CHAPTER XII.
HOUSE-BUILDING.
There was a change in the programme of daily labor, when the corn wasin the ground. At odd times the settlers had gone over to the wood-lotand had laid out their plans for the future home on that claim. Therewas more variety to be expected in house-building than in planting,and the boys had looked forward with impatience to the beginning ofthat part of their enterprise. Logs for the house were cut from thepines and firs of the hill beyond the river bluff. From these, too,were to be riven, or split, the "shakes" for the roof-covering and forthe odd jobs of work to be done about the premises.
Now, for the first time, the boys learned the use of some of thestrange tools that they had brought with them. They had wondered overthe frow, an iron instrument about fourteen inches long, for splittinglogs. At right angles with the blade, and fixed in an eye at one end,was a handle of hard-wood. A section of wood was stood up endwise on afirm foundation of some sort, and the thin end of the frow washammered down into the grain of the wood, making a lengthwise split.
In the same way, the section of wood so riven was split again andagain until each split was thin enough. The final result was called a"shake." Shakes were used for shingles, and even--when nailed onframes--for doors. Sawed lumber was very dear; and, except the sashesin the windows, every bit of the log-cabin must be got out of theprimitive forest.
The boys were proud of the ample supply which their elders had broughtwith them; for even the knowing Younkins, scrutinizing the tools forwoodcraft with a critical eye, remarked, "That's a good outfit, for aparty of green settlers." Six stout wedges of chilled iron, and aheavy maul to hammer them with, were to be used for the splitting upof the big trees into smaller sections. Wooden wedges met the wants ofmany people in those primitive parts, at times, and the man who had agood set of iron wedges and a powerful maul was regarded with envy.
"What are these clumsy rings for?" Oscar had asked when he saw themaul-rings taken out of the wagon on their arrival and unloading.
His uncle smiled, and said, "You will find out what these are for, mylad, when you undertake to swing the maul. Did you never hear ofsplitting rails? Well, these are to split rails and such things fromthe log. We chop off a length of a tree, about eight inches thick,taking the toughest and densest wood we can find. Trim off the barkfrom a bit of the trunk, which must be twelve or fourteen inches long;drive your rings on each end of the block to keep it from splitting;fit a handle to one end, or into one side of the block; and there youhave your maul."
"Why, that's only a beetle, after all," cried Sandy, who, sitting on astump near by, had been a deeply interested listener to his father'sdescription of the maul.
"Certainly, my son; a maul is what people in the Eastern States wouldcall a beetle; but you ask Younkins, some day, if he has a beetle overat his place. He, I am sure, would never use the name beetle."
Log-cabin building was great fun to the boys, although they did notfind it easy work. There was a certain novelty about the raising ofthe structure that was to be a home, and an interest in learning theuse of rude tools that lasted until the cabin was finished. The mauland the wedges, the frow and the little maul intended for it, and allthe other means and appliances of the building, were all new andstrange to these bright lads.
MAKING "SHAKES" WITH A "FROW."]
First, the size of the cabin, twelve feet wide and twenty feet long,was marked out on the site on which it was to rise, and four logs werelaid to define the foundation. These were the sills of the new house.At each end of every log two notches were cut, one on the under sideand one on the upper, to fit into similar notches cut in the logbelow, and in that which was to be placed on top. So each corner wasformed by these interlacing and overlapping ends. The logs were piledup, one above another, just as children build "cob-houses," from oddsand ends of playthings. Cabin-builders do not say that a cabin is acertain number of feet high; they usually say that it is ten logshigh, or twelve logs high, as the case may be. When the structure isas high as the eaves are intended to be, the top logs are boundtogether, from side to side, with smaller logs fitted upon the upperlogs of each side and laid across as if they were to be the supportsof a floor for another story. Then the gable-ends are built up oflogs, shorter and shorter as the peak of the gable is approached, andkept in place by other small logs laid across, endwise of the cabin,and locked into the end of each log in the gable until all are inplace. On these transverse logs, or rafters, the roof is laid. Holesare cut or sawed through the logs for the door and windows, and thehouse begins to look habitable.
The settlers on the Republican Fork cut the holes for doors andwindows before they put on the roof, and when the layer of splitshakes that made the roof was in place, and the boys bounded inside tosee how things looked, they were greatly amused to notice how light itwas. The spaces between the logs were almost wide enough to crawlthrough, Oscar said. But they had studied log-cabin building enough toknow that these wide cracks were to be "chinked" with thin strips ofwood, the refuse of shakes, driven in tightly, and then daubed overwith clay, a fine bed of which was fortunately near at hand. Theprovident Younkins had laid away in his own cabin the sashes and glassfor two small windows; and these he had agreed to sell to thenewcomers. Partly hewn logs for floor-joists were placed upon theground inside the cabin, previously levelled off for the purpose. Onthese were laid thick slabs of oak and hickory, riven out of logsdrawn from the grove near by. These slabs of hard-wood were"puncheons," and fortunate as was the man who could have a floor ofsawed lumber to his cabin, he who was obliged to use puncheons wasbetter off than those with whom timber was so scarce that the naturalsurface on the ground was their only floor.
"My! how it rattles!" was Sandy's remark when he had first taken a fewsteps on the new puncheon floor of their cabin. "It sounds like atread-mill going its rounds. Can't you nail these down, daddy?"
His father explained that the unseasoned lumber of the puncheons wouldso shrink in the drying that no fastening could hold them. They mustlie loosely on the floor-joists until they were thoroughly seasoned;then they might be fastened down with wooden pins driven through holesbored for that purpose; nails and spikes cost too much to be wasted ona puncheon floor. In fact, very little hardware was wasted on any partof that cabin. Even the door was made by fastening with wooden pegs anumber of short pieces of shakes to a frame fitted to the doorway cutin the side of the cabin. The hinges were strong bits of leather, thesoles of the boots whose legs had been used for corn-droppers. Theclumsy wooden latch was hung inside to a wooden pin driven into one ofthe crosspieces of the door, and it played in a loop of deerskin atthe other end. A string of deerskin fastened to the end of thelatch-bar nearest the jamb of the doorway was passed outside through ahole cut in the door, serving to lift the latch from without when avisitor would enter.
"Our latch-string hangs out!" exclaimed Charlie, triumphantly, whenthis piece of work was done. "I must say I never knew before what itmeant to have the 'latch-string hanging out' for all comers. See,Oscar, when we shut up the house for the night, all we have to do isto pull in the latch-string, and the door is barred."
"Likewise, when you have dropped your jackknife through a crack in thefloor into the cellar beneath, all you have to do is to turn over apuncheon or two and get down and find it," said Sandy, coolly, as hetook up two slabs and hunted for his knife. The boys soon found thatalthough their home was rude and not very elegant as to its furniture,it had many conveniences that more elaborate and handsomer houses didnot have. There were no floors to wash, hardly to sweep. As theirsurroundings were simple, their wants were few. It was a free and easylife that they were gradually drifting into, here in the wilderness.
Charlie declared that the cabin ought to have a name. As yet, the landon which they had settled had no name except that of the river bywhich it lay. The boys thought it would give some sort of distinctionto their home if they gave it a title. "Liberty Hall," they thoughtwould be a good name to put on the roof of their log-
cabin. Somethingout of Cooper's novels, Oscar proposed, would be the best for thelocality.
"'Hog-and-hominy,' how would that suit?" asked Sandy, with a laugh."Unless we get some buffalo or antelope meat pretty soon, it will behog and hominy to the end of the chapter."
"Why not call it the John G. Whittier cabin?" said Uncle Aleck,looking up from his work of shaping an ox-yoke.
"The very thing, daddy!" shouted Sandy, clapping his hands. "Onlydon't you think that's a very long name to say in a hurry? Whittierwould be shorter, you know. But, then," he added, doubtfully, "itisn't everybody that would know which Whittier was meant by that,would they?"
"Sandy seems to think that the entire population of Kansas will becoming here, some day, to read that name, if we ever have it. We havebeen here two months now, and no living soul but ourselves andYounkins has ever been in these diggings; not one. Oh, I say, let'sput up just nothing but 'Whittier' over the door there. We'll knowwhat that means, and if anybody comes in the course of time, I'llwarrant he'll soon find out which Whittier it means." This was Oscar'sview of the case.
"Good for you, Oscar!" said his uncle. "Whittier let it be."
Before sundown, that day, a straight-grained shake of pine, free fromknot or blemish, had been well smoothed down with the draw-shave, andon its fair surface, writ large, was the beloved name of the NewEngland poet, thus: WHITTIER.
This was fastened securely over the entrance of the new log-cabin, andthe Boy Settlers, satisfied with their work, stood off at a littledistance and gave it three cheers. The new home was named.