Chapter ONE - Weebly

shirt, the sleeves of which he had pushed up. The
cooper was a small man with a lined, grizzled face, a
bald head, and thick, muscular arms. Whenever he
worked he furrowed his brow in concentration and
opened his mouth in a sort of grimace, revealing a large
gap where his two front teeth should have been. That
was how he looked now, as he struggled to set the final
hoop in place on a large rum barrel. There were fewer
distillers in Boston now than there had been as recently
as five or ten years ago, but Henry still did a steady
business supplying barrels to those that remained.
He was working the hoop into place with a large
mallet that he had covered with cloth so that it wouldn’t
damage the wood or scrape the hoop. Seeing Ethan
enter, he raised a hand in greeting, but continued to
work. Ethan remained by the door, watching, saying
nothing, until Henry gave the hoop one last whack,
threw his mallet onto his workbench, and pushed
himself off the stool.
“Damn hoop’th th’ wrong thizthe,” he said, with his
usual lisp.
“Is it from Corlin?” Ethan asked.