Locust, chestnut, and cedar will last longer than other varieties of wood when exposed to contact with damp earth, but common wood, which rots easily, may be protected by preservatives, one of which is boiled linseed-oil with pulverized charcoal stirred into it until a black paint is produced. Some people say that a coat of charcoal paint will preserve even a basswood fence post for a lifetime, and if that is true a hogan protected by a coating upon the outside of paint made by stirring fine charcoal into boiled linseed-oil until it is as thick as paint will last longer than any of my readers will have occasion to use the hogan for a playhouse. Erect the frame ([Fig. 156]) by having some boys hold the uprights in place until they can be secured with temporary braces like those shown running diagonally across from B to E and A to F. You may then proceed to board up the sides from the outside of the frame by slipping the planks between the frame and the bank and then nailing from the inside wherever you lack room upon the outside to swing your hammer. The door-jambs I, J and K, L will help support the roof.
The Roof
The roof may be made of lumber, as shown by [Fig. 160], or it may be made of poles like those shown on the Wyoming Olebo ([Fig. 236]), or it may be made of planks and covered with tar paper (Figs. [296], [297], [298], and [299]), or it may be shingled, using barrel staves for shingles, or covered with bits of old tin roofing tacked over the planking—or anything, in fact, which will keep out the water. As for looks, that will not count because the roof is to be afterward covered with sod.
Cliff-House Roof
If you wish to make the roof as the cliff-dwellers made theirs, put your biggest logs crosswise from A, M, E to C, O, G of your house for rafters, and across the larger logs lay a lot of small poles as close together as may be, running from the back to the front of the house. Fill in the cracks between with moss or calk them with dry grass; on them place a layer of brush, browse, or small sticks and over this a thick coating of clay, hard-pan, or ordinary mud and pack it down hard by tramping it with your feet until it becomes a smooth and tightly packed crust; over this you can put your sod and weeds to conceal your secret.
Passageway
To make the frame for the underground hall or passageway ([Fig. 156]), first nail Q, S across the door-jambs to form the top to the doorway, after which put in the supports Q, R and S, T. Next build the frame U, V, X, W and join it to Q, S by the two pieces Q, U and S, V and put in the middle frame support marked ZZZZ.
The passageway should be about six feet long and the front doorway (U, V, X, W, Figs. [156] and [157]) of sufficient size to enable you to creep through with comfort. The bottom piece W, X can be nailed to a couple of sticks driven in the ground for that purpose. The next thing in order is the floor, and to make this firm you must lay a number of two-by-fours parallel to B, D and F, H and see that they are level. You will need a number of shorter pieces of the same material to run parallel to F, H and W, X for the hall floor, as may be seen in [Fig. 157.] Across these nail your floor securely as shown in [Fig. 155.]
There are no windows shown in the diagram, but if the builders wish one it can be placed immediately over the entrance or hallway in the frame marked I, K, Q, S ([Fig. 156]), in which case the top covering of dirt must be shovelled away from it to admit the light in the same manner that it is in the dugout shown in [Fig. 142] and also in the small sketch ([Fig. 154]). The ventilator shown in [Fig. 155] may be replaced, if thought desirable, by a chimney for an open fire. On account of the need of ventilation a stove would not be the proper thing for an underground house, but an open fire would help the ventilation. In the diagram the ventilator is set over a square hole in the roof; it may be made of a barrel or barrels, with the heads knocked out, placed over the hole in the roof, or kegs, according to the size of the roof. When your house is complete fill in the dirt around the edges, pack it down good and hard by the use of a piece of scantling two by four or four by four as a rammer, then cover the roof with small sticks and fine brush and sod it with growing weeds or grass.
