Fig. 63.
With patience and care this is not very difficult to make. For the house itself you can use an old cigar box, or, if you prefer it, you can make the entire house in cardboard. This is, of course, easier, but not very durable. If you are going to use the cigar box, you will need first to cut the lid and bottom into something like the shape of a house end. You will then have to nail the lid down, and add two slanting pieces for the sides of the roof: and that will complete the house.
However, before you nail down the lid and put on the roof, you will need to understand the mechanism. First you will bore a round hole in the top of the roof, just behind the front gable. This hole is for a round peg to which the revolving base is attached.
The actual mechanism of the toy consists of a piece of catgut (an old violin string, or a tennis-racket string). This passes through the centre of a small flat piece of wood on which the two figures are balanced. Just in front of the string a piece of wire (a bent hairpin will do admirably) is fixed, so as to form a loop through which the catgut can pass (see Fig. 64). The other end of the catgut is fixed to the peg which fits in the hole in the roof.
Fig. 64.
For the man and woman you can use two of the grotesque figures cut from clothes pegs. Screws passed through the revolving base will secure the figures firmly and at the same time add a little weight, and so improve the balance.
When there is moisture in the air the catgut will twist. You must fit together the different parts and then, by turning the peg to right or left, adjust the position of the figures so that the lady appears in fine weather and the gentleman in wet.