Rolf in the Woods

When the walls were five feet high, the doorway and window were cut through the logs, but leaving in each case one half of the log at the bottom of the needed opening. The top log was now placed, then rolled over bottom up, while half of its thickness was cut away to fit over the door: a similar cut out was made over the window. Two flat pieces of spruce were prepared for door jambs and two shorter ones for window jambs. Auger holes were put through, so as to allow an oak pin to be driven through the jamb into each log, and the doorway and window opening were done.

In one corner they planned a small fireplace, built of clay and stone. Not stone from the lake, as Rolf would have had it, but from the hillside; and why? Quonab said that the lake stone was of the water spirits, and would not live near fire, but would burst open; while the hillside stone was of the sun and fire spirit, and in the fire would add its heat.

The facts are that lake stone explodes when greatly heated and hill stone does not; and since no one has been able to improve upon Quonab’s explanation, it must stand for the present.

The plan of the fireplace was simple. Rolf had been present at the building of several, and the main point was to have the chimney large enough, and the narrowest point just above the fire.

The eaves logs, end logs, and ridge logs were soon in place; then came the cutting of small poles, spruce and tamarack, long enough to reach from ridge to eaves, and in sufficient number to completely cover the roof. A rank sedge meadow near by afforded plenty of coarse grass with which the poles were covered deeply; and lastly clay dug out with a couple of hand-made, axe-hewn wooden spades was thrown evenly on the grass to a depth of six inches; this, when trampled flat, made a roof that served them well.

The chinks of the logs when large were filled with split pieces of wood; when small they were plugged with moss. A door was made of hewn planks, and hinged very simply on two pins; one made by letting the plank project as a point, the other by nailing on a pin after the door was placed; both pins fitting, of course, into inch auger holes.

A floor was not needed, but bed bunks were, and in making these they began already to realize that the cabin was too small. But now after a week’s work it was done. It had a sweet fragrance of wood and moss, and the pleasure it gave to Rolf at least was something he never again could expect to find in equal measure about any other dwelling he might make.

Quonab laid the fire carefully, then lighted his pipe, sang a little crooning song about the “home spirits,” which we call “household gods,” walked around the shanty, offering the pipestem to each of the four winds in turn, then entering lighted the fire from his pipe, threw some tobacco and deer hair on the blaze, and the house-warming was ended.

Nevertheless, they continued to sleep in the tent they had used all along, for Quonab loved not the indoors, and Rolf was growing daily more of his mind.

Chapter 21. Rolf’s First Deer

Anxious to lose no fine day they had worked steadily on the shanty, not even going after the deer that were seen occasionally over the lake, so that now they were out of fresh meat, and Rolf saw a chance he long had looked for. “Quonab, I want to go out alone and get a deer, and I want your gun.”

“Ugh! you shall go. To-night is good.”