Time now passed very pleasantly; there was a smaller family; they were not exposed to the weather, and in the evenings enjoyed themselves very much. Charlie employed himself in the study of surveying, and was more or less occupied in making models of imaginary vessels and boats, poring over an old English work on the sparring of vessels, which he had borrowed of Mr. Foss. At that day labor was not divided, as it is now; carpenters were both spar-makers and joiners, bored all the holes, and put in the fastening, the blacksmith only riveting the bolts.

John occupied himself in contriving how to economize his iron to the greatest possible extent, and in what method, with the means and appliances at his disposal, he should make the rudder-irons, which, for a vessel of the size of the sloop, was a heavy, difficult job. There was a great deal more hard sledging connected with blacksmith work then than at present. The smith can now purchase iron of almost any size and shape he wants; at that time there was no round iron, and the iron for small work must be drawn, or split up from large, square bars; it was this that made the old iron peculiarly valuable to John; it was of the right size, as the greater part of it had come out of old vessels; he found a great many bolts that only needed straightening, or a piece cut off the end.

One evening Charlie was studying, Ben reading a newspaper, Ricker asleep in his chair, and Hen Griffin making a windmill for Ben, Jr. John had been sitting for half an hour on a block in the chimney corner, the tongs in his hands, with which he took up little pieces of coal and squat them, without uttering a word. At length he flung down the tongs, and, jumping upright, cried,—

“Ben! Ben! look here!”

“Well, I’m looking straight at you.”

“You know we are going to be desperately put to it to raise money enough to buy sails and rigging, and are pinching all we dare to on the hull and fastening on that account.”

“Yes.”

“You know how they make booms in a river to hold logs; they take long sticks, and fasten them together with iron, and sometimes with withes and ropes, and they hold acres of logs against the whole force of the freshet; and don’t you know what a master-strain spruce poles, not more than six inches through, will bear—how they will buckle before they’ll break?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, what’s the reason we couldn’t make wooden shrouds by bolting some tough spars to the mast-head and wales, and save shrouds and chain-plates, which would be a tremendous saving.”

“There wouldn’t be any give to them: when the mast sprung, it would bring all the strain on the poles, and carry them away.”

“But,” asked Henry, “why couldn’t you put a dead-eye to the lower end, set it up with a lanyard, just like any rigging? Then there would be spring enough; or, if you didn’t like to bolt to the masthead, put rope at both ends: you would then save a good deal. I’m sure there would be no danger of losing the spars by the stretching of the rigging.”

“They would be strong to bear an up-and-down strain, as strong as rope, but would be liable to be broken by anything striking them, when set up taut: suppose the boom should happen to strike them, or the yards, anchor-stock, or jib-boom of another vessel hauling by in the dock? They wouldn’t stand anything of that kind, like rigging.”

“You say she’s going to carry a topsail and top-gallant-sail; the topmast backstays would protect them from the boom; and as for the rest, you could carry spare ones in case of accident.”

“That might do; but wouldn’t the straps of your dead-eyes split the end of the stick?”

“Treenail it.”

“Where could you get spars long enough, without having them two thirds as large as the mast?”

“Make them in pieces,” said Charlie. “Split up a large tree with the whip-saw: I can find a big ash that will make four, or a spruce or yellow birch.”

“Well, you can do it; but I should prefer rope.”

“To be sure, father; but if we are hard up, put right up snug to it, we’ll do it, sure.”

When, afterwards, Ben told his father of this novel method of economy, the captain laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“I wonder,” said he, “what they won’t think of next. I always thought myself indifferently good for contrivance; but they go ahead of me.”

“They’ve made first-rate calculations, thus far, in everything.”

“I guess Isaac was right: he said difficulty would spur ’em up, and draw ’em out. I should think it was doing it, if it has drawn that out of ’em.”

While this conversation was going on, Sally was sewing with all her might, improving the moments while the children were asleep: she had, nevertheless, been an attentive listener. At length, laying down her work, she said, “Charlie, I don’t suppose you would think very highly of any advice or opinion coming from a woman in regard to these affairs.”

“Yes, I would, mother; I would think a great deal of your opinion about anything.”

“Well, then, I think I can help you about your sails.”

“You, mother!” cried Charlie, in astonishment.

“Yes, me. I think that I, and other women that I can find could weave the greater part, if not the whole, of the duck for your sails, if we could get the flax, and a good deal cheaper than you can buy it: perhaps it wouldn’t look so well, but I’ll be bound ’twould wear as well.”

“You’ve done it now, Sally,” said Ben. “That is the most sensible plan for saving I’ve heard yet. But do you know what an undertaking you’ve laid out for yourself? Why, there’ll be over seven hundred yards of cloth in the mainsail alone.”

“Did you ever know me set out to do anything I didn’t accomplish?”

“No; except this.”

“I shall accomplish this.”

“But,” said John, quite bewildered, “I didn’t know canvas was made in looms, like other cloth.”

“All cloth is made in looms.”

“Yes; but I didn’t think sail-cloth was made in such looms as yours.”

“In England,” said Ben, “all the sail-cloth for their merchant and naval service is wove in such looms, as no English vessel is allowed to wear any other. If we were under England, as we were a few years ago, Sally couldn’t make this cloth if she wanted to; it would have to be made there; but they import the hemp and linen yarn from Russia and other places. It used to be all spun by hand, on a little wheel; but I understand of late they’ve got mills to go by water that spin.”

“But I shouldn’t think a woman could weave such heavy stuff.”

“Can’t they?” said Sally, going to a drawer, and taking out a piece of bed-tick that she had woven with four treadles, and beat up thick. “What do you think of that? Would any wind get through that?”

“Well, I’ll give up now; but still, I don’t see how so much cloth as they use in England, and send over here, and, I suppose, everywhere else, can be made in such a small way.”

But this, which was entirely new to John, excited his wonder, and was so difficult of belief, was no matter of surprise to Charlie.

“Small way!” he exclaimed: “a good many strands make a rope. O, you don’t know much about England. Why, the people there are thicker than flies around a dead herring, glad to turn their hand to anything to get their bread, and thousands can’t get it; not because they are too lazy to work, but can’t get the work to do, are helped by the parish, and often die of hunger.”

“Die of hunger! That’s awful.”

“No more awful than true, though. There are whole villages in England—and I’ve heard my father say it’s just so in Ireland and Scotland—where, from year’s end to year’s end, all that the greater part of the people do is to raise, spin, and weave flax; those that are able to, hire land; but the poor, that can’t hire land, why, the merchants find the yarn, and give them so much a yard to weave it; and old people, seventy and eighty years old, that can’t do anything else, will do a little something at that; an old wife, that can’t get across the floor without her crutch, and her head as white as a sheet, will sit in the corner and croon a song, because hunger drives her to it: men and women weave the year round.”

“Men weave?”

“Yes, indeed; hundreds and thousands of them never do anything else all their lives—couldn’t do anything else.”

“I declare! a man weaving, sitting down behind a loom, doing women’s work!”

“Yes, sitting down behind a loom; and thank God for the privilege.”

“I guess they would keep me there a good while. I’d put on a petticoat, and take a dish-cloth in my hand, and done with it. Only think of Joe Griffin, Uncle Isaac, and our Ben weaving!”

“It is so there; and you go to one of their houses, knock at the door, and a man will come to open it, with his beard stuck full of thrums and lint.”

“So you see, John,” said Sally, “where sail-cloth comes from. You know old Mr. Blaisdell?”

“Yes.”

“He was a weaver before he came to this country; and they say sometimes, of a rainy day, when his son’s wife has a piece in the loom, he’ll get in and weave like everything.”

“But, mother, the vessel would rot on the stocks before you could spin and weave cloth enough for her sails: besides, where could you get the flax?”

“I’ve planned it all out; for I’ve been thinking of it ever since you set out to build the vessel, and will have the sails done before you do the hull, I can tell you.”

“I should like to know how,” said her husband.

“I’m going to begin right off, while my family is small. I want Charlie to go over to Fred in the morning, and tell him to buy all the flax and linen yarn he can get; he can pay in goods, or half goods and half money, and that will help him; the yarn will do for the light sails: what we spin, we’ll spin a coarser thread, for the larger sails. Fred can send potash to Boston, and buy the flax. I think there’s flax enough round here: if not, there is in Boston; it is not long since a vessel-load of it was sent from there to Ireland. I’ll risk Fred for getting flax.”

“So will I,” said Charlie; “because he don’t have any opportunity to turn in his work, as John and I do, and will jump at the chance.”

“But the spinning and weaving!” said Ben.

“There’s Sally Griffin—she’s only Joe and herself to take care of; last time I saw her, she told me they had only one cow; that she hadn’t half enough to do: she’ll weave a lot, and spin, too; so will Hannah Murch, and they’ve got the flax; so will my mother, and our Jane, Mary Rhines and Elizabeth. There’s Danforth Eaton’s wife hasn’t chick nor child in the world, and old Mrs. Smullen’s a capital spinner, and Mr. Blaisdell, a born weaver, who never did anything else till he came to this country, is getting rather old for hard work; his wife, too, and his son’s wife and daughters, are weavers. I know as well as I want to that he wouldn’t like anything better than to weave till spring work comes on, and every rainy day after; then there’s the three Godsoe girls and their mother, living with their brother Jacob; the girls take in weaving, and the old lady can spin; there won’t be much spinning; we can buy most of the yarn. When we begin to build, I will hire two girls, and one of them can weave most of the time in the corn-house. I know of lots more I can find. I’m going over with Charlie in the morning, and get Hannah Murch to help me hunt them up, and then give it all into the hands of Fred: there will be no trouble; everybody will be for it, because they see we are trying to start something to help the place. Just calculate for yourself: there’s more than a year to do it in; of that coarse cloth, a person would weave twelve yards in a day—three hundred and twelve yards a month, at least. Old Mr. Blaisdell alone would weave your mainsail in two months, or less; for he would weave fourteen yards a day. I have reckoned up seventeen now, and can find fifty. Now what do you think, Ben?”

“I think you’ll do it; for if you, Hannah Murch, and Uncle Isaac get together, you’ll set the town on fire.”

“O, mother,” cried Charlie, “you are the best woman that ever was, or ever will be. Now, mother, you didn’t think, when I told you that night at milking that there would be a vessel built here before five years, there would be one built before your own door in two, and you would make her sails.”

“But you remember I told you, when it did come to pass, I would send a venture in her: I’ve got lots of hens, and I want some money to buy an eight-day brass clock with, that shows the changes of the moon.”

“O, mother, we’ll raise lots of hens, and you shall have all the room in the vessel you want.”

The next morning Sally went round among her old friends and school-mates, who received her with open arms, and entered heart and soul into her plan. Uncle Blaisdell was delighted, and told Sally he would oversee the whole work.

“If you had all the canvas these old fingers have wove,” said he, “it would make sails for a good many such vessels.”

Old Mrs. Yelf, contrary to all expectations, had recovered: Sally found her sitting by the fire, and she was greatly interested.

“Sally, tell Fred to bring me the yarn. I’ll weave enough for a small sail, if I die for’t. I shall glory in it, and an old lady’s blessing shall go with it. They’re good boys; they have begun right; they’ve sought the Lord in their youthful days, and to whatever they set their hands they’ll prosper.”

“We’ve got the sails under way,” said Charlie, “and got our iron: we shall want a good deal of tar, for she must have a brimstone bottom, or the worms will eat her all up in two months at the West Indies.”

“We can make that,” said John.

“Make tar?”

“Yes, indeed: cut down pine trees, take the limbs where we have cut timber and knees, and make a tar-pit. I know all about that.”