Ticket-Chopper’s Box.
You may then take a square box, with a lock and key attached, and bore a hole in one end large enough to admit a good-sized marble; use this as the railroad and ferry-men use a ticket-chopper’s box, let every boy who wants a ride drop a marble in the box.
Some thirty years ago a certain boy built a “switchback” in his back-yard, very much like the one here described, and great fun he had with it; but as he was not rich, and the lumber cost him something, he issued a number of tickets at one cent each, every ticket entitling the holder to three rides on the “switchback.” In this way he was soon repaid all the expense he had been under during the erection of his wonderful railroad.
This is what that boy told the writer, and as the former young engineer is now no longer a lad, but a grave D.D., who wears solemn black clothes and preaches long sermons, the writer believes him.
Under Full Headway.
But whether you charge a cent, a marble, or nothing, for a ride, you and your friends are bound to have a rollicking good time on the back-yard “switchback.”
CHAPTER XV.
HOW TO BUILD A TOBOGGAN-SLIDE IN THE BACK-YARD.
Toboggans and sleds are not always used on snow and ice, neither is coasting confined to winter weather.
At most of the summer resorts you may coast down an artificial hill, upon real toboggans, over a slide of hard-wood rollers, and end with a whoop and a splash in the water of the bathing-pool.