f ignorance of
the craft, and some on account of his being alone. Getting the awning up
anew cost poor Mark the toil of several days, and this because his
single strength was not sufficient to hoist the corners of that heavy
course, even when aided by watch-tackles. He was compelled to rig a
crab, with which he effected his purpose, reserving the machine to aid
him on other occasions. Then the model of the boat cost him a great deal
of time and labour. Mark knew a good bottom when he saw it, but that was
a very different thing from knowing how to make one. Of the rules of
draughting he was altogether ignorant, and his eye was his only guide.
He adopted a plan that was sufficiently ingenious, though it would never
do to build a navy on the same principle.

Having a great plenty of deal, Mark got out in the rough about twice as
many timbers for one side of his boat as would be required, in this thin
stuff, when he set them up in their places. Aided by this beginning, the
young man began to dub and cut away, until he got each piece into
something very near the shape his eye told him it ought to be. Even
after he had got as far as this, our boat-builder passed a week in
shaving, and planing, and squinting, and in otherwise reducing his lines
to fair proportions. Satisfied, 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 accurate 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,