Illustration] Three puncheons were put across the inside of the roof, being fastened with pegs of wood, for the few nails we have among us are of too much value to be used in house building.
Where the floor of earth does not hold the timbers firmly enough, what are called puncheons are fastened to the outside just beneath the roof.
Puncheons are logs that have been split and trimmed with axes until they are something like planks, and you will see very many in our village of Plymouth.
His father explained that the unseasoned lumber of the puncheons would so shrink in the drying that no fastening could hold them.
In the backwoods, where lumber is scarce, a coffin will be knocked together from rough planks taken from someone's loft, or out of puncheons hewn from the green trees.
Did you have a thousand puncheons this year, father?
A hot season makes him rich, a rainy season ruins him; in a single morning puncheons worth eleven francs have been known to drop to six.
Indeed, the dancers exerted themselves so long, and well, that the puncheons seemed to take up their spirit, and appeared as if endeavoring to extemporize a hornpipe on their own hook.
The fiddler threw all his powers into his playing and his stentorian voice; and the men heeled and toed with a hearty goodwill, and the puncheons rattled beneath their measured, swinging tread.
It was plainly a great surprise to Father Beret, who looked up from his prayer when she rushed in, making a startling clatter, the loose puncheons shaking together under her reckless feet.
He insisted on keeping a sack of flour and two puncheons of wine in the cellar of his house, and he would allow no one to lay hands on them.
I have two puncheons, only two puncheons of it left.
He therefore required his promised supporter to sign a bond (which the lunatic carefully read over) to deliver two puncheonsof the wine called "Head of Vouvray," vineyard of Margaritis.
Well, Monsieur, I have two puncheons left of the same wine; if you find it good we can come to terms.
A deputation was sent to meet the duke and duchess and to offer them and the Governor of Bresse four dozen Clon cheeses, four puncheons of foreign wine, and twelve pots of preserves.
The foinest puncheons I iver saw," said Patrick Gass, head carpenter, as he set to splitting boards out of the surrounding firs.
The sides were boarded with puncheons of cedar, laboriously split with elkhorn wedges and stone hammers.
After that, advancing his right foot, he gave him a push upon the couillons with the upper end of his said mast, wherewith breaking the scuttle on the top thereof, he spilt three or four puncheons of wine that were left therein.
All having gone off to the satisfaction of both parties, the trader would make this boy some small present according to the number of puncheons of oil he had brought down, seldom less than a piece of cloth worth about 2s.
In Jamaica it is usual to put sliced pine apples into the puncheons containing the finer qualities of rum, which is then termed pine-apple rum.
Thus:--A spirit merchant having two puncheons of rum of the strengths of 17 and 21 o.
Then my glance wandered to the floor, and on the puncheons were three stains.
Now I thought I heard it under the wall, now beneath the puncheons of the floor.
But for the low ceiling and the wide cypress puncheons of the floor the room might have been a boudoir in a manor-house.
Across the rough mantel-shelf was draped the French tricolor, and before the fireplace on the puncheons lay a huge bearskin which undoubtedly had not been shaken for a year.
In the mean time the boards and puncheons were collecting for the floor and roof, so that by the time the cabin was a few rounds high the sleepers and floor began to be laid.
Another division was employed in getting puncheons for the floor of the cabin; this was done by splitting trees, about eighteen inches in diameter, and hewing the faces of them with a broad-axe.
These puncheons are held to their places by leather thongs, fastened around them to the poles that lay upon the posts.
Captain Miles, therefore, at once closed with the planter, and the last of the launches conveying the rum puncheons to the Josephine brought off in addition this cow.
The puncheons of rum were then again lowered down and stowed securely and the hatches put on again.
Besides the puncheons of rum another piece of cargo was brought on board.
Just you listen: these gentlemen get seven, or sometimes eight puncheons of wine to the acre, and they sell them for sixty francs apiece, that means four hundred francs per acre at most in a good year.
There will be twenty puncheons or more to the acre this year; but then look at all the dung that has been put on the land!
This year things don't look so bad; and, of course, the beggarly puncheons have gone up to eleven francs already.
And Captain Gore sparing me some molasses, and the use of the Resolution's copper, I was enabled to brew a fortnight's beer for the crew, and to make a farther provision of ten puncheons of strong spruce essence.
Besides this, and the incredible waste which, in the midst of such plenty, was not to be guarded against, sixty puncheons more were salted for sea-store.
During all this time, a large allowance of fresh pork was constantly served to both crews, so that our consumption was computed at about sixtypuncheons of five hundred weight each.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "puncheons" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
