Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-12-09

ana mad been taught to reverence any,
| thing with two covers, a title page and
| Fins" 1 have every one of them yet
They have their own shelf in one corner
OF large library of which they were the
| cherished beginning.
When my sixteenth birthday came there
came with it what 1 had long desired-a
| full set of Scott. My sixty books had
grown to over 200. for had bought many
that L specially wanted with money earned
or saved from my weekly allowance. Gift
books are seldom what you would buy
yourself. Generally they are what the
giver wants. But all the same they are
books.
Wen, my little library was simply over
flowing when the twenty-five volumes of
Scott came. Stands and tables and brack-
cts refused longer to hold them. l rose in
my perplexity and declared l should have
a book case.
How to get it was the second thought.
l had a little money. but a little is not
CROUCH to buy a book case.
had busy father who could have made
one. But his time would have made it the
costliest sort of furniture.
l had a brother who NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
made me some shelves. Like all boys, he
was too promising" 1 waited two months
self.
Just where my ideas came from l can't
tell to a dot 1t all came as our good pro-
fessor of rhetoric used to say about ideas
for our compositions: Just set your pan out
over night and catch what you can't may
be dew, or rain, or hail, or toads. You'll
surely catch something If you wait"
one day L saw boy notching TWO sticks
together for kite. That suggested the way
put my shelves together. 1t saved my
making frame and proved so simple that
now L have hive such book cases, all made
like the first. / decided first how deep l
wanted my shelves. | looked over my big
gest books and found the widest octave was
but eight inches. l made my shelves nine
inches deep. | let the question of length
wait until | went to the planning mill to get
my lumber.
In the Planning Mill.
II is surprising what you can have made
for you at a planning mill. l went to the
biggest and busiest one in Washington, and
when L brayed the noise and sawdust to
hunt up the foreman, l found very nice
old man, who did everything he possibly
could for me. He told me 1 could get black
walnut at 10 cents a square foot and poplar
or white woods for three. The difference
was considerable, and when he obligingly
added that the poplar grew. If oiled, very
dark with age, / decided in it's favor.
The next thing was to find out how long
and thick the shelves We're to be- Both di-
mansions depended on each other. Short
shelves could be made of half-inch stuff
said the foreman; long ones should be seven
eighths of an inch thick at least. If thinner
they would sag. | concluded that my shelves
should be five feet long. nine inches wide and
three-fourthS of an inch thick. And l gave
an order for six boards of those dimensions
Wait here miss" said the foreman land
see If we get 'em right
He stepped to his desk, wrote ont the
I order 10 Of ha
"a few minutes / saw a big yellow board
going through a planning machine and add
ing to the throbbing concert of sounds from
the machine.
In less time than take in telling it my
boards were planed and sawed out
Now, John" said the old foreman. as he
looked them over through his glistening
spectacles, smooth 'em down a little
John shoudered my boards and went to a
machine that had revolving disc about two
I feet in diameter. and on The under face of
this disc was a sheet of sandpaper. A big
door could be laid on the table and this re-
volving disc swung over it minute or two
until ii was polished as smooth as hours of
hand rubbing could make it.
All my boards were treated to a touch OF
the sandpaper disc and came forth as
smooth as satin and quite as pretty in their
soft yellow surface. That afternoon they
were laid on our porch up home and l began
my carpenter work at once.
Putting Together the Shelves
saw. try-square and a half-inch chisel
from father. An old kitchen chair served
as work bench. First. l set out two of the
boards for uprights. Putting the other
four on top of each other so that all the
edges We're together ! measured nine inches
from each end and drew line across the
edges of all four boards, using the square to
make the mark true Then / measured
three-quarters of an inch in from these two
| lines, and drew another line across all four
edges.
Then 1 took each board separately and
measuring In from the edge four and one
half inches | continued the four marks on
the edge to the center of the shelf.
When all this measuring and marking
was done, L was ready to do some saving.
l possessed more than the ordinary gump-
ton of girls, and knew how to saw to a
mark There are two things l think every
girl ought to learn Just as soon as she can
to drive nail and saw to a mark. 1t is
simply marvellous what variety of things
she can accomplish II she masters these
two operations. The Independence she feels
in the presence of her brothers and other
girls brothers cannot be described.
1 sawed along each of those marks. TAX
ing care to be on the inside of Them so as
to leave notch gain" as carpenters
call them, just three-fourths of an inch
wide and four and half inches deep.
Ihat done, 1 laid the two boards 1 had
selected for uprights one over the other /
inches between the two lower shelves and
ten inches between the three upper ones
This gave one book space of twelve inches
and three of ten inches. The topmost
shelf had nothing to limit it's space but the
ceiling.
So l sawed five gains in each of the
uprights each gain being ee-fourths OF
an inch wide and four and one-half inches
deep. All of these gains l chiseled out
neatly and as squarely as possible with the
half-inch chisel, the soft poplar cutting
easily without need of mallet With
bit of sandpaper l rubbed off the ragged
edges left on the under side of each gain"
by the saw teeth.
Now L was ready to put my book case to-
gether. 1 laid the uprights down on their
edges with the gains upward. Then l push
ed the shelves one after another into place
the gains cut in them fitting snugly into
the gains cut in the uprights. What a feel
ing of conquest and pride | had when they
went together and 1 found they fitted
tight!
The job was now nearly done that I
could boast of it if | wanted to- Rut 7
didn't. 1 was afraid the ends left where /
had sawed the gains might crack off.
put on my hat and went down street TO
buy something to remedy that weakness. I
got sixteen small brass hinges with the tiny
screws that went with them. These /
screwed on the under side of each shelf
where they could not be seen and on each
side of the upright. 1t was a long hard
Job. The screws were small | could