"Very true; but the sixteen-inch division is used as far as it will go, and the lather must cut his laths for the last one. All the confusion comes in at the end then. If any other division were made he would have to cut every lath he used."
"But I have seen furrings only two inches wide," Lew Shoreham objected.
"No matter whether they are one or six inches wide: the rule is followed. But sixteen inches means from the centre of one furring to the centre of the next one; and the difference in the width comes into the space between them. In some places they lath upon the studs, inside, and clapboard upon them on the outside, without boarding.
"There is no particular reason why the blade of the square should be two feet long, except that it is a convenient length. The width of both the blade and the tongue is important. In mortising the sill for the studs, we shall cut out a square hole of an inch and a half, which is the width of the tongue. We will begin with the timber on which I am standing, which is a foot square. The posts will be eight inches square. Baxter, measure four inches from the end.
"This point will be the centre of the mortise for the post," continued the master carpenter when the students had marked the distance. "Now lay off sixteen inches, and stick the point of the compasses well into the wood so that we can see the mark. This is the centre of the mortise for the first stud. The stuff for the studding is four inches by two. Set the points of your compass one inch apart, and keep them so for the present. Lay off one inch on each side of the point you have made in the sill."
Baxter did as he was told, and the rest of the students watched him.
"The space between the outside points is two inches, just the thickness of the stud," continued Mr. Brookbine. "Put one point of the compasses in either outside hole you have made; rest the tongue of the square against the leg; let the blade hang over the side of the timber just far enough to enable you to square across the upper face of the timber; scratch a line across with the point of the compasses; in other words, scribe it. Do the same with the other outside point. Now you have the length of the mortise marked on the timber.
"Place the tongue of the square against the outer face of the sill, its length just even with the corner, and be accurate about it. Good! Now scribe against the inside of the tongue. Move the square until the outside of the tongue coincides with the line just made, and scribe as before. The result is that you have ruled off the width of the tongue, an inch and a half, at the same distance from the corner of the stick. This gives you the other two sides of the mortise. You must measure, mark, and scribe accurately, or our studs will not come in the right place.
"Now we will take a piece of studding, and finish the subject. The mortise will be an inch and a half deep, and we are to mark off a tenon to fit it. Set the square at the width of the tongue from the end of the stick, scribe all around it. The thickness of the stud fits the mortise, so that we have to cut away none of it. Place the tongue against the face of the stud and scribe it. Do the same on the other side. Place the tongue against the mark made and scribe again. You may scribe in the same manner across the end of the stud. The result is that the tenon of an inch and a half by two inches is marked off at the distance of an inch and a half from the face of the stick. You can see that nothing but the saws are required to do the work."
"We can do all that fast enough," said Ben Ludlow.