Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/896

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��Popular Science Monthly

���Straw bottle-casings and a tack-hammer made this pleasant thatched garden-house

A Summer-House from Straw Bottle- Casings

SHE was the thrifty wife of a restau- rateur in a CaHfornia suburb and the gardens about the establishment made it a point of interest for motorists from the city. The ambitious little lady thought that a summer-house among the palms and acacias would improve the grounds, but building material was ex- pensive and so was expert carpenter hire. She was determined and practical. "If I will furnish half the building ma- terial, and half the labor, will you furnish the other half?" she asked her husband, and he agreed willingly to the plan and thought nothing more of it until he saw carpenters at work erecting a very light skeleton of a summer-house. It was a frame of the lightest and cheap- est wood — a few slender uprights on a circular ground plan and flexible half- inch boards which could be bent about them in a circle, the posts spaced four inches with an allowance for a door and a small window. It was a half-day's work for two men. "But that is no sum- mer house!" the husband exclaimed. "There is no shel- ter there from wind or sun. It's no better than an onion crate!"

"Wait and see," rejoined his good wife. "My share of t-he summer house has not been contributed." She

��went down into the cellar. Presently she emerged, bearing an armload of what every one would call rubbish. The straw casings of wine bottles had been accumulating below for years, and her husband had planned to burn them some day. The straw was a nuisance, a fire menace, and a possible hiding place for rats. It proved to be anything but rubbish.

It was not damp or dirty, except for a bit of dust that could be shaken off. That clever wife immediately set about tacking the straw casings upon the frame of the summer-house. It was the lightest sort of work, just a tap with a tack hammer and the wisp of straw, bound by its strands of twine, was in place. The casings were overlapped like shingles, so as to shed a light rain- fall, and the roof was treated in the same way, the peak being topped with half a dozen casings bound into a conelike ornament. When a round table and a few chairs were set inside the summer house, it turned out to be one of the most popular corners of the place.

��A Water-Wagon in Actual Use

A REAL water wagon, with passen- gers, may be seen in the accompany- ing illustration. These men are not on the water wagon for moral purposes, but are engaged in towing huge rafts of lumber through the shallow water at Carleton Point, Prince Edward Island. One raft is visible at the extreme right of the picture. The great weight of lumber necessitates the employment of six horses, which have become accus- tomed to wading and seem to like it, especially in hot weather.

���By means of this water wagon men and horses huge lumber rafts are towed through the waters of Prince Edward Island

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