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.
[Illustration: Wildlands, the author's log house in Pike County, Pa.]
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.
When our house was finished we had no shutters to the windows and no way
of closing up the open ends of the gallery, and my helpers told me that I
must not leave the house that way because stray cattle would use the house
for a stable and break the windows with their horns as they swung their
heads to drive away the flies. So we nailed boards over these openings
when we closed the house for the winter. Later we invented some shutters
(see _C_, Fig. 290) which can be put up with little trouble and in a few
moments. Fig. 290, _C_, shows how these shutters are put in place and
locked on the inside by a movable sill that is slid up against the bottom
of the shutters and fastened in place by iron pins let into holes bored
for the purpose.
Fig. 290.
[Illustration: Details of author's log house, Wildlands.]
Of course, this forms no bar to a professional burglar, but there is
nothing inside to tempt cracksmen, and these professional men seldom stray
into the woods. The shutters serve to keep out cattle, small boys, and
stray fishermen whose idle curiosity might tempt them to meddle with the
contents of a house less securely fastened.
A house is never really finished until one loses interest in it and stops
tinkering and planning homely improvements. This sort of work is a
healthy, wholesome occupation and just the kind necessary to people of
sedentary occupations or those whose misfortune it is to be engaged in
some of the nerve-racking business peculiar to life in big cities.
Dwellers in our big cities do not seem to realize that there is any other
life possible for them than a continuous nightmare existence amid
monstrous buildings, noisy traffic, and the tainted air of unsanitary
streets. They seem to have forgotten that the same sun that in summer
scorches the towering masonry and paved sidewalks until the canyon-like
streets become unbearable also shines on green woods, tumbling waters, and
mirror-like lakes; or, if they are dimly conscious of this fact, they
think such places are so far distant as to be practically out of their
reach in every sense. Yet in reality the wilderness is almost knocking at
our doors, for within one hundred miles of New York bears, spotted
wildcats, and timid deer live unconfined in their primitive wild
condition. Fish caught in the streams can be cooked for dinner in New York
the same day.
In 1887, when the writer was himself a bachelor, he went out into the
wilderness on the shores of Big Tink Pond, upon which he built the log
house shown in the sketch. At first he kept bachelor hall there with some
choice spirits, not the kind you find in bottles on the bar-room shelf,
but the human kind who love the outdoor world and nature, or he took his
parents and near relatives with him for a vacation in the woods. Like all
sensible men, in course of time he married, and then he took his bride out
to the cabin in the woods. At length the time came when he found it
necessary to shoulder his axe and go to the woods to secure material for a
new _piece of furniture_. He cut the young chestnut-trees, peeled them,
and with them constructed a crib; and every year for the last eight years
that crib has been occupied part of the season. Thus, you see, a camp of
this kind becomes hallowed with the most sacred of human memories and
becomes a joy not only to the builder thereof but also to the coming
generation. At the big, open fire in the grill-room, with the
old-fashioned cooking utensils gathered from farmhouses on Long Island, I
have cooked venison steaks, tenderloin of the great northern hare, the
plump, white breasts of the ruffed grouse, all broiled over the hot coals
with slices of bacon, and when done to a turn, placed in a big platter
with fresh butter and served to a crowd who watched the operation and
sniffed the delicious odor until they literally drooled at the corners of
their mouths. As the house was built on a deer runway, all these things
were products of the surrounding country, and on several occasions they
have all been served at one meal.