Scaling ladder

“ There has got to be a law passed to punish the hardware dealers for selling those step ladders that shut up like a jack-knife. A Ninth Street woman got onto one the other afternoon when it looked as though there was going to be a frost, to take her ivies down and carry them in the house. We don’t care how handsome a woman is naturally, you put a towel around her head and put her up on a step ladder about seven feet high, with a tomahawk in her left hand, trying to draw a big nail out of a post on a veranda, and she looks like thunder. ”

“ Then, having tested all my knots, I paid out my ladder from the window. No one was within sight along the lane. Downstairs they were at supper, for I heard the dining-room bell ring. Very cautiously I swung myself over the window ledge on my adventure. Now a rope ladder is an unsteady thing at the best of times; but when I swung myself on to this one it jumped about like a wild colt, banging the fire-irons against the wall, making noise enough to raise the town. I had to climb down it on the inner side, or I should have had Ephraim out to see what the matter was. ”

“ Karl therefore was not thinking of a rope-ladder.
Nevertheless it was actually about a ladder that he was thinking—not made of ropes, but of timber—of sides and rounds like any other ladder.
“What!” you will exclaim, “a ladder by which to scale the cliff! Why, you have told us that it was three hundred feet in sheer height? The longest ladder in the world would not reach a third of the way up such a precipice. Even a fireman’s ladder, that is made to reach to the tops of the highest houses, would be of no use for such a height as that?” ”

“ And every building, from the red church down to the smallest fish-barn, has a broad, slanting ladder which leads permanently to its roof, with a great iron hook at the end of a pole, always hung there ready to tear away blazing shingles or smouldering roof-turf. ”

“ In effecting repairs to the exteriors, painting, and the like, the workers are confronted with many difficulties, for the simple expedient of erecting ladders as in our cities is denied to them. A ladder would block the whole pavement. So they have to reverse the old order, and instead of placing the ladder firmly on the ground and leaning it against the wall, they plant the foot of it in the angle of the pavement and the wall and lean it away from the building, securing the upper and projecting end by ropes to a window. The worker on the ladder is thus between the ladder and the wall. ”

“ Step-ladders from six to ten feet long are more convenient to get up into the middle of the tree than almost any other kind of ladder. Commercial apple trees have open tops to admit sunshine. For this reason, straight ladders are not much used. It is necessary to have ladders built so they will support themselves. ”

“ Behind them appear a man's head and a pair of vigorous arms. One hand holds the nail, the other swings the hammer that strikes it until the boards are firmly nailed down. The "flying" scaffold is ready. Thus the builder calls it, for whom it may become a bridge to heaven, without his desiring it. Then from the scaffold the ladder is built and, if the tower roof is very high, ladder upon ladder. Nothing holds it together but iron hooks, nothing holds it firm but two pairs of hands on the scaffold and, at the top, the broach-post against which it leans. ”

“ I selected two of them which seemed sufficiently strong and broke off all the branches, which I used as rungs, tying them to the poles with grass and strips from my handkerchief and shirt as best I could.
It was not a very workmanlike-looking ladder when I finally got through with it. I leaned it against a tree to test it and it wabbled considerably. It was more like a rope ladder than a wooden one, but I strengthened it here and there and decided that it would probably serve the purpose.
I kept the ladder in the woods all day and could hardly wait until dark to make the supreme test. ”

“ A ladder was at length procured, but such was the power of the flames that all hesitated to ascend and risk what seemed to be certain death. Fearful pause! When all hope appeared to be lost, a young man rushed from the crowd, removed his coat, which he threw to a bystander, and, with the agility of a bricklayer’s labourer, ascended the ladder. ”

“ It would be possible for a man to scale a wall with such a ladder.”
“He could jerk loose the hooks in an instant, too, Dad. The ladder would fit into a small suitcase, or even his pocket!”
[141]
“There’s one objection to your theory, Penny. How could such a ladder be raised to the window ledge? It naturally would be limp.”
“That part has me puzzled, I’ll admit.”
“I never even heard of a silken ladder,” said Mrs. Weems doubtfully.
“I once saw one being made,” declared Penny with deliberate emphasis. “At a Japanese Shop on Dorr Street.” ”

“ Others there are who indeed obtain the ladder’s summit, but are doomed to crawl perpetually up and down the degrees. These are the unfortunates who carry hods to those master bricklayers who have bounded up the ladder with airy strides, or better still, have been born at the top of the ladder. Poor hodmen! they make dictionaries, draw acts of parliament, cram the boy-senator for his maiden speech, form Phidias’ rough clay-sketch into a shapely, polished marble bust, shade with Indian ink Archimedes’ rough draught for the new pump or the tubular bridge, and fill in Sir Joshua’s backgrounds. ”

“ In the small roof holes methods of construction are seen which would not be so practicable on the larger scale of the ladder holes after which they have been modeled. In these latter the sides are built up of masonry or adobe, but the framing around them is more like the usual coping over walls. The stone that, set on edge in the small openings built for the admission of light, forms a raised end never occurs in these. The ladder for access rests against the coping. ”

“ The rungs of such a “duck” ladder are merely nailed to the outside if the ladder is required for temporary purposes only; but as we are of course aiming at the construction of a thing made to last, we shall go to the trouble of “notching-in” each rung (see Fig. 10) , so that the sides shall take the weight directly, and the nails only have to keep the rungs firmly in position. The objection to notching-in is that it reduces the strength of the ladder, which is of course only that of the wood between the bottom of the notches and the plain side. ”

“ If there had been a ladder applied to the front of the house, even one of the vertiginous perpendiculars employed by painters and roofers and sometimes left standing overnight, he would have managed somehow, astride of the window-sill, to compass by outstretched leg and arm that mode of descent. If there had been some such uncanny thing as he had found in his room at hotels, a workable fire-escape in the form of notched cable or a canvas shoot, he would have availed himself of it as a proof—well, of his present delicacy. ”

“ Ladders used as a means of communication in, on, or about a scaffold or building under construction or repair should rise at least 6 feet above the place they give access to.
When climbing a ladder a man’s arms are at about right angles to his body, but to land it is easier and therefore safer to raise them somewhat higher. Therefore the limit of 6 feet would be174 safe except to a tall man. A piece of wood or rope nailed at the top of a short ladder would however give notice that there was no higher hand hold. ”

“ The top of the ladder is a desirable place, and we all like to get there, but having got there we find that the foothold is precarious and that the drop is deep. A fall from the lower rungs of the ladder does us no harm. ”

“ There is a tiny vignette of Blake's, a woodcut, I think, in which one sees a ladder set up to the crescent moon from a bald and bare corner of the globe. There are two figures that seem to be conversing together; on the ladder itself, just setting his foot to the lowest rung, is the figure of a man who is beginning to climb in a furious hurry. ”

“ We supported the broken part of the top ladder with a forked branch, and I took up my station on a ledge 15 feet down, to steady the things as they were lowered. Each man was roped for the descent, for the crazy ladders, the decayed woodwork, and the loose stones in the shaft all threatened disaster. At last all our paraphernalia was safe at the bottom, and now a muddy progress began through a narrow, dripping cleft into a low tunnel, that brought us, after many windings, to the top of a fourth [117] ladder. ”

“ His eyes fell on a ladder that led up from the floor to a niche in the left wall—a slit about forty feet high, a pool of darkness, shadowed from the thin tongue of flame that lit the room. Only half realizing what the slit was, Wes sprang forward and leaped up the ladder. A platform was built high up inside the niche, a place for a man to stand on. The American reached it, pressed himself forward, and peered through a tiny hole that was in the rock ahead. ”

“ The night was as black as jet; she could no longer see the sentinel opposite; the country spread out like a pool of ink. She strained her ear for an instant and made her decision. Passing near the window was an iron ladder, the bars fastened to the wall, which mounted from the wheel to the garret and formerly enabled the millers to reach certain machinery; afterward the mechanism had been altered, and for a long while the ladder had been hidden under the thick ivy which covered that side of the mill. ”

“ Ascending the ladder to the roof without meeting anyone, I climbed down the other ladder to the street. Many people were about and while a few especially the women and children, threw themselves on their faces or scampered into their houses at my approach, yet the majority merely prostrated themselves for a moment and then stood, supporting themselves in their ape-like way, and stared curiously at me. ”

“ They are dragging the ladder up the roof, and in a couple of minutes it will be in place, but that time is an eternity under such conditions. Just now, to remain means death. He sees one chance, takes the woman—she is a slight creature—in his arms, slips over the edge of the roof, and with feet braced on a ledge, exerts his whole strength to maintain his position, while the encouraging shouts of the firemen below give him hope. It is a picture for an artist—the race between life and death, between the greedy flames and the uplifting ladder, but the ladder wins. ”

“ At one end an iron hook projects at right angles from two to three feet. By the aid of this ladder one man can scale the side of a building by putting the hook over a window-sill above, climbing the ladder, and repeating the operation. If flames are coming from the window directly above, the window at the side is used, and the fireman has to swing into position by the aid of his ladder. Two men with two ladders can climb together much more speedily, as they take turns in steadying each other's ladders. ”

“ The quarters themselves were reached by means of a narrow ladder only, and this ladder was built in such a manner that not more than two persons could pass up or down at the same time, or one person up and one down simultaneously, thereby guarding against a concerted rush in event of an escape being planned. ”

“ Extension ladders are useful where, owing to the varying heights of the work, different lengths of ladders are required. The two halves of the ladder are connected in various ways, but if well made they are easily raised and lowered. They should be used only for the very lightest work, such as painting, cleaning down, &c. ”

“ Where there is no room for a descending or an ascending zigzag, it is better not to attempt to make steps for the side-length of the foot, but to descend or ascend face inward, cutting with one hand a perpendicular ladder of ‘pigeon-holes,’ or steps shaped like small church apses, to be used both by the boot-toes and the hands. For men on claws a vertical ladder of nicks, for the fingers and the two front points of the claw, is all that is needed. ”

“ They flung up ladders in the face of the flames. They risked their lives every step they took, and brought out one after another, working steadily, grimly, rapidly. And none were braver among them all than Mark Carter and the minister, each working on the very top of a tall treacherous ladder, in the face of constant danger, bringing out one after another until the last. ”

“ The ladder-rack is constructed from pieces of curtain-pole and side uprights, six inches wide at the bottom and tapered to three inches at the top. The uprights are attached to the inside of the body frame, and the bars on which the ladders rest are let into holes in these uprights and keyed as shown at Fig. 8 A. The end of the bar is cut across with a saw, and when this is passed through a hole in the upright a wedge-shaped key is driven in the cut to spread the end of the bar and expand it so that it will hold. ”

“ Fig. 28
The workmen can now climb higher, driving in hooks round the sides, and under the rungs of the ladder alternately, lashings being made at each point. A wooden block is placed36 under the top end of the last ladder and fixed as before. The hoisting rope, which has been kept taut meanwhile, is now loosened and the process repeated.
The ladders rise in this manner until the coping of the shaft is reached. Here, owing to the projection of the cap which throws the ladders out of line, it is impossible to lash the top ladder to the lower. ”

“ Long rungs are loosely slipped into the holes in the side pieces, and the security formerly gained by taking up the entire ladder is now obtained, partially at least, by the removal of the rungs. The boring of the side pieces and the employment of loose rungs seriously interferes with the stability of the structure, as means must be provided to prevent the spreading apart of the side pieces. The Zuni architect has met this difficulty by prolonging the poles of the ladder and attaching a cross piece near their upper ends to hold them together. ”

“ I've only to smash the panels close to the bolts, put my arm through the hole, and draw the bolts back. Then, another blow on the spring lock when the firing is loudest, and we are in the hall. Should anything happen to me, you must know how to make your escape alone. Across the hall is a door leading to an iron ladder. That ladder leads to a trap-door. The trap-door is open. When you reach the roof, run westward toward a lighted building. ”