Part 8 (1/2)

_I tell this tale which is stricter true, Just by way of convincing you How very little since things was made Things have altered in the s.h.i.+pwright's trade._

In Blackwall Basin yesterday A China barque re-fitting lay, When a fat old man with snow-white hair Came up to watch us working there.

Now there wasn't a knot which the riggers knew But the old man made it--and better too; Nor there wasn't a sheet, or a lift, or a brace, But the old man knew its lead and place.

Then up and spake the caulkyers bold, Which was packing the pump in the after-hold: 'Since you with us have made so free, Will you kindly tell what your name might be?'

The old man kindly answered them: 'It might be j.a.phet, it might be Shem, Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark), Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark.

'Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange, But otherwise I perceive no change, And in less than a week, if she did not ground, I'd sail this hooker the wide world round!'

BOTH: _We tell these tales which are strictest true, etc._

The Wrong Thing

Dan had gone in for building model boats; but after he had filled the schoolroom with chips, which he expected Una to clear away, they turned him out of doors and he took all his tools up the hill to Mr.

Springett's yard, where he knew he could make as much mess as he chose.

Old Mr. Springett was a builder, contractor, and sanitary engineer, and his yard, which opened off the village street, was always full of interesting things. At one end of it was a long loft, reached by a ladder, where he kept his iron-bound scaffold planks, tins of paints, pulleys, and odds and ends he had found in old houses. He would sit here by the hour watching his carts as they loaded or unloaded in the yard below, while Dan gouged and grunted at the carpenter's bench near the loft window. Mr. Springett and Dan had always been particular friends, for Mr. Springett was so old he could remember when railways were being made in the southern counties of England, and people were allowed to drive dogs in carts.

One hot, still afternoon--the tar-paper on the roof smelt like s.h.i.+ps--Dan, in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, was smoothing down a new schooner's bow, and Mr. Springett was talking of barns and houses he had built. He said he never forgot any stick or stone he had ever handled, or any man, woman, or child he had ever met. Just then he was very proud of the village Hall at the entrance to the village, which he had finished a few weeks before.

'An' I don't mind tellin' you, Mus' Dan,' he said, 'that the Hall will be my last job top of this mortal earth. I didn't make ten pounds--no, nor yet five--out o' the whole contrac', but my name's lettered on the foundation stone--_Ralph Springett, Builder_--and the stone she's bedded on four foot good concrete. If she s.h.i.+fts any time these five hundred years, I'll sure-ly turn in my grave. I told the Lunnon architec' so when he come down to oversee my work.'

'What did he say?' Dan was sandpapering the schooner's port bow.

'Nothing. The Hall ain't more than one of his small jobs for _him_, but 'tain't small to me, an' my name is cut and lettered, frontin' the village street, I do hope an' pray, for time everlastin.' You'll want the little round file for that holler in her bow. Who's there?' Mr.

Springett turned stiffly in his chair.

A long pile of scaffold-planks ran down the centre of the loft. Dan looked, and saw Hal of the Draft's touzled head beyond them.[3]

[3] See 'Hal o' the Draft' in _Puck of Pook's Hill_.

'Be you the builder of the village Hall?' he asked of Mr. Springett.

'I be,' was the answer. 'But if you want a job----'

Hal laughed. 'No, faith!' he said. 'Only the Hall is as good and honest a piece of work as I've ever run a rule over. So, being born hereabouts, and being reckoned a master among masons, and accepted as a master mason, I made bold to pay my brotherly respects to the builder.'

'Aa--um!' Mr. Springett looked important. 'I be a bit rusty, but I'll try ye!'

He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr. Springett's desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr. Springett about bricks, and cement, and lead and gla.s.s, and after a while Dan went on with his work. He knew Mr. Springett was pleased, because he tugged his white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two men seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree they interrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal said something about workmen.

'Why, that's what _I_ always say,' Mr. Springett cried. 'A man who can only do one thing, he's but next-above-fool to the man that can't do nothing. That's where the Unions make their mistake.'

'My thought to the very dot.' Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg.

'I've suffered in my time from these same Guilds--Unions d'you call 'em?

All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades--why, what does it come to?'