Part 7

To finish the smoke stack, and make it look like the newest fashion in American engines, you must nail on to the top, with brads, a round piece of wood, a quarter of an inch thick, and a quarter of an inch larger all around than the broomstick itself. Behind the boiler

MAKE THE CAB.

This is a peculiar thing, and the boy builder of the cigar-box train insists that it must be done exactly as he directs, in order to make a really _proper_ cab. To proceed, then:

For the front piece take a board a half-inch thick, three and three quarters inches high, and two and a half wide. Cut with a jig saw, near the top, two windows, one on each side, to overlook the engine. Nail this to the back end of the boiler, and to the floor. Make the two side pieces of the cab of cigar-box wood three inches wide and four inches high. In these cut two windows, also near the top. Before you nail these side pieces on, make a third piece out of half-inch wood, two and a quarter inches long, by two and a half wide, and nail it with brads to the front piece of the cab, one inch from the floor, like a shelf. This is the real floor, and without it your cab will be a mere toy, and not at all the correct thing. Having this shelf in place, nail on your side pieces, both to the front piece, and to the shelf.

The roof requires a piece of thin board, two and a half inches wide, and four inches long, so that it will project one inch beyond the sides. Remember it must be put _between_ the side pieces, and on _top_ of the front piece, and nailed with brads.

TO MAKE THE DRIVING WHEELS.

The engine wheels are four in number, made by sawing from half-inch board four circles four inches in diameter, and from cigar-box wood an equal number four and a half inches in diameter. Each wheel is double, you see, to form the flange which keeps it on the track. Nail with little brads, each larger circle on to a smaller one, so that the former will project equally all around. Then bore a hole exactly in the middle of each, and your wheels are ready. With lath nails fasten one pair of wheels to the platform board at the side of the cab (flanges inside, of course), and the other pair to the same board in front, and so far that the rims of the two wheels on one side will be about two inches apart.

TO MAKE THE COW-CATCHER.

For this very important addition to the engine take a piece of wood three inches wide and two inches thick. Saw it on _both_ sides to a point (_fig. 7_). First shave it down on top so that it forms a sharp point at _b_, _fig. 7_. Then draw a line through the middle of the top (_a_ to _b_, _fig. 7_), and shave down each side so that it shall present a sharp edge all around from _c_ to _b_, and from _b_ to _d_ (_fig. 7_). Nail this to the front end of the platform board with inch-long brads.

TO MAKE THE TENDER.

This is very easily made of a cigar box, one of the low sort, the same width as your cars, but only half the height. Remove the cover and take out one end board. Put the box on a board a half-inch longer than itself, and finish with trucks as you did your cars.

At the back end of this tender—the closed end—fasten couplings like these on the cars, but to the engine it may be fastened by a common wire hook and eye. The hook being on the engine.

This completes your train, and if you wish to make a double track, you need only make your ties long enough to allow trains to pass, and then lay your tracks side by side.

With a little ingenuity, you can make bridges and tunnels, freight trains, and gravel trains, and can, in fact, increase your “rolling stock” to any extent.

I hope you will enjoy building this railway and train half as much as did the boys in the attic in New York City. With them the building and improving, the running of trains and the adding of new facilities, make a never-ending entertainment.

XVIII.—HOW TO MAKE A GOOD FLY.

FLY-FISHING is poetry; ordinary angling is prose. The latter looks to the catch; the former to skill shown in the capture. There is more sport in hooking and playing one single bass with a light pliant fly-rod, than in dragging in a dozen by mere muscular force. To cast a fly lightly to a chosen spot, to note instantly the swell indicative of a “rise,” to strike at once, but deliberately, to keep your rod bent, your line taut, and your fish in the water long enough to exhaust him, all require judgment, skill and self-control.

But after you have put up your rod for the season, you may still extract pleasure from mending your tackle, putting reel and rod in order, and last, but not least, in making a supply of artificial flies for future fishing.

The articles necessary for making flies are hooks, silk, white wax, silkworm-gut, tinsel-feather fibres—dubbing for the bodies of fur, wool, silk or feathers—hackles for legs, and larger feathers for wings.

First, get a good hook. The good hook is as sharp as a needle, and the barbed end points nearly exactly in a line with the end of the shank; not inside of the “line of pull,” _a_, _b_ (see fig. 1), lest the point come not in contact with the fish; nor too far out, lest the barb be pulled flatwise against the fish’s mouth, and thus not pierce it readily; nor exactly _in_ the line of pull, for, though in that case it would pierce anything between the point and end of shank, it might slip out without touching the unclosed jaws before the jaw had passed the line of pull. A point like _x_ would be bad, so would one like _z_; but one like _y_ would be about right. Now take the hook between the forefinger and thumb of your left hand, the shank pointing to your right, as in fig. 2. Say the end of a strong piece of silk, well waxed, on the hook near the bend, and, holding it firmly with your forefinger and thumb, wrap it tightly around the hook nearly to the end of the shank, as in fig. 3. Now coil a piece of silkworm-tug that has been soaked ten or fifteen minutes, and lay it on the hook with the coil to your right, and wrap it with your silk carefully and firmly down to the bend of the hook, cutting off the silkworm-gut a little before you get to the bend, so as to cover it well with the wrap, like fig. 4, at first; it looks like fig. 5 after wrapping. Now take two of the fibres of a peacock’s feather, technically known as peacock’s herl, and a piece of silver or gilt tinsel; lay the tinsel on near the bend, and then, after two wraps of the silk, lay on the two pieces of peacock’s herl, which must be fastened by two or three wraps, as in fig. 6. Now fasten in with a turn or two of the silk the dubbing for the body of the fly. Supposing it to be peacock’s herl, three or four pieces will do, as in fig. 7. Then take a hackle-feather, shaped like fig. 8, from the neck or rump of a gamecock or brown leghorn, and fasten in the point with three wraps of your silk, as in fig. 9.

You have now a hook, _a_, wrapped with well-waxed silk, _b_, with a piece of silkworm-gut, _c_, a piece of tinsel, _d_, two tail-pieces, _e, e_, dubbing for body, _f, f, f_ and hackle for legs, _g_.

Now for the wings. Strip off or cut from a hawk’s feather, like fig. 10, a clipping or two, like fig. 11, and fold it into a convenient width, and clip the ends square, like fig. 12. Lay them on the shank of the hook, butts to the left, points to the right, and fasten with three or four firm wraps, as in fig. 13. Now draw the silk under the wing, between them and the hook, to hold them temporarily, and going back to the bend of the hook, wind the dubbing, _f, f, f_ around the hook over and to your right as far as the root of the wings, leaving the hackle out; fasten the dubbing with one or two wraps, taking the silk from under the wing to do the wrapping. Next wind your tinsel _d_ up to the same point and fasten in same way. Now wind your hackle towards the right, twisting the quill as you wind to keep the fibres sticking outwards, and picking out any fibres that get entangled with a dubbing-needle (a needle stuck in a piece of soft pine, like fig. 14) and fasten. Now turn back the wings with the points to your left, towards the bend of the hook; fasten back with one or two wraps, passing the silk through an opening between the wings made by the dubbing-needle, to separate them. Finish by making two loose wraps, like fig. 15; then draw the silk through them tightly, like fig. 16. Touch this fastening with a drop of gum-shellac, and it will not slip or be affected by water. Gum-shellac dissolved in alcohol can be gotten at any drugstore, and should be rather thick. Your fly will now look like fig. 17.

Your flies should be _rough_ imitations of any water-flies you see in your tramps, in _color_ and _number_ of _parts_; outrageously colored flies will be taken by black bass, who seem to bite at anything that has the nearest apologies for body, wings and legs. All game-fish bite readily at a simple hackle wound from bend to shank around any attractively colored body in the form of a caterpillar; a good one for black bass is made with one reddish-brown hackle and two black ones; and a body of peacock’s herl wrapped with green or red silk is a good imitation of a caterpillar common here (in Virginia) in November.

Anglers also make something having no counterpart in nature—a winged hackle—by tying the hackle in a winged fly back from the bend to the end of shank—a sort of winged caterpillar. Some fish, no doubt, are affected by it as by a caterpillar; others as by a fly; others just strike out of curiosity, as a kitten plays with a ball. Should you buy your tackle, buy from tackle-makers who angle occasionally themselves. They know more “wrinkles” in their “line” in a day than ordinary makers learn in a year. Some of the best houses in Boston, New York and Baltimore derive their most valuable specialties from the presence of one or more actual anglers in the firms.

Water-flies have generally, like the Mayfly, fig. 18, a body, wings, legs, and tail-like appendages, technically, so you will not be far wrong if you make your fly have those parts, though fish bite at flies with less than these enumerated. For black bass, greens, yellows and reds seem the best colors, though white and black are often used. I like, however, flies that are combinations of bright and sober tints. A favorite fly with me has a body of peacock’s herl brown; wings, yellowish-white feather of chicken-hawk with discolorations on them; legs, a reddish-brown hackle from a gamecock or brown leghorn cock; tail-pieces, two fibres, like wings. I put a red streak in each wing. I call it the “academy,” after a school once under my care.

XIX.—HOW TO BIND MAGAZINES.

IT is often the case that in households where even several magazines are taken, that little money can be afforded for the purpose of binding them; and it follows that they are soon destroyed, or else stored away and never looked at. The pretty covers provided for most magazines by the publishers are of course preferable; but they also, of course, cost something. Therefore I have concluded to tell you of a durable, cheaper, and on the whole, pretty way of binding your yearly, or half-yearly volumes.

For several years we have made it a business to bind up our magazines every spring before cleaning house time; and we proudly exhibit to our friends our collections of neat, strong books which would look well in any library. We usually turn a corner of the living-room into a bindery, as we have no workshop.

We bring in the work-bench with vise attached, pile our magazines on it, sort them into volumes, remove the covers and advertising leaves, put the engravings in their proper places if they are not there, place each volume according to date or page, lay the title page and table of contents at the top of each pile, and there are our magazines ready to bind. We have meantime a little pot of good glue in readiness on the stove, which, after it is dissolved thoroughly, is better to be kept only warm. A little good twine, a few strips of strong cloth, about an inch wide, a handsaw, a pair of shears, and some of the old covers and leaves are also at hand on the bench. Also we have two bars of wood an inch thick, two or three inches wide, and about two feet long, fastened together at one or both ends (one end only is necessary if a vise is used) by a bolt five or six inches long—this is the press.

Now we take a volume of the magazines, lay an old cover on each side. Making sure that the numbers are perfectly even at the back and upper ends, we place them in the press with the backs projecting a quarter of an inch at least, placing them in the vise with the backs in a horizontal position (_see fig. 1_) and screw up pretty tightly. Then we saw into the backs as far as they project in three places (_fig. 1_). Next we dip a piece of cord into the glue, and wind it back and forth once or twice in the grooves made by the saw. This, as you will see, binds the volume firmly together.

Now we take as many strips of cloth as there are grooves, each about six inches long, and gluing them in the middle, place one in each groove (_see fig. 2_). Then we cut a strip of strong paper, and glue it on the back of the volume.

The book may be taken immediately from the press, though it is better to not handle it for a little while, and another set of numbers be put in. Several volumes may be bound in a short time, and if these directions are followed the binding is altogether as durable as that done at a bindery would be.

The next thing in order is to smooth the edges; this we do by placing each book in the vise again—the tighter the better now—front edges up at first, and projecting far enough to allow them to be made even. Now we rasp them off even with the press, with a coarse furniture rasp, or the side of a saw. Sometimes we leave it thus, and sometimes we spatter-work it by dipping an old toothbrush in ink and drawing it across a sharp edge of wood, allowing the spatters to fall on the book before it is taken from the vise. The ends we treated in the same manner.

Now we have a pile of books, without covers, to be sure, but even at this stage they are more available than if they are not bound at all. However, we provide covers without expense. We use old paste-board boxes for this purpose, cutting them a little larger than the volume they are intended for. We lay these covers in place, cover and fasten them by gluing the edges of the strips of cloth upon the _outside_ smoothly; the cover goes as far back as the cloth will permit. Then we make a cover of cloth for the back, usually using black or brown cambric, or selesia. The back cloth is always at best an inch longer than the covers, and about three inches wider than the back; we cut coarse twine into bits a trifle longer than the book is thick, using as many as we may choose.

We dip these twines in paste, one at a time, and lay them crosswise of the cloth, one at each end, at least, and just as far apart as the covers are long (_fig. 3._), laying the others between. Then we cut a strip of strong paper as wide as the cords are long, and just as long as the covers, and paste it over the cords, and then we paste the cloth down on the paper at the ends, and pin the completed back tightly around a stick—a broom handle is good—and let it remain there to dry. When we take it off we slip it over the back corners of the covers and fasten it strongly down with glue.

After this the covers may be finished as elaborately as you may choose; we bind the edges of most of ours with cloth, and then trim off the edges of some of the front covers of the magazines and paste them on. We make a pretty inside finish by laying in a double leaf of manilla paper, one half pasted to the inside of the cover the other being left as fly-leaf.

The freshly bound books should be piled with plenty of paper between them to absorb the moisture, with weights atop, until they are wholly dry. Shabby books may be made almost as good as new by smoothing the leaves, rebinding and recovering; and it is surprising to see how pretty bits of wrapping paper, and bits of brown, black, or gray cloth can be made to serve in this work; bits of leather may be used on the corners of covers. Sabbath-school papers, Lesson Quarterlies, etc., may thus be made into pretty volumes very easily. Five cents’ worth of glue will bind a great many volumes, and the gluing is a much easier and better way than sewing.

XX.—HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH.

NEARLY ten years ago I took lessons in landscape photography, and since then have made hundreds of photographs of places rarely visited, of strange people and wonderful vegetation, which have delighted the eyes of many friends. Assuming that many members of the Reading Union will wish to retain more permanent pictures of vacation scenes this summer than can be carried in memory alone, I propose to show how they can do this with little trouble and expense.

First, I must congratulate you upon your good fortune in being able to enter upon the study of photography in the year 1882, rather than twenty, or even ten, years earlier. In no other department of science, except perhaps in electricity, has such an advance been made. It was only in 1839 that Daguerre published his success in obtaining an image on a silver plate, and in 1851 that the collodion process—that most in use at the present day—was given to the world. But within the past few years improvements have been made, by means of which the art is not confined to professional workmen, but can be enjoyed by all the young folks in the land.

I well remember the disadvantages attending outdoor photography, even no longer ago than when I made my first attempts. By the collodion or wet process it was absolutely necessary to carry a large trunk full of chemicals and bulky apparatus. Among other things there was the “dark tent;” in its most compact form it was a box, about two feet and a half square, with curtains and aprons arranged so as to exclude all _actinic_ or chemical light. After setting your camera in position and focusing the picture, you had to retire into the dark tent, arrange the curtains about you to exclude all outside light, and consequently air, and then you coated the glass plate with collodion and dipped it into the “silver bath” to make it sensitive to light. This operation required several minutes, and if the day was hot and sultry, the operator in the dark box was nearly suffocated before he emerged with the prepared plate ready for the camera. After exposing this he was obliged to hide himself again in that hot box full of chemical fumes, and there “develop” the picture supposed to be upon the glass.

With the discovery that plates could be prepared ready for use at any time, and that would remain sensitive to the action of light for months, a new field was opened, in which any one could wander who had the inclination. By this discovery all the bottles of chemicals, with the dark tent and the clumsy apparatus, were done away with. Materials for a hundred photographs can now be carried in a small valise or in an ordinary trunk amongst clothes and books.

Though an amateur, and having no greater interest in photography than arose from a desire to secure pictures of the spots I visited, I hailed the appearance of the “dry plates” and their simpler mode of use, for I was heartily tired of the old way. My fingers were always black with silver stains, and my clothes streaked and stained with salts of iron and soda. My accidents, from the tipping over of chemicals, and in struggling over mountain roads and the beds of mountain torrents, were more than I could count on my fingers. In Florida, whenever I crawled into the dark tent—pitched, perhaps, on the border of a swamp or in the deep woods—the mosquitoes and sand-flies would make furious attacks upon my legs and nearly drive me wild, and I would be haunted by fear of the snakes and alligators that might attack me in that defenseless position—with my head in a sack and my hands employed. One day an enormous old billy-goat, taking offence at the outlandish appearance of my tent, as I was at work in it, half concealed from his view, charged on it with such force as to knock us all in a heap. When I had crawled out from the ruins, expecting to learn that an earthquake had passed by, I saw that billy-goat standing calmly by, chewing his cud, and shaking his head sidewise, as much as to say, “Get into that box again, and I’ll knock you over a second time!” In the West Indies it was always necessary to hire two negroes to carry my trunk, and as they invariably bore their burdens on their heads, the silver solution would sometimes leave a black streak down their faces, even darker than their ebony countenances!

The new discovery did away with all this trouble. I was quick to see this, and in one of my trips to the tropics carried a camera and a stock of “dry plates.” Alas! I had too hastily adopted a crude invention. I climbed mountains, descended into craters of volcanoes, threaded tangled thickets, and penetrated to secluded valleys to photograph new scenes with my new instrument. Having perfect faith in the new invention, I did not test my plates with chemicals on the spot, but kept them till I returned, and then gave them to the photographer to manipulate. My carelessness was well rewarded, for of the nearly one hundred plates, _not one_ contained a perfect picture. I was in a condition then to sympathize with the great Audubon, who had a trunk full of drawings, the result of a year’s labor, destroyed by mice.

Unlike him, I had not a sufficiently powerful incentive to repeat my travels, and the anticipated pictures were gone forever. Nothing daunted, I next year procured another machine and tried again, this time in Mexico. In that year the inventor had not been idle, and I informed myself upon the merits of his invention so that my results at the end of the journey were such as greatly pleased me and my friends; for from the plates of glass exposed to light in the camera flashed out fac-similes of strange idols of stone, grand old ruins, snow-capped volcanoes, valleys almost hid in dense vegetation, palms, tropical plants, and the picturesque features of that strange country.

But, without further preface, let me tell you how you may take pictures this summer without any of the hindrances that I had to encounter in my first attempts.

The first thing needed is a camera, which in its simplest form is a darkened box, with a lens in front, through which the scene is focused upon a plate in its back—a plate of glass prepared with chemicals so that its surface is sensitive to the light admitted through the lens.

A few seconds of time is generally sufficient for the transmission of an impression to this plate, and before and after that “exposure” it must be kept away from all light until the “latent image”—the picture we cannot yet see—has been brought out and “fixed” by means of chemicals. This forms the “negative,” which is to the finished photograph what an engraved block is to the engraving on paper. To obtain this negative is your first object; having got this, you may produce from it as many prints as you like, at very little cost, either by taking it to a photographer, or by continuing the process and printing them yourself.