Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/393

large hole bored through the middle, and a small hole bored through one side, to the middle hole; the string from the stick passes through the hole in the side of the buckeye; the end of the stick is sharpened and thrust into a potato.

If the string be wound around the stick, and the buckeye held between the thumb and forefinger, the stick and potato may be made to spin rapidly by alternately pulling the string and allowing it to slacken; the motion imparted by the first pull continues long enough to wind the string in the opposite direction, and thus, for an indefinite time, or until the string wears out by friction, the potato mill may be kept buzzing at a great rate.

Another machine the boys used to be very fond of was called

it was generally made out of the top of a tin blacking-box, with the rim knocked off and the edge cut into notches like a saw. Two strings passing through two holes near the centre gave a revolving motion to the "buzzer" (Fig. 226 shows a saw-mill).

By holding the strings so that the wheel hangs loosely in the middle, and swinging the wheel or "buzzer" around and around until the string becomes tightly twisted, the machine is wound up. As with the potato mill, the revolving motion is imparted by alternately pulling and allowing the string to slacken, only in this case you must hold one end of the string in each hand (Fig. 226). When the boys can make a buzzer actually saw into a piece of board or shingle by allowing the edge of the wheel to strike the wood, the saw-mill is pronounced a success, and its value increased.