Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/196

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Bird Singers, Etc.
163

upon this instrument, but a funny squeaking noise can be produced.

The squeak of the corn-stalk fiddle brings to my mind another rustic instrument.

The Pumpkin-vine Fife.

Cut a good thick, straight pumpkin-stem and make holes in it like those in a fife. If you know how to blow on a fife you may not only produce a noise with the pumpkin-stem, but a tune may be played upon this simple instrument which, even if only partially successful, will amuse your hearers to that degree that you will feel yourself amply repaid for the trouble.

Image missing
Fig. 120.A Pumpkin vine Flute.
A Pumpkin-vine Flute.

Cut off a long leaf-stem like the one shown in the illustration (Fig. 120). With the blade of your knife make a slit (A, B) through both sides of the stem. Then at the base of the leaf, in the solid part just beyond the end of the hollow in the stem, cut off the stem at C, D. By putting this end in the mouth and blowing, a noise will be produced, deep and sonorous, sounding like a distant steamboat's whistle. Holes may be cut for the fingers similar to those just described for the fife.

If one stem fails to work, cut another and try it until you succeed. The pumpkin-vine flute, like the corn-stalk fiddle, will amuse small boys, but if my reader does not belong to that class he may make of a piece of fishing-cane a first-rate fife.

Cane Fife.

The fishing-pole being much harder material than the succulent pumpkin-vine stem, is proportionally more difficult to cut.

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