CHAPTER V
_The Building of a Cabin_
Jack routed out the entire party before daylight next morning and badethem "get breakfast quick and eat it in a hurry. We've got to begin ourhouse to-day," he added.
They were eager enough, for, apart from the frolic of house building,they knew how badly they should need a more secure shelter than theirtemporary abode could furnish, should rain or snow come, as was likelynow at any time.
Breakfast over, Jack took his axe and marked a number of trees forcutting. Most of them were trees nearly a foot in thickness--none undereight inches--and all were situated in the thickest growth of timber.
"Why not choose trees farther out in the open?" asked Ed Parmly, "wherethey would be easier to get at and get out."
"Because, if you will use your eyes, Ed, you'll see that out in theopen, the trees taper rapidly from stump to top. I want trees that willyield at least one, and if possible, two logs apiece, with very littletaper to them. Otherwise, our house will be lop-sided."
"But I say, Jack, what causes the difference? Why do trees in the thickwoods grow so much taller and straighter and of more uniform size thantrees out in the open?"
"Because every tree is continually hunting for sunlight and air,"answered Jack. "Out in the open, each tree finds these easily and goesto work at once to put out its branches, about ten feet from the ground,and to make itself generally comfortable. But where the trees arecrowded close together each has to struggle with all the rest for itsshare of sunlight and air. They do not waste their energies in puttingout branches that they can do without, but just keep on growing straightup in search of the air and sunlight. So you see if you want long sticksyou must go into the thick woods for them. Out there in that half openglade there isn't a single tree with a twenty-foot reach before you cometo its branches, while the trees I have marked here in the thick woodswill give us, most of them two logs apiece twenty-one feet long and withnot more than three or four inches difference between their diameters atthe butt and their diameters at the extreme upper end. It's a good dealso with men, by the way. Those that must struggle for a chance usuallyachieve the best results in the end."
By this time the axes were all busy felling the marked trees, and withinan hour or so they all lay upon the ground, trimmed of their branches,and cut into the required lengths of twenty-one feet each.
Having felled his share of them, Jack went a little further into thewoodlands, and began blocking out great chips from one after another bigchestnut tree. Having blocked out these chips, Jack sat down and beganto split them, observing the result in each case with care. Presently hesatisfied himself and set to work to cut down the giant chestnut whosechip had yielded the best results.
"What's all that for, Jack?" asked the Doctor. "Why did you split upthose chips in that way, like a little boy with a new hatchet?"
"I was hunting for some timber that isn't 'brash,'" answered Jack, "tomake our clapboards out of."
"What do you mean by 'brash?'"
"Why, some timber splits easily and straight along its grain, whileother wood breaks away slantwise across the grain. That last kind iscalled 'brash,' and, of course, it is of no account for clapboards. Seehere!" and with that he took up two of the big sample chips andillustrated his meaning by splitting them and showing the Doctor how oneof them split straight with the grain, while the other showed no suchintegrity.
"Oh, then, you're going to make clapboards out of this tree to roof ourshanty with and to close up its gables."
"I'm going to make clapboards for our roof," answered Jack, "but not forour gables. They'll be made of logs, in true mountain fashion."
"But how is that possible?" eagerly asked the Doctor.
"I'll show you when we come to build. I can't very well explain it inadvance. And another thing, Doctor, you remember that we have only tenpounds or so of nails, all told."
"That's true!" exclaimed the Doctor, almost in consternation. "We can'troof our house till somebody goes down the mountain and brings asupply."
"That's where you are mightily mistaken, Doctor. There isn't a log cabinin these mountains that has a nail in its roof."
"But how then are the clapboards held in place?"
"That again is a thing I can show you far better than I can explain itwithout demonstration. But we must first get our clapboards, and ifyou'll go back to the camp and bring a cross cut saw, I'll have thisgiant of the forest laid low by the time you get back, and then you andI will cut it into four-foot lengths for clapboards."
It should be explained that in the mountains of Virginia the word"clapboard" and the simpler word "board," mean something quite differentfrom what they signify elsewhere. When the Virginia mountaineer speaksof a "board" or a "clapboard" he means a rough shingle, four feet long,simply split out of a piece of timber and not dressed in any way.
When the Doctor returned with the cross cut saw, Jack first marked offten feet of his great tree at the butt and the two set to work to severit.
"But you said we were to cut it into four-foot lengths," said theDoctor, as they began to pull the saw back and forth.
"So we are," answered Jack, "after we saw off this butt. You see, thebutt of a tree is always rather brash, and so we won't use that forclapboards. Besides, I've another use for it."
"What?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm going to dig it out into a big trough and make a bath tub out ofit. You see, that spring up there under the cliff has a fine flow ofwater. I'll sink this trough in the ground, at a proper angle, andtrain the water into it. It will run in at one end and out at the other,continually, so we'll always have a fresh bath ready for any comer."
"But will the boys relish a cold bath out of doors when the thermometergets down into the small figures?"
"Well they'd better. Little Tom is a crank on cold bathing in themorning, and if any fellow in the party doesn't relish that sort ofthing, Tom will souse him in any how till he teaches him to like it. Hewon't do you that way, Doctor, of course, but--"
"But why not? I need the tonic influence of cold morning baths more thananybody else in the party, and as soon as we get our bath tub in place Ishall begin taking them. And more than that, I'll help little Tom in thework of dousing any boy in the party that neglects that hygienicregimen."
Having sawed off the butt of this big tree, Jack went back to the housesite and directed the boys as to the work of building. The forty sticksof timber already cut, when piled into a crib would make the body of acabin nearly twenty feet square, allowing for the overlapping of thetimbers, and about ten feet high under the eaves. Jack showed the boyshow to notch the logs at their ends so as to hold them securely in placeand so also as to let them lie very close together throughout theirlength. For, of course, without notching, each log would lie the wholethickness of another log above the timber below it. Having thus startedthe four in the work of building, he returned to the woods where he andthe Doctor continued the work of sawing the big tree trunk intofour-foot lengths. About noon the Doctor volunteered to go and prepare aroast venison dinner, and Jack proceeded to split the tree-lengths intosizes convenient for the riving of the clapboards.
By the time that he had accomplished this, the Doctor whistled throughhis fingers to announce dinner, and every member of the party waseagerly ready for the savory meal, the very odor of which made theirnostrils glad while they were washing their hands and faces inpreparation for it. There were not many dishes included in it--only somesweet potatoes roasted in the ashes, and some big pones of black ashcake, to go with the great haunch of roast venison.
Ash cake is a species of corn bread, consisting of corn meal mixed upwith cold water and a little salt, and baked hard in a bed of hot ashesand hotter coals, and if any reader of this story has ever eaten ashcake, properly prepared, I need not tell him that there is no betterkind of bread made anywhere--no, not even in Paris, a city that pridesitself about equally upon its "pain"--bread,--and its paintings, ofwhich it has the finest collections in
all the world. Finally, there wasthe sauce--traditionally, the best in the world,--namely, hunger. Half adozen young fellows high up on a mountain side, who had breakfastedbefore daylight and swung axes and lifted logs till midday, needed nohighly-spiced flavoring to give savor to their meat. They ate like thehealthy, hard working fellows that they were, and they had no fear ofindigestions to follow their eating.
After dinner the work of building went on apace. The main crib of thehouse was finished by noon of the next day, and the roof and gables onlyremained to be completed after that. This was to be done as follows:
Logs to form the gables were cut, each a few feet shorter than the onebelow. Then poles six inches in diameter were cut to form a restingplace for the clapboards, and were placed lengthwise the building,resting in notches in the steadily shortening gable timbers. The gabletimbers were permitted, however, to extend two feet or so beyond thenotches in which the lengthwise poles rested, and a second notch wascut in each end of each of them. When a row of clapboards was laid onthe lengthwise poles, another lengthwise pole was placed on top to holdthe clapboards in place, and this top pole rested in the outer notchesof the gable logs, thus securely holding the roof in position, and asthe clapboards overlapped each other as shingles do, the roof wasrainproof.
Meantime Jack had been riving clapboards with a fro. Does the readerknow what a fro is? The dictionaries do not tell you in any adequateway, though in Virginia and throughout the south and the great west thatimplement has played an important part in enabling men to housethemselves with clapboards or shingles for their roofs. So I must do thework that the dictionaries neglect. A fro is an iron or steel bladeabout eight or ten inches long, about three inches wide, a quarter of aninch thick at top, tapering to a very dull edge at bottom. In one end ofit is an eye to hold a handle.
The fro is used in splitting out clapboards and rough shingles. Theoperator places its dull edge on the end of a piece of timber of properwidth, at the distance of a clapboard's thickness from the side of thetimber. Then he hits the back of the fro blade with a mallet or club,driving it well in like a wedge. Then, by working the handle backwardsand forwards, and pushing the fro further and further into the crack, asit 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 shinglesand clapboards used are still split out in this way with the fro. Untilrecent years, when shingle making machines were introduced, all shingleswere made in that way, so that next to the axe, and the pitsaw, whichused to do the work now done by the saw mill, the fro played the mostconspicuous part in the creation of human habitations in all thatpioneer period when sturdy arms were conquering the American wildernessand stout hearts were creating the greatness in which we now rejoice. Itis stupid of the dictionaries not to tell of it.
In splitting out his clapboards from three-cornered sections of hischestnut logs, Jack gradually reduced those sections to a width toosmall for the further making of clapboards. This left in each case athree-cornered stick two inches thick at its thickest part, and perhapsthree inches wide to its edge. The Doctor wanted to utilize these sticksfor firewood and proposed to carry a lot of them to the temporaryshelter for that purpose.
"Not by any means," said Jack. "Those wedge-shaped pieces are to be usedfor chinking."
"What's chinking?" asked the Doctor.
"Why, you see," answered Jack, "the logs of which our house or hut isbuilt, are not quite straight, though they are the straightest we couldfind in the woods. There are spaces between them that are open, and whenthe zero weather comes we should be very uncomfortably cold in there ifthese spaces remained open. No fire that we could make in our chimneywould 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 cracksbetween the logs, and then 'daubing' the smaller cracks with mud. That'san operation that will try your resolution, Doctor, and determinewhether you are really only sixteen years old, as we voted that youwere, or are a much older person, to be specially considered by usboys--for I don't know any more disagreeable job than daubing a logcabin."
"Good!" answered the Doctor. "I'll submit myself to the test verygladly. You'll show me how to 'daub' of course, and if I don't 'daub'with the best and youngest of you, then I'll give up and go down themountain, acknowledging myself a failure. But I give you fair warningthat I don't expect or intend either to give up or to go down themountain."
"We should all be very sorry if you did, Doctor. We've adopted you now.We've decreed that for this winter, at any rate, you are only sixteenyears of age, and upon my word, if you'll allow me to say so--"
"Now, stop right there," broke in the Doctor. "Don't say 'if you'llallow me to say so.' That undoes the whole arrangement. You fellows haveaccepted me as a boy among boys, and you've got to stick to that. Thereare to be no deferences to me. There is to be precisely the samecomradeship between me and the rest of you that exists among yourselves,otherwise I shall consider myself an intruder."
"All right," responded Jack, seizing the Doctor's hand and pressing itwarmly. "We all feel that you are altogether one of us, and I for oneshall hereafter treat you as such. So when the daubing time comes I'llset you your task like the rest of them and I'll criticize every creviceyou leave open. What with an open roof--for a clapboard roof is veryopen--through which the wind can blow at its own sweet will, and whatwith the necessity of keeping the door open most of the time for light,it's going to be very hard work to keep the place comfortably warm."
"But why keep the door open for light?" asked the Doctor. "Why not letin the light through windows?"
"We haven't any windows," answered Jack, "and we haven't any sash orglass to make them with."
"Of course not," said the Doctor, "but still, if you'll let me, I'llshow you how to have windows that will keep out the wind and let inlight at the same time. I've all the necessary materials in my shoulderpack."
"I can't guess how you're going to do it, Doctor, but at any rate Iaccept your statement, and if you'll tell me what sized openings youwant in the walls for your windows, I'll go at once and saw them out."
"That's what troubles me," said the Doctor. "I don't see how we aregoing to make window openings without sawing through the logs, and Idon't see how that is to be done without weakening the structure, andletting the unsupported ends of the logs fall out of place."
"Oh, that's easy enough," answered Jack. "You tell me what sized windowopenings you want in our walls, and I'll take care of the logs."
The Doctor thought a moment, and then said:
"Well, we ought to have two windows, each about two feet and a half oneway by about three feet or a little more the other way."
"Does it make any difference," asked Jack, "whether the long way is upand down, or to the right and left?"
"None. You can make the openings long either way and short either way."
"Good!" answered Jack. "Then I'll make them long to right and left andshort in their up and down dimensions, so that I shall have to saw outonly two logs for each window."
Jack went immediately to work. He split out six or eight boards, eachfour times the thickness of any ordinary clapboard, and, taking ahandful of the small supply of nails on hand, went to the cabin now welladvanced in construction, and selected the places for the two windowopenings. Then he nailed the thick boards securely to the logs, one oneach side of one of the proposed window openings. The boards were longenough to reach over four of the logs. Jack nailed them securely to allfour of the logs, thus binding the timbers together, and making each asupport to all of the others. Then he sawed out three-foot lengths ofthe two middle logs, leaving their ends securely supported by the boardswhich were firmly nailed to them, and also to the uncut logs above andbelow. Then, to make all secure, he fitted pieces of his thick boardsto the ends of the sawed logs, and nailed them firmly into place as anadditional protection against sagging.
"Now, then, Doctor," he called out, "come on with your windows. I'mcurio
us to see what they are like."
"In a minute," answered the Doctor, who was busy with his materials on alog in front of the house. He had taken two strips of thin yard-widemuslin each a little over four feet long, and with the inside of a baconrind he was busily greasing them.
The result of the greasing was to render the thin cotton fabric quitetranslucent, and indeed, almost transparent. With tacks, of which therewas a small supply in the Doctor's own pack, he securely fastened one ofthese pieces of greased muslin on the outside of the window opening thatJack had made, and the other on the inside, leaving a space of severalinches between.
"There," he said, when all was done, "that will let in light almost aswell as glass could do, and it will keep out wind and cold even betterthan the logs you sawed away could have done, no matter how well chinkedand daubed they might have been."
Then he and Jack proceeded to deal with the other window opening in thesame way. By the time that they had done the boys were clamorouslycalling them to supper, and they were not reluctant to answer thesummons. By this time the roof was on the house and a door ofclapboards, split out of double thickness, was hung by hinges made oflimber twigs, called withes, to pegs in the logs, and supplied with awooden latch, catching into a wooden slot. The door opening was madeprecisely as the window holes were. The mountain form of log cabininvolved the least possible use of metal in its construction, and exceptfor the nails used in making the door and windows this one had involvedthe use of no metal at all. It was not all done, by any means, but atleast its outer shell was done after two days of hard work, and the restcould be safely left till the morrow--all of it, except one thing, ofwhich Jack was mindful during supper.