Then we gathered
from the river a large number of the flattest stones we could find. With
these we planned to build the three outer walls of our chimney. But the
question of getting mortar to bind the stones together bothered us for a
while.
"If only we could find a bed of clay. Don't any of you know of one around
here?" queried Bill.
But none of us remembered seeing any clay bed in the vicinity.
"If we were in south Jersey now," I said, "we could use some of that red
mud they have down there. It sticks like the mischief to shoes and pant
legs. I bet it would hold those stones together."
"Red mud? Why there's plenty of it over the hill, back of Lumberville,"
said Reddy. "All the roads over there are red shale roads, and I saw some
red banks along the river when we went after the logs."
That was just what we wanted. The banks Reddy referred to turned out to be
genuine red shale, and soon we had ferried several scow loads of the stuff
down to Kite Island. When the shale was wet it made quite a sticky mortar.
The foundations of the chimney were laid in a trench about 2 feet deep,
and the side walls of the chimney were carried inside of the cabin and
covered the ends of the logs at the chimney opening.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232