cover in the shop with Charlie, when it was stormy or severely cold, and helped him on the boats and the windlass.

Charlie built a beautiful yawl-boat, putting in gratings at the bow and in the bottom, with a fancy yoke of mahogany, using up the last of his West India wood in the operation, and in sheaves for the blocks. When she was done, he painted her handsomely.

“There,” said he; “they may laugh at the sloop, but I reckon they won’t at the boat. Isaac shall go ashore in as good shape as the best of them.”

Uncle Isaac had a lathe, and Charlie engaged him to make the blocks and turn the sheaves in the course of the winter.

They next made the rudder. Nowadays, when vessels are steered with wheels, the tillers are a straight stick of timber; but an old-fashioned one required a stick of very peculiar form, something the shape of the letter S; and what made it more difficult to get them, was the fact that a great strain came on them, and they must be of tough wood. Joe Griffin had engaged to hunt up a stick in the woods, rough-hew it, and bring it to the island.