should be dressed square and smoothed down with the
fore plane to make them perfectly straight. Now, lay out two mortises at
the upper end of each leg. Follow the illustrations to see how this is
done.

LAYING OUT THE LEGS.--Fig. 27 shows a leg with square cross marks (A) at
each end. These marks indicate the finished length of the leg. You will
also see crosses on two sides. These indicate what is called the "work
sides." The work sides are selected because they are the finest surfaces
on the leg.

[Illustration: _Fig. 28._]

[Illustration: _Fig. 29._]

THE LENGTH OF THE MORTISES.--Then take a small try square (Fig. 28) and
add two cross lines (B, C) on each of the inner surfaces, the second
line (B) one-half inch from the finish line (A), and the other line (C)
seven inches down from the line (A). The side facing boards, hereafter
described, are seven inches wide.

When this has been done for all the legs, prepare your gage (Fig. 29) to
make the mortise scribe, and, for convenience in illustrating, the leg
is reversed. If the facing boards are 1" thick, and the tenons are
intended to be 1/2" thick, the first scribe line (E) should be 1/2" from
the work side, because the shoulder on the facing board projects out
1/4", and the outer surface of the facing board should not be flush with
the outer surface of the leg. The second gage line (F) should be 1" from
the work side.

[Illustration: _Fig. 30._]

THE MORTISES.--When the mortises have been made they will appear as
shown in the enlarged cross section of the leg (Fig. 30), the total
depth of each mortise being 1-1/2". The depth of this mortise determines
for us the length of the tenons on the facing boards.

THE FACING BOARDS.--These boards are each 1 inch thick and 7 inches
wide. As the top of the table is 42 inches long, and we must provide an
overhang, say of 2 inches, we will first take off 4 inches for the
overhang and 4 inches for the legs, so that the length of two of the
facing boards, from shoulder to shoulder, must be 34 inches; and the
other two facing boards 28 inches. Then, as we must add 1-1/2 inches for
each tenon, two of the boards will be 37 inches long and two of them 31
inches long.

[Illustration: _Fig. 31._]

[Illustration: _Fig. 32._]

The illustration (Fig. 31) shows a board marked with the cross lines (B)
at each end for the end of the tenons, or the extreme ends of the
boards.

THE TENONS.--Do not neglect first to select the wo