A sawyer may be made upon the same principle, as the illustrations show, or you may have a simple windmill and no figures. Fix the platform and its figures on the top of a pole with a pivot so that they may turn freely in the wind. Before you bore the hole through the platform balance the whole carefully upon the pole or you will put the hole in the wrong place.
The Skip-Jack.
The Skip-Jack.—The skip-jack is made out of the merry-thought of a goose. A strong doubled string must be tied at the two ends of the bone, and a piece of wood about three inches long put between the strings, as shown in the illustration, and twisted round until the string has the force of a spring. A bit of shoemaker’s wax should then be put in the hollow of the bone at the place where the end of the piece of wood touches, and when the wood is pressed slightly on the wax the toy is set. The wood sticks only a very short time, and then springs forcibly up. The skip-jack is placed on the ground with the wax downwards. Upon this principle toy frogs are made sometimes.
The Jolly Pea.
The Jolly Pea.—Stick through a pea, or small ball of pith, two pins at right angles, and put upon the points pieces of sealing-wax. The pea may be kept dancing in the air at a short distance from the end of a straight tube, by means of a current of breath from the mouth. This imparts a rotatory motion to the pea. A piece of broken clay tobacco pipe serves very well. Some boys prefer one pin (the vertical one) and dispense with the cross pin.
