Banished Prince Charming

Chapter 59 - Fundamentals Of A Fishing Rod.

"Our men are ready to be utilised Your Reputable Lordship...." Eagle reported as he came with Sparrow as he was immediately hushed not to address me in that kind of honorific especially when it's already daybreak and the citizens are going about their businesses in the morning.

"Inform your men to act as per normal and then, once after the official launch of the windmill, I would announce your departure 'to meet your respective 'spouses' while the remaining 4 would stay back. One would be stationed at the windmill and the other 3 to report to Frank for the deployment."

"The start of the day would be a bit slow today and expect to have an early lunch before midday. We didn't have enough rest today so the brain is a bit muddled."

"Understood, Your Lordship." the duo chorused.

Witnessing that I had forgotten to prepare the flag pole, Sparrow went to fetch a long bamboo pole that had not been stripped of its bark, checked its length vertically before he chopped the end of the shorter tip off. He then took a semi-dry bamboo strip on the A-frame, halved it and quickly made a few rounds that looked like a fairly large loop.

He then retrieved a long piece of rope that was used to anchor the base of the defensive structures, measured a length of the pole from end to end, gave some allowances and made another length before he cut it away. He then took the rope that he had earlier taken a length from it and measured about 1-foot length and sliced.

With those poles in hand, he walked over to the fireplace, and the embers heated the bamboo up and the slightly bent bamboo straighten up by itself. "Eh... This could be done when the bamboo strip is still on?"

"Why don't I think of it?" remarked Gwen who used the same method to straighten the bamboo minus its skin. Furthermore, she had to find the straightest bamboo to work on with to make the frames of her hunting bow.

"Missus Gardner, heating the bamboo in the early morning is faster as there is more moisture within the bamboo. The moisture heats up, thus straightens itself, without the need to find a straight one earlier to make hunting bows."

"After heating them up, you may strip the bamboo skin off, try with a crooked bamboo if you are ever in doubt." After he had roasted the bamboo slightly, he then gingerly carried it to the windmill area and started to make a hole in the ground and after affixing those two loops and attaching one length of the rope through it, he raised the flagpole and yes it is indeed straight and erect from afar.

Gwen took the end of the bamboo that he had chopped off, saw that it was about slightly more than 3 foot, and placed it in the fire like the young engineer did, as slowly she could feel the moisture inside bubbling and pressure released stretched the pole to be straight!

"Amazing...! I could shorten the time to make the bows rather than spending time to look for a straight flanged bamboo...!"

"This end here could make a fine bamboo fishing rod...!"

Without further ado, she went to take a piece of drying bamboo strips from the A-frame, and looked around for a small round piece of a bamboo-like cup that was discarded aside on the ground. She also went through those discarded bamboo tips and found something she was looking for and chopped the ends off.

It was not equal but rather conical in shape but she doesn't matter at all as it serves the purpose well. It was about 2 inches long.

"Ben, could you use your chisel and make a groove on the surface here right on the bark? Also, hollow this part. Then use this end and make two grooves on each end here to put this through like a handle. Do it for both sides. Thanks, Ben."

Ben took the necessaries, sat on the ground and began to work and his efficiency made him complete the work within a short period of time.

"Hun, make me 5 loops, each loop of differential size from smallest to biggest. The smallest being the pinky, the largest being the thumb. Like a bamboo ring."

"Will do, Hun." and Frank proceeded to perform his task.

Gwen went back to retrieve a twine from the weaving department and spread the length of the twine 5 times across her c.h.e.s.t with arms outstretched before cutting the end of it. She sat down beside Frank and secured one end of the twine on her big toe which she had stretched one of her leg in front of her.

She began to work on the twine to remove a strand of it that looked like a thread but much stronger than a normal thread itself. She wound one end of the thread to her arm and easily retrieved the whole string when Crystal helped her to unravel by holding on end of it from afar.

All Gwen has to do was to pull and it was done in just a few moments while Ben announced that he had complete the task. Gwen then paused, took the bamboo pole, flicked her hunting knife and marked 5 spots on the bamboo fishing pole.

"Ben, proceed to make tiny grooves here to fit a string on 5 of these marked areas. Not too shallow and too deep. She then uses the palm of her hands to measure 5 lengths of short strings and placed it aside.

She took Ben's hollowed-out bamboo cup with a handle sticking out from and began to wound the string on to it and when she was halfway through, Frank too has finished the bamboo ringlets.

"Go sit with Ben, attached these ringlets from the smallest at the top and the biggest on the 5th notch. I am still doing the spool here."

"Alright..." Frank sat a short distance beside Ben while facing in the opposite direction and held the bamboo fishing pole in his l.a.p, as Ben did likewise.

After Gwen had counted about 20 revolutions of string wound around the spool as she mentioned her task earlier to her husband, she cut the whole rope into 3 parts and place them aside.

"Frank, Ben, aligned the ringlets in a straight line. This is used to secure the line through in a straight manner so it won't be entangled. Move closer to Ben, I need to work on this end here."

Frank scooted sideways, sitting closer to Ben, as Gwen held the thicker end of the pole with her two hands, marked where the further part with a hunting knife, whittled and made a groove.

She took the thicker twine and just cut slightly more than a palm length and held the spool in place with the string through it and simply tied it together with a knot that looked like a ribbon.

In a few moments, it was all done and Gwen checked the alignment, threaded the piece of string that ran from the underside of the spool all the way through the ringlets until it reached through the end. She picked a small pebble and tied it at the end of the string as a weight.

The spool that was tightened with a piece of twine was loosened slightly so that it would be able to move freely. She raised the bamboo pole horizontally at an angle, and by using one hand to hold the spool to control the rolling spin, drew back the bamboo pole slightly behind her and suddenly whipped it forward while controlling the speed of the spool.

The pebble's weight drew an arc in the air and landed some 10 feet away as she held the pole horizontally in front and rolled the spool to make the line a bit taut rather than hanging loose... By this time, the whole citizens of GraceHaven had gathered around to watch the scenario nearly from start to the point where she had casted the line.

"Strike...!!" Gwen exclaimed as she raised the fishing pole slightly higher and used her left hand to grip the conical handle and reel the line in with an anti clockwise rotation, as everyone realised and saw how easy the whole operation works, they all clapped their hands excitedly when the pebble ended near the tip, finally dangling from the tip of the bamboo pole.

By using a spool-like device, she had created a pulley system that could aid in lifting a heavy object off from the ground almost effortlessly. Besides, the idea was also akin to the hand-operated circular saw blades in the sawmill the only thing now is how to construct a movable boom, in which the engineers would come in to the picture...!

In an instant, everyone had forgotten about the sudden 'death' of baby Chadwell. Gwen kept the rod by her side and informed me, "Young Master, this, I gift to you. But right after I places hide glue on this string of the ringlets. Hope you could catch a whale for us... We could use its blubber to make candles...!"

"Gentle Ladies and Gentlemen, this is called a fishing rod. An improvised one that could be thrown at a longer distance and ability to reel in a whale this big." She stretched her arms wide sideways and then she inched it closer and closer before her hands met and it showed just the length of bluegills by measuring it with her forefingers.

"If you want to improve your lives, think B-I-G in the future so what you would achieve would be half of that size. If you think small, your future, as well as the development of this village, will be only the size of an ant."

Gwen handed the rod to everyone to view at close range and told them to be careful as everyone passed it around and was quite delightful that there is yet another bamboo product that could be added into the sales list.

After the rod was handed back to Gwen, she kept it inside her house as I made an announcement, "Something happened last night, so we could proceed to have breakfast first."

"The children would be minded by Jack here and then we all would be heading to the newly set up grounds and after the ceremony, we would head to the windmill and then back here to make an announcement."

The whole suddenly became cold and lifeless as they had learnt about the 'sudden demise' of Chadwells infant and moved about to gather their breakfast as they sat at the dining tables, waited for everyone to be seated before they began to eat.

I saw the boy gesturing a cradling motion to his mother. He was tugging furiously as she tried futilely to avoid his frantic gestures and wild gaze. She then tearfully looked at him and placed her gentle hands on the sides of his face and just mouthed the words sleeping and pointed at Kayla's house direction.

He was gesturing once again by placing one hand down his face and her mother pointed out by scratching her arm. From my position, I knew what all these simple gestures meant.

I can feel tiny hands tugging at my heart once more as I lost the ability of my visions and I could just simply stared down at my bowl as I added salted teardrops into my gruel. It wasn't me alone but many others were doing the same too.

The steely faced engineers were looking at my direction unknowingly and nodded to themselves, they had made the wisest decision to stay behind for the youth in front of them, a man brave enough to shed tears and share everyone's sorrow and firm enough to stand his ground to make the right decision to steer the citizens of GraceHaven....