New Ideas for American Boys; The Jack of All TradesBeard, Daniel Carter
General
New Ideas for American Boys; The Jack of All Trades
Beard, Daniel Carter
Amusements; Sports
and hang it in the doorway, which, with the other proposed openings,
may be now sawed out and heavy jambs nailed on, before the binders are
removed. The wooden hinge of the door can be made of ash, hickory, or
oak, and may be simply a straight stick or rod about six and a half
feet long and two inches in diameter (Fig. 105). Bore a hole in the
upper log over the doorway, about six inches deep; if the log is of
less diameter than this, bore the hole through the log. Bore a hole in
the lower, or sill-log, but make it only deep enough to securely hold
one end of your hinge-rod, and then trim the rod to fit in this hole,
making it a trifle shorter than the distance between the end of the top
hole and the end of the sill hole. Flatten one side of the hinge-rod,
so that it may fit neatly along the edge of the door, but do not fasten
it on the door until after the rod is in place. Spring the rod in place
by slipping the top end into the top hole as far as it will go, and
then pushing the bottom end over the sill hole. When it slips in place
set the door up, in the position it would be when wide open, and fasten
it to the flattened edge of the hinge-rod, with good strong screws.
Close the door and mark the edge on the jamb, then nail a narrow strip
of wood along the line, to prevent the door swinging any farther than
it is necessary for it to swing when closed; or make it as shown by
Fig. 105, and hang it with iron hinges, as doors at home are hung.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--Board or Slab Roof.]
If You Have Money to Spend,
and men to work under your directions, you can have the regulation
door, floor, and roof; the cracks in the wall calked with mortar, and
a stone or brick chimney and fireplace built. In fact, you can make a
palace of logs, with plate-glass windows, but _you will not have a
log-cabin, and you will miss all the fun to be derived from creating
something by your own labor_, which is the highest sort of joy--the joy
of the artist! Any “chump,” with money, can hire men to build houses
which would be impossible for his stupid brain and clumsy hands to
accomplish. Besides which, the men he hired to do the work would be the
only ones who derived any real pleasure from the construction of the
houses.
You must not understand from this that you are to use
Oiled Paper for Glass, in Your Windows,
if you can obtain real glass, but that in case you cannot, the paper
makes a good substitute, and one which was used in many a pioneer’s
cabin. In Virginia there are log-houses, still occupied, which have not
even a paper window--a hole, closed in bad weather by a wooden shutter,
being the only opening besides the doors, and the moonshiners of the
mountain districts seldom have windows at all, but depend upon a front
and rear door to supply light for the house, and when these doors are
closed the fire supplies the illumination.
The Lamps
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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