In the glad, tumultuous excitement of so much suddenly acquired
time-wealth, I hardly knew what to do with it. I first thought of
going on with my reading, but the zero weather would make a fire
necessary, and it occurred to me that father might object to the cost
of firewood that took time to chop. Therefore, I prudently decided to
go down cellar, and begin work on a model of a self-setting sawmill I
had invented. Next morning I managed to get up at the same gloriously
early hour, and though the temperature of the cellar was a little
below the freezing point, and my light was only a tallow candle the
mill work went joyfully on. There were a few tools in a corner of the
cellar,--a vise, files, a hammer, chisels, etc., that father had
brought from Scotland, but no saw excepting a coarse crooked one that
was unfit for sawing dry hickory or oak. So I made a fine-tooth saw
suitable for my work out of a strip of steel that had formed part of
an old-fashioned corset, that cut the hardest wood smoothly. I also
made my own bradawls, punches, and a pair of compasses, out of wire
and old files.
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