Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-07-08
NUMBER 10.
AN AMATEUR CARPENTER.
BY BnI Nye.

BY Bill Nye.
In my opinion every professional man
should keep a chest of carpenters
tools in his barn or shop and busy him.
self at odd hours with them in construct
ing the varied articles that are always
needed about the house. There is
great deal of pleasure in feeling your
own independence of other trades, and
most especially of the carpenter. Every
now and then your wife will want a
bracket put up in some corner or other,
and with your new, bright saw and gilt
terlng hammer you can put up one upon
which she can hang cast-iron horse
blanket lambrequin, with infexible wa
ter lilies sewed in it.
A man will, if he tries, readily learn
to do great many such little things
and his wife will brag on him to other
ladies, and they will make invidious
comparisons between their husbands,
who can't do anything of that kind what
ever. and you are $50 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-ax 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 saw will double up like a piece
of stove pipe.
After you have nailed board on the
fence successfully, you will very natu-
rally desire to do something much bet
ter, more difficult. You will probably
try to erect parlor table or a rustic
settee.
made very handsome bracket last
week, and | was naturally proud of it.
In fastening it together, if / hadn't in
advertently nailed it to the barn floor, I
guess L could have used it very we'll,
but in tearing it loose from the barn, so
that the two could be used separately.
/ ruined bracket that was intended to
be served as the base, as it were, of a
lambrequin which cost 50, aside from
the time expended on it.
During the month of March I built an
1ce-chest for this summer. 1t was not
handsome, but it was poomy, and would
be very nice for the season of 1884, I
thought. 1t worked pretty well
through March and April, but as the
weather begins to warm up that ice
chest is about the warmest place around
the house. There is actually glow of
heat around that ice-chest that don't
notice elsewhere. I've shown it to sew
eral personal friends. They seem to
think it is not built tightly enough for
an ice-chest My brother looked at it
yesterday, and said that his idea of an
ice-chest was that it ought to be tight
enough at least to hold the large chunks
of ice SO they would not escape through
the pores of the ice-box. He said he
never built one, but that it stood to
reason that refrigerator like that
ought to be constructed so that it would
keep the cows out. You don't want
a refrigerator that the cattle can get
through the cracks of and eat up your
Strawberries on ice, he saws.
A neighbor of mine who once built a
a hen resort of laths, and now wears a
thick thumb-nail that locks like a Bra
I'll nut as memento of that pullet COR
raj, 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 holidays,
my ice-chest would work like charm.
And even here, he thought, if I could
keep the fever ought of my chest, there
would be less pain.
l have made several other little arti-
Giles of vertu this spring, to the con-
struction of which 1 have contributed
a good deal of time and two finger nails.
/ have also sawed into my leg several
times. The leg, of course, will get well,
but the pantaloons will not Parties
wishing to meet me in my studio during
morning hour will turn into the alley
between Eighth and Ninth streets, enter
the third stable door on the left, pass
around the Gothic horse and give the
countersign and three kicks on the door
in an ordinary tone of Yoice.-DenUer
Opinion.