Bric-a-brac

“ If a strip of this bark, which is remarkable for the fineness of its texture, after being soaked in water, be laid on a smooth stone, and then carefully beaten with a bat or mallet, the surface of which is cut into fine ribs, the fibres will become separated more or less from one another, and if the beating be carefully conducted, the bark will ultimately assume the appearance of a web of fine linen, two pieces of bark being made to incorporate with one another simply by laying them so as to overlap a little, and then beating again. ”

“ BRACE. The braces are ropes belonging to all the yards of a ship; two to each yard, rove through blocks that are stropped to the yards, or fastened to pendants, seized to the yard-arms. Their use is either to square or traverse the yards horizontally; hence, to brace the yard, is to bring it to either side by means of the braces. In ship-building, braces are plates of iron, copper, or mixed metal, which are used to bind efficiently a weakness in a vessel; as also to receive the pintles by which the rudder is hung. ”

“ The paper or canoe birch is the most valuable American kind. Cabinet makers sometimes use the wood, but it quickly decays when exposed to climatic changes. It sounds strange, but the bark is most esteemed because of its durable nature. Many times I have come upon a fallen birch which appeared to be perfectly sound, but on examination, I found the wood entirely rotted away, with the bark as firm and perfect as when the tree stood erect and was growing. ”

“ A housed brace joint is a joint in which the brace is housed into the rectangular members except that the outer end of the mortise is cut at right angles and the inner end diagonally to receive the brace which is cut to correspond. ”

“ The facsimile of the Tübingen birch-bark manuscript (1901) .—A magnificent facsimile of the birch-bark manuscript has now been published by the care and enterprise of Bloomfield and Garbe. [24] The technical perfection of the work is such as to show with marvellous clearness not only every stroke of the writing and every correction, but even the most delicate veinings of the bark itself, with its injuries and patches. ”

“ The inner bark, or liber, is of a close fibrous texture, like that of the Morus papyrifera, and when separated from the other bark, and cleansed from the adhering particles, resembles a coarse piece of linen. It has been worked into ropes, which are very strong, and the poorer class of people employ the inner bark of younger trees, which is more easily prepared, for the purpose of making a coarse stuff, which they wear when working in the fields. ”

“ But you suggested rather a fantastic idea to my imagination. The brick liver is not a bad conception. Far down in the bowels of the earth, in a black cavern hollowed beneath the lowest foundations of the oldest church, the brick liver was built by the cunning magicians of old, to last for ever, to purify the city’s blood, to regulate the city’s life, and in a measure to control its destinies by means of its passions. A few wise men have handed down the knowledge of the brick liver to each other from generation to generation, but the rest of the inhabitants are ignorant of its existence. ”

“ When they prepare to take it, the outer bark is first torn or cut away; the inner is then marked out with a proper tool to the requisite size, usually three cubits by one; it is afterwards beaten for some time with a heavy stick to loosen it from the stem, and being peeled off, laid in the sun to dry, care being taken to prevent its warping. The bark used in building has nearly the texture and hardness of wood; but the pliable and delicate bark of which clothing is made is procured from a bastard species of the bread-fruit. ”

“ There was a thick, round billet of birch, upended in the middle of the kitchen floor, to serve as a block for the amputation; and the axe was sharp, at last—at hand, too, but concealed, for the moment, behind the pantry door—and a pot of tar was warming on the kitchen stove. ”

“ Then a bricklayer and his wife defied the heavens to fall, threw aside traditions and began to apply exact knowledge to brick-laying. As a result, they learned how to lay bricks three times as rapidly as the best workman had ever been able to before—and with less fatigue. ”

“ The result is that the stretchers break joint with each other, and all the joints range themselves in diagonal lines, and if in any part of the work headers of a different brick are introduced, the appearance of a cross is at once brought out; and even without this the diagonal arrangement of joints is very perceptible and pleasing.
Besides wall building, the bricklayer has many other works to perform. He has to form fireplaces, flues, chimneys, and the flat trimmer arches which support the hearth, and has to set the stove, kitchen range, copper, etc., in a proper manner. ”

“ Du. ‘brabbelen, to brawle or to brabble’ (Hexham) .
brace, to gird, encompass. ‘Bigge Bulles of Basan brace hem about’, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Sept., 124. OF. bracier, to embrace, deriv. of brace, the two arms (Ch. Rol., 1343) .
bracer, braser, a protection for the arm in archery. Ascham, Toxophilus, pp. 108, 109.
brach, a bitch-hound. Properly a kind of hunting-dog; but it came to be used with reference to a bitch in general. Webster, White Devil (Flamineo) , ed. Dyce, p. 48; Massinger, Unnat. Combat, iv. 2 (Belgarde) ; King Lear, i. 4. 125. OF. brac, hunting-dog (Didot) . ”

“ The white bricklayer may continue to lay his bricks while they are carried for him by a black hodsman, but he will not lay a brick at one end of the wall while a Kafir is laying an equal brick at the other. ”

“ It happened that one evening we pitched our tent near a small stream, in a grove composed principally of young birch, but interspersed with large and shaggy ones. Everyone at all familiar with the birch knows there is much of it, on which the outer bark peels naturally, and it is no uncommon thing to be able to peel, with the use of the hands only, large quantities of the bark. ”

“ III.—Nature of the Social Science.
OUT of bricks, well burnt, hard, and sharp-angled, lying in heaps by his side, the bricklayer builds, even without mortar, a wall of some height that has considerable stability. With bricks made of bad materials, irregularly burnt, warped, cracked, and many of them broken, he cannot build a dry wall of the same height and stability. The dock-yard laborer, piling cannon-shot, is totally unable to make these spherical masses stand at all as the bricks stand. ”

“ Brick glanced at Jean. She was leaning forward, looking at Martin, her hand raised as if to reach for his arm. Brick snapped a glance at Three Star and Bunty.
"Can't yuh talk?" gritted Martin.
Brick stooped and picked up a coiled rope beside the door-step, and turned to Martin.
"We'll tie up our visitors, pardner; then talk."
Martin relaxed and stepped forward.
"You'll pay for this!" snarled Bunty as the gag slipped from his mouth. "You can't tie up the sheriff——"
"Mebbe not," replied Brick, "but we'll do our little best. There's worse places for a rope than around your hands and feet. ”

“ The dress of the men is the brechan or plaid, 12 or 13 yards of narrow stuff wrapped round the middle and reaching to the knees, often girt round the waist, and in cold weather covering the whole body, even on the open hills, all night, and fastened on the shoulders with a broche: short stockings tied below the knee; truish, a genteeler kind of breeches, and stockings of one piece ”

“ He was caught in a reclining posture, his back firmly supported by a solid beam. Another lay across his breast, but he had been able to shrink a little away from it so that it no longer oppressed him, though it was immovable. A brace joining it at an angle had wedged him against a pile of boards on his left, fastening the arm on that side. His legs, slightly parted and straight along the ground, were covered upward to the knees with a mass of debris which towered above his narrow horizon. His head was as rigidly fixed as in a vise; he could move his eyes, his chin—no more. ”

“ A large bark cornucopia with bark strap-handle can be made and carried on the arm in place of a basket when off berrying.
Variations of circular, oblong, and rectangular bark dishes may be worked out from strips and rectangular pieces of birch bark, and all dishes can be turned into baskets by adding handles. When necessary to sew the edges of bark together, always have the bark wet and soft; then lap the edges and use a very coarse darning-needle with twine of inner-bark fibre or rootlets ”

“ The forecastle was deserted to a man, and the hillock of freight was again darkly seen peopled with crouching human forms. Just then the bark which had so long lain in a state of complete rest slowly and heavily raised its bows, as if laboring under its great and unusual burthen, while a sluggish swell passed beneath its entire length, lifting the whole mass, foot by foot, and passing away by the stern, to cast itself on the shores of Vaud. ”

“ Two lengths of the bark also reached cleverly from stem to stern, and thus required only one transverse seam on each side. There was an advantage in this arrangement, for where the birch-bark can only be obtained in small flakes, a great number of seams is a necessary consequence, and then it is extremely difficult to keep the canoe from leaking. Thanks to the fine birch-trees, that grew in abundance around, our boat-builders had procured the very best bark. ”

“ He told Brick that there was nobody he would sooner see win the thousand dollars.
Then came Topaz Tyler, and King invited him to join them. For a man who was already drunk Brick stood an amazing lot of liquor. Topaz and Cleeve mourned over the fact that they could not drink liquor as Brick could. It was a gift. They boasted over his ability, and Brick's chest swelled. Brick admitted that he was a wonder.
But finally a glass of liquor eluded him. Then he stalked it, cautiously. King Cleeve's foot was elevated on the bar-rail, his leg encased in a very expensive, pearl-colored trouser. ”

“ All that I could observe was that they laid them in two or three layers, and seemed very careful to make them everywhere of equal thickness, so that if any part of a piece of bark had been scraped too thin, another thin piece was laid over it, in order to render it of the same thickness as the rest. When laid out in this manner, a piece of cloth is eleven or twelve yards long, and not more than a foot broad, for as the longitudinal fibres are all laid lengthwise, they do not expect it to stretch in that direction, though they well know how considerably it will in the other. ”

“ The useful portion is the fibre of the inner bark, which in eastern countries is stripped from the stems in two long pieces, cleared of extraneous matter, dried, and assorted according to the fineness of the fibre, which depends in great measure upon the rapidity with which the plant grew. For weaving, the fibres, after being bleached, are slowly picked apart by the fingers into threads coarser or finer according to the intended fabric. ”

“ The dress of these people is very scanty, the men wearing the usual T-bandage of bark-cloth, but in some cases only a shell, or even going absolutely naked; while the women always wear some kind of girdle from which is suspended a small apron of bark or a fringe of leaves. ”

“ When gathering bark for rope or twine making purposes it is always well to bear in mind that the outer or true bark, yielding little useful fibre, is, however, applicable to a variety of useful purposes, as the above illustration, representing a number of articles formed from outside bark, will show. ”

“ One wooden brace and two iron braces are to be put in, as shown upon the plan hereto annexed. The wooden brace is to be of one piece, or of two pieces well bolted together, of selected lumber, free from knots and other imperfections, squared, and measuring 6 by 8 inches in 337 cross section. The iron braces are to be of 1 inch diameter, best quality wrought-iron rods. The bearing plates, four to each rod, are to be not less than 10 inches in diameter, of sufficient strength, and securely and permanently fastened to the braces. ”

“ If the bricklayer, while unroofing a house, be observed, he will be seen to give to the slates which he throws down a whirling motion, at a certain angle, which ensures their falling edgeways on the ground, and thus preserves them from fracture. ”

“ Sometimes the rope-maker prefers to separate the fibres by chewing the bark, which is thought to have an agreeable flavor. When a sufficient quantity of fibre has been prepared, the workwoman seats herself on the ground, takes two yarns of fibre, and rolls them with the palm of her hand upon the thigh. She then brings them together, gives them a quick roll in the opposite direction, and thus makes a two-stranded rope with a rapidity that could hardly be conceived, seeing that no tools of any kind are used. ”

“ A long slit is then made in the bark of the stock, with a cross slit at the top, and, the bark being gently raised at each of the corners made by the intersection of the long slit and the horizontal slit, the piece of bark with the bud attached is carefully introduced under the bark of the stock, which is closed over it, and bound tightly with a bit of bast mat, in order that the bark containing the new bud may be pressed as closely to the wood of the stock as possible. ”

“ Another good device is the “briar,” [279] which is made of good iron and has curved thorns as hard as steel with a barb on every thorn; and the chain, from which it hangs, as high up as a man can reach must be made of spiked links, so that it can be neither held nor hewn; higher up any kind of rope that seems suitable may be used, only, it must be firm and strong. ”