In his younger days Davy Glinds had been a ship carpenter, and was skilled in the use of the broadaxe and the adze.

He fashioned a good-looking tub, five feet long by two and a half wide, smooth hewn within and without.

When painted white the tub presented a very creditable appearance.
The old Squire was so pleased with it that he had Glinds make another; and then, discovering how cheaply pine bathtubs could be made, he hit upon a new notion.

The more he studied on a thing like that, the more the subject unfolded in his dear old head.

Why, the old Squire asked himself, need the Saturday-night bath occupy a whole evening because the eight or ten members of the family had to take turns in one tub, when we could just as well have more tubs?
Before grandmother Ruth fairly realized what he was about, the old gentleman had five of these pine tubs ranged there in the new lean-to.
He had the carpenters inclose each tub within a sealed partition of spruce boards.