Sentence:  A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a <WSD>spell</WSD> we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A definite period (of work or other activity). (from 18th c.)