[8] For description and diagrams see “The Outdoor Handy Book.”
[10] Toe-nailing, or foot-nailing, consists in driving the nails diagonally or slantingly down through the ends of the beams to the sill, in place of nailing through from the top down to the sill.
The muffled sound of voices, interrupted by peals of hollow laughter, issuing from the apparently solid earth, is a sufficiently startling phenomenon of itself; but when a group of boys and a dog suddenly emerge from the ground it is calculated to induce the most prosaic of persons to believe that the gnomes of fairy stories are, after all, living realities. For the peace of mind of all who may hear the mysterious voices and see the apparitions just described, it may be well to state that the gnomes are human and are members of the Bank-Swallows’ Club, and if you hear their voices under your feet it is because you happen to be standing on the roof of their underground club-house.
use only such magic as their healthy brains and sturdy arms can supply, and if they “cast a charm” upon you it will be one of the most delightful of all spells--the charm of boyhood!
of the bank, concealed by a trap-door, or with an entrance from the hillside, as shown in the diagrams. If the reader chooses the first style he has simply to follow the diagrams here given, and reversing the proportions of the ventilator and entrance (Fig. 79), make an entrance of the vent and a vent of the entrance.
must be placed high enough above the surface of the ground to prevent the water from running into the house in wet weather, and a ladder should be provided, by which the boys may climb in and out of the house with ease.
The house should be big enough to allow room for a table and some chairs, stools, or benches, and the roof be so arranged that the tallest boy in the crowd may stand erect, with no fear of bumping his head.
The furniture must be placed inside the frame as soon as the floor is laid, because after the house is finished the entrance is too small to admit the passage of any object of more bulk than a creeping boy.
The hardest work is digging the foundation in the hillside, but if six or seven boys take a hand at this, “for the fun of the thing,” the work is soon done.