Stuyvesant Part 16

He returned to the shop again. When he came to the door he opened it a very little way, and paused, calling out to Phonny, to know if the squirrel was anywhere near.

"No," said Phonny, "come in."

So he went in. The squirrel had run along the beams to the back part of the shop, and was nibbling about there among some blocks of wood.

"I have a great mind to feed him," said Phonny. "He is hungry."

"Well," said Stuyvesant.

So Phonny took the ear of corn out of the trap, and breaking it into two or three pieces he carried the parts into the back part of the shop, and put them at different places on the beams. Then he crept back to his work again.

Stuyvesant went to work making his b.u.t.ton. He selected a proper piece of wood, sawed it off of the proper length, and then shaped it into the form of a b.u.t.ton by means of a chisel, working, in doing this, at the bench. As soon as this operation was completed, he took a large gimlet and bored a hole through the center of the b.u.t.ton. He measured very carefully to find the exact center of the b.u.t.ton, before he began to bore.

When the b.u.t.ton was finished, Stuyvesant looked in Phonny's nail-box to find a large screw, and when he had found one, he took the screw-driver and went out to the hen-house and screwed the b.u.t.ton on.

When the screw was driven home to its place, Stuyvesant shut the door and b.u.t.toned it. Then standing before it with his screw-driver in his hand, he surveyed his work with another look of satisfaction, and said,

"There! there are two good jobs done."

He then opened and shut his two doors, both the large and the small one, to see once more whether they worked well. They did work perfectly well, so he turned away and went back toward the shop again, saying,

"Now for the ladder."

He went back to the shop and entered cautiously as before. He found that Phonny had bored quite a number of holes, and was now engaged in cutting his wire into lengths. He used for this purpose a pair of cutting-plyers, as they are called, an instrument formed much like a pair of nippers. The instrument was made expressly for cutting off wire.

Stuyvesant came to the place where Phonny was at work, and stood near him a few minutes looking on. He perceived that the holes were not in a straight line, nor were they equidistant from each other. He, however, said nothing about it, but soon went to his own work again.

He took the piece of wood which he had selected to make his cross-bars of, and began to consider how many cross-bars he could make from it.

"What is that piece of wood for?" asked Phonny.

"It is for the cross-bars of my ladder," said Stuyvesant.

"The cross-bars of a ladder ought to be round," said Phonny. "They always make them round. In fact they call them _rounds_."

"Yes," said Stuyvesant, "I know they do, but I can't make rounds very well. And besides if I could, I could not make the holes in the side-pieces to put them into. So I am going to make them square, and nail them right on."

"Hoh!" said Phonny, "that is no way to make a ladder. You can bore the holes easily enough. Here. I'll show you how. I've got an auger."

So saying, Phonny jumped down from the bench and went and climbed up upon the chopping-block to get down an auger. Phonny had two augers, and they both hung over the block. He took down one and began very eagerly to bore a hole into the side of the chopping-block. He bored in a little way, and then, in attempting to draw the auger out, to clear the hole of chips, the handle came off, leaving the auger itself fast in the hole.

"Ah! this auger is broken," said Phonny, "I forgot that. I could bore a hole if the auger was not broken."

"Never mind," said Stuyvesant, "I don't think I could make a ladder very well in that way, and don't like to undertake any thing that I can't accomplish. So I will make it my way."

Stuyvesant went out to the hen-house, and measured the height of the loft. He found it to be seven feet. He concluded to have his ladder eight feet long, and to have six cross-bars, one foot apart, the upper and lower cross-bars to be one foot from the ends of the ladder. The cross-bars themselves being about two inches wide each, the breadth of the whole six would be just one foot. This Stuyvesant calculated would make just the eight feet.

Stuyvesant then went back to the shop. He found that the pieces which he had chosen for the sides of the ladder were just about eight feet long.

Phonny came to him while he was measuring, to see what he was going to do.

"How wide are you going to have your ladder?" said he.

"I don't know," said Stuyvesant. "I am going to have it as wide as I can."

So saying, Stuyvesant took down the piece which he had intended for the cross-bars.

"I am going to divide this into six equal parts," said he, "because I must have six bars."

So Stuyvesant began to measure. The piece of wood, he found, was eight feet long,--the same as the side pieces of the ladder.

"And now, how are you going to divide it?" said Phonny.

"Why, eight feet," said Stuyvesant, "make ninety-six inches. I must divide that by six."

So he took a pencil from his pocket and wrote down the figures 96 upon a board; he divided the number by 6.

"It will go 16 times," said he. "I can have 16 inches for each cross bar."

Stuyvesant then measured off sixteen inches, and made a mark, then he measured off sixteen inches more, and made another mark. In the same manner, he proceeded until he had divided the whole piece into portions of sixteen inches each. He then took a saw and sawed the piece off at every place where he had marked.

"There," said he, "there are my cross-bars!"

"What good cross-bars," said Phonny. "That was an excellent way to make them."

CHAPTER VIII.

A DISCOVERY.

While the boys were at work in this manner, Stuyvesant making his ladder, and Phonny his cage, they suddenly heard some one opening the door. Wallace came in. Phonny called out to him to shut the door as quick as possible. Wallace did so, while Phonny, in explanation of the urgency of his injunction in respect to the door, pointed up to the squirrel, which was then creeping along, apparently quite at his ease, upon one of the beams in the back part of the shop.

"Why, Bunny," said Wallace.

"His name is not Bunny," said Phonny. "His name is Frink."

"Frink," repeated Wallace. "Who invented that name?"

"I don't know," replied Phonny, "only Beechnut said that his name was Frink. See the cage I am making for him."

Wallace came up and looked at the cage. He stood a moment surveying it in silence. Then he turned toward Stuyvesant.

"And what is Stuyvesant doing?" said he.

"He is making a ladder."

"What is it for, Stuyvesant?" said Wallace.