Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/99

much better than words can. Take a piece of string, try each one, and test their relative strength.

Fig. 57 (VI.). It often happens, while fishing, that a hook is caught in a snag, or by some other means lost. The diagram shows the most expeditious manner of attaching another hook by what is known as the "sinker hitch," described further on (Fig. 57, D, D, D, and Fig. 58, XIV., XV., and XVI.).

Fig. 57, VII. is another and more secure method of attaching a hook by knitting the line on with a succession of hitches.

The same hitches are used in the manufacture of horse-hair watch-guards, much in vogue with the boys in some sections of the country. As regularly as "kite-time," "top-time," or "ball-time," comes "horse-hair watch-guard time."

About once a year the rage for making watch-guards used to seize the boys of our school, and by some means or other almost every boy would have a supply of horse-hair on hand. With the first tap of the bell for recess, some fifty hands would dive into the mysterious depths of about fifty pockets, and before the bell had stopped ringing about fifty watch-guards, in a more or less incomplete state, would be produced.

Whenever a teamster's unlucky stars caused him to stop near the school-house, a chorus of voices greeted him with "Mister, please let us have some hair from your horses' tails."

The request was at first seldom refused, possibly because its nature was not at the time properly understood; but lucky was the boy considered who succeeded in pulling a supply of hair from the horses' tails without being interrupted by the heels of the animals or by the teamster, who, when he saw the swarm of boys tugging at his horses' tails, generally repented his first good-natured assent, and with a gruff "Get out, you young rascals!" sent the lads scampering to the school-yard fence.