Daniel Carter Beard

“ In an adjoining room some one in the secret has a set of sleigh-bells, which are jingled very softly at first, gradually growing louder and louder, as if the sleigh was approaching nearer; when they stop a stamping of feet is heard.
This last is
The Signal for Legs,
who cries out, in his deepest bass, “A pretty Christmas this! Company here, and all hiding behind a screen. What, ho! are ye afraid of Santa Claus?” At that the master of ceremonies removes the screen, and there before the eyes of the delighted company is a real live Santa Claus, who can move his legs and arms, and talk! ”

“ If You Have Money to Spend,
and men to work under your directions, you can have the regulation door, floor, and roof; the cracks in the wall calked with mortar, and a stone or brick chimney and fireplace built. In fact, you can make a palace of logs, with [127] plate-glass windows, but you will not have a log-cabin, and you will miss all the fun to be derived from creating something by your own labor, which is the highest sort of joy—the joy of the artist! Any “chump,” with money, can hire men to build houses which would be impossible for his stupid brain and clumsy hands to accomplish. ”

“ The only black rat I ever saw was a dead one, which I found one summer in an unoccupied house in the mountains of Pennsylvania. But there are plenty of beautiful little gnawers around us everywhere. There are the soft, furry, big-eyed flying-squirrels, which leave their warm nests at dusk and sail through the air from tree to tree, or romp among the branches until daylight. ”

“ If the false chimney and fireplace are set up against an open door, Santa Claus may enter from the other room, and when he lets himself down over the black cloth back of the fireplace it will appear to the audience—at least, to all the little folks—as if he came down the chimney.
In case no doorway is handy a strong board shelf, built in the false chimney, will serve as a seat and a place of concealment for the saint until the clock on the mantel strikes the hour of twelve, which should be the signal for the immediate appearance of the little man. ”

“ HOW TO BUILD AND HOW TO FURNISH A DANIEL BOONE CABIN.
Imagination is a great thing and can do wonders; it can surround the most commonplace objects with an atmosphere of romance, in which nothing is impossible or improbable. A whiff of smoke from the fireplace where wood is burning, means nothing but a faulty chimney ”

“ The advent of the steam-boat gradually drove the flat-boat, broadhorn, keel-boat, and all the primitive sweep-propelled craft from the rivers, but many of the old boatmen were loath to give up so pleasant a mode of existence, and they built themselves house-boats, and, still clinging to their nomadic habits, took their wives, and went to house-keeping on the bosom of the waters they loved so well. ”

“ Santa Claus can make plenty of fun, for as the arms belong to one boy and the legs and head to another, the legs and head never know exactly what the arms are about to do next, and if the arms take a handkerchief out of a pocket to wipe the face, there is always a mirth-provoking incident, and the face does not look happy until the handkerchief is put away. ”

“ However, with a real toboggan-slide in the back-yard, a boy may snap his fingers at a level country, lumbering carts, death-dealing cars, and meddlesome guardians of the peace.
In a day’s time three boys can build a slide; but, of course, it cannot be built without some labor. If it could, it would be of no value. The labor consists only in sawing a few pieces of timber and driving a few nails to hold the frame together, and it is effort well-spent. ”

“ If the grown people would only let the bath-room alone, there is no end to the fun which an ingenious lad could have in that useful little room.
As a Lake for His Fleet,
and as a receiving-tank for his water-pets are only two of the uses which the bath-tub suggests to a bright boy. When he sees the faucet he realizes that this can afford him [192] power for all sorts of machinery, if he can arrange a water-wheel under it to transmit the power. ”

“ For open and exposed waters, like the large lakes which dot many of our inland States, or the Long Island Sound on our coast, the following plans of the American boy’s house-boat will have to be altered, but the alterations will be all in the hull. If you make the hull three feet deep it will have the effect of lowering the cabin, while the head-room inside will remain the same. Such a craft can carry a good-sized sail, and weather any gale you are liable to encounter, even on the Sound, during the summer months. ”

“ Over this a rude, shack-like Adirondack camp is built, not to keep out rain but to protect the canvas, with the green brush, from sparks from the camp-fire. In no case must the brush touch the cloth, for during a rain the canvas will leak wherever any object is resting against it, either from the inside or outside.
A tent is the favorite abode of all campers. They are transported with much greater ease than the most simply-constructed portable house. A tent may be erected with the expenditure of less labor than any of the preceding camps, and furnishes a comfortable shelter all the year round. ”

“ The necessity, in work or play, of constantly overcoming new obstacles and solving new problems, develops a strong and normal mind and body. There can be little doubt that the rude schooling and hard knocks of a pioneer’s life rejuvenated our race and developed those qualities in the characters of Americans, without which Washington would have been but a country gentleman and Lincoln a village store-keeper. ”

“ To-day it is still the most practicable, durable, and simply constructed house invented for a forest home, and any boy can build a log-house large enough to form a comfortable camp for vacation days. For muscles unaccustomed to such exercise it is hard work to cut down large trees, and, unless the young woodsman has served an apprenticeship on a farm or in a lumber-camp, it is dangerous work to fell big timber ”

“ Be particular about the nesting of your mice and squirrels; frequently remove the old nests and burn them, at the same time supplying the little creatures with a fresh lot of clean cotton, wool, fine grass, or even paper, and they will arrange a new bed for themselves out of the fresh material.
You will soon discover that all beasts prefer to keep clean, and have methods of their own by which they endeavor to keep themselves neat and presentable, without the use of soap. Any disagreeable odor proceeding from their cages simply means neglect on the part of the keeper of the zoo. ”

“ Of course, when you come to the slant at bow and stern the bottom-boards at each end will have to have a bevelled edge, to fit snugly against the boards on the flat part of the bottom of the boat; but any boy who is accustomed to shake the gray matter in his brain can do this. Remember, scientists say that thought is the agitation of the gray matter of the brain, and if you are going to build a boat or play a good game of football you must shake up that gray stuff, or the other boys will put you down as a “stuff.” ”

“ A BOY’S BACK-YARD WORKSHOP. How to make Buildings Plumb and Level.
By a workshop is meant a place where a boy can build a boat, sled, box-kite, man-kite, [8] mend a golf-club, a broken bicycle, his mother’s rocking-chair, his aunt’s umbrella, or build a paper-balloon. [9] It is a room, house, or shed, where a boy can do what pleases him, without being in everybody’s way; a place where he can retire and idly whittle a stick, or seriously work out some youthful invention ”

“ That almost all children learn to talk with more or less fluency, while few learn to draw with any approach to skill, is because talking is encouraged and systematically taught from earliest infancy, while drawing is discouraged, and has been ever since the days of old Sakya-Muni, 400 years before the Christian era. Sakya, the narrow-minded old heathen, thought it detrimental to progress in virtue to waste one’s time with pencil or brush. ”

“ For the peace of mind of all who may hear the mysterious voices and see the apparitions just described, it may be well to state that the gnomes are human and are members of the Bank-Swallows’ Club, and if you hear their voices under your feet it is because you happen to be standing on the roof of their underground club-house. ”

“ I take it for granted that you know how to care for the chickens and pigeons; that you know that no being, not even man, can keep himself clean and healthy when confined to a small room. The keeper must attend to all household duties.
If your pets are untidy, soiled in appearance, and their abode infested with parasites, it will be because of the cruel thoughtlessness of their keeper. To facilitate house-cleaning, Fig. 35 shows the internal arrangement and furniture of the coop-loft, all of which may be removed in a few moments and the whole place cleaned and whitewashed. ”

“ The late war has demonstrated to the whole world the wonderful skill and pluck of the young American, and the world must not suppose these qualities to be suddenly acquired, but must know them to be a matter of education—an education acquired during boyhood, at the boy’s own school, with boy professors. ”

“ In the United States we have no smooth lava with which to build slides on our native hills, and if we did have the lava-slides only a few of our boys would have an opportunity to use them.
When the snow covers the ground it is not every boy who can find a convenient hill where he may enjoy the healthful fun of coasting. A great many boys live in a level country, and hundreds and thousands of others have their homes in cities and towns, where heavy carts, policemen, [185] and trolley-cars, make coasting a forbidden pleasure. ”

“ Four 4-by-4 posts can be bolted to the side-support at each corner of the bottom bunk; they will amply support the top bunk, as the legs do a table-top when the frame is allowed to rest upon their upper ends. This makes accommodation for two boys, and there is still room for upper and lower side bunks, the cabin being but six feet wide. If you put bunks on both sides you will be rather crowded, it is true, but by allowing [165] a 1-foot passage in the middle, you can have two side bunks and plenty of head room. This will accommodate four boys, and that is a full crew for a boat of this size. ”

“ During such weather there is no fun to be had outdoors, and we must look for our amusement inside the four walls of our homes.
It is not every city boy who has an old-fashioned attic to romp in during bad weather, nor even a basement where he can seek to amuse himself building sleds or other outdoor appliances, for use when the weather will permit. ”

“ Under the torrid zone, away out on the Islands of the Pacific Ocean, the natives coast down-hill, in the hottest weather, on the dry grass, and where that does not exist they build themselves toboggan-slides, with slabs of smooth lava. Hundreds of these tracks line the mountain-sides near the native villages. The sled these daring coasters use is from seven to twenty feet long, and as narrow in proportion as a shell-boat, there being only a few inches of space between the very hard, polished wooden runners. ”

“ A is the trigger, or spindle, which passes through a hole in the rear end of the box. B is the catch with a ring slipped over its middle, to which a string is attached to hold open the trap-door when the trap is set. There is a notch in the back board of the trap at C, and another near the rear end of the trigger, in which the bevelled edges of the catch are caught and held in place by the string attached to the trap-door. Fig. 13 1/2 shows the details of Fig. 13. The box-trap is an old “stand-by” with the boys, is simple in construction, and can be made by any lad who can handle tools. ”

“ Had little Abe Lincoln been reared under the care of a foreign woman with cap and ribbons (i.e. a French nurse) , his strong manly character would never have been developed and our country would have lost one of its grandest patriots and history its most unique figure.
Aside from these vitally important facts, art demands that our youth should be encouraged to do things for themselves, to produce things by their own labor. ”

“ I found a big toad in the top of a tree which I had climbed after young crows. It was a common hop-toad, not a tree-frog.
Silly Superstitions of Hoop-Snake Age.
It is high time that the American boys, in the dawn of the twentieth century, should forget all the fabulous stories of snakes with the power to “charm” persons, toads with death-dealing breath, deadly swifts and venomous lizards. All such yarns are handed down to us by our superstitious ancestors, and are a part of the witch belief of the old Salem folk. ”

“ Moulding, boards, and picket-strips can be stored overhead, resting on the end-plates and the rafter-collar in the middle of the roof.
This workshop has been planned so as not to crowd a small back-yard, and if it is built of lumber which presents a smooth outside it may be neatly painted, and will not injure the appearance of the yard in the least. Vines may be trained over the walls of the shop and flowers planted around the outside, without in any manner interfering with its convenience as a workshop, or lowering the dignity of the young artisans who make it their head-quarters. ”

“ For people with little money to spend, these expensive boats are as much out of reach as a yacht, but they may often be rented for prices within the means of people in moderate circumstances. At New York I have known a good schooner-yacht, 84 feet over all, to be chartered for two weeks, with crew of skipper and two men, the larder plentifully supplied with provisions and luxuries for six people and the crew, making nine in all, at a cost of thirty-six dollars apiece for each of the six passengers. ”

“ Small-sized logs save much labor in chopping, sawing, rolling, and “snaking” to camp; besides all this, logs of small diameter look best for a house of small dimensions.
Therefore, in selecting the material for your proposed house, choose only such trees as are best suited to the strength of the builders. There is no rule which fixes the diameter of a log or pole, so a log-house is a log-house, no matter whether the diameter of the log from which it is built be four inches or four feet. When a log is hauled by men, horses, or oxen, through the woods, it is called “snaking.” ”