WORK FOR THE HEAD AND THE HANDS.
The boys were given to skylarking. Lick Milton and Phil Gawner were
carrying the board. It rested on the right shoulder of one and the
left shoulder of the other, with the arm above the elbow raised to
keep it in place. Just before they reached the shop, Dick Short, who
was half monkey in his movements, made a sudden spring, leaping upon
the top of the board.
Down went the board, and down went the two boys under it. Dick turned
a somerset, and came down upon his feet. Phil Gawner was not at all
pleased with the incident; and, picking himself up, he rushed upon the
assailant, evidently determined to thrash him for his trouble. But
Dick Short had no idea of getting into a fight, and ran away as fast
as his legs would carry him.
Phil chased him till they approached a tall maple whose lower limbs
were at least ten feet above the ground. Dick seized hold of the tree,
and went up it like a monkey. Phil attempted to grasp his feet, but
the boy-ape kicked until he was out of reach of his pursuer.
“Let me get hold of you!” exclaimed Phil, rubbing his elbows, which
had suffered in his fall.
“I’ll let you get hold of me if you can,” laughed Dick.
“What are you about here? Don’t you know it is school-time?” demanded
Mr. Brookbine, who was indignantly following the skylarker. “Come down
out of that tree!”
“Send Phil back to the shop, and I will,” replied Dick.
“Will you come down, or shall I fetch you down?” added the carpenter
very decidedly.
“Fetch me down, if you please,” answered Dick with a chuckle.
Possibly the runaway thought he should like to see the
master-carpenter climb the tree. Captain Gildrock had come out of the
shop, but he did not interfere with the instructor in mechanics. Very
likely he desired to see how he would manage the case.
[Illustration: DICK SHORT UNDER GUARD. Page 257.]
“Here, Tom!” said Mr. Brookbine after a whistle. He addressed the call
to a tremendous St. Bernard dog, which had come to Beech Hill with him.
Tom promptly obeyed the summons. His master pointed up the tree, and
soon got the eyes of the canine fixed on the culprit. Then he directed
him to lie down at the foot of the maple. The dog appeared to
understand his mission. The principal was glad to find the carpenter
did not display any thing like anger.
“Now, Phil, we will go back to the shop, and attend to those shelves,”
said Mr. Brookbine.
Phil wanted very much to get hold of Dick Short. He looked up at him,
and then at the dog. He said nothing; for he realized that the
instructor intended to punish his assailant in his own way, and he was
rather curious to see what the result would be.
Phil and the rest of the boys followed the carpenter. The board was
taken into the shop, and not a word said about the incident which had
just occurred.
“We have no saw-horses, or trestles as some call them. But we can use
a couple of these boxes, and in a few days we shall be able to make
all the furniture we need in the shop,” said the carpenter as
pleasantly as though no breach of discipline had occurred.
The pupils expected him to say something on the subject of skylarking
in general, and the late case in particular. He directed a couple of
the boys to place the boxes where he wanted them, and then to put the
board upon them.
“There will be waste in that board: I think the one I picked out would
have done better. It was just the right length,” said Ben Ludlow, who
was rather displeased because his board had been rejected.
“How wide was your board, Ben?” asked the carpenter.
“Just one foot to a hair. It was exactly wide enough to make two
shelves,” answered Ben.
“You think you were right, Ben, and I am glad to see that you are
ready to argue your side of the question. If I don’t prove that you
were wrong, I hope you will stick to your opinion,” replied Mr.
Brookbine, as he took one of the slitting-saws from the bench.
He sawed about three inches into one of the lids of the boxes. Calling
Ben close to him, he applied his rule, where the sixteenths were
marked, and asked the doubtful student how wide the slit was.
“Just a sixteenth, as near as I can make it out,” replied Ben.
The boys began to laugh, for they saw the result of the argument.
“There will be four edges to the two strips of six inches in width,
when the board is sawed through its length, will there not, Ben?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the other side of the question.
“Will those edges be perfectly smooth?”
“Of course they will not: they will be just as the saw left them.”
“They are not likely to be sawed perfectly straight, even if the job
were done by an experienced workman. How much shall we have to plane
off in order to get the edges straight and smooth?”
“I don’t know,--half an inch from each, perhaps. I give it up. I was
wrong, sir.”
“Not half an inch, with such clear, finish-lumber as this board: that
would be shameful. Call it an eighth of an inch; and from the four
sides you will take off half an inch, besides the sixteenth cut out by
the saw. Your shelves would be less than five and three-quarters wide,
which is not six inches. When we want any stock to be of a certain
width, it won’t do to make it a quarter of an inch less than that. You
might waste the whole board in that way.”
“I give it up, and it was stupid on my part,” added Ben.
“Such mistakes are to be expected from beginners. Now let us look at
the board we have. In the length we have six inches to spare, which is
abundant. Now let us see if the ends of the board are sound. Are there
any checks or splits in it?”
None of any consequence were found.
“Now, boys, laying out the work is quite as important as doing it. If
you make blunders in your calculations, the job will not come out as
you expect. We must first cut the board into six lengths.”
“We are to take out six-sixteenths of an inch for the saw-cuts,”
suggested Steve Baxter.
“Why six?”
“Because the board is to be sawed into six lengths.”
“How many cuts do you make in order to get six pieces?”
“Six, sir.”
“Do you think so? Look it over a little more.”
The rest of the boys, or most of them, looked upon the problem as a
puzzle; and they were interested in it, though none appeared to have
made up their minds.
“Of course you have to cut six times to get six pieces,” said Phil
Gawner. “I think Steve Baxter is right.”
“Let us look at it, and see. When I have made one cut with the saw,
how many pieces do I get?” asked Mr. Brookbine.
“One,” shouted half a dozen of the pupils.
“The second cut?”
“Two pieces.”
“Right; and the third, three, and the fourth, four,” continued the
instructor. “When I cut the fifth time, how many have I?”
“Five!” shouted the boys triumphantly.
“But what is there left?” asked the instructor, astonished at the
answer.
“The rest of the board,” answered Steve Baxter.
“Isn’t the rest of the board the sixth piece?” demanded the carpenter.
The students looked rather blankly at each other; and Mr. Brookbine
saw that they were not convinced, simple as the problem was.
He took a stick, and cut it so that it was twenty-four inches long.
Using his rule, he marked it off into pieces four inches in length.
Sawing off the piece on the right of the first mark, he handed it to
Steve. He asked the students to count as he cut off the lengths.
“Five!” screamed the boys when he had made the fifth cut.
“Here is the sixth piece. It is just four inches long. Now, where
shall I put in the sixth cut?” asked Mr. Brookbine, as he handed the
rest of the stick to Steve. “You have six pieces, though I have cut
but five times.”
“That’s so; but I can’t see why it should be so,” replied Steve
vacantly.
“The first four cuts each gave me one piece, or four pieces in all.
The fifth cut gave me two pieces, did it not? for the rest of the
board is a piece as well as the others.”
All of them could see it then; and the principal applied the result
to other numbers, and the students were willing to admit that an equal
division into ten parts was made with nine cuts.
“It is surprising how little things bother us sometimes,” continued
Mr. Brookbine. “But we shall never get our shelves made at this rate.
As we have leeway enough in the length of this board, we will cut the
pieces four feet and one inch in length. Nat Long, you may measure it
off on one side, and, Ned Bellows, you may do the same on the other
side.”
Both of them made mistakes, which were detected by the others; but at
last the board was marked off into equal lengths. The same boys were
required to take the steel square, and rule off the lengths. They were
not inclined to do it accurately, as the instructor insisted they
should. The cutting-off saws were then given to a couple of the boys.
“You must not saw on the mark, but at the right-hand side of it, and
close to it. Hold on! you are a quarter of an inch off the mark, Tom
Ridley. That won’t do! You must cut the board at just the thickness of
the saw-blade from the mark, so that you can see it all the time. When
the sawdust covers it, blow it off.”
“But I can’t make the saw start where I want it to,” replied Tom.
“Catch hold of the board with your hand, and let the end of your thumb
rest against the saw-blade to keep it in place,” replied the
carpenter, taking another saw, and showing the pupils how to do it.
“That’s it! Now you have got a start. Put three fingers through the
handle, and keep the forefinger out straight, and pressed against it.
Let the saw run lightly; don’t bear on, but rather lift up at the
start. When you bear on at all, do it on the downward stroke.”
“I am running away from the mark,” said Corny Minkfield, at the other
end of the board.
“Don’t do it: saw close to the mark all the way. Don’t grasp the
handle of the saw so tightly. Hold it rather loosely, and take as long
strokes as you can,” interposed Mr. Brookbine, as he applied a small
try-square to the angle made by the saw-blade and the board. “Your cut
through the board is not plumb.”
The five cuts were finally made, and they had six pieces about four
feet and an inch long. An opportunity had been given to all the class
to try the saw, and some of them did very well.
“Now, we want a little calculation again in regard to the width of the
board. The time spent in making sure that you are right before you cut
is never wasted. This piece of lumber is thirteen inches wide at the
narrow end. We will cut each of these boards into two pieces
lengthwise. But we will first reduce each to a uniform width of
thirteen inches.”
In the course of half an hour all this was done, and the six shelves
were ready to go upon the bench.