Camp Venture

lding o

orning and bade them "get breakfast quick and eat it in

knew how badly they should need a more secure shelter than their temporary

utting. Most of them were trees nearly a foot in thickness-none unde

he open?" asked Ed Parmly, "where they

r rapidly from stump to top. I want trees that will yield at least one, and if possible,

ees in the thick woods grow so much taller and straight

air. They do not waste their energies in putting out branches that they can do without, but just keep on growing straight up in search of the air and sunlight. So you see if you want long sticks you must go into the thick woods for them. Out there in that half open glade there isn't a single tree with a twenty-foot reach before you come to its branches, while the tr

ithin an hour or so they all lay upon the ground, trimmed of their

another big chestnut tree. Having blocked out these chips, Jack sat down and began to split them, observing the result in each cas

r. "Why did you split up those chips in that

at isn't 'brash,'" answered Jack,

ou mean by

d 'brash,' and, of course, it is of no account for clapboards. See here!" and with that he took up two of the big sample chips and illustrated

oards out of this tree to roof our sh

answered Jack, "but not for our gables. They'

possible?" eagerl

plain it in advance. And another thing, Doctor, you rememb

onsternation. "We can't roof our house till some

Doctor. There isn't a log cabin in thes

e the clapboards

get our clapboards, and if you'll go back to the camp and bring a cross cut saw, I'll have this giant of the f

mething quite different from what they signify elsewhere. When the Virginia mountaineer speaks of a "board" or a "c

Jack first marked off ten feet of his great tre

ur-foot lengths," said the Doctor, as t

see, the butt of a tree is always rather brash, and so we won

asked th

liff has a fine flow of water. I'll sink this trough in the ground, at a proper angle, and train the water into it.

th out of doors when the thermomete

y fellow in the party doesn't relish that sort of thing, Tom will souse him in any h

y, and as soon as we get our bath tub in place I shall begin taking them. And more than that, I'l

the eaves. Jack showed the boys how to notch the logs at their ends so as to hold them securely in place and so also as to let them lie very close together throughout their length. For, of course, without notching, each log would lie the whole thickness of another log above the timber below it. Having thus started the fou

r the savory meal, the very odor of which made their nostrils glad while they were washing their hands and faces in preparation for it. There were not ma

ad made anywhere-no, not even in Paris, a city that prides itself about equally upon its "pain"-bread,-and its paintings, of which it has the finest collections in all the world. Finally, there was the sauce-traditionally, the best in the world,-namely, hunger. Half a dozen young fellows hi

house was finished by noon of the next day, and the roof and gables on

timbers. The gable timbers were permitted, however, to extend two feet or so beyond the notches in which the lengthwise poles rested, and a second notch was cut in each end of each of them. When a row of clapboards was laid on the lengthwise poles, another l

eat west that implement has played an important part in enabling men to house themselves with clapboards or shingles for their roofs. So I must do the work that the dictionaries neglect. A fro is a

pushing the fro further and further into the crack, as it opens, he splits off a shingle, or a clapboard, as the case may be. In the south, and in some parts of the west nearly all of the shingles and clapboards used are still split out in this way with the fro. Until recent years, when shingle making machines were introduced, all shingles were made in that way, so th

he further making of clapboards. This left in each case a three-cornered stick two inches thick at its thickest part, and perhaps three inches wide

. "Those wedge-shaped pieces

king?" asked

re if these spaces remained open. No fire that we could make in our chimney would keep us warm under such conditions. So we must stop up the cracks. We'll do that by fitting these pieces of chinking into the cracks between the logs, and then 'daubing' the smaller cracks with mud.

if I don't 'daub' with the best and youngest of you, then I'll give up and go down the mountain, acknowledging mysel

ow. We've decreed that for this winter, at any rate, you are only si

ows have accepted me as a boy among boys, and you've got to stick to that. There are to be no deferences to me. There is to be preci

daubing time comes I'll set you your task like the rest of them and I'll criticize every crevice you leave open. What with an open roof-for a clapboard roof is very open-through which th

ight?" asked the Doctor. "Why not

red Jack, "and we haven't any s

ow you how to have windows that will keep out the wind and let in light

ccept your statement, and if you'll tell me what sized openings you w

openings without sawing through the logs, and I don't see how that is to be done without

tell me what sized window openings you want

ught a moment,

about two feet and a half one way by about

d Jack, "whether the long way is up

openings long either w

and left and short in their up and down dimensions, so t

s securely to the logs, one on each side of one of the proposed window openings. The boards were long enough to reach over four of the logs. Jack nailed them securely to all four of the logs, thus binding the timbers together, and making each a support to all of the others. Then he sawed out three-foot lengths of the

, "come on with your windows. I'm

ont of the house. He had taken two strips of thin yard-wide muslin each a little o

s, of which there was a small supply in the Doctor's own pack, he securely fastened one of these pieces of greased muslin on

ss could do, and it will keep out wind and cold even better than the logs you sawe

s hung by hinges made of limber twigs, called withes, to pegs in the logs, and supplied with a wooden latch, catching into a wooden slot. The door opening was made precisely as the window holes were. The mountain form of log cabin involved the least possible use of metal in its construction, and except for the