Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1884-06-19
NYE, THE HUMORIST.
An Attempt at Amateur Carpentering
With Peculiar Results.
From the Denver Opinion.l

From the Denver Opinionl
In my opinion every professional man
should keep chest oil carpenters tools in
his barn or shop, and busy himself at odd
hours with them in constructing the varied
articles that are always needed about the
house. There is a great deal of pleasure in
feeling your own independence of other
trades, and more especially of the carpen-
ter. Every now and then your wife will
want bracket put up in some corner or
other, and with your new bright saw and
glittering hammer you can put up one up
blanket lambrequin with infexible water
lilies sewed in it.
A man will, if he tries, readily learn to
do great many such things, and his wife
will brag about him to other ladies, and
they will make invidious comparisons be-
tween their husbands, who can't do any
thing of that kind whatever, and you who
are 80 handy"
Firstly, you buy set of amateur car
penter tools. You do not need to say that
you are an amateur The dealer will find
that out when you ask him for an easy
running broad axe, or green gage plumb
line. He will sell you a set of amateurs
tools that will be made of old sheet-irOn,
with Eastwood handles, and the saws will
double up like piece of stove-pipe.
After you have nailed board on the
fence successfully, yot will very naturally
desire to do something better, more diff
cult. You will probably try to erect a
parlOr table or rustic settee.
made a very handsome bracket last
week, and was naturally proud of it. In
fastening it together, if hadn't inadvert-
emily nailed it to the barn floor, guess
could have used it very well, but in tear
ing it loose from the barn, so that the two
could be used separately, ruined bracket
that was intended to serve as the base, as
it were, of lambreguin which cost So,
aside from the time expended on it.
During the month of March / built an
ice chest for this summer. 1t was not
handsome, but it was very roOmy and
would be very nice for the season of 1884,
l thought 1t worked pretty we'll through
March and April, but, as the weather be-
gins to warm up, that ice chest is about
the warmest place about the house. There
is actually glow of heat around that ice
chest that | don't notice elsewhere I've
shown it to several personal friends They
seem to think that it is not built tight
enough for an ice chest My brother look
ed at it yesterday, and said that his idea
of an ice chest was that it ought to be
tight enough at aeast to hold the larger
chunks of ice so that they would not
escape through the pores OF the ice box.
He says he never built one, but that it
stood to reason that a refrigerator like that
ought to be constructed so that it would
keep the cows out of it. YOu don't want
refrigerator that the cattle can get
through the cracks of and eat up your
strawberries on ice, he says.
A neighbOr of mine who once built hen
resort of laths, and now wears a thick
thumb nail that looks like Brazil nut as
a memento of the pullet corral, says my
ice chest is all right enough, only that it
is not suited to this climate. He thinks
that along Behring's Strait, during the hOl-
idays, my ice chest would work like
charm. And even here, he thought, if 1
could keep the fever out of my chest there
would be less pain.
l have made several other articles of
vertu this spring, to the construction of
which 1 have contributed good deal of
time and two finger nails. / have also
sawed into my leg two CT three times. The
leg, of course, will get well, but the panta-
looms will not Parties wishing to meet
me in my studio during the morning hour
will turn into the alley between 8th and
9th streets, enter the third stable door on
the left, pass around my Gothic house, and
give the countersign and three kicks on
the door in an ordinary voice.