Explore "All Taut" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For the next week, Bates was the principal instructor of the students on board the Lily while they were employed in putting on the rigging. The short lines which had been on the wharf for a week were in demand, and the old man showed the boys how to make a few of the most useful knots. They were required to repeat the operations till they could make the knots without stopping to dream over them.
The old quartermaster was patient with them while they were attentive to their duty; and in a few days they could make a bowline hitch, tie a square knot, put a clove hitch on a stick, and some others. Then came a lesson in short and long splices, and then in parcelling and serving. Thus trained, the work of setting up the rigging proceeded rapidly; and in a couple of weeks the schooner was rigged and her sails bent.