Part 6 (1/2)
asked Jack. ”I never heard of it before.”
”I got it by reading history,” answered the Doctor. ”In old English times n.o.body but princes could afford to use gla.s.s. Its cost was too great. And then later, when gla.s.s became cheaper, a stupid government put a tax on windows, and so men went on using greased cloth instead of gla.s.s in order to get the light of heaven into their habitations without having their substance eaten up by a window tax.”
”But why was it 'stupid' as you say for the government to raise revenue by so simple a means as that of taxing windows?” asked Jack.
”Because governments exist for the good of the people governed, and not the reverse of that. Otherwise no government would have any right to exist at all. A window tax discourages the use of windows. As a result the people live in darkness and foul air, which is not good for them.
But governments in the old days a.s.sumed not that the government existed for the good of the people, but that the people existed for the good of the government. Never until our American Republic was established was that notion driven out of the minds of Kings, Princes and great ministers of state. It is one of our country's best services to human kind that it has taught this lesson until now in every part of the civilized world it is perfectly understood that the government is the servant of the people, not the people the servant of the government.”
”Yes, I remember,” said Jack, ”that when the colonies were resisting British oppression, Thomas Jefferson put into an address to George III a pointed and not very polite reminder that the King was after all only a chosen chief magistrate of the people, appointed by them to do their service and promote their happiness. There wasn't much idea of 'the divine right of kings' in Jefferson's noddle.”
”No,” responded the Doctor, ”nor in Franklin's, or Patrick Henry's or John Adams's or James Otis's. Jefferson simply formulated the thought of all of them when he contended that the British parliament had no more right to pa.s.s laws for the government and taxation of Virginia than the Virginia legislature had to pa.s.s laws for the government and taxation of Great Britain. But the beauty of the whole thing lies in the fact that these great truths, a.s.serted by the Americans in justification of their rebellion, have been fastened upon the minds of men everywhere, and all civilized governments have been compelled to accept and submit to them.
There are kings and emperors still, but they have completely changed their conception of their functions. They have been taught, mainly by American statesmen, that they are nothing more than the servants of the people, and that so far from owning the people, the people are their masters. But come boys, it's time to get to bed. So turn in at once. I'm on guard for the next hour and a half.”
CHAPTER VII
_A ”Painter”_
There was still much to do on the house and the boys set themselves at work on it very early the next morning. First of all there was a chimney to be built. Jack directed two of the boys to saw out a s.p.a.ce nine feet wide for the fireplace, first securing the logs in position by nailing pieces of timber to them, just as he had done with the Doctor's windows.
He decided that the fireplace when finished should be five feet wide.
”You see,” he said, ”we've a hard house to keep warm and we must have a lot of fire. Now the width of a fire means as much as its other dimensions, and so I'm going to have a wide fire. We'll burn full length cordwood in our fireplace, and we'll make room for plenty of it in front of a big back log. In earlier times an open wood fire place was the only heating apparatus people had, and they managed very well with it.
Nowadays people insist that an open fire will not heat a room. I'm disposed to think that that's because they make their fireplaces too small. We'll make ours big, like those of our grandfathers.”
Then Jack turned to the Doctor and asked:
”Is it freezing?”
”No,” answered the Doctor. ”The thermometer stands at forty-six, and before noon this little skim of snow will be gone I think. But why do you ask?”
”Because we want to c.h.i.n.k and daub our house as soon as possible, and of course we can't do it in freezing weather.”
”Why not?” asked the Doctor. ”We can warm our hands from time to time and make out to stand it.”
”Yes,” answered Jack, ”but that isn't the point. If we daub in freezing weather the mud will all drop out. You see it freezes and then when a thaw comes the whole thing goes to pieces. So I'm glad it isn't freezing to-day. Now come you fellows, and let me show you how to c.h.i.n.k and daub.”
He dug away the soil at several spots, exposing the clay that lay beneath. Then pouring great pailfuls of water into the holes thus made, he set the boys at work mixing the clay into a soft plastic mud. By the time that this was well started the two who were to saw out a fireplace opening had finished that task, and Jack set all at work fitting c.h.i.n.kings into the cracks between the logs, and so daubing them with the soft mud as to close up all cracks, big and little, against the ingress of the winter's air.
”Now, Doctor,” he said, when the boys began showing something like skill in this work, ”if you'll come with me, we'll start a chimney.”
They went into the woods and set to work splitting some chestnut logs into thick slabs, six or seven feet long. With these they made a sort of crib work outside the house at the point where the fireplace was to be.
This, as Jack explained, was to hold the fire place.
Inside of this crib, or box--about two feet inside--Jack drove some sharpened sticks into the ground and behind them he placed some clapboards set on edge. Then he called for mud and with it filled in the s.p.a.ce between the clapboards and the crib walls behind. Then he set another tier of clapboards and added more mud, and so on till he had the whole inside of the slab crib lined with two feet of mud held in place by clapboards set on edge and braced with stakes.
”Now, then,” said Jack, ”when we build a fire the clapboards will slowly burn away, but very slowly because no air can get behind them, and in the meantime the mud will bake into one great solid brick. Now for the top of the chimney.”
Then he went outside and built upon this fireplace a smoke stack, consisting of cribwork of sticks split out for the purpose, embedding each stick in a thick daubing of mud as he went.
By the time he finished it was night--for so eager had the boys been with their work that they had not stopped on this third day for dinner, but had contented themselves with cold bites left over from breakfast.