'You want to try your hand at "slabbing," do you? I warn you that the labour is no joke, and the planks never look so neat as those from the sawmill.'
'We have flung "looks" overboard long ago,' replied Arthur. 'Come, teach me, like a good fellow.'
'Choose your tree as clean and straight in the grain as possible.'
'And how am I to tell how its grain runs?' asked the pupil.
'Experiment is the only certainty; but if the tree be perfectly clear of knots for thirty or forty feet, and its larger limbs drooping downwards, so as to shelter the trunk in a measure from the influence of the sun, these are presumptions in favour of the grain running straight.'
'What has the sun to do with it?'
'The grain of most trees naturally inclines to follow the annual course of the sun. Hence its windings, in great measure. Having selected and felled your pine, cut it across into logs of the length of plank you want.'
'But you said something of experiment in deciding about the grain of the wood.'
'Oh, by cutting out a piece, and testing it with the axe, to see whether it splits fair. When you have the logs chopped, mark the ends with a bit of charcoal into the width of your planks: then slab them asunder with wedges.'
'Holt, where did you pick up such a variety of knowledge as you have?'