"Making moving toys is a form of dissipation," said Ralph. "It is very fascinating and interesting, but the making of many toys will never make one an expert woodworker. The accuracy and skill required can be developed only by actual constructive work. I suggest that we take up a form of decoration which can be done with the knife.

"There are two ways of making an article in wood pleasing to the eye. One is by varying the outline, as we did in our match scratchers, and the other is by some kind of surface ornamentation. There are many ways of decorating surfaces—carving, pyrography, staining, polishing, etc., and very often several of these methods are combined.

"As we have started to learn the possibilities of knife work, I propose to teach you a form of carving which can be done with the knife alone. Very elaborate work is done with the regular carving tools. This requires a great deal of time and skill, but with the knife alone a wonderful variety of beautiful work can be done even by small boys.

"It is very important to approach it properly, so I am going to give you a few simple exercises and the elaborate designs will come along naturally.

"The work is not new, and evidently grew out of the still older art of notching. Primitive peoples probably saw in it a way to improve the appearance of their various wooden implements. Not only could the edges be notched, but the cutting could be done on flat surfaces as well."

Fig. 54 at a shows one of the earliest designs. It is simply a border of triangular cuts, and while this may be done with the whittling knife, Fig. 55 shows two knives which are better fitted to do accurate work.

The positions for carving are shown in Fig. 56. Hold the knife in an upright position, with the cutting edge away from you, and the point on the apex of the triangle. Press the knife down and then away from you along one of the sides of the triangle. Place it in position again, and repeat the motion along the other side of the triangle, always directly on the line. This brings the deep part of the cut at the apex of the triangle, and it remains to take out the triangular chip. This can be done in either of the two ways shown in Fig. 56, by cutting away from you or toward you. It is well to practise both ways, as in complicated designs the direction of the grain makes it necessary to cut sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another.

The rest of this border is a repetition of the same stroke, and the more elaborate designs are simply different arrangements of triangular cuts.In Fig 54, b shows two rows of these same shaped cuts, one row inverted, to produce a diamond-shaped border; c shows a border in which the drawing is similar to b, but vertical triangles are cut instead of horizontal ones, as this gives a cut across the grain of the wood instead of parallel to it, and is a trifle harder.

Our boys practised on these simple borders for awhile, using knife a and ¹/₄-inch basswood. The work proved fully as fascinating to Harry as the making of toys, and it was decided that from that time onward the outlines of their woodwork should be simpler, and the decoration should be in the form of chip carving.

While Harry was practising on these simple borders Ralph made the basswood photograph frame shown in Fig. 57, and drew the carving design, as shown, with an H pencil.

To carve this was simply to repeat border b. This was so satisfactory that Ralph decided to try his pupil on finer work, and the design shown in Fig. 58 was tried. In each case Harry found that he was making triangular cuts, and removing triangular chips, just as in the first border, only the triangles were in different positions. Ralph suggested that they begin to decorate some of the things they had already made, and the little basswood box shown in Fig. 33 was brought out, and the design shown in Fig. 59 drawn and carved upon it.

There followed a number of "backs," which Ralph explained could be used as thermometer backs, match scratchers, calendars, key racks, and in other ways. In each case, the design was drawn carefully on paper, and thence transferred to the surface of the wood with the same care that it had been done on paper. The designing required considerable thought.

Where a border continued around four sides, the corner became the most difficult and interesting part of the design, and was worked out first. (Fig. 61.)

Very soon the boys found that it was necessary to draw only half the design on paper, and in many cases a corner or quarter sufficed.

The next step was to initiate Harry into the mysteries of curved cutting, a departure from triangular cutting.

He was informed that the cuts were still three-sided, one or two of the sides being but slightly curved.

Fig. 62, used as an enrichment of a "back" in ³/₈-inch gum wood, was Harry's first effort in curved chip carving. The edges of the blank piece were bevelled with a plane and Ralph showed his pupil how to do this by holding the blank against a bench hook. The long sides were bevelled first, the ends last, to avoid breaking off the corners.

The key rack (Fig. 63) gave an opportunity to use centre pieces inside a border, diamonds of the flat surface being left uncarved for the placing of the screw hooks.A pencil box for school followed, the various pieces being shown in Fig. 64. The two sides and ends were made in one strip 1¹/₄ inches wide, and afterward cut to length. To secure this strip of uniform width, the shooting board shown in Fig. 65 was used, the plane being laid on its side, giving the ¹/₄-inch piece of gum wood a perfectly square edge.

Ralph was having his own troubles as a teacher about this time, for he wanted to reserve Harry's education in the use of bench tools until later on, when he should have exhausted the possibilities of the knife; but this method of using the plane was necessary if Harry was to produce blank forms fit for decoration.

The six pieces being squared up, a ¹/₄-inch margin was left on all sides of the pieces to be carved—the top, front, and two ends.

This ¹/₄-inch space was for the brads.

The assembling was not done until the carving had been finished, and it consisted of fastening the long sides to the ends with ⁵/₈-inch brads, with a little glue on the end grain of the end pieces. The bottom was put on with brads, and the top hinged to the back by two small nickel-plated hinges. A little hook and eye from the hardware store were put at the front to hold the cover on, and two small cleats were glued to the under side of the cover to keep it from warping.The time spent on this pencil box was several hours, but the result was a box the like of which could not be bought.

Pencil boxes became the rage with our boys, and although they made several of the same size, in each case the design was different. (Fig. 66.)