The next morning Joe Griffin, after scratching his head a while, suddenly exclaimed, “Look here, neighbors: I don’t pretend to be any great of a sailor man, but I reckon I know how to handle timber, and put it where I want it--I do. I can plank this stage over, run it a little farther aft, and take the oxen and twitch more lumber into this vessel in an hour than you can put in in this way in half a day. They might split a board or two, but I don’t ’spose that would kill anybody.”