A DISCOVERY.
While the boys were at work in this manner, Stuyvesant making his
ladder, and Phonny his cage, they suddenly heard some one opening the
door. Wallace came in. Phonny called out to him to shut the door as
quick as possible. Wallace did so, while Phonny, in explanation of the
urgency of his injunction in respect to the door, pointed up to the
squirrel, which was then creeping along, apparently quite at his ease,
upon one of the beams in the back part of the shop.
"Why, Bunny," said Wallace.
"His name is not Bunny," said Phonny. "His name is Frink."
"Frink," repeated Wallace. "Who invented that name?"
"I don't know," replied Phonny, "only Beechnut said that his name was
Frink. See the cage I am making for him."
Wallace came up and looked at the cage. He stood a moment surveying
it in silence. Then he turned toward Stuyvesant.
"And what is Stuyvesant doing?" said he.
"He is making a ladder."
"What is it for, Stuyvesant?" said Wallace.
"Why, it is to go upon the loft, in the hen-house," said Phonny,
"though I don't see what good it will do, to go up there."
"So it is settled, that _you_ are going to have the hen-house," said
Wallace, looking toward Stuyvesant.
"Yes," said Stuyvesant.
Here there was another long pause. Wallace was looking at the ladder.
He observed how carefully Stuyvesant was making it. He saw that the
cross-bars were all exactly of a length, and he knew that they must
have been pretty accurately measured. While Wallace was looking on,
Stuyvesant was measuring off the distances upon the side pieces of the
ladder, so as to have the steps of equal length. Wallace observed that
he did this all very carefully.
Wallace then looked back to Phonny's work. He saw that Phonny was
guessing his way along. The holes were not equidistant from each
other, and then they were not at the same distance from the edge of
the board. As he had advanced along the line, he had drawn gradually
nearer and nearer to the edge, and, what was a still greater
difficulty, the holes in the lower board, which was to form the bottom
of the cage, since their places too had been guessed at, did not
correspond with those above, so that the wires, when they came to be
put in, inclined some this way, and some that. In some places the
wires came very near together, and in others the spaces between them
were so wide, that Wallace thought that the squirrel, if by any chance
he should ever get put into the cage, would be very likely to squeeze
his way out.
Then, besides, Phonny had not measured his wires in respect to length,
but had cut them off of various lengths, taking care however not to
have any of them too short. The result was that the ends of the wires
projected to various distances above the board, presenting a ragged
and unworkmanlike appearance.
Wallace was silent while he was looking at these things. He was
thinking of the difference between the two boys. The train of thought
which was passing through his mind was somewhat as follows.
Stuyvesant is younger than Phonny, and he was brought up in a city,
and yet he seems a great deal more of a man; which is very strange. In
the first place he takes a great deal more interest in the hens, which
are useful and productive animals, than he does in the squirrel, which
is a mere plaything. Then he plans his work carefully, considers how
much he can probably accomplish himself, and undertakes no more. He
plans, he calculates, he measures, and then proceeds steadily and
perseveringly till he finishes.
In the midst of these reflections, Wallace was called away by Phonny,
as follows.
"Cousin Wallace, I wish you would finish my cage for me. I am tired of
boring all these holes, and besides I can't bore them straight."
Wallace looked at the work a moment in uncertainty. He did not like to
throw away his own time in finishing an undertaking so clumsily begun,
and on the other hand, he did not like very well to refuse to help
Phonny out of his difficulties. He finally concluded to undertake the
work. So he took the cage down from the bench and put it upon the
floor; he borrowed the iron square and the compasses from Stuyvesant;
he ruled a line along the top of the box at the right distance from
the edge, and marked off places for the holes, half an inch apart,
along this line, pricking in, at the places for the holes, deep, with
one of the points of the compass. When this had all been done he went
on boring the holes.
Stuyvesant was now ready to nail the cross-bars to the side pieces of
the ladder. He asked Phonny where he kept his nails. Phonny showed him
a box where there was a great quantity of nails of all sizes, some
crooked and some straight, some whole and some broken, and all mixed
up in confusion with a mass of old iron, such as rings, parts of
hinges, old locks and fragments of keys. Stuyvesant selected from this
mass a nail, of the size that he thought was proper, and then went to
his ladder to apply it, to see whether it would do.
"It is too large," said Phonny.
"No," said Stuyvesant, "it is just right. I want the nail to go
through and come out on the other side, so that I can clinch it."
"You can't clinch such nails as these," said Phonny. "They are cut
nails, and they will break off if you try to clinch them."
"But I shall soften them first," said Stuyvesant.
"Soften them!" said Phonny, "how can you do that?"
"By putting them in the fire," said Stuyvesant.
"He can't soften them, can he, Wallace?" said Phonny.
"Yes," said Wallace, "he can soften them so that they will clinch."
This was true. What are called cut-nails, are made by machinery. They
are cut from flat-bars or plates of iron, almost red-hot, by a massive
and ponderous engine carried by water. At the same instant that the
nail is cut off from the end of the plate by the cutting part of the
engine, the end of it is flattened into a head by another part, which
comes up suddenly and compresses the iron at that end with prodigious
force. The nail is then dropped, and it falls down, all hot, into a
box made to receive it below.
The prodigious pressure to which the hot iron is subjected in the
process of making cut-nails, seems as it were to press the particles
of iron closer together, and make the metal more compact and hard.
The consequence is, that such nails are very stiff, and if bent much,
they break off. This is no disadvantage, provided that the wood to be
nailed is such that the nail is to be driven straight into the
substance of it to its whole length. In fact, this hardness and
stiffness is an advantage, for, in consequence of these properties,
the nail is less likely to bend under the hammer.
When, however, the nailing to be done is of such a kind that it
becomes necessary that the nail should pass through the wood so as to
come out upon the other side, to be clinched there, the stiffness of
the iron in a cut-nail constitutes a serious difficulty; for the end
of the nail where it comes through, instead of bending over and
sinking into the wood, as it ought to do, at first refuses to bend at
all, and then when the workman attempts to force it to bond by dint of
heavier blows with the hammer, it breaks off entirely.
To remedy this difficulty, it is found best to heat nails intended for
clinching before driving them. By heating the iron red hot, the metal
seems to expand to its original condition of ductile iron, and it
loses the extreme hardness and stiffness which was given to it by the
force and compression of the nail-making machine.
Stuyvesant had seen a carpenter in New York heating some nails on one
occasion, and he had asked him the reason. He, therefore, understood
the whole process, and his plan was now, after selecting his nails, to
go and heat them red-hot in the kitchen-fire.
He made a little calculation first in respect to the number of nails
that he should want. There were six cross-bars. These bars were to be
nailed at both ends. This would make twelve nailings. Stuyvesant
concluded that he would have four nails at each nailing, and
multiplying twelve by four, he found that forty-eight was the number
of the nails that he should require. To be sure to have enough, he
counted out fifty-two. Some might break, and perhaps some would be
lost in the fire.
Phonny felt a considerable degree of interest in Stuyvesant's plan of
softening the nails, and so he left Wallace to go on boring the holes,
while he went with Stuyvesant into the house.
"You never can get so many nails out of the fire in the world," said
Phonny. "They will be lost in the ashes."
"I shall put them on the shovel," said Stuyvesant.
When they got into the kitchen, Stuyvesant went to Dorothy, who was
still ironing at a table near the window, and asked her if he might
use her shovel and her fire to heat some nails.
"Certainly," said Dorothy. "I will go and move the flat-irons out of
the way for you."
Stuyvesant was always very particular whenever he went into the
kitchen, to treat Dorothy with great respect. He regarded the kitchen
as Dorothy's peculiar and proper dominion, and would have considered
it very rude and wrong to have been noisy in it, or to take possession
of, and use without her leave, the things which were under her charge
there. Dorothy observed this, and was very much pleased with it, and
as might naturally be expected, she was always glad to have Stuyvesant
come into the kitchen, and do any thing that he pleased there.
There was a large forestick lying across the andirons, with a burning
bed of coals below. Directly in front of these coals was a row of
flat-irons. Stuyvesant put his nails upon a long-handled shovel, and
Dorothy moved away one of the flat-irons, so that he could put the
shovel, with the nails upon it, in among the burning coals.
"Now," said he, "it will take some time for them to get hot, and I
will go and clear out the floor of the hen-house in the meanwhile."
"Well," said Phonny, "I will help you."
"Only," said Stuyvesant, turning to Dorothy, "will you look at the
nails when you take up your irons, and if you see that they get
red-hot, take the shovel out from the coals and set it down somewhere
on the hearth to cool?"
"Yes," said Dorothy, "but what are you going to heat the nails for?"
"To take the stiffness out of them," said Stuyvesant.
"To take the stiffness out?" replied Dorothy. "What do you wish to do
that for?"
"So that I can clinch them," replied Stuyvesant, "and I should like to
have you take them off the fire as soon as you see that they are
red-hot."
[Illustration: DOROTHY'S FIRE.]
"Yes," said Dorothy, "I will."
So Phonny and Stuyvesant went away, while Dorothy resumed her ironing.
They got a wheel-barrow and a rake, and went out to the hen-house.
They raked the floor all over, drawing out the old straw, sticks, &c.,
to the door. They then with a fork pitched this rubbish into the
wheel-barrow, and wheeled it out, and made a heap of it in a clear
place at some distance from the buildings, intending to set it on
fire. There were four wheel-barrow loads of it in all.
They then went into the barn and brought out a quantity of hay, and
sprinkled it all over the floor of the hen-house, which made the
apartment look extremely neat and comfortable. They then brought out
another fork-full of hay and pitched it up upon the loft.
"There!" said Stuyvesant, "now when we have got our ladder done, we
will climb up and spread it about."
"Hark!" said Phonny.
"What is that?" said Stuyvesant.
"It sounded like a hen clucking. I wonder if it is possible that there
is a hen up there."
"We will see," said Stuyvesant, "when we get our ladder done."
"Yes," said Phonny, "we must go and finish our ladder; and the
nails--it is time to go and get the nails or they will be all burnt
up."
The boys accordingly went back to the kitchen. They found that Dorothy
had taken the nails away from the fire, and they were now almost cool.
Stuyvesant slid them off from the shovel upon a small board, which he
had brought in for that purpose, and then they went back to the shop.
They found that Wallace had gone. He had finished boring the holes,
and now all that Phonny had to do, was to cut off the wires and put
them in. He had, however, now become so much interested in the
operation of making the ladder, that he concluded to put off finishing
the cage until the ladder was done. Besides, he was in a hurry to see
whether there really was a hen up there on the loft.
So he helped Stuyvesant nail his ladder. Stuyvesant got a small gimlet
to bore holes for the nails. Phonny thought that this was not
necessary. He said they could drive the nails without boring.
Stuyvesant said that there were three objections to this: first, they
might not go straight, secondly, they might split the wood, and
thirdly, they would cause the wood to _break out_, as he called it,
where they came through on the other side.
As soon as he had bored one hole he put a nail into it, and drove it
almost through, but not quite through, as he said it might prove that
he should wish to alter it. He then went to the other end of the same
cross-bar, bored a hole there, and put a nail in, driving it as far as
he had driven the first one. This was the topmost cross-bar of the
ladder, and it was held securely in its place by the two nails.
Stuyvesant then took the bottom cross-bar and secured that in the same
way. Then he put on the other bars one at a time, until his ladder was
complete in form, only the cross-bars were not yet fully nailed. He
and Phonny looked at it carefully, to see if all was right, and
Stuyvesant, taking it up from the floor, placed it against the wall of
the shop.
"Let me climb up on it," said Phonny.
"Not now," said Stuyvesant,--"wait till it is finished."
Stuyvesant then proceeded to drive the nails home, and clinch them.
The clinching was done, by putting an axe under the part of the ladder
where a nail was coming through, and then driving. The point of the
nail when it reached the axe, was deflected and turned, and bending
round entered the wood again, on the back side, and so clinched the
nail firmly. Thus the other holes were bored, and the other nails put
in, and at length the ladder was completed.
Just as the boys were ready to carry it out, the door opened, and
Beechnut came in.
Beechnut looked round at all that the boys had been doing, with great
interest. He examined the ladder particularly, and said that it was
made in a very workmanlike manner. Phonny showed Beechnut his cage
too, though he said that he had pretty much concluded not to finish it
that afternoon.
"I don't see why you need finish it at all," said Beechnut. "You have
got a very good cage already for your squirrel."
"What cage?" asked Phonny.
"This shop. It is a great deal better cage for him than that box,--_I_
think, and I have no doubt that he thinks so too."
"He would gnaw out of this shop," said Phonny.
"Not any more easily than he would gnaw out of the box," said
Beechnut.
Phonny turned to his box and looked at the smooth surface of the pine
which formed the interior. He perceived that Frink could gnaw through
anywhere, easily, in an hour.
"I did not think of that," said Phonny "I must line it with tin."
He began to picture to his mind, the process of putting his arm into
the box and nailing tin there, where there was no room to work a
hammer, and sighed.
"Well," said he, "I'll let him have the whole shop, to-night, and now
we will go out and try the ladder."
The whole party accordingly went to the hen-house. Beechnut examined
the small door that Stuyvesant had made, and the button of the large
door, while Stuyvesant was planting the ladder. Phonny was eager to go
up first; Stuyvesant followed him.
Phonny mounted upon the floor of the loft, and immediately afterward
began to exclaim,
"Oo--oo--Stivy,--here is old Gipsy, on a nest, and I verily believe
that she is setting; I could not think what had become of old Gipsy."
Just at this time, Beechnut's head appeared coming up the ladder. He
called upon the boys to come back, away from the hen, while he went up
to see. She was upon a nest there, squatted down very low, and with
her wings spread wide as if trying to cover a great nest full of eggs.
"Yes," said Beechnut, "she is setting, I have no doubt; and as she has
been missing a long time, I presume the chickens are about coming
out."
"Hark!" said Beechnut.
The boys listened, and they heard a faint peeping sound under the hen.
Beechnut looked toward the boys and smiled.
Phonny was in an ecstacy of delight. Stuyvesant was much more quiet,
but he seemed equally pleased. Beechnut said that he thought that they
had better go away and leave the hen to herself, and that probably she
would come off the nest, with her brood, that evening or the next
morning.
"But stop," said Beechnut, as he was going down the ladder. "It is
important to ascertain whether they are eggs or chickens under the
hen. For if they are eggs they are one third your property, and if
they are chickens, they are all mine."
"However," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "I think we will call
them eggs to-day. I presume they were all eggs when we made the
bargain. To-morrow we will get them all down, and you, Phonny, may
make a pretty little coop for them in some sunny corner in the yard."
Phonny had by this time become so much interested in the poultry, that
he proposed to Stuyvesant to let him have half the care of them, and
offered to give Stuyvesant half of his squirrel in return. Stuyvesant
said that he did not care about the squirrel, but that he would give
him a share of the hen-house contract for half the shop.
Phonny gladly agreed to this, and so the boys determined that the
first thing for the next day should be, to put the shop and the tools
all in complete order, and the next, to make the prettiest hen-coop
they could contrive, in a corner of the yard. This they did, and
Beechnut got the hen and the chickens down and put them into it. The
brood was very large, there being twelve chickens in it, and they were
all very pretty chickens indeed.