st, the size of the cabin, twelve feet wide and twenty feet long,
was marked out on the site on which it was to rise, and four logs were
laid to define the foundation. These were the sills of the new house.
At each end of every log two notches were cut, one on the under side
and one on the upper, to fit into similar notches cut in the log
below, and in that which was to be placed on top. So each corner was
formed by these interlacing and overlapping ends. The logs were piled
up, one above another, just as children build "cob-houses," from odds
and ends of playthings. Cabin-builders do not say that a cabin is a
certain number of feet high; they usually say that it is ten logs
high, or twelve logs high, as the case may be. When the structure is
as high as the eaves are intended to be, the top logs are bound
together, from side to side, with smaller logs fitted upon the upper
logs of each side and laid across as if they were to be the supports
of a floor for another story. Then the gable-ends are built up of
logs, shorter and shorter as the peak of the gable is approached, and
kept in place by other small logs laid across, endwise of the cabin,
and locked into the end of each log in the gable until all are in
place. On these transverse logs, or rafters, the roof is laid. Holes
are cut or sawed through the logs for the door and windows, and the
house begins to look habitable.

The settlers on the Republican Fork cut the holes for doors and
windows before they put on the roof, and when the layer of split
shakes that made the roof was in place, and the boys bounded inside to
see how things looked, they were greatly amused to notice how light it
was. The spaces between the logs were almost wide enough to crawl
through, Oscar said. But they had studied log-cabin building enough to
know that these wide cracks were to be "chinked" with thin strips of
wood, the refuse of shakes, driven in tightly, and then daubed over
with clay, a fine bed of which was fortunately near at hand. The
provident Younkins had laid away in his own cabin the sashes and glass
for two small windows; and these he had agreed to sell to the
newcomers. Partly hewn logs for floor-joists were placed upon the
ground inside the cabin, previously levelled off for the purpose. On
these were laid thick slabs of oak and hickory, riven out of logs
drawn from the grove near by. These slabs of hard-wood were
"puncheons," and fortunate as was the man who could have a floo