Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/392

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Chapter XXXIX.
How to Make Various and Divers Whirligigs.

Who can watch machinery of any kind in motion, without experiencing an indefinable sort of pleasure? No matter how simple the contrivance may be, if it move it immediately interests us. This instinct, if I may so call it, that prompts us Image missingThe Potato Mill. to watch and play with machinery is implanted in the brain of the lower animals as well as of man. I think no one can doubt that a kitten or a dog enjoys chasing a ball, and enters into the sport with as much zest as a college-boy does his game of football. It is this same indefinable desire for observing and experimenting with moving objects that prompts us to throw stones for the purpose of seeing them skip over the surface of the water, and to this instinct must be attributed the pleasure experienced by the school-boy with his

Potato Mill,

which consists of simply a stick, a potato, a buckeye, or a horse-chestnut, and a string. The stick is whittled into the form shown in the illustration; a string is fastened to the stick about one-half inch below the knob on the top. The buckeye has a

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