Chapter V: Part 5

So as to better understand this cabin the plan is drawn in perspective, with the cabin above and made to appear as if some one had lifted the cabin to show the ground-floor plan underneath. The olebo roof is built upon the same plan as the Kanuck (Fig. 244), with this exception, that in Fig. 244 the rooftree or ridge-log is supported by cross logs which are a continuation of the side of the house (_A_, _A_, Figs. 242, 244, and 245), but in the olebo the ridge pole or log is supported by uprights (Figs. 236 and 237). To build the olebo lay the two side sill logs first (_A_, _B_, and _C_, _D_, Fig. 236), then the two end logs _E_, _F_, and _D_, _B_ and proceed to build the cabin as already described, allowing the irregular ends of the logs to extend beyond the cabin until the pen is completed and all is ready for the roof, after which the protruding ends of the logs _excepting the two top ones_ may be sawed off to suit the taste and convenience of the builder. The olebo may be made of any size that the logs will permit and one's taste dictate. After the walls are built, erect the log columns at _A_ and _C_ (Fig. 236), cut their tops wedge shape to fit in notches in the ends of the projecting side-plates (Fig. 144, _A_ and _B_); next lay the end plate (_G_, Fig. 236) over the two top logs on the sides of your house which correspond to the side-plates of an ordinary house. The end plate _G_ is notched to fit on top of the side-plates, and the tops of the side-plates have been scored and hewn and flattened, thus making a General Putnam joint like the one shown above (_G_, Fig. 236); but when the ends of the side logs of the cabin were trimmed off the side-plates or top side logs were allowed to protrude a foot or more beyond the others; this was to give room for the supporting upright log columns at _A_ and _C_ (see view of cabin, Fig. 236 and the front view, Fig. 237). _H_ and _J_ (Fig. 237) are two more upright columns supporting the end plate which, in turn, supports the short uprights upon which the two purlins _L_ and _M_ rest; the other purlins _K_ and _N_ rest directly upon the end plate (Fig. 237). The rear end of the cabin can have the gable logged up as the front of the house is in Fig. 240, or filled in with uprights as in Fig. 247. The roof of the olebo is composed of logs, but if one is building an olebo where it will not be subjected during the winter to a great weight of snow, one may make the roof of any material handy.

Fig. 236. Fig. 237. Fig. 238. Fig. 239. Fig. 240. Fig. 241.

Hoko River Olebo

The Hoko River olebo has logs only up to the ceiling of the first story (Fig. 238), or the half story as the case may be; this part, as you see, is covered with shakes previously illustrated and described (Figs. 127, 128, 129, and 130). The logs supporting the front of the second story serve their purpose as pillars or supports only during the winter-time, when the heavy load of snow might break off the unsupported front of the olebo. In the summer-time they are taken away and set to one side, leaving the overhang unsupported in front. The shakes on the side are put on the same as shingles, overlapping each other and breaking joints as shown in the illustration. They are nailed to the side poles, the ends of which you may see protruding in the sketch (Fig. 238).

The Mossback Cabin

In the north country, where the lumbermen are at work, the farmers or settlers are looked down upon by the lumberjacks much in the same manner as the civilians in a military government are looked down upon by the soldiers, and hence the lumberjacks have, in derision, dubbed the settlers mossbacks.

Mossback

Fig. 239 shows a mossback's house or cabin in the lake lands of Canada. The same type of house I have seen in northern Michigan. This one is a two-pen house, but the second pen is made like the front to the olebo, by allowing the logs of the walls of the house itself to extend sufficient distance beyond to make another room, pen, or division. In this particular case the settler has put a shed roof of boards upon the division, but the main roof is made of logs in the form of tiles. In Canada these are called _les auges_ (pronounced [=o]ge), a name given to them by the French settlers. The back of this house has a steeper roof than the front, which roof, as you see, extends above the ends of _les auges_ to keep the rain from beating in at the ends of the wooden troughs. Above the logs on the front side of the small room, pen, or addition the front is covered with shakes. Fig. 240 shows a cabin in the Olympic mountains, but it is only the ordinary American log cabin with a shake roof and no windows. A cooking-stove inside answers for heating apparatus and the stovepipe protrudes above the roof.

The Southern Saddle-Bag or Two-Pen Cabin

Now we come to the most delightful of all forms of a log house. The one shown in Fig. 241 is a very simple one, such as might be built by any group of boys, but I have lived in such houses down South that were very much more elaborate. Frequently they have a second story which extends like the roof over the open gallery between the pens; the chimneys are at the gable ends, that is, on the outside of the house, and since we will have quite a space devoted to fireplaces and chimneys, it is only necessary to say here that in many portions of the South the fireplaces, while broad, are often quite shallow and not nearly so deep as some found in the old houses on Long Island, in New York, and the Eastern States. The open gallery makes a delightful, cool lounging place, also a place for the ladies to sit and sew, and serves as an open-air dining-room during the warm weather; this sort of house is inappropriate and ill fitted for the climate which produced the olebo, the mossback, and the Kanuck, but exactly suited for our Southern States and very pleasant even as far north as Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I have lived in one part of every summer for the last twenty-two years in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania. The saddle-bag may be built by boys with the two rooms ten by ten and a gallery six feet wide, or the two rooms six by six and a gallery five feet wide; the plan may be seen on the sketch below the house (Fig. 241).

Where you only expect to use the house in the summer months, a two-pen or saddle-bag can be used with comfort even in the Northern States, but in the winter-time in such States as Michigan and part of New York, the gallery would be filled up with drifting snow.

XXXIX

NATIVE NAMES FOR THE PARTS OF A KANUCK LOG CABIN, AND HOW TO BUILD ONE

IF the writer forgets himself once in a while and uses words not familiar to his boy readers, he hopes they will forgive him and put all such slips down as the result of leaving boys' company once in a while and associating with men. The reader knows that men dearly love big, ungainly words and that just as soon as boys do something worth while the men get busy hunting up some top-heavy name for it.

When one is talking of foreign things, however, it is well to give the foreign names for those things, and, since the next house to be described is not a real American one but a native of Canada, the Canadian names are given for its parts. While in northern Quebec, making notes for the Kanuck, the writer enlisted the interest of a fellow member of the Camp-Fire Club of America, Doctor Alexander Lambert, and through him secured the names of all parts of the Canadian shack.

The author is not a French-Canadian, and, although, like most of his readers, he studied French at school, what he learned of that great language is now securely locked up in one of the safe-deposit vaults of his brain and the key lost.

He owns up to his ignorance because he is a scout and would not try to deceive his readers, also because if the reader's knowledge of French enables him to find some error, the writer can sidestep the mistake and say, "'Tain't mine." But, joking aside, these names are the ones used in the Province of Quebec and are here given not because they are good French but because they are the names used by the builders among the natives known by the Indians as _les habitants_

Local Names of Parts of Cabin

spruce épinette balsam sapin to chop boucher, Figs. 113 and 122 to cut couper logs les bois or les billots, _A_, _A_, _A_, Figs. 242, 245, also 119, 126, etc. square carré door porte, Figs. 242, 243 window châssis, Fig. 243 window-glass les vitres, 242 the joist on which the floor is laid les traverses, Fig. 49, _B_, _B_, _B_, _B_, Fig. 244 the floor itself plancher the purlins, that is, the two big logs used to support the roof les poudres, _C_, _C_, Fig. 244 the roof couverture, Fig. 242 bark écorce birch bark bouleau the poles put on a birch-bark roof to keep the bark flat les péches, Figs. 41, 234, 242 the hollow half-logs sometimes used like tiling on a roof les auges, Fig. 246 piazza, porch, front stoop, veranda galerie, Figs. 236, 237, and 241

The only thing that needs explanation is the squaring of the round logs of the cabin. For instance, instead of leaving the logs absolutely round and untouched inside the camp, after the logs are placed, they are squared off so as to leave a flat surface (Fig. 125). They call this the _carréage_. I do not know whether this is a local name or whether it is an expression peculiar to that Quebec section of Canada or whether it is simply a corruption of better French. It is derived from the word _carrer_, to square.

Fig. 242. Fig. 243. Fig. 244. Fig. 245. Fig. 246. Fig. 247.

Fig. 248. Fig. 249.

The perspective drawings (Figs. 242 and 243) show views of the cabin we call the Kanuck. The pen is built exactly as it is built in the houses already described. The windows are placed where the builder desires, as is also the doorway, but when the side-plate logs, that is

Les Traverses

or top side logs, are put in place, then the traverses logs (_B_, _B_, _B_, _B_, Fig. 244) are laid across the pen from one side-plate to the other, their ends resting on top of the side-plates over the traverses logs, the two purlins

Les Poudres

(_C_, _C_, Fig. 244) are notched and fitted, and over their ends the two pieces _D_, _D_ are fitted, and, resting on the centres of the _D_ logs, the ridge log (_E_, Fig. 244) is placed.

Couverture

The roof is made of small logs flattened on the under-side or left in their rounded form (Fig. 242) and laid from the ridge logs down, extending over the eaves six or more inches.

Les Péches

The roof logs are then held in place by poles pegged with wooden pegs to the roof (_F_, _G_, Fig. 242).

Roofing Material

The roof is now covered with a thick layer of browse, hay, straw, dry leaves, or dry grass, and on top of this moist blue clay, yellow clay, hard-pan, or simple mud is spread and trampled down hard, forcing the thatch underneath into all the cracks and crannies and forming a firm covering of clay several inches thick.

Fireplace

The fireplace and chimney may be built inside or outside the cabin, or the house may be heated by a stove and the stovepipe allowed to protrude through a hole in the roof large enough to separate the pipe a safe distance from the wood and straw and amply protected by a piece of sheet iron or tin. Then, after you have stored your _butin_ (luggage), you can sit and sing:

You may pull the _sourdine_ out
You may push the _rabat-joie_ in
But the _boucan_ goes up the _cheminée_ just the same
Just the same, just the same,
But the _boucan_ goes up the _cheminée_ just the same.

When "l'habitant" hears you sing this verse he will not know what your song is about, but he will slap you on the back, laugh, and call you _Bon Homme chez nous_, but do not get mad at this; it is a compliment and not a bad name.

Clay Roof

A clay roof should be as flat as possible with only pitch enough to shed the water; a shingle roof should have a rise of at least one foot high to four feet wide and a thatched roof should have a rise of 45°, that is, the rise of a line drawn from corner to corner of a square.

Fig. 247 shows a gable filled with upright logs and Fig. 248 shows a tar paper roof and a gable covered with tar paper.

Since Kanucks are cold-climate houses, they frequently have novel means of keeping them warm; one way that I have frequently seen used is to surround them with a log fence shown in Fig. 249, and pack the space between with stable manure or dirt and rotten leaves.

XL

HOW TO MAKE A POLE HOUSE AND HOW TO MAKE A UNIQUE BUT THOROUGHLY AMERICAN TOTEM LOG HOUSE

A POLE house is a log house with the logs set upright. We call it a pole house because, usually, the logs are smaller than those used for a log house. The pole house (Fig. 250) is built in the manner shown by Figs. 171, 172, and 173, but in the present instance the ridge-pole is a log which is allowed to extend some distance beyond the house both in front and rear, and the front end of the ridge-pole is carved in the shape of a grotesque or comical animal's head like those we see on totem-poles. The roof is made of shakes (see Figs. 126 to 130) and the shakes are held in place by poles pegged onto the roof in much the same manner as we have described and called _les péches_ for the Kanuck. This pole cabin may have an old-fashioned Dutch door which will add to its quaintness and may have but one room which will answer the many purposes of a living-room, sleeping-room, and dining-room. A lean-to at the back can be used for a kitchen.

American Totem Log House

But if you really want something unique, build a log house on the general plan shown by Figs. 251 and 252; then carve the ends of all the extending logs to represent the heads of reptiles, beasts, or birds; also carve the posts which support the end logs on the front gallery, porch, or veranda in the form of totem-poles. You may add further to the quaint effect by placing small totem-posts where your steps begin on the walk (Fig. 253) and adding a tall totem-pole (Fig. 255) for your family totem or the totem of your clan. Fig. 252 shows how to arrange and cut your logs for the pens. The dining-room is supposed to be behind the half partition next to the kitchen; the other half of this room being open, with the front room, it makes a large living-room. The stairs lead up to the sleeping-rooms overhead; the latter are made by dividing the space with partitions to suit your convenience.

Before Building

Take your jack-knife and a number of little sticks to represent the logs of your cabin; call an inch a foot or a half inch a foot as will suit your convenience and measure all the sticks on this scale, using inches or parts of inches for feet. Then sit down on the ground or on the floor and experiment in building a toy house or miniature model until you make one which is satisfactory. Next glue the little logs of the pen together; but make the roof so that it may be taken off and put on like the lid to a box; keep your model to use in place of an architect's drawing; the backwoods workmen will understand it better than they will a set of plans and sections on paper. Fig. 251 is a very simple plan and only put here as a suggestion. You can put the kitchen at the back of the house instead of on one side of it or make any changes which suit your fancy; the pen of the house may be ten by twelve or twenty by thirty feet, a camp or a dwelling; the main point is to finish your house up with totems as shown by Fig. 253, and then tell the other fellows where you got the idea.

Fig. 250. Fig. 251. Fig. 252. Fig. 253. Fig. 254. Fig. 255.

Peeled Logs

For any structure which is intended to be permanent never use the logs with bark on them; use _peeled_ logs. When your house is finished it may look very fresh and new without bark, but one season of exposure to the weather will tone it down so that it will be sufficiently rustic to please your fancy, but if you leave the bark on the logs, a few seasons will rot your house down, making it _too_ rustic to suit any one's fancy.

Lay up the pen of this house as already described and illustrated by Figs. 229, 233, etc., and when the sides and front walls have reached the desired height, frame your roof after the manner shown by Fig. 49 or any of the other methods described which may suit your fancy or convenience, but in this case we use the Susitna form for the end plates, which are made by first severing the root of a tree and leaving an elbow or bend at the end of the trunk (Fig. 264). This is flattened by scoring and hewing as is described and illustrated under the heading of the Susitna house. The elbows at the terminals of the end plate are carved to represent grotesque heads (Fig. 253). The house when built is something like the Wyoming olebo (Fig. 236), but with the difference which will appear after careful inspection of the diagram. The Wyoming olebo is a one-story house; this is a two-story house. The Wyoming olebo has a roof built upon a modified plan of a Kanuck; this roof is built on the American log-cabin plan, with the logs continued up to the top of the gable, as are those in the Olympic (Fig. 240). But the present house is supposed to be _very carefully_ built; to be sure, it is made of rude material but handled in a very neat and workmanlike manner. Great care must be used in notching and joining the logs, and only the straightest logs which can be had should be used for the walls of the house. The piazza may need some additional supports if there is a wide front to the house, but with a narrow front half, log puncheons will be sufficiently stiff to support themselves.

Totems

The most difficult part about these descriptions, for the writer, is where he attempts to tell you how to make your totems; but remember that a totem, in order to have a _real_ totem look, must be very crude and amateurish, a quality that the reader should be able to give it without much instruction. The next important thing is that when you make one side of a head, be it a snake's, a man's, a beast's, or a bird's, make the other side like it. Do not make the head lopsided; make both sides of the same proportions. Flatten the sides of the end of the log enough to give you a smooth surface, then sketch the profile on each side of the log with charcoal or chalk, carve out the head with a chisel, drawing-knife, and jack-knife, and gouge until you have fashioned it into the shape desired. In order to do this the end of the log should be free from the ground and a convenient distance above it. The carving is best done after the house is practically finished; but the two end plates had better be carved before they are hoisted into place.

Totem-Poles

When you carve out the totem-poles (Fig. 256 or 262), the log had better be put on an elongated sawbuck arrangement which will hold it free from the ground and allow one to turn it over as the work may require. Fig. 259 represents a peeled log. On this log one may sketch, with chalk, the various figures here represented, then begin by notching the log (Fig. 258) according to the notches which are necessary to carve out the totem. Figs. 260, 261, and 262 show different views of the same totem figures. Fig. 257 shows how to make a variation of the totem-pole. Paint your totem heads and figures red, blue, and yellow, and to suit your fancy; the more startling they are the better will they imitate the Indian totems. The weather will eventually tone them down to the harmonious colors of a Turkish rug.

In "The Boy Pioneers" I have told how to make various other forms of totems, all of which have since been built by boys and men in different parts of the country. Mr. Stewart Edward White, a member of the Camp-Fire Club of America, woodsman, plainsman, mountaineer, and African hunter and explorer, built himself a totem in the form of a huge bird twelve feet high from the plans published in "The Boy Pioneers," and I anticipate no great difficulty will be encountered by those who try to totemize a log cabin after the manner shown by Fig. 258. It will not, however, be a small boy's work, but the small boys who started at the beginning of this book are older and more experienced now, and, even if they cannot handle the big logs themselves, they are perfectly competent to teach their daddies and uncles and their big brothers how to do it, so they may act as boss builders and architects and let the older men do the heavy work. But however you proceed to build this house, when it is finished you will have a typically native building, and at the same time different from all others, as quaint as any bungling bungalow, and in better taste, because it will fit in the landscape and become part of it and look as if it _belonged there_, in place of appearing as if it had been blown by a tornado from some box factory and deposited in an unsuitable landscape.

Fig. 256. Fig. 257. Fig. 258. Fig. 259. Fig. 260. Fig. 261.

Fig. 262.

You must understand by this that unsuitable refers to the fact that a bungalow _does not_ belong in the American landscape, although many of the cottages and shacks, miscalled bungalows, may be thoroughly American and appropriate to the American surroundings despite the exotic name by which some people humble them.

XLI

HOW TO BUILD A SUSITNA LOG CABIN AND HOW TO CUT TREES FOR THE END PLATES

STANDING on a hill overlooking the salt meadows at Hunter's Point, L. I., there was an old farmhouse the roof of which projected over both sides of the house four or five feet. The hill on which it stood has been cut away, the meadows which it overlooked have been filled up with the dirt from the hill, and only a surveyor with his transit and the old property-lines map before him could ever find the former location of this house, but it is somewhere among the tracks of the Long Island Railroad.

Opposite the house, on the other side of the railroad track, in the section known as Dutch Kills of Long Island City, two other houses of the same style of architecture stood; they had double doors--that is, doors which were cut in two half-way up so that you might open the top or bottom half or both halves to suit your fancy. The upper panels of these doors had two drop-lights of glass set in on the bias, and between them, half-way down the upper half, was a great brass knocker with a grip big enough to accommodate both hands in case you really wanted to make a noise.

There was another house of this same description in the outskirts of Hoboken, and I often wondered what the origin of that peculiar roof might be. I found this type of house as far north toward the Hudson Bay as the settlements go, and still farther north the Susitna house explains the origin of the overhanging eaves (Fig. 268). Of course the Susitna, as here drawn, is not exactly the same as that built by the natives on the Susitna River, but the end plates (Fig. 263) are the same as those used in the primitive houses of the Northwest.

How to Cut the Tree

Fig. 264 shows a standing fir-tree and also shows what cuts to make in order to get the right-shaped log for an end plate. Fig. 265 shows the method of scoring and hewing necessary in order to flatten the end of the log as it is in Fig. 266. Fig. 267 shows the style in which the natives roof their Susitnas with logs. The elbows at the end of the plates (Fig. 266) serve to keep the logs of the roof (Fig. 267) from rolling off, but the Susitna log cabin which we are building is expected to have a roof (Fig. 268) of thatch or a roof of shingles, because we have passed the rude shacks, sheds, and shelters used for camps and are now building real houses in which we may live. The Susitna may be built of round logs or of flattened logs (_le carréage_), in which case we can use the General Putnam square notch (Fig. 263) for joining the ends of our logs. In raising the roof, erect the ridge-pole first. The ridge-pole may be set up on two uprights to which it is temporarily nailed, and the upright props may be held in place by the two diagonal props or braces, as shown in Fig. 263. If the logs are squared, cut a small bird's-mouth notch in the rafter where it extends over the side-plate logs of the pen and bevel the top end of your gable rafters to fit against the ridge-pole as in the diagrams. The other rafters are now easily put in place, but if the logs are round you must notch the rafters and side-plates as shown by the diagram between Figs. 263 and 267; the dotted lines show where the rafter and the logs come together. Nail your rafters to your ridge-pole and fasten them to the side-plate with wooden pegs or spikes. The ridge-pole may be allowed to extend, as in Fig. 268, on each side of the cabin or the elbows (Fig. 266) may be attached to each end of the ridge-pole with noses turned up and painted or carved into a fanciful head as in Fig. 268. If the roof is to be shingled, collect a lot of poles about four inches in diameter, flatten them on both sides, and nail them to the rafters not more than two inches apart, allowing the ends of the sticks to extend beyond the walls of the house at least six inches.

Fig. 263. Fig. 264. Fig. 265. Fig. 266. Fig. 267. Fig. 268.

If you desire to make your own shingles, saw up a hemlock, pine, or spruce log into billets of one foot four inches long, then with a froe and a mall (Fig. 179) split the shingles from the billets of wood, or use a broadaxe for the same purpose. Broadaxes are dangerous weapons in the hands of an amateur, but the writer split shingles with a broadaxe upon the shores of Lake Erie when he was but seven years old and, as near as he can count, he still has ten toes and ten fingers. If you intend to thatch the roof you need not flatten the poles which you fasten across the rafters, because the thatch will hide all unevenness of the underpinning. The poles may be laid at right angles to the rafters between six and eight inches apart and the roof thatched as described and illustrated by Fig. 66. The Susitna form of house is the one from which the old Long Island farmhouses were evolved, although the old Long Islanders copied theirs from the homes they left in Holland, but we must remember that even the effete civilization of Europe once had a backwoods country a long, long time ago, and then they built their houses from the timbers hewn in the forests as our own ancestors did in this country; consequently, many of the characteristics of present-day houses which seem to us useless and unnecessary are survivals of the necessary characteristics of houses made of crude material.

XLII

HOW TO MAKE A FIREPLACE AND CHIMNEY FOR A SIMPLE LOG CABIN

FIG. 269 shows a simple form of fireplace which is practically the granddaddy of all the other fireplaces. It consists of three walls for windbreaks, laid up in stone or sod against some stakes driven in the ground for the purpose of supporting them. The four-cornered stakes are notched or forked and small logs are laid horizontally in these forks and on top of this a pyramidal form of a log pen is built of small logs and billets, and this answers the purpose of a chimney. This style of fireplace is adapted to use in camps and rude shacks like those shown by Figs. 187, 189, 191, and 192; also for the most primitive log cabins, but when we make a real log house we usually plan to have a more elaborate or more finished fireplace and chimney. The ground-plan of Fig. 269 is shown by Fig. 270.

Mud Hearth

Here you see there is a mud hearth, a wall of clay plastered over the stones of the fireplace. This will prevent the fire from cracking and chipping the stones, but clay is not absolutely necessary in this fireplace. When, however, you build the walls of your fireplace of logs and your chimney of sticks the clay _is_ necessary to prevent the fire from igniting the woodwork and consuming it. For a log-framed fireplace, make a large opening in the wall of your house and against the ends of the logs where you sawed out the opening, erect jamb pieces of planks two or three inches thick running up to the log over the fireplace and spiked to the round ends of the logs (see plan, Fig. 272). Next, lay your foundation of sill logs on the fireplace, first two side logs and then a back log, neatly notched so as to look like the logs in the walls of the cabin. Build your fireplace walls as shown by Fig. 271, after which take your mud or clay and make the hearth by hammering the clay down hard until you have a firm, smooth foundation. The front hearth may be made, as shown in the diagram, of stones of any size from pebbles to flagstones, with the surfaces levelled by sinking the under-part down into the clay until a uniform level is reached on top. The fireplace may be built with bricks of moist clay and wet clay used for mortar. Make the clay walls of the fireplace at least one foot thick and pack it down hard and tight as you build it. If you choose you may make a temporary inside wall of plank as they do when they make cement walls, and then between the temporary board wall and the logs put in your moist clay and ram it down hard until the top of the fireplace is reached, after which the boards may be removed and the inside of the fireplace smoothed off by wiping it with a wet cloth.

Stick Chimney

After the walls of logs and clay are built to top of the fireplace proper, split some sticks and make them about one inch wide by one and one half inch thick, or use the round sticks in the form in which they grow, but peel off the bark to render them less combustible; then lay them up as shown by Fig. 261, log-cabin style. With the chimney we have four sides to the wall in place of three sides as in the fireplace. The logs of the fireplace, where they run next to the cabin, may have to be chinked up so as to keep them level, but the chimney should be built level as it has four sides to balance it. Leave a space between the chimney and the outside wall and plaster the sticks thickly with clay upon the outside and much thicker with clay upon the inside, as shown by Fig. 271 _A_, which is supposed to be a section of the chimney.

Fig. 269. Fig. 270. Fig. 271. Fig. 271A. Fig. 272. Fig. 273.

Durability

All through the mountains of East Tennessee and Kentucky I have seen these stick chimneys, some of them many, many years old. In these mountain countries the fireplaces are lined with stones, but in Illinois, in the olden times, stones were scarce and mud was plenty and the fireplaces were made like those just described and illustrated by Fig. 272.

The stone chimney is an advance and improvement upon the log chimney, but I doubt if it requires any more skill to build.

Chimney Foundation

Dig your foundation for your fireplace and chimney at least three feet deep; then fill the hole up with small cobblestones or broken bluestone until you have reached nearly the level of the ground; upon this you can begin to lay your hearth and chimney foundation. If you fail to dig this foundation the frost will work the ground under your chimney and the chimney will work with the ground, causing it either to upset or to tilt to one side or the other and spoil the looks of your house, even if it does not put your fireplace out of commission.

Stone Chimney

In laying up the stones for your chimney, remember that it makes no difference how rough and uneven it is upon the outside. The more uneven the outside is the more picturesque it will appear, but the smoother and more even the inside is the less will it collect soot and the less will be the danger of chimney fires. Lay your stones in mortar or cement. See that each stone fits firmly in the bed and does not rock and that it breaks joints with the other stone below it. By breaking joints I mean that the crack between the two stones on the upper tier should fit over the middle of the stone on the lower tier; this, with the aid of the cement, locks the stones and prevents any accidental cracks which may open from extending any further than the two stones between which it started. If, however, you do not break joints, a crack might run from the top to the bottom of the chimney causing it to fall apart. Above the fireplace make four walls to your chimney, as you did with your stick chimney (Fig. 271), and let the top of the chimney extend above the roof at least three feet; this will not only help the draught but it will also lessen the danger of fire.

XLIII

HEARTHSTONES AND FIREPLACES

IN erecting the fireplace for your cabin the stone work should extend into the cabin itself, thus protecting the ends of the logs from the fire. The stone over the top of the fireplace (_A_, _B_, Fig. 274) rests upon two iron bars; these iron bars are necessary for safety because, although the stone _A_, _B_ may bridge the fireplace successfully, the settling of the chimney or the heat of the fire is liable to crack the stone, in which case, unless it is supported by two flat iron bars, it will fall down and wreck your fireplace. The stone _A_, _B_ in Fig. 275, has been cracked for fifteen years but, as it rests upon the flat iron bars beneath, the crack does no harm.

Fig. 274. Fig. 275.

In Fig. 274 (the ends of the fireplace) the two wing walls of it are built up inside the cabin to support a plank for a mantelpiece. Another plank _C_, _D_ is nailed under the mantelpiece against the log before the stone work is built up. This is only for the purpose of giving a finish to your mantelpiece. The hearth in Fig. 274 is made of odd bits of flat stones laid in cement, but the hearth in Fig. 275 is one big slab of bluestone just as it came from the quarry, and the fireplace in Fig. 275 is lined with fire-brick. The two three-legged stools which you see on each side were made by the woodsmen who built the cabin to use in their camp while the cabin was being erected. The stools have occupied the position of honor on each side of the fireplace now for twenty-seven years. The mantelpiece in this drawing is made of puncheons with the rounded side out on the two supports and the flat side against the wall; of course, for the mantel itself, the rounded side must be down and the flat side up. This fireplace has been used for cooking purposes and the crane is still hanging over the flames, while up over the mantel you may see, roughly indicated, a wrought-iron broiler, a toaster, and a brazier. The flat shovel hanging to the left of the fireplace is what is known as a "peal," used in olden times to slip under the pies or cakes in the old-fashioned ovens in order to remove them without burning one's fingers.

XLIV

MORE HEARTHS AND FIREPLACES

SOMETIMES it is desired to have a fireplace in the middle of the room. Personally, such a fireplace does not appeal to me, but there are other people who like the novelty of such a fireplace, and Fig. 276 shows one constructed of rough stones. The fireplace is high so that one tending it does not have to stoop and get a backache. The foundation should be built in the ground underneath the cabin and up through the floor. A flat stone covers the top of the fireplace, as in the other drawings. Fig. 277 shows a fireplace with a puncheon support for a plank mantel.

Fig. 276. Fig. 277. Fig. 278. Fig. 279. Fig. 280.

A Plank Mantel

_A_ and _B_ are two half logs, or puncheons, which run from the floor to the ceiling on each side of the fireplace. _S_, _S_, _S_ are the logs of the cabin walls. _C_ is the puncheon supporting the mantel and _D_ is the mantel. Fig. 279 shows a section or a view of the mantel looking down on it from the top, a topographical view of it. Fig. 278 is the same sort of a view showing the puncheon _A_ at the other end of the mantel before the mantel is put in place between the two puncheons _A_ and _B_. In Fig. 279 the reader may see that it will be necessary to cut the corners out of the mantel-board in order to fit it around the puncheons _A_ and _B_; also, since _A_ and _B_ have rounded surfaces, it will be necessary to so bevel the ends of the puncheon (_C_, Fig. 277) that they will fit on the rounded surfaces of _A_ and _B_. Fig. 280 shows the end of _C_ bevelled in a perspective view, and also a profile view of it, with the puncheon _A_ indicating the manner in which _C_ must be cut to fit upon the rounded surface. This makes a simple mantelpiece but a very appropriate one for a log cabin.

XLV

FIREPLACES AND THE ART OF TENDING THE FIRE

ONE of my readers has written to me asking what to do about a fireplace that smokes. Not knowing the fireplace in question, I cannot prescribe for that particular invalid, but I have a long acquaintance with many fireplaces that smoke and fireplaces that do not--in other words, healthy fireplaces with a good digestion and diseased fireplaces functionally wrong with poor digestion--so perhaps the easiest way to answer these questions is to describe a few of my acquaintances among the fireplaces which I have studied.

There is an old fireplace in Small Acres, Binghamton, N. Y., of which I made sketches and took measurements which furnished me data by which I built the fireplaces in my own houses.

In Binghamton fireplaces the side walls are on an angle and converge toward the back of the fireplace, as in Fig. 274. The back also pitches forward, as in Fig. 282. The great advantage of this is the reflecting of more heat into the room.

Fig. 281 shows the fireplace before which I am now working. The fire was started in last November and is now (April 1) still burning, although it has not been rekindled since it was first lighted. This fireplace is well constructed, and on very cold days I have the fire burning out on the hearth fully a foot beyond the line of the mantel without any smoke coming into my studio.

Fig. 282 shows a diagram with the dimensions of my studio fireplace and represents the vertical section of it. I give these for the benefit of the people who want to know how to build a fireplace which will not smoke. But, of course, even the best of fireplaces will smoke if the fire is not properly arranged. With smoke the angle of reflection would be equal to the angle of incidence did not the constant tendency of smoke to ascend modify this rule.

Throw a rubber ball against the wall and the direction from your hand to where it strikes the wall makes the angle of incidence; when the ball bounces away from the wall it makes the angle of reflection.

Management of the Fire

But, before we enter into the question regarding the structure of the flue we will take up the management of the fire itself. In the first place, there is but one person who can manage a fire, and that is yourself. Servants never did and never will learn the art, and, as I am writing for men, and the ladies are not supposed to read this article, I will state that the fair sex show a like deficiency in this line. The first thing a woman wants to do with a fire is to make the logs roost on the andirons, the next thing is to remove every speck of ashes from the hearth, and then she wonders why the fire won't burn.

The ashes have not been removed from my studio fire since it was first lighted last fall. Ashes are absolutely essential to control a wood-fire and to keep the embers burning overnight. Fig. 288 shows the present state of the ashes in my studio fire. You will see by this diagram that the logs are not resting on the andirons. I only use the andirons as a safeguard to keep the logs from rolling out on the hearth. If the fire has been replenished late in the evening with a fresh log, before retiring I pull the front or the ornamental parts of the andirons to the hearth and then lay the shovel and poker across them horizontally. When the burning log is covered with ashes and the andirons arranged in this manner you can retire at night with a feeling of security and the knowledge that if your house catches afire it will not be caused by the embers in your fireplace. Then in the morning all you have to do is to shovel out the ashes from the rear of the fireplace, put in a new backlog, and bed it in with ashes, as shown in Fig. 286. Put your glowing embers next to the backlog and your fresh wood on top of that and sit down to your breakfast with the certainty that your fire will be blazing before you get up from the table.

Don't make the mistake of poking a wood-fire, with the idea, by that means, of making it burn more briskly, or boosting up the logs to get a draught under them.

Two logs placed edge to edge, like those in Fig. 288, with hot coals between them, will make their own draught, which comes in at each end of the log, and, what is essential in fire building, they keep the heat between themselves, constantly increasing it by reflecting it back from one to the other. If you happen to be in great haste to make the flames start, don't disturb the logs but use a pair of bellows.

Fig. 287 shows a set of the logs which will make the best-constructed fireplace smoke. The arrow-point shows the line of incidence or the natural direction which the smoke would take did not the heat carry it upward.

Fig. 285 shows the same logs arranged so that the angle of incidence strikes the back of the chimney and the smoke ascends in the full and orderly manner. But both Figs. 285 and 287 are clumsily arranged. The _B_ logs in each case should be the backlog and the small logs _A_ and _C_ should be in front of _B_.

Fig. 281. Fig. 282. Fig. 283. Fig. 284. Fig. 285. Fig. 286.

Fig. 287. Fig. 288.

In all of the fireplaces which we have described you will note that the top front of the fireplace under the mantel extends down several inches below the angle of the chimney.

Fig. 283 shows a fireplace that is improperly built. This is from a fireplace in a palatial residence in New York City, enclosed in an antique Italian marble mantel, yellow with age, which cost a small fortune. The fireplace was designed and built by a firm of the best architects, composed of men famed throughout the whole of the United States and Europe, _but the fireplace smoked_ because the angle of the chimney was below the opening of the fireplace and, consequently, sent the smoke out into the room. This had to be remedied by setting a piece of thick plate glass over the top of the fireplace, thus making the opening smaller and extending it below the angle of the chimney.

Fig. 284 shows the most primitive form of fireplace and chimney. One that a child may see will smoke unless the fire is kept in the extreme back of the hearth.

The advantages of ashes in your fireplace are manifold. They retain the heat, keep the hot coals glowing overnight, and when the fire is too hot may be used to cover the logs and subdue the heat. But, of course, if you want a clean hearthstone and the logs roosting upon the andirons, and are devoid of all the camp-fire sentiment, have some asbestos gas-logs. There will be no dust or dirt, no covering up at night with ashes, no bill for cord-wood, and it will look as stiff and prim as any New England old maid and be as devoid of sentiment and art as a department-store bargain picture frame.

XLVI

THE BUILDING OF THE LOG HOUSE

How a Forty-Foot-Front, Two-Story Pioneer Log House Was Put Up with the Help of "Backwoods Farmers"--Making Plans with a Pocket Knife.

OUR log house on the shore of Big Tink Pond, Pike County, Pa., was built long before the general public had been educated to enjoy the subtle charms of wild nature, at a time when nature-study was confined to scientists and children, and long before it was fashionable to have wild fowl on one's lawn and wild flowers in one's garden. At that time only a few unconventional souls spent their vacations out of sight of summer hotels, camping on the mountain or forest trails. The present state of the public mind in regard to outdoor life has only been developed within the last few years, and when I first announced my intention of hunting up some accessible wild corner and there erecting a log house for a summer studio and home I found only unsympathetic listeners. But I was young and rash at that time, and without any previous experience in building or the aid of books to guide me and with only such help as I could find among backwoods farmers I built a forty-foot-front, two-story log house that is probably the pioneer among log houses erected by city men for summer homes. It gave Mr. Charles Wingate the suggestions from which he evolved Twilight Park in the Catskills. Twilight Park, being the resort of literary people and their friends, did much to popularize log houses with city people.

The deserted farms of New England offer charming possibilities for those whose taste is for nature with a shave, hair cut, and store clothes, but for lovers of untamed nature the waste lands offer stronger inducements for summer-vacation days, and there is no building which fits so naturally in a wild landscape as a good, old-fashioned log cabin. It looks as if it really belonged there and not like a windfall from some passing whirlwind.

When I make the claim that any ordinary man can build himself a summer home, I do not mean to say that he will not make blunders and plenty of them; only fools never make mistakes, wise men profit by them, and the reader may profit by mine, for there is no lack of them in our log house at Big Tink. But the house still stands on the bank overlooking the lake and is practically as sound as it was when the last spike was driven, twenty-seven years ago.

Almost all of the original log cabins that were once sprinkled through the eastern part of our country disappeared with the advent of the saw-mill, and the few which still exist in the northern part of the country east of the Alleghany Mountains would not be recognized as log houses by the casual observer, for the picturesque log exteriors have been concealed by a covering of clapboards.

To my surprise I discovered that even among the old mountaineers I could find none who had ever attended a log-rolling frolic or participated in the erection of a real log house. Most of these old fellows, however, could remember living in such houses in their youth, but they could not understand why any sane man of to-day wanted "to waste so much good lumber," and in the quaint old American dialect still preserved in these regions they explained the wastefulness of my plans and pointed out to me the number of good planks which might be sawed from each log.

Fig. 289.

Fig. 290, _B_, shows the plans of the house, which will be seen to be a modification of the Southern "saddle-bag" cabin--two houses under one roof. By referring to Fig. 289 it will be seen that above the gallery there is a portico, which we called the "afterthought" because it did not appear upon the original plans. We got the hint, as "Jimmy" called it, when it was noticed that chance had ordained that the two "_A_" logs should protrude much farther than the others. "Don't saw them off," I exclaimed; "we will have a balcony"; and so the two "_A_" logs were left, and this gave us room for a balcony over the gallery, back of which is a ten-by-ten bedroom, while the two large bedrooms on each side have doors opening on the six-foot passageway, which is made still broader by the addition of the balcony.

It will be seen that there is a stairway marked out on the ground plan, but there was none on the original plan, for, to tell the honest truth, I did not know where to put the stairs until the logs were in place. However, it is just such problems that lend charm to the work of building your own house. An architect or a professional builder would have the thing all cut and dried beforehand and leave nothing to chance and inspiration; this takes the whole charm out of the work when one is building for recreation and the pleasure to be derived from the occupation.