This set of whittled outdoor toys ought to please almost any boy. With kite and fish line time coming soon and the wind blowing a gale for your weather vane, and the other fellows out ready to play “cat”--well, let’s see how to make all these toys.
The kite stick in Fig. 1 is made from a piece of pine wood eight inches long, and, roughly cut out, about three-quarters of an inch square. This is smoothed down to five-eighths of an inch, and then you start in to make it round. First the four corners of the square are trimmed off evenly for the full length, making it an eight-sided stick, and then these corners are again trimmed, until finally the stick is round enough to be sandpapered smooth. It is better to draw a five-eighth inch circle on each end of the stick before you trim it down, so that you can see whether you are making a true round. When the line for the bevel is marked around one-eighth of an inch from the ends, the bevel is cut, the notch is cut around the middle, and the stick is ready to tie your kite string to.
For the reel in Fig. 2 and also the weather vane in Fig. 7, it is better to select a piece of wood which is already “dressed”--that is, finished smooth to the thickness you require, because it is hard to make a broad surface true with a jack knife. Cigar boxes are three-sixteenths of an inch thick, and a piece of one will make a good, stout reel. In making all of these toys, the pattern should be drawn on the wood as far as possible with pencil, scale, and straight edge, before any cutting is done. The reel should be cut first into an oblong, two and a quarter inches by four and a quarter, then the corners are rounded so that the line will not catch on them, and lastly the “recessed edge” where the line is to be wound is made, cutting from each end of the opening toward the center, and gradually working it down even.
[Illustration: (A) WHITTLED WEATHER VANE. (B) KITE STICK; “CAT”; REEL FOR FISH LINE. (C) “CAT” STICK.]
[Illustration: Diagrams of a Kite Stick, Reel, “Cat,” “Cat” Stick, and Weather Vane.]
[Illustration: Diagrams of a Weather Vane.]
There are not many boys who don’t know how to play “cat.” It requires a good deal of skill, and if you don’t break anybody’s window or put out anybody’s eye, it’s a lot of fun. It requires two boys to play this game. You lay the cat down flat--as in Fig. 3--and, with the stick (Fig. 4), held by the octagonal end, hit the cat sharply on one end, and as it flies up bat it forward. It is up to the other fellow to catch it, and if he does, it counts you out, and gives him a turn. But if he doesn’t catch it, you measure with the stick, end over end from where you stand to where the cat has fallen, and that counts so many points for you. Then the other fellow has another chance to count you out by throwing the cat from where it fell and trying to hit your stick. If it falls short or goes beyond, you again measure the distance with your stick, and that too counts in your favor.