The Wabash Horn,
(see illustration), for it was among the boatmen from that river that it was always found.
Fig. 112.
Since the introduction of the house-boat as a popular summer vacation boat, there is no reason why the Wabash horn should not be rescued from the legends of the West and hung under the eaves of every American boy’s house-boat, to be used to summon the crew, as it was in the good old times before Fulton filled the waters with his steam-boats and the air with their ear-splitting whistles.
The Wabash horn is one of the most primitive affairs possible; it is simply a long box, open at both ends, and differs from an ordinary box in the fact that one end is very much smaller than the opposite end; the big end is the bell of the horn, and the small end is the part you put to your lips.
Among the Flat-boatmen
these horns were made of pine, and sometimes they were as much as eight feet long; but five or six feet will be long enough for any ordinary boy.
Fig. 109 shows a six-foot slab, smoothed and trimmed into proper form. It should be less than a quarter of an inch thick, and made of red-wood, pine, or cedar, which is free from knots, cracks, or blemishes of any kind. Make it four or five inches wide at the big end and two inches wide at the small end, outside measurement. See that the edges are perfectly straight and true; otherwise your horn will leak, and not only be difficult or impossible to blow, but if you do succeed in making a noise with it the notes will be flat and unpleasant. The other three slabs are of the same form as the one described, but to make the openings square two sides must be of dimensions given, and with the other two you must allow for the thickness of the wood, and make them just that much narrower than the first two (Fig. 110).