Fig.176 - The Greenies' little house.
When the front and back are made all there is to do to finish the frame of the house is to put in the crosspieces to hold them together. [Fig. 175] shows all these crosspieces or joists. One crosspiece between the two peas at the top of the front and back peaks for the ridge-pole (K, [Fig. 175]), one on each side between the peas at the bottom of the peaks (L and M), one at each side between the peas at the ends of the front and back crosspieces (N, O), and one between the two peas at the middle of the front and back crosspieces (P).
| Fig.175 - This is the frame of the house. | Fig.177 - The first bar of the fence. Fig.178 - Push in two uprights. |
Now you have the frame of a two-storied house or a house with only an upper story, but it needs a roof and a floor. Split some of your pea-pods in half and lay one at a time across the ridge-pole at the top and the crosspiece at the bottom of the peak. Put half of a pod on one side of the peak, half a pod on the other side of the peak, then another half pod on the first side, and the next one on the second side, and so on until the space is covered and the house is roofed in. The stem ends of the pods must be up. The stems lock together and hold the roof in place.
Make the loosely laid floor also of the split pea-pods, putting them across from front to back.
Your little house ([Fig. 176]) now looks like those which strange people in far-away, hot countries build for themselves. They have no lower story or what we call a first floor, but are lifted on posts far above the sometimes very damp ground, and out of reach of any wild animals that may be prowling around.
The Fence
You can make a fence to put around the house in this way: Push a large pea on each end of a whole toothpick like [Fig. 177], then break a toothpick exactly in half, stick one end of each half into the lower parts of the peas to form uprights, and push the lower end of each of these uprights into another pea as shown in [Fig. 178]. For the slanting crosspiece stick one end of another toothpick into the upper pea at the left-hand side, and the other end into the lower pea at the right-hand side ([Fig. 179]). Add a toothpick between the two lower peas, and one section of the fence is finished ([Fig. 180]).
