Thread a piece of heavy black darning-cotton in the largest-sized long darning-needle you can find; on one end of the thread mould a cylinder-shaped piece of beeswax, cover it with thin tinfoil, then open the clock-door and hold the clock with its head bent outward and downward from you. Look through the open door and see the holes on the inside of the top; run your needle through one of these holes and across the top on the outside, bringing it down through the other hole into the clock. Slip the needle off the thread and mould another piece of beeswax on the free end of the thread, make it the same size and shape as the first weight, cover this also with tinfoil and you will have clock-weights ([Fig. 273]) for winding up the old-fashioned timepiece. Gently pull down one weight and the other will go up, just as your colonial forefathers wound their clocks. When the weight is pulled down in the real clock it winds up the machinery, and the clock continues its tick, tack, tick, like the ancient timepiece Longfellow tells us of, stationed in the hall of the old-fashioned country-seat.
Fig. [274].—Pattern of the churn.
Fig. [277].—Handle of the dasher.
Do you like real country buttermilk, and have you ever helped churn? If you live in the city or for some other reason are not able to make the butter, you can still enjoy manufacturing a little
Colonial Churn
that will look capable of producing the best sweet country butter ([Fig. 275]).
| Fig. [276]—Cork lid to the churn. | Fig. [278].—Dasher. | Fig. [279].—Push the end of the handle through the dasher. | Fig. [280].—Cut end of handle pasted on the dasher. |