INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

Before his father and friends returned home, Ben agreed with Uncle Isaac and Sam to come and commence work on the house whenever he should send for them, and at the same time made an arrangement with his father to take some fish and lumber to Salem in the schooner, and procure for him some bricks, hearth-tiles, window-glass, door-hinges, latches, materials for making putty, and other things needed about the house.

“My nephew, Sam Atkins,” said Uncle Isaac, “who is a capital workman, is coming home to stay a good part of the winter. He works on all the nicest houses in Salem. I’ll bring him on with me.”

It may not be amiss, for the information of those who have not read the first volume of the series, to glance for a moment at the house, in respect to which all these improvements were contemplated. Ben wanted to dig a cellar, a few rods off, and build a good frame house, of two stories; but Sally preferred to finish the old walls. She said it was large enough, that the timber walls would be warmer than any frame house, and she loved the first spot. “Better save the money to buy cows, or to help some young man along that wanted a vessel.”

The kitchen extended the whole length of the house, and occupied half its width. At the eastern end a door opened directly to the weather; there was no entry. In the corner beside the door was a ladder, by which access was gained to the chamber through a scuttle in the floor.

Against the wall at the other end were the dressers, and under them a small closet. There was no finish around the chimney, and on either side of it two doors, of rough boards, hung on wooden hinges, opened into the front part of the house, which was in one large room. The cellar, which only extended under the front part of the house, was reached by a trap door.

The floors were well laid, of clear stuff, and the kitchen floor was white and smooth by the use of soap, and sand, and much friction.

The first thing Ben did when his men, Uncle Isaac, Atkins, and Robert Yelf, came, was to build a porch, into which was moved Charlie’s sink, and at one end of which a store-room was made, where Sally could do part of her work, while everything was in confusion.

During the time the joiners were at work upon the porch, Ben and Charlie dug a cellar under the rest of the house, hauled the rocks from the shore, and Uncle Sam built the wall, and also took up the stone hearths in the front part of the house, and laid them with tiles, and built two fireplaces. He also laid a hearth with tiles in the kitchen, leaving a large stone in one corner to wash dishes on.

“Ben,” said Uncle Sam, “I told you, when I laid your door-steps, that they were the best of granite, and would make as handsome steps as any in the town of Boston, and that whenever you built a new house, if I was not past labor, I would dress them for you. I have brought on my tools, and now am going to do it.”

“I’m very much obliged to you, Uncle Sam, but I am able and willing to pay you for it now.”

“No, you ain’t going to pay me; ’twill be something for you to remember me by.”

They now set up their joiner’s bench in the front part of the house, where they could have a fire in cold days. Ben and Charlie worked with them, and the work went on apace. At Sally’s request, they began with the kitchen, removing the dressers from the western end, and finishing off a bedroom, leaving room sufficient at the end for a stairway to go down into a nice milk cellar, which Uncle Sam had parted off, and floored with brick, and the joiners put up shelves, with a glass window in the end, and another in the top of the door that led to it from the kitchen. They also replaced the dressers in the kitchen. At the eastern end they made an entry, on one side of it a dark closet to keep meats in from the flies, and on the other chamber stairs, instead of the ladder, and under these cellar stairs, replacing the old trap door.

They then finished the room, ceiling it, both the walls and overhead. It was not customary then to paint. Everything was left white, and scoured with soap and sand. Carpets were not in vogue, and floors were strewn with white sand.

Sally was jubilant, and declared it was nothing but a pleasure to do work, with so many conveniences.

“I thought I was made,” said she, “when I got a sink, and especially a crane, instead of a birch withe, to hang my pot on. Now I’ve got a sink, a crane, porch, meal-room, cellar stairs, chamber stairs, milk cellar, and kitchen, all ceiled up.”

In the front room the work proceeded more slowly, as there was a good deal of panel-work, and this occupied a great deal of time.

There were then no planing mills, jig saws, circular saws, or mortising machines, but all was done by hand labor. There were no cut nails then, but all were wrought, with sharp points that split the wood, which made it necessary to bore a great deal with a gimlet.

A happy boy was Charlie Bell in these days, as Uncle Isaac and Atkins gave him all the instruction in their power; and to complete the sum of his enjoyment, after he had worked with them six weeks, Uncle Isaac set him to making the front and end doors of panel-work, under his immediate inspection. He also had an opportunity to talk about the Indians, and seemed to be a great deal more concerned to know about their modes of getting along, and manufacturing articles of necessity or ornament, without tools of iron, than about their murdering and scalping.

Uncle Isaac could not, from personal knowledge, give him much information in respect to these matters, as, at the time he was among them, they were, and had been for a long period, supplied, both by the French and English, with guns, knives, hatchets, needles, and files; but he could furnish Charlie with abundant information which he had obtained from his Indian parents; for, as they have no books, but trust to their memories, they, by exercise, become very accurate, and their traditions are, in this way, handed down from father to son.

“But,” said Charlie, who had heard about Indians having cornfields, “how could they cut down trees and clear land with stone hatchets?”

“They didn’t cut them down; they bruised the bark, and girdled them, and then the trees died, and they set them on fire.”

“I should think it would have taken them forever, most, to clear a piece of land in that way.”

“So it did; but they did not clear one very often. When they got a field cleared, they planted corn on it perhaps for a hundred years.”

“I should think it would have run out.”

“They always made these fields by the salt water, and put fish in the hills. They taught the white people how to raise corn.”

“I have heard they made log canoes. How could they cut the trees down with their stone hatchets? and, more than all, how could they ever dig them out?”

“I will tell you, Mr. Inquisitive. An Indian would take a bag of parched corn to eat, a gourd shell to drink from, his stone hatchet, and go into the woods, find a suitable tree,—generally a dead, dry pine, with the limbs and bark all fallen off,—and at the foot of it would build a camp to sleep under. Then he would get a parcel of wet clay, and plaster the tree all around, then build a fire at the bottom to burn it off. The wet clay would prevent its burning too high up. Then he would sit and tend the fire, wet the clay, and beat off the coals as fast as they formed, till the tree fell; then cut it off, and hollow it in the same way.”

“I should think it would have taken a lifetime.”

“It did not take as long as you might suppose; besides, time was nothing to them. They did no work except to hunt, make a canoe, or bow and arrows. The squaws did all the drudgery.”

Uncle Isaac now went home to stay a week, and see to his affairs, and Atkins with him. In this interval, Charlie began to think about his long-neglected boat. He had already the exact model of the fish, but he wished to get it in a shape to work from. Mixing some more clay and sand, he filled the mould with it, into which he had pressed the fish, having first greased it thoroughly, that it might not stick. He now set it to dry, putting it in the cellar at night. When thoroughly dry, he turned it out, made an oven of stones, and baked it, so that it was in a state to be handled without crumbling. He did not wish Ben or Sally to observe his proceedings; and, as it was too cold to stay in the woods or barn, he resorted to his bedroom. Uncle Isaac, when there, slept with Charlie, and kept his chest beside their bed.

Charlie was sitting on the bed, with the model in his hand, looking at it, and contriving how to work from it; and so intently was he engaged, that Uncle Isaac, who, unknown to him, had returned, and wanted something from his chest, came upon him before he could shove it under the bed.

“What have you got there, Charlie?”

“O, Uncle Isaac, I’m so sorry to see you!”

“Sorry to see me, Charlie? Indeed, I’m sorry to hear you say so.”

“O, I didn’t mean that,” replied Charlie, excessively confused. “I—I—I—only meant that I was sorry you caught me with this in my hand.”

He then told Uncle Isaac what he was about, adding, in conclusion, “You see, when I am trying to study anything out, I don’t like to have folks that know all about it looking on; it confuses and quite upsets me.”

“But if you ever make the boat, you will have to make it out of doors, in plain sight.”

“Yes, sir; but if I succeed in making a good model, I know I can imitate it on a large scale, and shan’t be afraid then to do it before folks; but if I can’t, why, then I will burn the model up, and nobody will be the wiser for it, or know that I tried and couldn’t. I’m not afraid to have any one see me handle tools.”

“You have no reason to be, my boy. Yet, after all, it was a very good thing that I surprised you before you got any farther; for, had you built a large boat after these lines, she never would have been of any use to you.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is precisely the shape of a mackerel, to a shaving.”

“Well, don’t a mackerel sail?”

“Yes, sail like blazes, under water; but I take it you want your boat to sail on top of water. All a fish has to do is to carry himself through the water; but a boat or vessel has to carry cargo, and bear sail. A vessel made after that model wouldn’t stand up in the harbor with her spars in, and a boat made like it would have to be filled so full of ballast, to keep her on her legs, that she would be almost sunk; and the moment you put sail on her, in anything of a working breeze, her after-sail would jam her stern down, and she would fill over the quarter.”

Charlie looked very blank indeed at this, which seemed at one fell blow to render abortive all his patient toil, and annihilate those sanguine hopes of proud enjoyment he and John had cherished, when they should appear in their new craft among the fleet of dug-outs, then below contempt, and witness the look of mingled astonishment and envy on the faces of the other boys, especially as he began to feel a growing conviction that what Uncle Isaac had said was but too true. Still struggling against the unwelcome truth, he replied, after a long pause, “But a mackerel keeps on his bottom.”

“Yes, because he’s alive, and can balance himself by his fins and tail; but he always turns bottom up the minute he is dead.”

“I heard Captain Rhines say, one time, that if a vessel could be modelled like a fish, she would sail. I thought he knew, and so I determined to try it.”

“Captain Rhines does know, but he spoke at random. He didn’t mean exactly like a fish, but somewhat like them,—sharp, and with a true taper, having no slack place to drag dead water, but with proper bearings.”

“Then this model, with proper alterations, would be the thing, after all,” said Charlie, a gleam of hope lighting up his clouded features.

“Sartain, if you should—”

“O, don’t tell me, Uncle Isaac, don’t! It’s no use for me to try to make a boat if I can’t study it out of my own head. I think I see what you mean. I thank you very much, and after I try and see what I can do, I want you to look at it, and see how I’ve made out, and tell me how and where to alter it. I hope you won’t think I am a stuck-up, ungrateful boy, because I don’t want you to tell me.”

“Not by any means, Charlie; it is just the disposition I like to see in you. I have no doubt you will think it all out, and then, my boy, it will be your own all your life.”

“Yes, sir; for, when I went to school, I minded that the boys who were always running up to the master with their slates, or to the bigger boys, to be shown about their sums, were great dunces, while the smart boys dug them out themselves.”

“I never went to school, but I suppose they forgot how to do them as fast as they were told.”

“That was just the way of it.”

The next day there came a snow-storm and a severe gale; the sea roared and flung itself upon the ramparts of the harbor as though it would force a passage; but, with roaring fires in the two fireplaces, the inmates of the timber house worked in their shirt sleeves, and paid very little attention to the weather.

“It is well you got on when you did, Uncle Isaac,” said Ben; “but you will have to stay, now you are here, for there will be very little crossing to the main land for the rest of the winter.”

“But what if any of my folks are sick? I told Hannah to make a signal on the end of the pint if anything happened.”

“In case of necessity, Charlie and I could set you off in the schooner.”

While Uncle Isaac was putting up the mantel-piece in the front room, which had a great deal of old-fashioned carving about it, he set Atkins and Charlie at work upon the front stairs; thus Charlie was so constantly and agreeably occupied as to have but little leisure to spend upon boats. But when this job was over, which had been most interesting and exciting, he began to give shape to the ideas that had been germinating in his brain at intervals during the day, and in his wakeful hours at night.

He wanted some plastic material that would become hard when dry, with which to make his alterations, and determined to use putty. Leaving that portion of his model which was to be under water as it was, he made it fuller from that mark, by sticking on putty, and then, with his knife and a chisel, paring off or adding to correspond with his idea of proportions. For a long time did he puzzle over it, striving in vain to satisfy himself, and several times scraped it all off to the bare brick. At length he came to a point where he felt he could accomplish no more.

The next night, at bed-time, with a palpitating heart, he brought it forward for Uncle Isaac’s inspection. After looking at it long and carefully, he said,—

“I wish Joe Griffin was here. I ain’t much of a shipwright, though I have worked some in the yard, and made a good many spars for small vessels; but he is, and has worked in Portsmouth on mast ships. But I call that a beautiful model, and think it shows a first-rate head-piece. She’s very sharp, and will want a good deal of ballast; so there won’t be much room in her as far as depth is consarned; but then she’s so long ’twill make up for it. She’s a beauty, and if you can ever make another on a large scale like her, I’ll wager my life she’ll sail. I suppose you’ll kind of expect me to find some fault, else you’ll think I’m stuffing you. It strikes me, that in the run, she comes out from the first shape a thought too quick; that it would be better if the swell was a leetle more gradual, not sucked out quite so much; but then I don’t want you to alter it for anything I say; but I’m going to call Ben and Robert Yelf up to see it.”

“O, don’t, Uncle Isaac! Father knows all about vessels, and Mr. Yelf is a regular shipwright.”

“So much the better; they’ll be able to see the merits of it.”

Ben and Yelf made the same criticism as Uncle Isaac, upon which Charlie amended the fault, till they expressed themselves satisfied.

“That boy,” said Yelf, as they went down stairs, “if he lives, and gives his mind to it, will make a first-rate ship-builder.”

“Ever since he has been with me,” was the reply, “he has been, at leisure moments, making boats. I believe he has a fleet, great and small, as numerous as the whole British navy.”

Not the least industrious personage among this busy crew was Ben Rhines, Jr.

From morning to night, with a devotion worthy of a better cause, he improved every moment, doing mischief, till his mother was, at times, almost beside herself. One moment she would be startled by a terrific outcry from the buttery. Ben had tumbled down the buttery stairs; anon from the front entry he had fallen down the front stairs; then, from the cellar, he was kicking and screaming there.

This enterprising youth, bent upon acquiring knowledge, was determined to explore these new avenues of information. Twice he set the room in a blaze, by poking shavings into the fire, and singed his mischievous head to the scalp, and had a violent attack of vomiting in consequence of licking the oil from Uncle Isaac’s oil-stone. His lips were cut, and he was black and blue with bruises received in his efforts. Despite of all these mishaps, Ben enjoyed himself hugely; he had piles and piles of blocks, great long shavings, both oak and pine, that came from the panels and the banisters; he would bury the cat and Sailor all up in shavings, and then clap his hands, and scream with delight, to see them dig out; he would also hide from his mother in them, and lie as still as though dead; he could pick up plenty of nails on the floor to drive into his blocks, and didn’t scruple in the least to take them from the nail-box if he got a chance. The moment Uncle Isaac’s back was turned, in went his fingers into the putty; he carried off the chalk-line, to fish down the buttery stairs, and, when caught, surrendered it only after a most desperate struggle.

“What a little varmint he is!” said Uncle Isaac. “If he don’t break his neck, he’ll be a smart one.”

“I believe you can’t kill him,” said Sally, “or he would have been dead long ago. He’s been into the water and fire, the oxen have trod on him, and a lobster shut his claws on his foot; why he ain’t dead I don’t see.”