My ax felled a stout oak-tree near by for a keel, and Farmer Howard,
for a small sum of money, hauled in this and enough timbers for the
frame of the new vessel. I rigged a steam-box and a pot for a boiler.
The timbers for ribs, being straight saplings, were dressed and
steamed till supple, and then bent over a log, where they were secured
till set. Something tangible appeared every day to show for my labor,
and the neighbors made the work sociable. It was a great day in the
_Spray_ shipyard when her new stem was set up and fastened to the new
keel. Whaling-captains came from far to survey it. With one voice they
pronounced it "A 1," and in their opinion "fit to smash ice." The
oldest captain shook my hand warmly when the breast-hooks were put in,
declaring that he could see no reason why the _Spray_ should not "cut
in bow-head" yet off the coast of Greenland. The much-esteemed
stem-piece was from the butt of the smartest kind of a pasture oak. It
afterward split a coral patch in two at the Keeling Islands, and did
not receive a blemish. Better timber for a ship than pasture white oak
never grew. The breast-hooks, as well as all the ribs, were of this
wood, and were steamed and bent into shape as required. It was hard
upon March when I began work in earnest; the weather was cold; still,
there were plenty of inspectors to back me with advice. When a
whaling-captain hove in sight I just rested on my adz awhile and
"gammed" with him.

New Bedford, the home of whaling-captains, is connected with Fairhaven
by a bridge, and the walking is good. They never "worked along up" to
the shipyard too often for me. It was the charming tales about arctic
whaling that inspired me to put a double set of breast-hooks in the
_Spray_, that she might shunt ice.

The seasons came quickly while I worked. Hardly were the ribs of the