"
[Illustration: Clay bowls]
"Of clay!" Thorn said, looking at pieces wonderingly. "I never saw a
bowl like that."
Periwinkle threw the oyster shells and pieces of broken bowl up on the
shell heap. "We throw all such things in a heap," he said. "Then they
are out of the way and will not cut our feet."
After working for days and days, the men got the tree for the dug-out
hacked down. Then they hacked off a log and dragged it down to the
shore. Here they began to make the dug-out.
They built a fire all along the top of the log. It burned down slowly.
The men watched the fire and kept putting on more sticks. If it burned
too near the edge, they put on water or clay or wet moss to stop it.
"You see, they burn out only the middle of the log and leave good
strong thick sides to the boat," said Periwinkle.
After the fire had burned down into the log a way, the men raked off
the hot coals. The wood beneath was burned to charcoal. The men
scraped it off with stone scrapers. Then they put on more fire and
again burned the log.
"The fire will burn down faster, now that the charcoal is scraped off,"
said Periwinkle.
The men worked for a long time, burning and scraping away, burning and
scraping, until they had dug a little hollow all along the middle of
the log.
Then one man said, "We have worked enough."
And the men dropped their scrapers and went off.
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