"No sir-ree. There ain't anything better 'n White Pine for target and Ash or Hickory for hunting arrows. Which are we making?"
"I'm a hunter. Give me huntin' arrows every time. What's needed next?"
"Seasoned Ash twenty-five inches long, split to three-eighths of an inch thick, hot glue, and turkey-wing feathers."
"I'll get the feathers and let you do the rest," said Sam, producing a bundle of turkey-wings, laid away as stove-dusters, and then belied his own statement by getting a block of Ash and splitting it up, halving it each time till he had a pile of two dozen straight sticks about three-quarters of an inch thick.
[180] Yan took one and began with his knife to whittle it down to proper size and shape, but Sam said, "I can do better than that," then took the lot to the workbench and set to work with a smoothing plane. Yan looked worried and finally said:
"Injuns didn't have planes."
"Nor jack-knives neither," was the retort.
That was true, and yet somehow Yan's ideal that he hankered after was the pre-Columbian Indian, the one who had no White-man's help or tools.
"It seems to me it'd be more Injun to make these with just what we get in the woods. The Injuns didn't have jack-knives, but they had sharp flints in the old days."