rank."

"What do you mean by that?" said Caleb, as he followed Raymond out of
the barn.

"Why, the teeth are set off, a good way, each side, and it will cut a
good wide kerf; and so your saw will run easy."

By this time they had reached the cart. Raymond took hold of Caleb under
the arms, and jumped him up into the cart behind, and then handed him
his saw. Then he put in an axe and an iron bar for himself, and one or
two spare chains; and then he went to open the great gate. Just at this
moment, Mary Anna appeared at the window, and said,

"Caleb, are you going into the woods?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Then, if you see any good, smooth birch bark, won't you bring me home
some!"

"I will," said Caleb; and then Raymond opened the gate, and started the
oxen on. Caleb stood up in front, holding on by a stake, and wondering
all the while what Raymond could mean by a _kerf_.

One would think that he might have known by the connection in which
Raymond used it,--for he said that he had bent the teeth out so as to
make the saw cut a good wide _kerf_, and so he might have supposed that
the kerf was the cut in the wood which a saw makes in going in. The
reason why boys find it so difficult to saw, is because the teeth do not
generally spread very much, and so the kerf is narrow. Still, the back
of the saw would run in it well enough, without sticking, if they were
to saw perfectly straight. But they generally make the saw twist or wind
a little, and then the back of the saw rubs upon one side or the other;
and sticks. Now, Raymond's plan was to make the teeth set off, each
side, so far as to make the kerf very wide, and then he thought that
Caleb would be able to make it go, especially as the saw was very
narrow.

Raymond got into the cart, and took his seat upon a board which passed
across from side to side, and they rode along.

They reached, at length, a place where there was a small cart path
leading off from the main road into the woods. Raymond turned off into
this path; but it was so narrow that both he and Caleb had sometimes to
lean away to one side or the other to avoid the bushes. At length he
stopped and unfastened the oxen from the tongue. When all was right he
started the oxen on before him, Caleb trotting on behind with his saw in
his hand.

Presently they struck off from the cart path directly into the woods,
and in a few minutes came to the place where the fence was to be made.

CHAPTER IX.