A quick exclamation from the scouts drowned the remainder of his words.
"G--e--e!" came hissing from a score of lips in a long sigh of rapture.
It was followed by a bedlam of excited chatter.
"The greatest thing I ever heard!" exploded Ted MacIlvaine, enthusiastically. "A log-cabin, fellows--think of it! A troop cabin!"
With eyes shining, he stepped suddenly forward and faced the crowd.
"Three cheers for Mr. Grimstone, fellows!" he cried; "and make "em good ones!"
When the last echo had died away, a faint touch of pink tinged the old man"s leathery brown skin. But his frown abated nothing of its fierceness as he turned to the scoutmaster.
"Tut-tut--nonsense!" he grumbled. "I"ll leave it to you, then; you"ll be responsible, mind! I s"pose you know what trees to take out--or you ought to. Nothin" over eight inches, remember, an" not a sc.r.a.p o" rubbish left lyin" around when you"re done."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned abruptly and stalked off, a lean, bent, shabby figure with a nose like an eagle"s beak and fiercely beetling brows. To the boys staring after him he was an angel in disguise.
CHAPTER XI
ELKHORN CABIN
All that week the members of Troop Five could talk or think of little else save the wonderful log-cabin which was to arise like magic on the sh.o.r.e of Crystal Lake. That, at least, was the way many of them pictured it as going up, but at the meeting on Monday night Mr. Curtis gave a little talk in which he pointed out that the undertaking could only be carried through by a good deal of hard, persistent labor, which would undoubtedly grow more or less tiresome before the end was reached.
"Sat.u.r.day is really the only day when we can all get together," he said, "and there won"t be many of them before the snow comes to put a stop to things. If we mean to enjoy it this winter, we"ve got to give every spare minute of our time to the work. There can"t be any slowing down or backing out. Now, if you"d rather wait till spring, when we can take things more easily--"
"No, _sir_!" came in a swift, united chorus of protest. "We want to start now. We want to have it this winter."
The scoutmaster smiled a little. "That"s the way I feel myself," he said; "so we"ll consider that part settled. We"ll meet here, then, next Sat.u.r.day morning at half past eight, prepared to put in a strenuous day. I"ll tell the different patrol-leaders what tools are needed, and they can look them up during the week. There"s another thing. We"ll have to buy considerable material, such as cement, boards for the floor and roof, window- and door-casings, and the like. That money should be earned by the troop, and I think it would be a good plan for Ward, MacIlvaine, and Phelps to meet at my house to-morrow afternoon or evening to discuss ways and means. Is that agreeable?"
It proved to be, when the question was put to vote and decided unanimously in the affirmative. The meeting ended with the enthusiasm over the project unchecked by this placing of it on a strictly methodical and businesslike basis.
That enthusiasm continued throughout the week, and when the crowd a.s.sembled on Sat.u.r.day, Bennie Rhead, who was housed by a bad cold, was the only absentee. The others, laden with axes, saws, hatchets, an adz or two and some wide wood-chisels until they resembled a gang of pioneers, were in high spirits and eager to begin work. Their interest was heightened by the production of a plan Mr. Curtis had drawn up, showing a cabin twenty by sixteen feet, with a big stone fireplace opposite the door, two windows, and a double tier of bunks, one on each side of the entrance.
During the week the scoutmaster had gone over the ground with Mr.
Grimstone and marked certain trees which were to be taken out, mainly white pines from six to eight inches in diameter that were too closely crowded to develop properly, so there was no delay in starting work.
Immediately on reaching the point, the entire troop was divided into groups of three or four, each under the leadership of a boy who knew how to handle an ax. As soon as he felled a tree the others trimmed off the scanty limbs, sawed it into proper lengths, and stacked these up in piles on either side of the glade.
By noon the piles had a.s.sumed such proportions that after luncheon half of the wood-cutters were called off and set to notching the ends of the log, about eight inches from the end, and this was work in which everybody could take part. The notches were made on opposite sides of the log, about eight inches from the end, and were a quarter the thickness of the timber in depth. The logs averaged pretty much the same diameter, so that, when fitted together at right angles with the under notch on one side resting in the upper notch on the other, the whole length was snugly in contact, with scarcely any c.h.i.n.ks to be filled in.
"That"s the great advantage of pine," said Mr. Curtis, when he had explained the method to the boys. "Almost any hard wood will have b.u.mps and twists in it, but the trunks of pines growing as thickly as these are practically straight from one end to the other."
"Are we going to build up the four walls solid, and then cut holes for the door and windows and fireplace?" asked Paul Trexler, who had evidently been reading up on the construction of cabins.
The scoutmaster shook his head. "That"s the way many of them are made, but I could never quite see its advantage. It"s a mean job, sawing the openings, and the full-length logs are lots harder to handle than shorter ones, to say nothing of the waste of timber. Of course there"ll have to be full-length ones under and over the windows and over the door; but if we measure accurately, there"s no reason why we shouldn"t leave these openings as we go along, and so save time and labor. Spiking the door- and window-casings to the logs will hold them together firmly enough."
The cabin had already been staked out, and when, presently, the lower logs were set in place it was amazing what a difference the sight of that simple rectangle made. Instantly the visualizing of their dream became nearer and more concrete to the boys, its possibilities more apparent. They could see at a glance its size and shape and s.p.a.ciousness.
Entering through the door s.p.a.ce, one could say that here would be the bunks, there the windows, and that gap opposite, the fireplace. It stimulated every one to renewed efforts. Blisters and tired muscles were forgotten in the eager desire to get another tier of logs into position. When Mr. Grimstone stalked into view, toward the middle of the afternoon, he was greeted by urgent invitations to "Come ahead and see how the cabin"s going up!"
The old man responded stiffly, but it was impossible to maintain that att.i.tude long in the face of the boisterous, whole-hearted enthusiasm of twenty boys. Inside of ten minutes he was chuckling over the awkward efforts of one scout to handle an adz and showing him the proper method.
Within an hour, one would never have known him for the crusty, crabbed recluse who had been at odds with the Hillsgrove boys for more than a generation. He had shown the scouts a splendid place to get rocks for the fireplace, and told them how to make, with two poles and some cross saplings, a sort of litter for carrying the larger ones; he had made the rounds of the wood-choppers and watched them interestedly, criticizing, suggesting, and even cracking a dry joke or two at their expense. But his interest seemed to center in the building operations, to which he finally returned. When Mr. Curtis followed him a little later, he paused at the edge of the glade, a quiet smile curving his lips.
The old man stood amid a group of boys who were notching the logs. He had evidently been showing them some improvement on their methods, for as the scoutmaster stood there, he heard one of them say: "Is that right, Mr. Grimstone? Is that the way you mean?"
The old man nodded. "You"ve got it, son; you"ll find that"ll save you a lot of time."
"Say, Mr. Grimstone," piped up Harry Vedder, from the other side of the cabin, "won"t you come over here, please?"
"You wait a minute, Dumpling!" admonished Bob Gibson. "I"m next. He promised to give me some points about fitting "em together."
The scoutmaster"s smile deepened as he came forward. "I guess I"ll have to appoint you building foreman, Mr. Grimstone," he said. "Looks as if you knew a lot more about log-cabins than I ever will."
From force of habit the other frowned, but his eyes were twinkling. "I"d orter, I reckon," he returned. "I built enough of "em when I was loggin"
up state. If it wan"t for this pesky arm--"
"That needn"t interfere. You won"t have to lift a finger. The boys are only too ready to work when they know how. Seriously, if you could oversee the building part, it would help us a lot. Then I could give all my time to getting out the logs, cleaning up, and looking after the chimney."
"I s"pose I can," observed the old man, briefly. "I ain"t fit for much else jest now--an" the sooner you"re done, the sooner the mess"ll be cleared up."
So it was arranged, and the following Sat.u.r.day found Mr. Grimstone promptly on the job. There was no question of his pleasure in the work, in spite of the occasional grumblings to which he gave vent in odd moments when he was not entirely lost in the novel occupation. To these the boys paid scant attention. They seemed to realize that they were merely superficial and really meant nothing, and from the first they got on admirably with the old man. They even joshed and joked with him, and before long he was retorting with sundry dry comments that sent them off into shouts of laughter.
Under his supervision the cabin grew apace. When the logs were all cut and carried in, Mr. Curtis devoted himself mainly to the stone chimney which, though necessarily slower and more difficult work, progressed very well. The opening was made to take four-foot logs, and the stone facing filled up more than half that end of the cabin. The boys could not wait for its completion to give it a baptism of fire. When the sides were up three feet or more, they kindled a blaze and cooked lunch there--the first meal to be prepared in the cabin.
Another celebration marked the setting of the ridge-pole; and when the roof was laid, it seemed as if the end was actually in sight. In the meantime, the important detail of earning money to pay for necessary materials had not been lost sight of. It had been decided that the scouts should go about this either singly or in groups, as they preferred. A number of suggestions were made by Mr. Curtis, but it was impressed upon the troop that there must be no appeal for either work or money in any way that would in the least savor of begging. Whatever they did must be real work, the sort that people wanted done whether or not a scout cabin was in process of erection; and they must always give value received.
The methods resorted to seemed endless. Three boys who were adept with saw, hammer, and plane undertook the building of bird-houses, and their products were so well made and attractive that they had a hard time filling orders. Others raked up lawns, tended furnaces, cleaned cellars, sawed wood, and did a score of other varied ch.o.r.es. One entire patrol took up the subscription proposition of a big publishing-house and devoted themselves to it with such ardor that they cleared up nearly as much as all the rest together.
It can safely be said that few members of the troop had many spare minutes in the month that followed the starting of the cabin. There was no time for sports or games or reading stories. The public library was deserted. Of course there were a few who tired of the constant pressure and managed to escape a Sat.u.r.day"s labor by some flimsy pretext, but, on the whole, they stuck to it with remarkable perseverance. And when the last stone was in place on the chimney-top, the last c.h.i.n.k filled, the last nail driven, there wasn"t a boy in all that twenty-five who didn"t feel a thrill of proud achievement at the result of their united efforts.
CHAPTER XII
A CRY IN THE NIGHT
Very seldom does reality come up to expectation, but this was one of the rare exceptions. It was the very cabin of their dreams that rose, a concrete fact, before their admiring gaze. As they stood off surveying the walls of neatly fitting logs, the sloping roof where a covering of split saplings concealed the useful, waterproof tar-paper, the square, workmanlike chimney rising beyond, there was a moment of almost awed silence, broken presently by Court Parker.
"Some cabin!" he exclaimed, voicing the feeling of them all. "It doesn"t seem as if we could have built that ourselves, fellows."
"We did, though--we and Mr. Curtis and Mr. Grimstone!" jubilated Ted MacIlvaine. "Gee! Think of its being finished, and think of its being ours! Come on inside."
They went with a rush and broke into eager loud-voiced admiration of their handiwork. They tried the bunks, stout frameworks of pine with lengths of heavy canvas stretched tightly over them, and p.r.o.nounced them better than any mattress, clamorously upheld the merit of one piece of work over another, and discussed the need of a table, chairs, and various other conveniences. Of course a fire was started, and when the red blaze roared up the chimney they rejoiced at the perfection of the draught. Then began a strenuous altercation as to what the cabin should be called which bade fair to end in a deadlock, owing to the wide variety of suggestions.
Neither the scoutmaster nor Mr. Grimstone took part in this. The former believed in letting the boys settle such questions unaided, while the old man so unaffectedly enjoyed the boys" delight that he simply sat in the background, silent, but with twinkling eyes. When a lull came in the dispute, however, he bethought himself of something.
"There"s a pair of elk horns down to the barn you boys may as well have,"
he remarked. "You can hang "em up over the fireplace for an ornament."