Explore "The Mystery of the Sea-Lark" by Ralph Henry Barbour on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Immediately after school on the following Monday afternoon Jack and his chum hastened to what they were pleased to call their "dry-dock. " Although Tony Santo had calked the worst of the cracks between the planks under the sloop's water-line before he actually launched her, she had taken in a good deal of water during her journey along the Sangus River and up Cow Creek. It was obvious, therefore, that several afternoons would be taken up with the task of filling the numerous small crevices along her hull, although the boat-builder assured them that the swelling of the wood after she had been afloat a few days would to some extent remedy this trouble.
The boys went about their task in a thoroughly businesslike manner. With coats off and shirt-sleeves rolled up, and wearing the oldest trousers they could find, they applied themselves diligently and intelligently to their work. Tony, who took a genuine interest in the affair, devoted an hour or two to them on the first day, teaching the boys how to use the calking-iron and mallet, how to lay the thin strip of oakum along the defective seam, and how to ram it into the cavity without injuring the boat itself. Also, they learned to distinguish between a seam which needed calking and one which did not.