it was whittled inside of
a year."

"_I_ could whittle it inside of an hour," said Archer.

"I mean it was whittled not longer than a year ago, 'cause even the
weather hasn't got into it yet. And it's whittled like a
fleur-de-lis--kind of," Tom added triumphantly.

"Why didn't you bring the whole of it?"

"When they were building the shacks at Temple Camp," said Tom, "there
was a carpenter who was a Frenchman. I was good friends with him and he
told me a lot of stuff. He always had some wine in his dinner pail. He
showed me how French carpenters nail shingles. Instead of keeping the
nails in their mouths like other carpenters do, they keep them up their
sleeves and they can drop them down into their hands one by one as fast
as they need them. They hit 'em four times instead of two--do you know
why?"

"To drive 'em in," suggested Archer.

"'Cause in France they don't have cedar shingles, like we do; they have
shingles made out of hard wood. And they get so used to hitting the nail
four raps that they can't stop it--that's what he said."

"Here's another one," said Archer. "You can't drive a nail with a
sponge--no matter how you soak it."

"He told me some other things, too," said Tom, ignoring Archer's
flippancy. "He used to talk to me while he was eating his lunch. The way
he got started telling me about the different way they do things in
Europe was when he put the shutters on the big shack. He put the hinges
at the top 'cause that's always the way they do in France. He said in
Italy they put 'em on the left side. In America they put them on the
right side--except when they have two.

"So when I saw the shutters on that old house I happened to notice that
the hinges were at the top and that made me think it was probably a
Frenchman's home."

"Maybe it isn't now even if it was when the shutterrs werre made," said
Archer skeptically.

"Then I happened to remember something else that man told me. Maybe you
think the fleur-de-lis is only a fancy kind of an emblem, but it ain't.
He told me the old monks that used to carve things--no matter what they
carved you could always find a cross, or something like a cross in it.
'Cause they _think_ that way, see? The same as sailors always tattoo
fishes and ships and things on their arms. He said some places in the
Black Forest the toymakers are French peasants and you can always tell
if a fancy thing is carved by them on account of the shape of the
fleur-de-lis. It a