Build the pen as if it were to have no openings, either doors, windows, or fireplaces. When you reach the point where the top of the door, window, or fireplace is to be ([Fig. 229]) saw out a section of the log to mark the place and admit a saw when it is desired to finish the opening as shown in the diagram and continue building until you have enough logs in place to tack on cleats like those shown in Figs. [229], [230], and [231], after which the openings may be sawed out. The cleats will hold the ends of the logs in place until the boards U ([Fig. 232]) for the door-jambs, window-frames, or the framework over the fireplace can be nailed to the ends of the logs and thus hold them permanently in place. If your house is a "mudsill," wet the floor until it becomes spongy, then with the butt end of a log ram the dirt down hard until you have an even, hard floor—such a floor as some of the greatest men of this nation first crept over when they were babies. But if you want a board floor, you must necessarily have floor-joists; these are easily made of milled lumber or you may use the rustic material of which your house is built and select some straight logs for your joists. Of course, these joists must have an even top surface, which may be made by flattening the logs by scoring and hewing them as illustrated by Figs. [123], [124], and [125] and previously described. It will then be necessary to cut the ends of the joist square and smaller than the rest of the log (Fig. A, [229]); the square ends must be made to fit easily into the notches made in the sill logs (B, [Fig. 229]) so that they will all be even and ready for the flooring (C, [Fig. 229]). For a house ten feet wide the joists should be half a foot in diameter, that is, half a foot through from one side to the other; for larger spans use larger logs for the joists.
Foundation
If your house is not a "mudsill" you may rest your sill logs upon posts or stone piles; in either case, in the Northern States, they should extend three feet below the ground, so as to be below frost-line and prevent the upheaval of the spring thaw from throwing your house "out of plumb."
Roofing
All the old-time log cabins were roofed with shakes, splits, clapboards, or hand-rived shingles as already described and illustrated by Figs. [126], [128], [129], and [130]; but to-day they are usually shingled with the machine-sawed shingle of commerce. You may, however, cover the roof with planks as shown by [Fig. 233] or with bark weighted down with poles as shown by [Fig. 234.] In covering it with board or plank nail the latter on as you would on a floor, then lay another course of boards over the cracks which show between the boards on the first course.
Gables
The gable ends of the cabin should be built up of logs with the rafters of the roof running between the logs as they are in Figs. [229] and [233], but the roof may be built, as it frequently is nowadays, of mill lumber, in which case it may be framed as shown by Figs. [49], [51], and the gable end above the logs filled in with upright poles as shown in Figs. [173] and [247], or planked up as shown in the Southern saddle-bag ([Fig. 241]), or the ends may be boarded up and covered with tar paper as shown in [Fig. 248], or the gable end may be shingled with ordinary shingles ([Fig. 79]).
Steep Roof
Remember that the steeper the roof is the longer the shingles will last, because the water will run off readily and quickly on a steep surface and the shingles have an opportunity to dry quickly; besides which the snow slides off a steep roof and the driving rains do not beat under the shingles. If you are using milled lumber for the roof, erect the rafters at the gable end first, with the ridge board as shown in [Fig. 263] and in greater detail in [Fig. 49.] Put the other rafters two or three feet apart.
Let your roof overhang the walls by at least seven or eight inches so as to keep the drip from the rain free of the wall. It is much easier for the architect to draw a log house than it is for a builder to erect one, for the simple reason that the draughtsman can make his logs as straight as he chooses, also that he can put the uneven places where they fit best; but except in well-forested countries the tree trunks do not grow as straight as the logs in my pictures and you must pick out the logs which will fit together. Run them alternately butt and head; that is, if you put the thick end of the log at the right-hand end of your house, with the small end at the left, put the next log with the small end at the right and thick end at the left; otherwise, if all the thick ends are put at one side and the small ends at the other, your house will be taller at one end than at the other as is the case with some of our previous shacks and camps (Figs. [190], [191], and [192]) which are purposely built that way.
