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!
The club-house may be built with
A Doorway at the Top
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.
The Trap-Door
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.
Dimensions of the House.
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.