Diagrams of a Weather Vane.

There are not many boys who don’t know how to play “cat.” It requires a good deal of skill, and if you don’t break anybody’s window or put out anybody’s eye, it’s a lot of fun. It requires two boys to play this game. You lay the cat down flat—as in Fig. 3—and, with the stick (Fig. 4), held by the octagonal end, hit the cat sharply on one end, and as it flies up bat it forward. It is up to the other fellow to catch it, and if he does, it counts you out, and gives him a turn. But if he doesn’t catch it, you measure with the stick, end over end from where you stand to where the cat has fallen, and that counts so many points for you. Then the other fellow has another chance to count you out by throwing the cat from where it fell and trying to hit your stick. If it falls short or goes beyond, you again measure the distance with your stick, and that too counts in your favor.

The cat is made from a piece of pine four inches long and an inch square. The center section is marked off and then a line is drawn exactly across the middle of each end—not diagonally, but straight up and down. The sides are slanted down to this line, like a wedge, and then the other two sides are slanted to the middle point at each end. The wood for the stick is twelve inches long and five-eighths of an inch square, and is worked down just as the kite stick was, except that the handle is left eight sided, while the rest is made round. The octagon and circle which are shown with parallel diagonal lines on them are “cross sections” and show what the stick would look like if it were cut straight through at that point.

The weather vane is the hardest toy to make. Fig. 5 shows three views of one piece of the wheel—a top view, a front view, and an end view,—just as though you looked at the piece in front and then squarely at the top, and then turned it around and looked at the end. A piece of wood three-quarters of an inch square by five inches long is used for this, and two of them are made and fitted together—making a wheel with four arms. It is better to cut the section for the joint first, for the wood is less apt to split before it has been weakened by any other cutting. This is a similar cutting to that in the reel, except that the grain lies in the opposite direction, and the cutting should be done from the center of the opening toward each end. Then opposite corners are slanted down so that the ends of the arms are thin and aslant to catch the wind, as the end view shows. The dotted lines are the edges which are not visible. After the two pieces are fitted together a two-inch nail is driven through both and into the end of Fig. 6, which is not beveled. It should be turned around until it works loosely and will turn easily in the wind.

The stick in Fig. 6 is seven and three-eighths inches long by a half inch square. After the section three-quarters of an inch long, where the nail hole is shown, and which remains square, is marked off, the rest of the stick is made eight sided. Then the eight-inch bevel shown on the end is cut, and, for a distance of two and a half inches from that end, a V-shaped groove is cut on two opposite sides. This end of the stick is to slide into the opening in the end of the wing (Fig. 7). Another two-inch nail joins this piece to the upright stick (Fig. 8) and forms a pivot for it to swing around on. The wing is a flat piece six and a half inches long by two and a half wide. The curves are laid out with a compass (R. in the measurements denotes radius) and the 2¹/₂-opening is made as shown in one end. The little cross-section shows how it is cut to a pointed edge which slides into the groove in Fig. 6.

The upright stick is nine inches long by three-quarters of an inch square, and is worked down similarly to the other sticks, except that the end which is round is tapered from three-quarters to one-half inch. The “break” in the drawing simply means that it is longer than is actually shown. When the windmill is fitted together and put out where it will catch the wind, a boy will find that it was well worth making.