will be sent by mail to any address on receipt of ten cents.
HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York.
[Illustration: THE FIRST VISIT TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S.
"WHO WOULDN'T BE FRIGHTENED AT HAVING THAT GREAT BIG-HEADED TWO-LEGGED
THING COMING RIGHT AT YOU?"]
* * * * *
RULES FOR BOBBING.
When you start out to "bob," it is just as well to determine in advance
what kind of bobbing you are going to do. There are several kinds, as
most young people know--such as bobbing for apples, bobbing for eels,
and bobbing on a bob-sled. A rule which would do very well when bobbing
for apples would not suit you at all when sliding down hill, and _vice
versa_. Therefore, the first general rule for bobbing is to select your
kind, and then go ahead. The following rules are for the sled variety:
1. First get your bob. There is no use of trying to go bobbing without a
bob. The boy who tries to bob without a bob is apt to wear his clothes
out in a very short time, and to experience considerable discomfort into
the bargain.
2. Having secured your bob, and got its runners and steering-gear into
good working order, select a convenient hill upon which to coast, and
start from the top of it. This is one of the most important of the rules
of bobbing. Boys who have tried the experiment of starting to bob from
the foot of the hill have met with considerable opposition not from the
people about them, but from certain principles of nature which make it
impossible for even the best of bob-sleds to coast up hill, and while
there is no law against your trying to coast up hill which would result
in your being put into jail if you broke it, persistence in the effort
might result in your landing sooner or later in a lunatic asylum.
3. Having started from the top of the hill, then stick as closely as you
can to the line mapped out before the "shove-off." It is always well to
know where you are going to land, particularly when you are bobbing. It
is true that when Columbus started out to discover America he did not
know where he was going to land, or, indeed, that he was going to land
at all, but he had a pretty good general idea of the possibilities, and
that is what you need to have before the shove-off. The experiences of a
New Hampshire boy who ignored this point will show its importance. He
shoved off all right, but having left the chosen path, found himself
speeding down the hill directly at the rear of the village church. He
could not stop, and the first thing he knew he crashed through the
stained-glass windows, down through the middle aisle, and out into the
street, slap bang into the arms of the town constable. He was arrested,
and his father having to pay the fine imposed, as well as to give the
church new windows, and carpet for the middle aisle, where the runners
of the bob had destroyed the old one, made him very uncomfortable by
spanking him regularly every time it snowed during the following winter.
4. Do not try to coast unless there is snow on the ground. Coasting on
bare hill-sides or down stony roads is not very exhilarating sport, nor
will the oiling of your runners help you a bit. The only boy who ever
got far by oiling his runners for a slide on a snowless road covered
twenty feet, and then had his bob destroyed by fire. He had used
kerosene oil, and the friction of the runners upon the road created such
an intense heat that the oil ignited, and in a short time the bob was a
smoking ruin. What became of the boy is not known, but it is safe to say
that if he were scorched at all he would have found the snow rather more
cooling than the country road without it.
5. If on your way down hill you see a horse and wagon approaching, do
not try to slide between the wheels and under the horse; nor should you
trust to a fortunate thank-you-marm in the road to enable you to jump
the obstruction. Steer to one side if there is room, and if there isn't,
try your fortunes in a convenient snow-bank, should there happen to be
one, and if there shouldn't happen to be one, do the best you can with
what snow there is. It is better to be landed head-first in the snow
than to become involved with a horse and wagon in any way.
6. In case your bob should run into an unforeseen stump on the way down,
you might as well make up your mind to keep on your journey whether the
bob stops short or not. You cannot help doing so, whether you wish to or
not, and it is always well, in view of possible accidents of this sort,
to have it understood by on-lookers that that was the way you intended
to do, anyhow. If you can convince the on-looker of this, he will not
have half as much excuse for laughing at you as he might otherwise have.
7. The last of the suggestions to be made here at this time is the only
rule that young ladies need observe in bobbing. That rule is to leave
the management of the whole affair to the boys. Just take your places on
the bob and don't bother. The boys will attend to everything involved in
the preceding rules, and then when the foot of the hill is reached,
after a glorious trip down the precipitous descent will, if they are the
right kind of boys, tell you to sit still and they will haul you back to
the top again. Of course this rule is not available in leap-year, when,
if the young ladies insist upon having all their rights, it will become
their turn to take charge and to haul the boys up.
* * * * *
AT THE SUMMER HOTEL.
"Do you write stories?" asked the kind old lady, meeting Polly in the
hall.
"No," said Polly. "Papa writes stories, though."
"I know; but why don't you?"
"Well," said Polly, sadly, "it's because when papa is all through there
isn't any paper left in the house."
End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, February 2, 1897, by Various