y Russell again sat before the bench in the little
wireless house in his father's yard. Before him lay some patterns for a
rowboat, and on a piece of paper Charley was trying to figure out how much
lumber it would take to build the boat.

"We'll need two sixteen-foot boards, each a foot wide for the sides," he
said, looking across the table at his chum, who sat ready, with pencil and
paper, to jot down the figures Charley gave him.

"Thirty-two feet," said Lew, setting down the number on his paper.

Charley bent over his patterns, measuring and estimating in silence.
"It'll take three more like 'em for the bottom," he said presently.

"That's forty-eight more," replied Lew, jotting down the number.

"And these cross braces," added Charley, after another period of
calculation, "will take ten feet more."

Again Lew set down the number.

"That provides for everything but the decks," said Charley. "They will
take seven or eight feet more. Better call it ten. That's all. What does
it make?"

Lew put down ten and added the column of figures. "One hundred feet
exactly," he said.

"Bully good!" replied Charley. "A hundred feet oughtn't to cost much of
anything. The rub's going to be to get the oars. You say they want five
dollars for the cheapest pair at the hardware store, and the sporting
goods store wants six-fifty."

"The robbers!" cried Lew. "Think of it. Six-fifty for about fifteen cents'
worth of wood. Maybe we can get a pair of second-hand oars somewhere.
Six-fifty is as much as we can afford to spend on the whole outfit."

"It will be all right to get second-hand oars," said Charley, "for we can
get new ones later, when we have the money. Besides, we want to put most
of our money into the boat itself. As long as we are going to build it, we
want to make it the very best boat possible. We want the best wood in the
market and we want our boat light enough so that the two of us can carry
it. I reckon it may cost two or three dollars if we buy such good wood as
that. But it will be worth while. We can get along with cheap oars for a
time. Let's go down to the lumber-yard and get our boards."

The two chums left the shop and hurried down the street toward the
lumber-yard.

"If we can get our lumber to-day," said Charley, "I'm certain we can get
our boat made before the spring vacation. We ought to be able to put in
three hours apiece every afternoon after high school lets out, and we can
get in another hour a