When making a cot of boughs the most satisfactory and comfortable affair is the basket-woven or lattice mattress of small, pliable saplings trimmed and interwoven as shown in Fig. 22. The long pieces should be alternated so that the large end of one stick will be next the small end of another, and thus distribute the strain evenly over the lattice. This arrangement applies also to the shorter or cross-pieces, and when finished the mattress is laid on a pair of poles supported with crotched sticks, as shown in Fig. 18, but without the canvas.
Over this lattice short twigs with clusters of leaves are spread, to make a soft mattress, and on these in turn a blanket or two can be spread and tied down at the corners, so that the leaves may not become dislodged.
Tables and Benches
Every boy should know how to make a table from some fence boards, a rail or two, and stakes for the legs. The table shown in Fig. 23 is made from three boards about eight inches wide and five feet long battened together at the ends and across the under side of the middle.
A rail is nailed across two tree-trunks thirty-two inches from the ground, to which one end of the boards are attached. Two stakes three inches thick are driven in the ground four feet from the trees, and across the upper ends of them a rail is nailed fast to support the other ends of the boards.
A larger table is shown in Fig. 24, and like the smaller one it is built against two trees. The boards, three or four in number, should be from six to eight feet long. They are nailed fast to four or five inch rails attached to the tree-trunks and to stout posts embedded in the ground. The middle of the table is supported by a batten, or rail, which is nailed fast to the top of a post embedded under the centre of the table.
Chairs made for camp life from rustic wood and pieces of board need not be so well constructed that any great amount of time should be expended on them, but they should be strong and serviceable.
A simple chair that any boy can make from branches or small tree-trunks, two or three inches in diameter, is shown in Fig. 25. The seat is eighteen inches high, sixteen inches square, and the back posts are thirty-six inches high. Two pieces of wood, eighteen inches long, are cut as shown at Fig. 26 A, and two more, thirty-six inches long, are cut as shown at B. The laps are cut out with saw and chisel so as to receive the seat-rails, the braces, and the back board, which are made fast with steel-wire nails as shown at C. The seat is made of ordinary boards nailed to the top edges of the rails all around, and if the edge is smoothed off there will be less liability to tear one’s garments.
In the illustration of a canopy (Fig. 10, page 301), a table and benches are shown. The table is thirty inches wide and five feet long, and it can be built either detached or fast to the ground. If the corner-posts are embedded a foot or eighteen inches in the ground it will make the table firmer and less liable to rack than if built loose or detached.