Stuyvesant Part 17

"Why, it is to go upon the loft, in the hen-house," said Phonny, "though I don't see what good it will do, to go up there."

"So it is settled, that _you_ are going to have the hen-house," said Wallace, looking toward Stuyvesant.

"Yes," said Stuyvesant.

Here there was another long pause. Wallace was looking at the ladder.

He observed how carefully Stuyvesant was making it. He saw that the cross-bars were all exactly of a length, and he knew that they must have been pretty accurately measured. While Wallace was looking on, Stuyvesant was measuring off the distances upon the side pieces of the ladder, so as to have the steps of equal length. Wallace observed that he did this all very carefully.

Wallace then looked back to Phonny's work. He saw that Phonny was guessing his way along. The holes were not equidistant from each other, and then they were not at the same distance from the edge of the board. As he had advanced along the line, he had drawn gradually nearer and nearer to the edge, and, what was a still greater difficulty, the holes in the lower board, which was to form the bottom of the cage, since their places too had been guessed at, did not correspond with those above, so that the wires, when they came to be put in, inclined some this way, and some that. In some places the wires came very near together, and in others the s.p.a.ces between them were so wide, that Wallace thought that the squirrel, if by any chance he should ever get put into the cage, would be very likely to squeeze his way out.

Then, besides, Phonny had not measured his wires in respect to length, but had cut them off of various lengths, taking care however not to have any of them too short. The result was that the ends of the wires projected to various distances above the board, presenting a ragged and unworkmanlike appearance.

Wallace was silent while he was looking at these things. He was thinking of the difference between the two boys. The train of thought which was pa.s.sing through his mind was somewhat as follows.

Stuyvesant is younger than Phonny, and he was brought up in a city, and yet he seems a great deal more of a man; which is very strange. In the first place he takes a great deal more interest in the hens, which are useful and productive animals, than he does in the squirrel, which is a mere plaything. Then he plans his work carefully, considers how much he can probably accomplish himself, and undertakes no more. He plans, he calculates, he measures, and then proceeds steadily and perseveringly till he finishes.

In the midst of these reflections, Wallace was called away by Phonny, as follows.

"Cousin Wallace, I wish you would finish my cage for me. I am tired of boring all these holes, and besides I can't bore them straight."

Wallace looked at the work a moment in uncertainty. He did not like to throw away his own time in finishing an undertaking so clumsily begun, and on the other hand, he did not like very well to refuse to help Phonny out of his difficulties. He finally concluded to undertake the work. So he took the cage down from the bench and put it upon the floor; he borrowed the iron square and the compa.s.ses from Stuyvesant; he ruled a line along the top of the box at the right distance from the edge, and marked off places for the holes, half an inch apart, along this line, p.r.i.c.king in, at the places for the holes, deep, with one of the points of the compa.s.s. When this had all been done he went on boring the holes.

Stuyvesant was now ready to nail the cross-bars to the side pieces of the ladder. He asked Phonny where he kept his nails. Phonny showed him a box where there was a great quant.i.ty of nails of all sizes, some crooked and some straight, some whole and some broken, and all mixed up in confusion with a ma.s.s of old iron, such as rings, parts of hinges, old locks and fragments of keys. Stuyvesant selected from this ma.s.s a nail, of the size that he thought was proper, and then went to his ladder to apply it, to see whether it would do.

"It is too large," said Phonny.

"No," said Stuyvesant, "it is just right. I want the nail to go through and come out on the other side, so that I can clinch it."

"You can't clinch such nails as these," said Phonny. "They are cut nails, and they will break off if you try to clinch them."

"But I shall soften them first," said Stuyvesant.

"Soften them!" said Phonny, "how can you do that?"

"By putting them in the fire," said Stuyvesant.

"He can't soften them, can he, Wallace?" said Phonny.

"Yes," said Wallace, "he can soften them so that they will clinch."

This was true. What are called cut-nails, are made by machinery. They are cut from flat-bars or plates of iron, almost red-hot, by a ma.s.sive and ponderous engine carried by water. At the same instant that the nail is cut off from the end of the plate by the cutting part of the engine, the end of it is flattened into a head by another part, which comes up suddenly and compresses the iron at that end with prodigious force. The nail is then dropped, and it falls down, all hot, into a box made to receive it below.

The prodigious pressure to which the hot iron is subjected in the process of making cut-nails, seems as it were to press the particles of iron closer together, and make the metal more compact and hard.

The consequence is, that such nails are very stiff, and if bent much, they break off. This is no disadvantage, provided that the wood to be nailed is such that the nail is to be driven straight into the substance of it to its whole length. In fact, this hardness and stiffness is an advantage, for, in consequence of these properties, the nail is less likely to bend under the hammer.

When, however, the nailing to be done is of such a kind that it becomes necessary that the nail should pa.s.s through the wood so as to come out upon the other side, to be clinched there, the stiffness of the iron in a cut-nail const.i.tutes a serious difficulty; for the end of the nail where it comes through, instead of bending over and sinking into the wood, as it ought to do, at first refuses to bend at all, and then when the workman attempts to force it to bond by dint of heavier blows with the hammer, it breaks off entirely.

To remedy this difficulty, it is found best to heat nails intended for clinching before driving them. By heating the iron red hot, the metal seems to expand to its original condition of ductile iron, and it loses the extreme hardness and stiffness which was given to it by the force and compression of the nail-making machine.

Stuyvesant had seen a carpenter in New York heating some nails on one occasion, and he had asked him the reason. He, therefore, understood the whole process, and his plan was now, after selecting his nails, to go and heat them red-hot in the kitchen-fire.

He made a little calculation first in respect to the number of nails that he should want. There were six cross-bars. These bars were to be nailed at both ends. This would make twelve nailings. Stuyvesant concluded that he would have four nails at each nailing, and multiplying twelve by four, he found that forty-eight was the number of the nails that he should require. To be sure to have enough, he counted out fifty-two. Some might break, and perhaps some would be lost in the fire.

Phonny felt a considerable degree of interest in Stuyvesant's plan of softening the nails, and so he left Wallace to go on boring the holes, while he went with Stuyvesant into the house.

"You never can get so many nails out of the fire in the world," said Phonny. "They will be lost in the ashes."

"I shall put them on the shovel," said Stuyvesant.

When they got into the kitchen, Stuyvesant went to Dorothy, who was still ironing at a table near the window, and asked her if he might use her shovel and her fire to heat some nails.

"Certainly," said Dorothy. "I will go and move the flat-irons out of the way for you."

Stuyvesant was always very particular whenever he went into the kitchen, to treat Dorothy with great respect. He regarded the kitchen as Dorothy's peculiar and proper dominion, and would have considered it very rude and wrong to have been noisy in it, or to take possession of, and use without her leave, the things which were under her charge there. Dorothy observed this, and was very much pleased with it, and as might naturally be expected, she was always glad to have Stuyvesant come into the kitchen, and do any thing that he pleased there.

There was a large forestick lying across the andirons, with a burning bed of coals below. Directly in front of these coals was a row of flat-irons. Stuyvesant put his nails upon a long-handled shovel, and Dorothy moved away one of the flat-irons, so that he could put the shovel, with the nails upon it, in among the burning coals.

"Now," said he, "it will take some time for them to get hot, and I will go and clear out the floor of the hen-house in the meanwhile."

"Well," said Phonny, "I will help you."

"Only," said Stuyvesant, turning to Dorothy, "will you look at the nails when you take up your irons, and if you see that they get red-hot, take the shovel out from the coals and set it down somewhere on the hearth to cool?"

"Yes," said Dorothy, "but what are you going to heat the nails for?"

"To take the stiffness out of them," said Stuyvesant.

"To take the stiffness out?" replied Dorothy. "What do you wish to do that for?"

"So that I can clinch them," replied Stuyvesant, "and I should like to have you take them off the fire as soon as you see that they are red-hot."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOROTHY'S FIRE.]

"Yes," said Dorothy, "I will."

So Phonny and Stuyvesant went away, while Dorothy resumed her ironing.

They got a wheel-barrow and a rake, and went out to the hen-house.

They raked the floor all over, drawing out the old straw, sticks, &c., to the door. They then with a fork pitched this rubbish into the wheel-barrow, and wheeled it out, and made a heap of it in a clear place at some distance from the buildings, intending to set it on fire. There were four wheel-barrow loads of it in all.

They then went into the barn and brought out a quant.i.ty of hay, and sprinkled it all over the floor of the hen-house, which made the apartment look extremely neat and comfortable. They then brought out another fork-full of hay and pitched it up upon the loft.

"There!" said Stuyvesant, "now when we have got our ladder done, we will climb up and spread it about."

"Hark!" said Phonny.

"What is that?" said Stuyvesant.