Читать книгу Boys' Make-at-Home Things онлайн

17 страница из 20

ssss1

CLEAR the track there! Push the crib over in the corner. Pick up those blocks. Shove the doll’s house and blackboard out of the way. Hurry and put the old red candy lantern out of sight. We don’t want any danger signals here. The Twentieth Century Limited—the Fast Special of the play room—is coming.

The construction of the Twentieth Century Limited follows close upon the making of whittling tools. A little train it is, just an engine, coal car, baggage car, and one passenger coach, but of course there may be any number of additional cars coupled on, provided the train proves popular and the nursery traffic is heavy. The train is made from cigar boxes. The floor of the engine is made from a flat piece of wood, two inches wide by four and one-half inches long, cut perfectly true and then pointed at one end (Fig. 1). Then the cab is made. Fig. 2 shows the front of it—a piece of wood measuring two inches by one and three-quarters, and having two little holes three-eighths of an inch square cut for windows. The side pieces are an inch and a quarter by two inches, cut in the shape of Fig. 3, and each has one little window. The roof is an oblong piece two inches by one and a half. When the whole cab has been nailed together, it is placed in position on the floor of the engine, about a quarter of an inch from the rear end, and nailed there. For the boiler you can use one of mother’s basting thread spools. Chip off the ends, making them even with the part where the thread was wound, and then nail it to the floor from underneath. A spot on the upper side of the boiler is smoothed off, and a tiny spool is glued on for a smoke stack. The forward wheels are made from circular pieces an inch in diameter, and the “drivers” from pieces an inch and a half in diameter. Then there are bearings for the wheels, like Fig. 4, those for the smaller wheels being an inch long, and those for the larger wheels three-quarters of an inch in length. They are glued to each side of the floor piece and the axles, made from lollypop sticks, are slipped through. These are cut three inches long, which allows plenty of room for the wheels to turn, and for a little nail to be put through like a cotter pin, to hold them on.