Chapter II: Ned Proposes to Improve the Divine Plan

It was the intention of Captain Brown to wait till a gale of wind scattered the blockading fleet, and, taking advantage of the opportunity thus afforded, run into Marseilles, as the distance was short, and the course along shore.

The crew, having little or nothing to do, except that they hauled the brigantine ashore, cleaned her bottom, and covered it with a fresh coat of soap and tallow, mended the sails, and overhauled the rigging, spent the time in the manner most agreeable to their own inclinations, mended and made clothes and hats, lounged, bathed, or slept. Boys so well conditioned and full of life as Walter and Ned, could not pass their time in any such way as that.

The first thing they set themselves about after the vessel's bottom was cleaned, was to make a rope ladder and fasten it to one of the lower limbs of a large, evergreen oak, that stood on the highest part of the bluff; the ladder was made in this manner: they fastened three parts of a rope to a large branch near the body of the tree; a studding-sail boom was placed upon the ground and lashed to the roots of other trees; to this they fastened three old bull's eyes, rove the rigging through them, and set up their shrouds by the end taut with a Spanish windlass--an extemporaneous machine, but of considerable power, made by sailors with two levers and a piece of small rope; they then rattled the shrouds down (fastened small ropes across to step on), and were provided with an excellent method of ascent.

They next made fast a single block to the top of the tree, rigged a whip, with it hoisted up poles and planks, laid a platform, and railed it in with poles lashed to the limbs of the tree. It was a project of Ned's, Walter having told him about Charlie Bell and his boy companions constructing one somewhat similar in the top of the big maple, on Elm Island. This, however, far exceeded that, inasmuch as they were possessed of rigging and all requisite materials to work with.

Walter, who at first did not feel much interested in the effort, but engaged in it to gratify Ned, soon became very much so in consequence of working on it, and proposed a great many additions to the original conception of Ned, which was merely to construct a lookout, from which, with the excellent glass of the captain, they might see a great distance, and watch the motions of the blockading fleet.

"Ned," said he, "let us make some chairs to sit in; we don't want to sit down flat on the platform."

"Well, that will be nice; but what shall we make them of?"

"Empty bread barrels," replied Walter, who, a Griffin, inherited all the mechanical ingenuity of his race. Forthwith they "roused" the grindstone out of the long-boat, the rusty tools from the tool chest, ground a chisel, draw-shave, and plane-irons, and Walter filed the handsaw.

The tools in order, Ned set to work planing some pieces of boards on one side. Walter took a barrel, and after nailing well the hoops, sawed it across, just above the second hoops, to a depth which left sufficient wood to form the back, being careful to stop at a joint in the staves. He then made a cut of the same depth and height from the ground on the other end and the other side.

All that held the barrel together now was the bilge hoops of each end; these he cut through, when the barrel dropped apart, making two chairs, as far as backs and legs were concerned, but minus the seat. He now took a flat hoop, bent it round the inside of the barrel to the height of the saw-cut, fastened the ends together with a nail, and gave it to Ned. "There, Ned, is the measure of your bottom."

He then by a mark which he had made along the edge of the hoop, proceeded to nail on supports for the seat; Ned, in the mean while, putting the pieces of board side by side, laid the hoop on them, marked out and sawed off the pieces he had planed, trimmed the edge with a draw-shave, fayed in the bottom, and nailed it, while Walter was at work upon another barrel; he then nailed a piece of hoop around the top edge of the back to keep the staves in place, and cut a hole for the hand to move it by. When they had made four they hoisted them to the platform, and sat down with the greatest satisfaction imaginable. The backs were rather low, and perfectly straight; but so were all the chairs of that period; and there was not the least danger of the legs of their chairs coming out. People in those days had not time to loll; there were not so many inventions for the comfort of lazy folks as at the present.

They were soon convinced that their labors possessed a practical value, and were appreciated: the captain, finding the platform an excellent lookout, easy of access, the chairs convenient, took his telescope up, and would sit there and smoke. Walter, noticing this, made a box and fastened it to the railing to keep the telescope in, and protect it from the weather. The crew also went up there; so they made four more chairs to accommodate their company. Mr. Hadlock, the second mate, was very partial to the tree.

"O, Walter," said Ned, as they sat conversing after dinner, "I wish James Peterson was here."

"So do I; he is such a good man, and could tell us so many things, for he knows so much more than Bernoux, and is well acquainted in this country."

"O, isn't he good, Walter! How much he did for me when I was sick!"

"Do you know, Ned, one of the first things I can remember is going down to Peterson's with mother or grandsir (when he was able to walk about), and Luce baking me turnovers, and Peterson making playthings for me. I tell you there wasn't a spear of grass in the path that ran across lots from our house to James's. I used to eat half my meals there; victuals tasted better there than anywhere else. I tell you, Ned, it takes Luce to cook. I heard Lion Ben tell father that if Peterson had received an education, there wouldn't be many ahead of him."

"He thinks a great deal of you, Walter. Don't you remember, the night you was going to be landed on that rock right in the ocean, and left there all alone, how he came forward and insisted on going in your room?"

"There's another I wish was here," said Walter, in a subdued tone, "and who will not be there to shake hands with us when we get home from this voyage."

"Uncle Isaac," said Ned, his eyes filling.

Walter made no answer, and the conversation dropped. After sitting a while in silence, the boys, saddened by the tender and touching associations invoked, left the spot, went on board the vessel, and set to work stopping a leak in the coating of the mainmast. The next day a peasant brought along a straw hive of honey to sell. The boys bought some, and, on going to the tree to eat it, found there the captain and second mate, with whom they shared, as they had purchased no small quantity.

While they were talking and eating, wishing for a gale of wind--a real Gulf of Lyons gale--to scatter the fleet, they saw a man-o'-war get under way, evidently for England, convoying two supply-ships.

The captain ascertained her name through Jacques; and it afterwards appeared that Nelson wrote to his brother by the man-o'-war that the inhabitants of Marseilles and Toulon were starving; that the blockade had been so strict, not even a boat could get into either place or on the coast with provisions. While this brave seaman was battling with the furious gales, heavy seas, thunder, lightning, and squalls of the Mediterranean, Captain Brown, Walter Griffin, Ned Gates, and Sam Hadlock were lying among the foliage of the oak, eating honey and soft bread, or watching him through the glass, and counting the very buttons on his coat, as he stood back and forth along the coast, patient, resolute, faithful to his weary, harassing task, and congratulating himself upon the strictness of the blockade.

"For nineteen weeks," writes he, "my crew have not had a morsel of fresh meat or vegetables; only salt junk, hard bread, and lime-juice."

During all this time, a Yankee brigantine, loaded to the bends with wheat and good yellow corn raised by Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, Lion Ben, Charlie Bell, and their neighbors, and pork, beef, saltpetre, and arms bought in England or the British provinces, was lying, almost within gunshot, in a _cul-de-sac_, where she could not escape if discovered, and coining money for her officers, crew, and owners.

While thus eating and chatting, they were joined by Jacques, who had returned from a visit to his family.

"Pilot," said the captain, "is there any good place near here where we can fill water?"

"Yes, captain; never a better."

The next morning, the water-casks were put into a boat, and Jacques piloted them to the place. It was a lovely spot. Over the edge of a precipice crowned with pines poured, in one broad sheet, a swift mountain torrent into a rocky basin, from which the white froth floated off into the cove. The water was of sufficient depth to enable them to approach with the boat to the edge of the basin, from which they dipped the clear, cool water--every instant renewed, and through which the white pebbles were gleaming--in buckets, and, passing them from hand to hand, filled the casks without taking them from the boat.

"We must be lively, boys," said Walter, "and get it in before the tide falls. O, I forgot; there is no tide here; so we can take our time."

Our young readers will recollect there is no tide in the Mediterranean, or but very little, except as influenced by storms.

As they were returning, Ned said, "Wouldn't it be nice if it was so at home, Mr. Griffin?" (putting on the Mr. before the crew.) "There's Captain Rhines's Cove: the water ebbs way out, quarter of a mile of mud. If you want to go out at low water, you must shove off a skiff, and wade in the mud. Only think how nice it would be to be able to go just when you pleased! no bother about the tide, and having to work in the night to save it; and only think what an everlasting sight of work and expense it would save in building those great long wharves, that vessels may lie afloat at low water!"

"I don't know about that, Ned. I think there's something to be said in favor of the tide. Just call to mind what an abominable dirty hole the port of Marseilles is; all the filth of the city pouring into it; no motion only in a gale of wind, and not much then; all that foul stuff stewing and simmering under a southern sun. If there was a tide to make a current, bring in a fresh supply of water, and carry off this slime every six hours, how much better it would be!"

"I never thought of that, Mr. Griffin."

"There's another thing I should think you would have thought of, Ned," said Mr. Hadlock.

"What is that, sir?"

"Why, in respect to cleaning, calking, or graving a vessel's bottom, repairing, or stopping a leak. See what a fuss we had here the other day, cleaning and putting tallow on this vessel's bottom; had to heave her out, and work and wade in the water at that. Now, if we had been at home, all we need to have done would have been to haul her on to the beach in Captain Rhines's Cove that you despise so much, at high water, ground her, and have eight or ten hours to work, on a good sand beach, too."

"I guess," said Ned, "I should have done better to have held my tongue."

Our readers will bear in mind that there were no railways in those days by which vessels are hauled out of the water, or dry docks into which they are floated at high water, and the water pumped out; but our forefathers grounded them across logs or blocks, or, if they wanted to get at the keel, hove them down on one side, by means of tackles made fast to the mast-heads, till the keel was out of water.

"That is not all, either, Ned," said the second mate. "If the tide didn't ebb, there wouldn't be any clams; and that would be a very serious affair indeed to the fishermen who want bait. Once it would have caused starvation in some cases, and might again."

"How could that be, sir?"

"I'll tell you, my boy. You were born and have grown up in Salem, and don't, perhaps, realize the value of clams; but I do. I've heard old Mr. Griffin, the mate's grandfather, say, that when he was cutting down the trees on his place, before he could raise anything, and met with bad luck in hunting, he had been, the first summer or two, so put to it for food, that he had to boil beech leaves, the ends of the branches and the tops of the pine trees (that are very tender in June, when they are growing fast), to preserve life, and that if it had not been for clams, he and his family must have starved. I'm sure they were a great help to us after my father died, for we were very poor. I was young, not strong enough to do much work; but I could dig clams, and my little sister picked them up. I could, with them for bait, catch fish and lobsters, and with a little rye and Indian bread and some bean broth, mother got along, and kept us all together. Had it not been for the clam flats, I don't know what we should have done."

"I can say amen to that," said Willard Lancaster; "and I know that when Peterson used to drink so bad, and brought little or nothing home to his family, that Luce and the children got most of their living out of the clam flats."

"It is not only the value of the clams as food," said Walter, "but a good part of the fish that are cured and exported to all parts of the world to feed thousands, are caught with clam bait."

"That, indeed," said the captain. "What vast quantities of fish are exported from Salem to the West Indies and other places! and that is but a trifle compared with the whole amount."

"Yes, indeed, sir. I didn't think of all these uses for the tide. I was thinking only how convenient it would be to have it always high water for a few things."

"There are many other things," said Walter, "that the ebb and flow of the tide are very convenient for. Three years ago, father was building a wharf in our cove: the logs were master great ones; it would have taken twenty men to place them where we wanted them; but father and I cut the scores in the other logs to receive them, rolled them into the water with the oxen, then tied a rope to them, floated them at high water to the spot, held them till the tide ebbed, and they settled into the grooves just as easy as a cat would lick her ear. We didn't lift an ounce; the tide lifted all those big logs for us. Did you ever see the Casco, Ned?"

"No, sir; she was always away when I was at Pleasant Cove, but I've heard say she is a monster."

"So she is--seven hundred tons; you may judge what her anchors must be. Well, I can tell you what they are: the best bower is 3000, and the small bower 2700."

"O, my! What a junk of iron that must be!"

"We rode out a gale of wind in Cadiz, with both anchors ahead and all the scope out. It blew a gale, I tell you, and the anchors were well bedded. When we came to get under way for home, we hove up the small anchor; but the other we hove, and hove, and hove, and couldn't start it. At last the captain said, 'Avast heaving; let the tide take it out.' We waited till low water, hove her down as long as we could catch a pawl on the windlass, and made all fast. At length the tide began to flow, the ship began to bury forward; down she went, till the water was coming into the hawse-holes, the cable sung, and the tar began to stand in drops on it with the strain, when all at once the anchor let go with a surge that threw every man from his feet. The tide was very convenient then; if it had not been for it, we must have gone ashore, got a grappling, and grappled to the fluke of the anchor, or left it. Again the tide is very convenient for a timepiece; if you keep the run of the tide, you have the time of day."

"It is about as well to take things as the Lord has arranged them," said the captain, "and be contented and thankful."

"That," said Ned, "brings to my mind a piece mother read to me once, about a man who thought, if the disposition of affairs had been committed to him, he could have arranged them a great deal better than they now are; that it was not at all proper that so large and noble a thing as a pumpkin should be attached to a vine lying upon the ground, while so insignificant a thing as an acorn or beech-nut grew upon a lofty tree: but falling asleep one day under an oak, an acorn falling on his nose awoke him, when he exclaimed, 'Wretch that I am! Had it been a pumpkin it would have dashed my brains out.' I don't know as I recollect it aright, but that was the amount of it."

"It is certainly better, Ned, to be in the hands of a wise and good Providence, than to be left to plan for ourselves. If the disposal of events had been committed to you or me, we never should have suffered the Madras to spring a leak, and endured what we did upon the raft; yet it carried us to Pleasant Cove, to Captain Rhines and Charlie Bell, and was the best thing that could have happened to either of us. Way enough, men; fend off, Jacques."