THE END OF THE FIRST SCHOOL-DAY AT BEECH HILL.
The next operation for the class was to round off the ends of the
shelves. Mr. Brookbine asked the boys how they would do it. One said
he would plane it off, another would saw it off, and a third would
chop it off with the hatchet.
“There are three ways, neither of which is practicable,” continued the
carpenter. “You can’t plane off a circular face, and the saw or the
hatchet would leave the work in a rough state. We will use all three
of the methods named. First we will saw off the corner; then we will
cut away a little more with the hatchet or shave; and finally we will
plane it off smoothly, though we shall not use a plane, but another
tool for the purpose. Mark off the part you will saw from the board,
and saw it off.”
This was done without any aid from the teacher. Then shingling-hatchets
were used to take off the two corners left by the saw.
“Now we will introduce you to the spokeshave, an exceedingly useful
tool for many purposes. It does the same work as a plane, and in the
same manner; but as it has no appreciable length, compared with a
plane, we can follow curves with it. Put the corner of the board in
the vise, and then with the spokeshave work down to the circular line.
Don’t cut the mark off; never do that. It will take you some time to
do this job.”
Mr. Brookbine showed the workmen how to use the new tool; and they
went to work with it in earnest, being greatly interested in their
occupation. While they were thus engaged, the carpenter went to the
door to ascertain the state of things at the tree where one of the
class was taking a vacation. Tom lay at the foot of the tree, and Dick
Short was seated on a limb twenty feet from the ground. If the
prisoner moved, the dog looked up at him; and Dick could think of no
strategy by which he could outwit the faithful sentinel. The
instructor only looked, and then returned to the bench. Dick was
likely to stay where he was until the St. Bernard changed his quarters.
“Use the try-square when you get near the mark,” said the carpenter,
as he resumed his place. “Every part of the quarter circle must be
true.”
One after another the students carried the shelf to Mr. Brookbine, as
they finished it. Some criticisms were made on the work, and some of
it had to be corrected. In due time they were all completed and
approved. The sides of the shelves were just as they came from the
planing-machine; and the boys were directed to lay them on the bench,
and use the smoothing-plane upon them. These planes were adjusted so
they cut the thinnest possible shaving. The shelves were made as
smooth as glass.
“I don’t see how we are to put the shelves up,” said Ben Ludlow when
the boards were finished.
“That is just the river we are to cross next,” replied Mr. Brookbine.
“I believe we have no iron brackets, though I dare say the machinists
at the other end of the shop could make them for us if we are willing
to wait for them. For the want of them we will make a couple of ogee
brackets of pine for each shelf.”
“Ogee!” exclaimed Steve Baxter. “Is that Latin?”
“It may be: I don’t know. My Greek and Latin were neglected. The ogee
form is very common, and there is an ogee arch in architecture.--We
need a blackboard in the shop as well as in the schoolroom,” said the
carpenter, turning to Captain Gildrock. “But I can chalk it out on one
of these box-tops.”
He made a drawing of half a square, connecting the ends of the two
sides by a diagonal. In other words, it was a right-angled triangle,
resting on one of the points, with the side perpendicular to the top.
“This is the shape of the board we shall get out. I divide the
diagonal into two equal lengths. Each half will be the chord of the
arc of a circle. The upper arc is outside of the chord, and the lower
one inside of the chord;” and Mr. Brookbine drew the arcs with his
chalk.
“But you can’t get that figure out of that piece of board,” interposed
Thad, who was thinking with all his might.
“Very true, my lad; and I am glad to see that you have your eyes open.
I want you to correct all my blunders. In order to get the ogee out of
this piece of wood, I must draw a line parallel to the diagonal, far
enough inside of it to permit me to get the arc out of the piece.”
“Isn’t there any other way to do it?” asked Dory.
“There is another way, and perhaps it is a better one,” replied Mr.
Brookbine, as he drew another square on the board. “On the diagonal I
draw the two arcs” (suiting the action to the words). “With a
keyhole-saw, I follow this curved line, and cut the board in two
pieces. Perhaps this will be the better way to do it, as it will give
a little different practice.”
“That is the way I was thinking of,” added Dory.
“I am glad you thought of it. You and Thad may go to the lumber-room,
and get the board to make these brackets of. We want six pairs of
them, and we are to get out six pieces six inches square.”
The boys soon returned with a board about twenty inches long and a
little over a foot wide. It was sawed into six pieces, planed and
squared to the exact size required. While the boys were thus employed,
the carpenter made a pattern of a single bracket out of a piece of
quarter-inch board. As soon as one of the square boards was ready, he
applied the pattern to it, and marked the ogee line with a
sharp-pointed pencil.
The instructor then distributed the keyhole-saws, and explained how to
use them. The square boards were put into the vises, after they had
been marked from the pattern. The saws were narrowest near the points.
If the pupils found any difficulty in turning the saw, they were
required to take short strokes, using the tip end, until they got over
the difficulty. The narrower the saw, the more easily it could be
turned from a straight line.
“Turn the bottom piece up-side-down, and it will exactly correspond
with the upper piece, if you have sawed all the way on the line,” said
the carpenter, when some of the boys had finished the first piece.
“Mine don’t,” added Lick Milton. “I kept close to the line all the
way.”
“Another blunder of mine!” exclaimed Mr. Brookbine, “for which I
tender my apology. I told you to saw on the right of the mark. This
is always to be done when practicable; but I neglected to say that it
is not always convenient, or even possible, to do it in that way. In
this instance the line ought to have been sawed out, and then the cut
would have been precisely in the middle of the piece. Sometimes, too,
when you cannot shift the work end to end, it becomes necessary to saw
on the left of the line. In cutting the next one, saw out the line,
and see how it comes out then.”
The result verified the statement of the teacher, for the two pieces
almost coincided. The workmen were directed to apply the spokeshave to
the curves on the bracket, and they were soon ready.
“Now we will proceed to put the shelves up,” continued Mr. Brookbine.
“Not this afternoon,” interposed Captain Gildrock. “It is four o’clock
now, and we must be as punctual in closing the sessions of the school
as in beginning them. I must say, my lads, that I have been very much
pleased with your attention and general good conduct on the first day
of the Beech-Hill Industrial School.”
“For one, I should like to go on with the work until supper-time,”
said Ben Ludlow.
“So would I!” shouted about all the rest of them.
“I think not, boys,” replied the captain. “I am glad to find you so
much interested in your work, but we must not overdo it. We shall keep
to our regular hours. The rest of the day, and the morning until nine
o’clock, belongs to you; but you must not forget the lessons assigned
to you for to-morrow. You may use the boats for a couple of hours now,
if you choose. There are enough of the small craft to accommodate the
whole school.”
The boys put on their coats, and left the shop. Some of them were
curious to know what had become of Dick Short, and they walked to the
maple-tree. But Mr. Brookbine ordered them off, saying that they were
to have no communication with Dick. Tom still kept his position at the
foot of the tree.
“Mr. Brookbine,” called Dick, when he saw the instructor come out of
the shop.
“Well, my lad, what is it?” asked the carpenter. “Do you want to jump
on another board, and kill a couple more boys?”
“I haven’t killed any boys,” replied Dick.
“If you haven’t, it isn’t your fault. You went to work in the right
way to do it, or, at least, to hurt them badly. What do you want now?”
“Don’t you think I have been up this tree about long enough, Mr.
Brookbine?” continued Dick in the meekest of tones.
“I don’t know: you know better than I do. If you haven’t been up there
long enough to keep you from skylarking in school-hours, you had
better stay there a week or two longer; and Tom will see that you
don’t come down.”
“I will be as sober as a judge in school-hours after this. I didn’t
think what I was about when I jumped on that board, and I am sorry I
did it,” pleaded Dick, who was heartily disgusted with being watched
by the big dog.
“Very well: I am satisfied; but I don’t know whether Phil Gawner is,
or not,” added the instructor.
“I will beg his pardon, or let him thrash me, just as he chooses,”
suggested Dick.
The instructor called Phil as he was going down to the lake. As soon
as Phil came within hailing-distance of the tree, Dick made his
apology, which was promptly accepted; and the culprit was permitted to
descend the tree. His punishment was so odd that it puzzled him. He
had often been whipped in school for his pranks; but to be imprisoned
over two hours up in a tree, with a dog to keep guard over him, was
more than he could stand.
Most of the students were at the lake by this time. Dory had already
invited Oscar Chester to take a sail in the Goldwing, and he had
accepted. The four members of the Goldwing Club had been in the
schooner so much that they preferred to take a four-oar boat that was
moored on the lake.
In fifteen minutes the Goldwing was out on Lake Champlain. The wind
was fresh from the south-west, and the lake is not the best place in
the world for a sailboat. Puffs of wind, and even pretty smart
squalls, sometimes come from the hills that surround this beautiful
sheet of water, so that the skipper has to be on the alert.
“I should be very glad to have you steer her now, Oscar, if you wish,”
said Dory to his passenger as soon as the boat was well out in the
lake.
“Thank you, Dory,” replied Oscar. “I think we shall be the best of
friends, after all.”
“It will not be my fault if we are not,” added Dory.
Just then the Monkey, which Sim Green had brought up from Burlington
on Saturday, came out off the river in charge of Bolingbroke Millweed.