Two Little Savages Read online

  VII

  The Shanty

  He had none but the poorest of tools, but he set about building ashanty. He was not a resourceful boy. His effort to win the bookhad been an unusual one for him, as his instincts were not at allcommercial. When that matter came to the knowledge of the HomeGovernment, he was rebuked for doing "work unworthy of a gentleman'sson" and forbidden under frightful penalties "ever again to resort tosuch degrading ways of raising money."

  They gave him no money, so he was penniless. Most boys would havepossessed themselves somehow of a good axe and spade. He had neither.An old plane blade, fastened to a stick with nails, was all the axeand spade he had, yet with this he set to work and offset its poornessas a tool by dogged persistency. First, he selected the quietestspot near the spring--a bank hidden by a mass of foliage. He knew nospecial reason for hiding it, beyond the love of secrecy. He hadread in some of his books "how the wily scouts led the way through apathless jungle, pulled aside a bough and there revealed a comfortabledwelling that none without the secret could possibly have discovered,"so it seemed very proper to make it a complete mystery--a sort ofsecret panel in the enchanted castle--and so picture himself as thewily scout leading his wondering companions to the shanty, though, ofcourse, he had not made up his mind to reveal his secret to any one.He often wished he could have the advantage of Rad's strong arms andefficacious tools; but the workshop incident was only one of many thattaught him to leave his brother out of all calculation.

  Mother Earth is the best guardian of a secret, and Yan with his crudespade began by digging a hole in the bank. The hard blue clay made thework slow, but two holidays spent in steady labour resulted in a holeseven feet wide and about four feet into the bank.

  In this he set about building the shanty. Logs seven or eight feetlong must be got to the place--at least twenty-five or thirty wouldbe needed, and how to cut and handle them with his poor axe was aquestion. Somehow, he never looked for a better axe. The half-formednotion that the Indians had no better was sufficient support, and hestruggled away bravely, using whatever ready sized material he couldfind. Each piece as he brought it was put into place. Some boys wouldhave gathered the logs first and built it all at once, but thatwas not Yan's way; he was too eager to see the walls rise. He hadpainfully and slowly gathered logs enough to raise the walls threerounds, when the question of a door occurred to him. This, of course,could not be cut through the logs in the ordinary way; that requiredthe best of tools. So he lifted out all the front logs except thelowest, replacing them at the ends with stones and blocks to sustainthe sides. This gave him the sudden gain of two logs, and helped therest of the walls that much. The shanty was now about three feet high,and no two logs in it were alike: some were much too long, most werecrooked and some were half rotten, for the simple reason that thesewere the only ones he could cut. He had exhausted the logs in theneighbourhood and was forced to go farther. Now he remembered seeingone that might do, half a mile away on the home trail (they werealways "trails"; he never called them "roads" or "paths"). He wentafter this, and to his great surprise and delight found that it wasone of a dozen old cedar posts that had been cut long before andthrown aside as culls, or worthless. He could carry only one at atime, so that to bring each one meant a journey of a mile, and thepost got woefully heavy each time before that mile was over. Toget those twelve logs he had twelve miles to walk. It took severalSaturdays, but he stuck doggedly to it. Twelve good logs completedhis shanty, making it five feet high and leaving three logs over forrafters. These he laid flat across, dividing the spaces equally. Overthem he laid plenty of small sticks and branches till it was thicklycovered. Then he went down to a rank, grassy meadow and, with hisknife, cut hay for a couple of hours. This was spread thickly on theroof, to be covered with strips of Elm bark then on top of all hethrew the clay dug from the bank, piling it well back, stamping on it,and working it down at the edges. Finally, he threw rubbish and leavesover it, so that it was confused with the general tangle.

  Thus the roof was finished, but the whole of the front was open. Hedreaded the search for more logs, so tried a new plan. He found,first, some sticks about six feet long and two or three inchesthrough. Not having an axe to sharpen and drive them, he dug pairs ofholes a foot deep, one at each end and another pair near the middle ofthe front ground log.

  Into each of these he put a pair of upright sticks, leading up to theeave log, one inside and one outside of it, then packed the eartharound them in the holes. Next, he went to the brook-side and cut anumber of long green willow switches about half an inch thick at thebutt. These switches he twisted around the top of each pair of stakesin a figure 8, placing them to hold the stake tight against the bottomand top logs at the front.

  Down by the spring he now dug a hole and worked water and claytogether into mortar, then with a trowel cut out of a shingle, andmortar carried in an old bucket, he built a wall within the stakes,using sticks laid along the outside and stones set in mud till thefront was closed up, except a small hole for a window and a large holefor a door.

  Now he set about finishing the inside. He gathered moss in the woodsand stuffed all the chinks in the upper parts, and those next theground he filled with stones and earth. Thus the shanty was finished;but it lacked a door.

  The opening was four feet high and two feet wide, so in the woodshedat home he cut three boards, each eight inches wide and four feethigh, but he left at each end of one a long point. Doing this at homegave him the advantage of a saw. Then with these and two shorterboards, each two feet long and six inches wide, he sneaked out toGlenyan, and there, with some nails and a stone for a hammer, hefastened them together into a door. In the ground log he pecked a holebig enough to receive one of the points and made a corresponding holein the under side of the top log. Then, prying up the eave log, he putthe door in place, let the eave log down again, and the door was hung.A string to it made an outside fastening when it was twisted around aprojecting snag in the wall, and a peg thrust into a hole within madean inside fastener. Some logs, with fir boughs and dried grass, formeda bunk within. This left only the window, and for lack of better coverhe fastened over it a piece of muslin brought from home. But findingits dull white a jarring note, he gathered a quart of butternuts, andwatching his chance at home, he boiled the cotton in water with thenuts and so reduced it to a satisfactory yellowish brown.

  His final task was to remove all appearance of disturbance and tofully hide the shanty in brush and trailing vines. Thus, after weeksof labour, his woodland home was finished. It was only five feet highinside, six feet long and six feet wide--dirty and uncomfortable--butwhat a happiness it was to have it.

  Here for the first time in his life he began to realize somethingof the pleasure of single-handed achievement in the line of a greatambition.