Clapboard

“ A few pegs around the walls for a display of the coats of the women, and hunting-shirts of the men, and two small forks or buck-horns to a joist for the rifle and shot-pouch, completed the carpenter work.
"In the mean time masons were at work. With the heart pieces of the timber of which the clapboards were made, they made billets for chunking up the cracks between the logs of the cabin and chimney; a large bed of mortar was made for daubing up these cracks; a few stones formed the back and jambs of the chimney. ”

“ The score is counted after each attack. If a spool has fallen over, but not off the chair, it counts but half its number; if on the floor, it is "dead," and the whole number is counted.
SPINNING FOR 20.
On a board or piece of cardboard, mark with pencil or ink, the design illustrated, the size of the circles varying with the size of the board.
A top may be made out of an empty spool by taking one end of it and sticking a piece of wood, pointed at one end about an inch long, through it. Each spool makes two tops which are spun with the thumb and forefinger. ”

“ All that is necessary is that it should stand firmly and move readily on its legs. All that is needful is a heart-shaped cedar board with two nicely turned metal legs carrying well-oiled casters, and in the point of the board an aperture of suitable size for the insertion of a lead pencil, which serves as the third leg, and rests upon the paper. Many believe that humbug was stamped over every movement of the planchette board, and that one or the other of those whose hands bore upon it conspired with the little board in the formulation of its reply. ”

“ Willis.
Sketch of the Gear of an Old Bell Clapper.
A. Crown Staple.
B. Bawdrick or Baldrock of old Churchwarden's books, viz. stout white leather straps, shewing how fitted with intervening piece of hard wood and pin.
C. Clapper, with stirrup top.
D. "Busk Board" which at the lower end is tied round the stem of the clapper, and by the pin above keeps the wood and leather all steady together, and the clapper works or swings on the crown staple, having leather on the upper side, and hard wood under.
H. T. E.
Turnbuckle and Latch.—The figure you have engraved on p. ”

“ Mr Galpin (p. 75) gives a figure of a man playing a Crowd with a bow, instead of plucking the strings with the fingers as shown in sculptured Irish Crosses. What makes the figure so especially interesting, is that there is clearly no means of stopping the strings, i.e., of altering the length of the vibrating region, and therefore altering the pitch. No one, I fancy, would have guessed that the bow was of more ancient lineage than the fiddle. The finger-board, which transforms the instrument into an undeniable relative of the violin, is known to have existed in the thirteenth century. ”

“ In the first place, clap-trap is dangerous. We have seen an audience 'bathed in stillness,' the pulse of a crowded theatre beating like that of one man, convulsed by some blundering misconception of a forced dramatic point, into roars of laughter, though the play were a deep tragedy. ”

“ When he has got a sounding-board ready for a piano, he puts it in the air, rain, snow, sun, or any beastly thing, to warp it, and then he glues crossbars in until it is strong and firm. He’s quite glad when it warps, for you’re about certain nothing more can happen to it. He often cuts into it himself, and glues it again, and so makes it strong. ”

“ The scalps are stretched on little hoops, or frames, and carried on the end of slender poles. These are brandished about in the course of the dance, with cries, shouts, and furious gestures. The women, who commence as spectators, becoming excited with the scene and the music which their own discordant notes help to make more deafening, rush in, seize the scalps from the hands of the owners, and toss them frantically about, with the screams and yells of demons. I have seen as many as forty or fifty scalps figuring in one dance. ”

“ Make the bottom edges meet evenly and press the paste-covered edge over the other side edge. Hold the finger inside the bell while you do this, to keep it from flattening.
The clapper is made of two round disks of gold paper with the string pasted between them. For the bell we are now making, the clapper should be almost one inch in diameter. Fold a piece of gilt paper and cut out the two disks at one time (Fig. 193) . Cover the wrong side of one disk with paste, lay the end of a string across the middle (Fig. 194) , and press the other disk on top. Both sides of the clapper will then be gilt. ”

“ There was a rosewood piano, whose ivory keys were the color of coffee, whose fretwork displayed a pleated silk that once was crimson as wine. But the most remarkable thing in the room was a clown's dress hanging below a wreath of sausages from a hook on the door. It used, in the days of the clown's activity, to hang thus in his dressing-room, and when he came out of the stage door for the last time and went home to stewed tripe and cockles with two old friends, he took the dress with him in a brown-paper parcel and hung it up after supper. ”

“ The sounding-board—a thin, clear sheet of spruce under the strings—is the piano's soul, wanting which, it were a dead thing. Almost every resonant substance in nature has been tried for sounding-boards, but nothing has been found equal to spruce. Countless experiments have been made with a view to ascertain precisely the best way of shaping, arranging, and fixing the sounding-board, the best thickness, the best number and direction of the supporting ribs; and every great maker is happy in the conviction that he is a little better in sounding-boards than any of his rivals. ”

“ In the old system, which has been largely superseded by pneumatic and still more by electric bells, the bells themselves are of the ordinary conical shape and are provided with clappers hung loosely inside them. Being supported on springs they continue to swing, and therefore to give out sound as the clapper knocks against the sides, for some time after they have been set in motion by means of the strings or wires by which each is connected to a bell-pull in the rooms. ”

“ Ill-timed or continual applause is disturbing to performers and audience alike. Indiscriminate hand-clapping is not only annoying, but reflects poor judgment upon the offender. When you feel that an actor or lecturer merits applause, give him a short and hearty hand-clapping, but do not make the mistake of clapping noisily and excessively each time the opportunity presents itself. ”

“ They form in a row, and bow to the audience and then away each one whirls in a hand-spring565 and front somersault. Then they retire and singly, the men begin to tumble backward and forward across and about the ring, heads and feet are kept in a whirl until the final effort is reached, when the clown, who is frequently as good an artist in the business as the rest of his tumbling confreres, chases the swiftest of the number around the ring, the clown winding him up while the latter rolls like a wheel, in back hand-springs along the inner edge of the ring. ”

“ If these clang-waves were to come along fast enough to blend, and at regular intervals, they would produce a tone of their own. The clanging of the clapper would not be a noise, but a deep tone, perhaps making a chord with the ring-tone. ”

“ The sounding board is constructed on strict acoustic principles. It has two apertures; it is carved out of wood, and on the upper side it is covered with a piece of skin; the strings are tightly stretched by means of pegs, and are sometimes made of fine threads of bast, and sometimes of the wiry hairs from the tail of the giraffe.
The music is very monotonous and it is difficult to distinguish any melody in it. It invariably is an accompaniment to a moaning kind of recitative which is rendered with a decided nasal intonation. ”

“ This instrument was an arrangement of strings on a box. Here we have the principle of the sounding-board,—a thing of vital moment to the piano, and one upon which the utmost care is bestowed by all the great makers. Whoever first thought of stretching strings on a box may also be said to have half invented the guitar and the violin. ”

“ The awkward position of a "masher" who gets into the "wings" by some hook or crook is often extremely laughable. I saw a serio-comic vocalist—as the songstresses of the variety stage are named—astonish a well-dressed and admiring gentleman who was lounging around at his leisure,—having in some mysterious manner passed the stage door-keeper,—by handing him a pin and remarking, "Pin up my skirts." ”

“ The arms, set through the sound-board at points distant about the third of the diameter from the circumference, have the familiar fan shape. Five gut strings, knotted round the bar and raised from the sound-board by means of a bridge tailpiece similar to that in use on the modern guitar, are plucked by means of a plectrum by the right hand for the melody, while the left hand sometimes twangs some of the strings as a soft drone accompaniment. ”

“ It is necessary that C should be well below the line of axis on which the bell swings, so as to describe an appreciable circle around the axis, otherwise there will be no leverage to drive the clapper, and it will not fly properly. The swing of the clapper is further ensured and accelerated by the small piece, D, called the 'flight,' cast on to the striking part to increase the impetus of the blow. ”

“ Grey maintains that to clamour bells is a continued ringing, and Mr. Malone, with great probability, suspects that what Warburton has said is gratis dictum. Dr. Johnson says that "to clam a bell is to cover the clapper with felt, which drowns the blow, and hinders the sound;" and Mr. Nicholls, that a good clam is a peal of all the bells at once. According to the treatise on ringing in The school of recreation, 1684, 12mo, "clamming is when each concord strikes together, which being done true, the 8 will strike but as four bells, and make a melodious harmony." ”

“ Make the bureau of six spools close together in two rows of three spools each, and cut the top of a piece of paper with a high extension in the centre, which you must bend upright for a mirror. The washstand can be four spools quite close together covered with a piece of paper. A piano is easily made, but you must think it out for yourself. Use a small spool for the piano-stool. [33]
The Lamp
(Fig. 67) is a spool with a little roll of white paper shoved into the hole and a circular piece of paper crimped around the edge for the shade. ”

“ It is he who, by pressing upon the ends of the rods as if upon the keys of a piano, causes the blades to come out of their place of concealment, one after another, and appear as if they had just stuck into the board. ”

“ When it had ceased with a last rattle of clapper, a drum began to beat. Feet marched to the beat, many of them, light feet, marching a little shufflingly. I could hear their passing from crunched gravel to a resonance of hollow wood; they united in a rhythmic murmur, above which, like gulls eddying over the sea, sharp cries of command hovered, female cries, of women. ”

“ It excited the children, and some of the older persons clapped their hands and exclaimed, "Very good, very good." But when he tossed it only a foot high and let go the chop-stick, making it change ends, and catching the bowl, they were ready for a general applause. In striking the bowl and thus manipulating his chop-sticks, his hands moved almost as rapidly as those of an expert pianist.
"Can you toss the knives?" piped up one of the children who had seen a juggler perform this difficult feat. ”

“ Ladies of the circus, alas! who ride in golden chariots are no longer beautiful. Cleopatra in her tinsel has sunk to the common level. Clowns with slap-sticks rouse in me only a moderate delight.
At this moment, as I write, the clock strikes twelve. It is noon and school is out. There is a slamming of desks and a rush for caps. The boys scamper on the stairs. They surge through the gate. The acrobat on the billboard greets their eyes—the clown, also the lady with the pink legs. They pause. They gather in a circle. They have fallen victims to her smile. They mark the great day in their memory. ”

“ They ran over pipe-stems, the edges of sabres, wires and even hairs stretched across the stage. They turned around on the edges of large glasses, crossed bamboo ladders, dispersed into all the corners, and produced strange musical effects by the combination of their various pitches of tone. The jugglers tossed them in the air, threw them like shuttlecocks with wooden battledores, and yet they kept on spinning; they put them into their pockets, and took them out still whirling as before.
It is useless to describe the astonishing performances of the acrobats and gymnasts. ”

“ Bells are struck in three ways,— (1) with a hammer on the outside, let off either by a tambour or revolving drum, similar in appearance to the prickly cylinder of a musical box, which drum can be fitted with tunes or chimes by musical nuts or spikes, and altered at will; (2) the bell can also be struck by hand, as in the common stand of small bells to be seen occasionally in the London streets, the player having a hammer in each hand; or (3) the clapper may strike the bell internally, either being pulled by a rope, the bell being stationary, or by the bell swinging to and fro. ”

“ With a little practice the figure can be made to go through the steps of the most eccentric clog-dancer.
Fig. 112.—Details of Body of the Clog-dancer shown in Fig. 109.
The more grotesque the dancer's appearance is, the more amusing his dancing will be, so the cruder you make him the better. Figure 112 shows the working details for his construction. The center part of a thread-spool forms the head, and a spool-end and the rounded end of a broom-handle form the hat. These three pieces are nailed together. The body is a piece of a broom-handle, and a spool-end nailed to it forms the shoulders. ”

“ Clapper, not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy, possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him: the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct with all the characteristics of genuine delight. ”