THE SURPRISER SURPRISED.

The next morning, as they were chatting after breakfast, the door opened, and in walked Captain Rhines.

“Why, father,” cried Ben, overjoyed, “you took an early start.”

“I had pressing business.”

“It is an age since you have been here. I’m real glad to see you,” said Sally; “I thought you had forgotten us. I’ll have some breakfast on the table in a few moments.”

“Charlie, I want to buy that boat. I hailed you after you pulled away yesterday; but you didn’t hear me. We had a hard pull yesterday, against the wind and tide; I told Isaac and Sam, we had pulled canoes about long enough, and it was time we had some easier way of getting back and forth.”

“You’re too late, Captain Rhines,” said Henry. “I’ve bought her.”

“You have? Then, Charlie, you must build another for me, right off, just like her.”

“I will do that, sir, for I have got stuff enough to make the keel, stern, and transom, all sawed out, and crooks for timbers. I’ll begin to-morrow; that is, if father can spare me.”

“I’ll paint her, and make the spars and sails. Uncle Isaac wants you to build him one: he would build one himself, but he can’t get the time. He expects to go over to Wiscasset, to work on spars, and is driving on to get his work at home done.”

“Does he want her the same dimensions as this one?”

“Yes; but he is in no hurry for her; you’ll have boats enough to build, Charlie; so you had better lay out for it.”

“I shouldn’t dare to build a boat for Uncle Isaac.”

“Why not?”

“Because, he’s such a neat workman himself, I’m afraid I shouldn’t suit him.”

“I’ll risk you; you’ll suit him to a hair, and ’twill be a feather in your cap to work for him.”

Such a thing as a wood-shed did not exist at Elm Island; indeed, there was not the necessity then for many things that are now really necessary. There were always plenty of dry limbs and trunks of trees in the woods to start the fire with, and the tremendous heat generated in one of those old fireplaces (with a log four feet long and three feet thick, a back-stick on that half the size, and a fore-stick eight feet long), would burn green red oak, and even black ash, when once fairly under way. When dry wood was wanted, Ben or Charlie would go into the woods and soon find a tall pine which had been dead for years, the bark all fallen off, and nearly all the limbs, and streaked with pitch, which had exuded and hardened in the sun on the outside. Laid low by the axe, the top would be broken into many pieces, thus rendering the cutting up a light labor. To be sure, when hauled to the door, it lay in summer exposed to all the rains, and in winter half buried in snow. But what did that matter. When night came, Charlie filled the great oven—which, being in the back, was always nearly hot enough to bake—with this pine, and great clefts of green beech, which in the course of the night would get warm, and a little dry on the outside. In the morning there would be a bushel of live coals on the hearth, the remains of the old log. Raking them forward, on go the green log and back-stick, the green fore-stick, dry pine, half pitch, on top of the glowing coals, top of that the clefts of beech, and perhaps a dry bush crowns the summit.

A few waves of a hemlock broom—whew! up goes a column of spiral flame roaring up the chimney.

Away goes Charlie to feed the cattle. Thus you see a wood-shed was very far from being felt a necessity on Elm Island, where many other things, more needed, had hitherto been lacking. But now, among other added comforts, Ben thought it would be well to have one: it would save digging the wood out of the snow, and thus bringing water and snow into the house, and also be convenient for many purposes. Another consideration was, they would soon need a workshop, as the space in the barn now devoted to that purpose would be needed for hay; neither did he like to have shavings around the barn, and there was leisure before the fall harvest to build it. He did not wish to interfere with Charlie’s boat-building, as he saw he was very much pleased with the idea of building a boat for Captain Rhines. It was an excellent opportunity for this good boy, who was always ready to assist everybody else, to do something for himself.

Charlie, as our readers well know, was never better pleased than when he could plan some pleasant surprise for his adopted parents. Ben, therefore, determined to surprise Charlie; he resolved to build the shed a story and a half in height, to admit of having a corn-house in a portion of the upper story. Corn-houses were set up on logs, or stone posts, three feet from the ground, and detached from all other buildings, on account of rats; but there was no objection to making it in the shed, there, as neither rats nor mice had found their way to Elm Island.

While Charlie was busily at work in the daytime upon his boat, and in evenings studying surveying, Ben had got his timber from the woods for the frame, and hauled it to the door. He then hired a man by the name of Danforth Eaton, who was a shingle weaver, and a good broadaxe man, to help him.

Together they sawed up the shingle bolts, and then Ben set Eaton at work shaving shingles, while he hewed the timber. To Ben, who, since he had lived on the island, had become an excellent axe man, it was mere sport to hew pine timber: with his heavy axe and enormous strength, striking right down through, every clip he sliced off the chips almost as fast as he could walk, and soon began to frame it.

It was pretty lively times on Elm Island now: in the barn Charlie was building a boat; under a rude shelter, made by setting four poles in the ground, and placing some boards on them, Eaton, who was a splendid shingle weaver, was shaving shingles;—I can’t tell you why shingle makers are called weavers, unless it is on account of the motion of their bodies back and forth when shaving;—and Ben mortising and boring the timber.

Charlie’s boat grew with great rapidity; for besides knowing just how to go to work, he had the command of his whole time, and moreover, the boat being just like the other, had all his moulds ready. On rainy days, Ben and Eaton sawed out his planks, helped him get out his timbers, and put on his plank.

Charlie had been so completely absorbed in his boat, that he paid but very little attention to what his father and Danforth were doing: to be sure he glanced at their work as he passed back and forth from the barn to the house; noticed that Danforth had done making shingles, and was making clapboards, and that the timber was of great length; but supposed his father had hewn his sticks of double length, intending to cut them up. But a few days after, looking at a sill that was finished, he perceived by the mortises that it was intended to be used the whole length: he put on his rule and found it was fifty feet, and the cross-sill was twenty-five.

“Why, father, are you going to have a shed as big as all this? You won’t need a quarter part of this space.”

“You know I’m a big fellow: I want considerable room to turn round in; almost as much as a ship wants to go about.”

“But you’ll not want half of this.”

“You know I want a corn-house overhead, and if we finish the rooms in the chamber of the house, your mother would like to have some rough place for her spinning and weaving in the summer, and to keep her flax and wool in; and then what a handy place it would be to keep ploughs and harrows, the Twilight, my canoe, and their sails, when we want to haul them up in the fall! O, there’s always enough to put in such a place; besides, you know I shall want a cider-house.”

Charlie burst into a roar of laughter.

“A cider-house! and the orchard ain’t planted yet.”

“Well, the ground is cleared for it, and the chamber will be a nice place for Sally to dry apples.”

“Yes, when we get them.”

“We shall get them; I like to look ahead.”

The frame was raised and covered, and Ben parted off twenty-five feet from the end farthest from the house, and laid a plank floor in it; the other half had no floor. After laying the floor overhead, in that part next to the house, he parted off the space for the corn-chamber, and made stairs to go up to it.

The Perseverance had come in, and was landing fish at Isaac’s wharf. Ben told Charlie he was going to Wiscasset in her, to get some nails to put on the clapboards and shingles; but when he came back, he not only brought nails, but bricks, lime, glass, putty, and Uncle Sam Elwell, whom he set to building a chimney and fireplace in the farther end of the shed, where he had laid a plank floor.

Charlie was now thoroughly mystified, and his curiosity greatly excited. When Uncle Sam had laid the foundation, he proceeded to make a fireplace, and by the side of it built an arch, and set in it a kettle, which Ben had brought with him.

“Father,” asked Charlie, “what is the fireplace and the kettle for?”

“Well, it is very handy to have a fire; you often want to use such a place late in the fall.”

“I should have thought you would have made the wood-shed at this end, and put this place nearer the house; it would have been handier for mother.”

“Your mother will want to go into the wood-shed ten times where she will want to come in here once.”

“But what is the kettle for?”

“I’m sure I shouldn’t think you would ask such a question as that: wouldn’t it be very handy in the spring, when the sap was running very fast and driving us, to have a place where Sally could boil some on a pinch; and wouldn’t it be nice for heating water to scald a hog?”

“Yes, I suppose it would.”

But Charlie was far from satisfied; he noticed that his father didn’t say directly that the room was for such and such purposes, only asked if it wouldn’t be suitable and convenient: he was more puzzled than ever.

“Mother, what is father laying a floor, building a fireplace, and setting a kettle in the wood-shed for? and he’s going to put in glass windows, for he’s got glass and putty.”

“I’m sure I don’t know any more than you do: he don’t tell me.”

“I expect he’s fixing it for Sally and Joe to go to housekeeping in.”

“I’m sure he ain’t,” replied Sally. “I don’t expect to have half so good a place as that. I expect to go into a log house or a brush camp.”

Sally and Joe had been engaged a long time. Joe had been saving up money, and so had Sally. He had bought a piece of wild land, and they were expecting to begin as Ben and his wife had. Sally was not hired. She was a cousin to Ben on his mother’s side, and was making it her home there, while getting ready to be married. A right smart Yankee girl was Sally Merrithew. She could wash, iron, bake, brew, card, spin, and weave. A noble helpmeet for a young man who had to make his way in the world.

Sally Merrithew had six sheep, which her father had given her in the spring. Ben put them on Griffin’s Island to pasture, and when he sheared his sheep, sheared them for her. She had spun and was weaving the wool into blankets. She had also bought linen yarn, which she was scouring, and meant to make sheets of. She calculated to help Mrs. Rhines enough to pay her board, and was not very particular whether she did more or not. They bleached linen, washed, and sang together, with the bobolinks and robins at the brook, and had the best times imaginable.

Aunt Molly Bradish thought she was running a dreadful risk to marry such a “harum-scarum cretur” as Joe Griffin; but Aunt Molly was mistaken there. Sally knew Joe a great deal better than she did, and knew that he was a smart, prudent, kind-hearted fellow as ever lived, without a single bad habit, except that of playing rough jokes. She was to the full as fond of fun as he, but did not approve of manifesting it in that way, and exerted a constantly restraining influence upon him, probably a great deal more than one would, who, of a less sanguine temperament, was incapable of appreciating a joke, and had no temptations of their own to struggle against.

There are people in this world who assume great merit for resisting temptations they never experienced. Sally manifested that common sense that is generally the accompaniment of true wit, when she replied to Aunt Molly by saying, that if Joe was to undergo all the hardships of clearing a farm in the wilderness, and experience the trials and disappointments that were the lot of most people, he would need all the spirits he possessed to keep him up.

When Joe Griffin came over for the schooner, Fred came with him; he said, “to see Charlie’s boat.” Perhaps he did; but it was very evident that was not all, nor the principal reason, since he had somewhat to say to Charlie of so private a nature, that neither the barn nor Charlie’s bedroom were retired enough for the purpose, but they must needs resort to the old maple, and climb to the platform in the top of it, and it was sufficiently interesting to keep them there till dinner-time,—although Charlie had left a hot plank in the steam box,—after which Fred returned in the schooner.

Charlie sent word to Captain Rhines by Fred that his boat would be done in three days, for he was putting on the last plank, and the thwarts and gunwale were in and kneed off.

Captain Rhines came on at the time specified, and brought his paint, oars, and sails with him. Charlie assisted him in painting her, and when she was dry, went home in her, taking Uncle Sam and Eaton with him, who had completed their work.

“Now, Charlie,” said Ben, when they had all gone,” that end of the shed is yours for a workshop, chimney, fireplace, and boiler. You can finish it, make the doors, windows, and sashes, and arrange it to suit you own notions and convenience. A boy that will do what you have done is worthy of a good place to work in.”

“O, father, I thank you a thousand times! There’s nothing in this world you could have done that would have made me so happy. A fireplace—only think! I can be so happy working here in the winter, and you can be here with me, and mother can come and see us, and Ben, and the baby, when it’s a little bigger.”

“Yes, and you can set up a boat here, twenty-four feet long, and that is as long as ever you will want to build.”

“I can have a bench all around, it is so wide, and set up two boats at once, if I like.”

“Yes, Charlie, and room enough to split up boards with the splitting-saw, and to have a keyblock, and hew anything, and such a nice steam kettle!”

“O, that’s the greatest.”

“Look overhead, Charlie. See, I’ve laid the floor only about two thirds the way over.”

“Yes, father—what is that for?”

“We can put any log up there that is not very large,—cedar, for instance,—and one of us up there, and the other down here, split it with the whip-saw.”

“Then, on the other side, that’s floored, we can pile up the boards and plank, and keep them dry.”

“Just so; and at the end I have left space for a door to run stuff in at.”

“I can keep all my moulds, knees, and everything I need up there and below. Father, don’t you think I shall take a sight of comfort making the benches, and putting up shelves, racks for my tools, my steam box, making the window-sashes and doors, and building Uncle Isaac’s boat in here?”

“I think you will, Charlie.”

“I’ll tell you what I mean to do.”

“What?”

“Cut a lot of cedar for planks, oak and maple for keels and transoms, raft it over to the mill and get it sawed, dig a lot of knees, and fill this chamber full of stuff before winter. But,” he said, pausing, “perhaps I shan’t have any more boats to build after I finish Uncle Isaac’s.”

“No fear of that, Charlie. It will be but a very little while, after father and Henry go down fishing among the canoes, before you will have a call to build boats. I know our people around here well enough to know that they won’t stand it a great while to see others sailing by them, while they are tugging at their oars.”

“Father, Uncle Isaac is at home now. Next trip he is going with Joe. He has often asked me to come and see him. If you are willing, I’ll go before I begin on the shop.”

“Go, Charlie, and make him a good visit.”