To build a house or stable is not very difficult; but with no
carpenter or experienced man to help it wants a certain amount of
ingenuity. You lay out your foundation by putting thick pieces of
oak called "sills" on the ground in the shape of your house. In
town these "sills" are nailed to posts which have been driven
eight feet into the ground; but on the prairie are simply laid on
the flat; on to the sills come the joists, planks 2 x 6 placed on
edge across, two feet apart. Then the uprights, which stand on the
sills two feet apart, form the walls. To these you nail rough
boards on each side, with a layer of tar-paper in between if
building a stable; if a dwelling-house, on the inside you put
against your rough board, laths, and then plaster, on the outside
the tar-paper and siding.

The floor is made by nailing rough boards on the joists, then
tar-paper, and on the top of that tongued and grooved wood fitting
into each other, to make it air-tight.

The roofs, which are almost always pointed on account of the snow,
are composed of rafter 2 x 4, two to three feet apart, with rough
boards across, then tar-paper and shingles; the latter are thin,
flat pieces of wood laid on to overlap each other.

We send you a small sketch of our buildings, which will give you a
better idea of these "frame" houses than any description. They can
be bought ready-made at Chicago, and are sent up with every piece
numbered, so that you have no difficulty in putting them together
again.

Our own house is twenty-four feet square with a lean-to as