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Updated: June 11, 2025
Dropping himself, then, carefully and gradually, till he dropped on the timber joist as if it were a velocipede, his long legs dangling down, he with thigh and hand impelled himself onward till he gained the ridge of a wall, on which he delivered his person, and wiped his spectacles. Lionel was not long before he stood in the same place. "Here we are," said Fairthorn.
Above the room they had just left was another of the same shape and size, but with an oak floor, sagging and rising into hollows and hills, where the joist had rotted away beneath. It was bare and empty, and not even a rat was to be seen.
Governor Oglesby rose and said, amid increasing silence, 'I am informed that a distinguished citizen of Illinois, and one whom Illinois will ever delight to honor, is present; and I wish to move that this body invite him to a seat on the stand. Here the Governor paused, as if to work curiosity up to the highest point; then he shouted the magic name, 'Abraham Lincoln! A roar of applause shook every board and joist of the building.
Poised on one of the rafters, he held on with one hand to a joist, and with the other plied a small saw, well greased with ghi. The sound of the slow careful movements of the tool was completely drowned by the singing and the hollow rat-a-pan of the tom tom. Beneath him stood the Babu, extending his dhoti like an apron, and catching in it the falling shower of sawdust.
While he was doing this, Flint detached a couple of bricks from the party-wall, which were used as a fulcrum for the lever, made of the joist. The building was not inhabited, and there was little to be feared at that height above the street from any noise they might make. Flint sat down on the end of the lever, and the scuttle flew up at once, the staple drawn out of the wood.
The third night after was settled upon as the one to leave, as it promised to be dark and rainy, but just before night, the Sergeant took it into his head to try the floor, and procuring a long pole he went into the room below and punched at the loose boards, which immediately yielded, and then he brought in another carpenter, and personally superintended stopping up the aperture, which was done by spiking pieces of joist, against the floor joists, completely closing it up.
If our masons would only make walls that are able to bear their own weight; not use more than half as much mortar as brick, and that made of sand instead of dirt; if they would build chimney-flues that will carry the smoke to the top of the building, instead of leaving it to ooze out around the window-frames a dozen feet away, as I once saw it in a costly building belonging to one of our ex-governors, and remember that a wooden joist running square across a chimney-flue is pretty sure to get up a bigger draught than most of us care for; if they wouldn't fill up the inside of the wall with bricks that it isn't safe to drop for fear they can never be picked up again; in short, if they'd do the work that can't be seen half as well as what is in plain sight, I'd never say a word about beauty, I wouldn't even ask for those elegant caps the masons are so fond of poking out over windows.
Fortunately the stuff, falling on the bed, made little noise; and in five minutes, working half-choked and in a frenzy of impatience, he had made a hole through which he could thrust his arms, a hole which extended almost from one joist to its neighbour. By this time the air was thick with floating lime; the two could scarcely breathe, yet they dared not pause.
"I have often seen them get up early in the morning at this season, walk hastily out, and look anxiously to the woods and snuff the autumnal winds with the highest rapture, then return into the house and cast a quick and attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a couple of buck horns, or little forks.
She put a saucerful of butter, salt, and pepper near the fire to melt, for melted butter is the shoeing-horn that helps over a meal of potatoes. Sam'l, however, saw what the hour required, and jumping up, he seized his bonnet. "Hing the tatties higher up the joist, Lisbeth," he said with dignity; "I'se be back in ten meenits." He hurried out of the house, leaving the others looking at each other.
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