Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/156

150 THE CRATER; passed a week in shaving, and planing, and squinting, and in otherwise reducing his lines to fair proportions. Satis fied, at length, with the bottom he had thus fashioned, Mark took out just one half of his pieces, leaving the other half standing. After these moulds did he saw and cut his boat s timbers, making, in each instance, duplicates. When the ribs and floors of his craft were ready, he set them up in the vacancies, and secured them, after making an accu rate fit with the pieces left standing. On knocking away the deal portions of his work, Mark had the frame of his boat complete. This was much the most troublesome part of the whole job; nor was it finished, when the young man was obliged, by the progress of the seasons, to quit the ship-yard for the garden. Mark had adopted a system of diet and a care of his person, that kept him in perfect health, illness being the evil that he most dreaded. His food was more than half vegetable, several plants having come forward even in the winter; and the asparagus, in particular, yielding at a rate that would have made the fortune of a London gardener. The size of the plants he cut was really astounding, a dozen stems actually making a meal. The hens laid all winter, and eggs were never wanting. The corned pork gave substance, as well as a relish, to all the dishes the young man cooked ; and the tea, sugar and coffee, promis ing to hold out years longer, the table still gave him little concern. Once in a month, or so, he treated himself to a bean-soup, or a pea-soup, using the stores of the Rancocus for that purpose, foreseeing that the salted meats would spoil after a time, and the dried vegetables get to be worth less, by means of insects and worms. By this time, how ever, there were fresh crops of both those vegetables, which grew better in the winter than they could in the summer, in that hot climate. Fish, too, were used as a change, whenever the young man had an inclination for that sort of food, which was as often as three or four times a week ; the little pan-fish already mentioned, being of a sort of which one would scarcely ever tire. It being a matter of some moment to save unnecessary labour, Mark seldom cooked more than once in twenty- four hours, and then barely enough to last for that day.