but you must work carefully, and give strict attention to the directions. With the larger try-square draw a light line eight inches from each end of the shelf, and on the top.”
“Which is the top?” asked Dick Short, as he looked on both sides of the board in the hands of Phil Gawner, who was his bench-partner.
“Either side will answer for the top, but you should take the best side—the one with no rough places in it—if there is any choice. Always put the best side out: there is no cheat in it in carpentering. It is not like putting all the poorest apples at the bottom of the barrel.”
The students selected a side for the top, and ruled the lines.
“Now draw another line on the other side, seven inches and a half from the end,—a more decided line than the other. Good! Now put one of the brackets in the bench-vise, and screw it up tight. Put the wide end of the bracket up, and about two inches above the top of the bench.—Tom Ridley, you have got it four inches.—Ben, you are not more than one inch.—You must learn to measure distances with the eye. That will do.
“Here are several kegs of nails, which I opened
this forenoon. We have spikes, tenpenny, eightpenny, sixpenny, shingle, and lath nails. There are two kinds of the same length, as a tenpenny or an eightpenny board-nail, or a finish-nail. Board-nails have a broader head, and are stouter than a finish-nail. Which kind shall we use for the shelves?”
“Finish-nails,” shouted half a dozen boys at a venture.
“Eightpenny finish will be about right. No. 1 will nail to the first bracket, and No. 2 to the second. No. 2 will take the board, and lay the end on the bracket, and No. 1 will nail it. Fix the shelf exactly against the mark on the under side. Hold the board very still; and, when the nailer gets it exactly right, he should put his left hand against the bracket, grasping the board at the same time.”
The instructor did it himself, and all the nailers observed how he did it.