Abbott Jacob
Rollo's Experiments
THE GREAT BEETLE AND WEDGE
Rollo was coming home one morning after having been away on an errand, and he saw a large wood pile near Farmer Cropwell’s door. Now it happened that Rollo had once been on a journey pretty far back into the country; it was at the time when Jonas told him and Lucy the stories related in the book called “Jonas’s Stories.” On that journey, Jonas had one day told him that the sap of the maple-tree was sweet, and had let him taste of some, where it oozed out at the end of the log. Seeing Farmer Cropwell’s wood pile reminded Rollo of this; and he thought he would look at the ends of all the logs, and see if he could not find some drops of sweet sap there.
But he could not, for two reasons: none of those trees were maple-trees, and then, besides, they were all dry. There was no sap in them of any kind; at least, not enough to ooze out. While Rollo was looking there, one of Farmer Cropwell’s large boys came out with an axe in his hand. He rolled out a pretty large log of wood, though it was not very long, and struck his axe into the end of it, as if he was going to split it.
“I don’t believe you can split that great log,” said Rollo.
“I don’t expect to do it with the axe,” said the boy, as he left the axe sticking in the log.
“How then?” said Rollo.
“I have got beetle and wedges here, round behind the wood pile.”
So the boy went to another side of the wood pile, and brought a large beetle and an iron wedge. When he got back to his log, he started out the axe which he had left sticking into it. Then Rollo saw that the axe had made a little indentation, or cleft, in the wood. He put the point of the wedge into this cleft, and drove it in a very little, with a few light blows with the axe. Then he took the great heavy beetle, and began driving the wedge in, with very heavy blows.
Presently, Rollo saw a little crack beginning to extend out each side from the wedge. The crack ran along across the end of the log, and thence down the side, and grew wider and wider every moment. At last, the wedge was driven in as far as it would go, and still the log was not split open.
“Now stop,” said Rollo; “I will put a stick in, and keep the crack open, while you drive the wedge in, in another place.”
“O, that won’t do,” said the boy; “a stick would not keep it open.”
“Why not?” said Rollo.
“Because it is not solid enough; the sides of the cleft draw together very hard. They would crush the stick.”
Here Rollo put his hand into his pocket, and drew out a walnut, and he asked the boy if it would crack a walnut.
“Try it,” said the boy.
So Rollo put the walnut into the crack. He slipped it along until he got it to a place where the crack was just wide enough to receive it, and hold it steady. He left it there, and then the boy began to knock out the wedge.
He struck it first upon one side, and then upon the other, and thus gradually worked it out. The walnut was crushed all to pieces. The boy then drove in the wedge again, so as to open the log as it was before. He then went to the place where he had got the beetle and wedge at first, and brought a large wooden wedge which he had made before, and began to put that into the crack, not very far from the iron wedge.
“This will keep it open,” said he.
“Yes, I think it will,” said Rollo. “But put it up close to the iron wedge.”
“No,” said the boy; “for then I can’t knock the iron wedge out.”
So the boy put the large wooden wedge in, at a little distance from the iron one, and drove it in rather gently with the beetle. This opened the cleft a little more, so that the iron wedge came out pretty easily.
“I don’t see what makes the sides of the logs draw together so hard,” said Rollo.
“O, they can’t help it,” said the boy.
“That is no reason,” rejoined Rollo. “I should think that, after the log is once split open, it would stay so. If I split a piece of wood in two with my knife, the pieces don’t try to come together again.”
So Rollo began to examine the log, and to look into the cracks, to see if he could find out what it was that made the parts draw together so hard as to crush the walnut. Presently, he observed that the log was not split open from end to end. The crack commenced at one end, and extended nearly towards the other, but not quite; so that at this other end the log was solid and whole, just as it always had been. So Rollo perceived that the two halves being joined and held together firmly here, they could only be separated at the other end by the wedge springing them open, and, of course, by their elasticity they tended to spring together again. Then besides, he saw, by looking into the crack, a great number of splinters, large and small, which extended obliquely from one side to the other, and bound the two sides strongly towards each other.
By this time the boy had got the wedge knocked out.
“It is strange,” said Rollo, “that such a small wedge will split such a tough and solid log.”
“O, not very strange,” said the boy. “You see,” he continued, taking up the wedge, and pointing to the several parts as he explained them, “you see here at this part, where it enters the wood it is sharp, and the sides spread out each way, so that, when I drive it in, they force the wood apart.”
“Why don’t they have the back of the wedge wider still? and then it would force the wood open farther; and then you would not have to put in a wooden wedge afterwards,—so,” he added, making a sign with his fingers. He put the tips of his fingers together, and then separated his hands, so as to represent a very blunt-shaped wedge.
“Then it would not drive in so easily,” answered the boy. “Perhaps I could not drive it in at all, if it was so blunt.”
“They might have the wedge longer then,” said Rollo, “and then it would be just as tapering, and yet it would be a great deal broader at the back, because the back would be farther off.”
“That would make the wedge a great deal too heavy. It would not drive.”
“Why, yes, it would,” said Rollo.
“No, it would not,” said the boy. “It would be just like a shoemaker’s lap-stone; pounding it would hardly move it.”
Rollo did not understand what the boy meant by what he said about the shoemaker’s lap-stone; so he paused a moment, and presently he said,
“I don’t think it would make any difference, if it was heavy. And, besides, it might be made of wood, and that wouldn’t be heavy.”
“O, wood wouldn’t do,” said the boy.
Now it happened that while they had been talking, the boy had gone on driving in his wooden wedge into the cleft that the iron one had made, and it had been gradually splitting the log open more and more. So that just as the boy was saying that “a wooden wedge wouldn’t do,” Rollo was actually seeing with his own eyes that it would do; for at that moment the boy gave the last blow, and the halves of the log came apart and fell over, one to one side, and the other to the other.
“Why, there,” said Rollo, “you have split the log open with a wooden wedge.”
“O, that is because I had an iron one in first,” said the boy.
“What difference does that make?” said Rollo.
“A great deal of difference,” said the boy.
“But what difference?” persisted Rollo.
“I don’t know exactly what difference,” said the boy; “only I know you can’t do any thing with a wooden wedge until you have first opened a seam with an iron one.”
Rollo was confident that it could not possibly make any difference whether a wooden wedge was used first or last. The boy was sure that it did, though he could not tell why. Finally, they determined to try it; so the boy struck his axe into the end of the next log, and then attempted to drive in his wooden wedge. But he did not succeed at all. The wedge would not stay. Rollo told him that he did not strike hard enough. Then he struck harder, but it did no good. The wedge dropped out the moment he let go of it, and on taking it up, they found that the edge of it was bruised and battered; so that even Rollo gave up all hopes of making it enter.
“Ah!” said the boy, taking up the wedge, and looking at it, “now I know what the reason is. It is the edge.”
“Where?” said Rollo. “Let me see.”
“Why, when there is no crack,” said the boy, “you see the edge of the wedge comes against the solid wood, and when I drive, it only bruises and batters it; but the iron is hard, and goes in. But then, when a crack is made, the wedge can go in easily; for the edge does not touch; then only the sides rub against the wood.”
“How?” said Rollo. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll show you in a minute,” said the boy. So he took the iron wedge, and went to work driving it into the log. It soon began to make a crack, which ran along the log, and opened wider and wider. When, at length, it was pretty wide, he put the wooden wedge in, and he showed Rollo that the edge of the wedge did not now have to force its way, but went easily into the crack, and only the sides came in contact with the two parts of the log which it was separating.
“That’s curious,” said Rollo.
“Yes,” said the boy.
“I wish I had a little beetle and wedge,” said Rollo. “I have got a hammer. That would do for a beetle, if I only had a wedge.”
“O, a hammer won’t do,” said the boy.
“Why not? Would not an axe do as well as a beetle?”
“No,” said the boy, “it would spoil the axe and the wedge too.”
“How?” asked Rollo.
“Why, it would bruise it all up,—hard iron knocking against the hard iron.”
“Would it?” said Rollo.
“Yes,” replied the farmer’s boy; “it would spoil the head of the axe, and the head of the wedge too.”
“Is that the reason why they make a wooden beetle?”
“Yes,” said the boy; “and they put iron rings around the ends to keep the wood from being bruised and battered.”
“O, I wish I had a little beetle and wedge!” said Rollo.
“Perhaps you might make one.”
“O, I could not make an iron wedge—nor the beetle rings.”
“No, but you might make wedges of wood,—pretty hard wood; that would do to split up pieces of pine boards, and then you would not need any rings to your beetle.”
“Jonas can help me,” said Rollo.
“Yes,” said the boy; “Jonas will know all about it.”
So Rollo set out to go home, full of the idea of making a wooden beetle and wedge, so as to split up pieces of boards. He determined, in case he should succeed, to make a smaller one still for Thanny.
THE LITTLE BEETLE AND WEDGE
When Rollo got home, he looked about for Jonas every where, but could not find him. He went around the house and yard, calling “Jonas! Jonas!” very loud. Presently Nathan came out to the door, and told him that his mother wanted to see him. So Rollo went in to his mother.
“You ought not to make such a noise,” said she, “calling Jonas. You disturb us all.”
“But, mother,” said he, “I want to find him very much.”
“No doubt,” said his mother; “but you must find him with your eyes, not with your tongue.”
“Why, mother,” said Rollo, laughing, “what do you mean by that?”
“Boys very generally have a habit of trying to find people with their tongues, that is, by calling them; but it is a very bad habit. You see,” she continued, “there are five or six persons now in and about the house, and if you go around calling out for Jonas, you disturb us all; but if you go about quietly, and look for him, you do not disturb any body.”
“But then it is not so easy to find him by looking for him,” said Rollo.
“Why not?” asked his mother.
“Because,” said Rollo, “I can call out for him, in a moment, in the yard, and then if he is any where within hearing, he answers; and so I know where he is. But it would take me some time to go to all the places that are within hearing.”
“True,” said his mother, “I see it is more trouble to find any body with your eyes, than with your voice; but then it is so much pleasanter for all the rest of us, that you must submit to it.”
So Rollo went away again to look for Jonas. He inquired of Dorothy in the kitchen, and she told him that she saw Jonas going out towards the barn a few minutes before. So Rollo went off in pursuit of him.
He found him at work in a little back room in the barn, looking over some harnesses.
“What are you doing, Jonas?” said Rollo.
“I am overhauling these harnesses, to get them all ready for winter.”
“For winter?” said Rollo.
“Yes,” replied Jonas; “they are sleigh-harnesses.”
“Well, Jonas,” said Rollo, “I wanted to see you about a beetle and wedge. Do you think you could help me about making a little beetle and wedge?”
“I can help you by my advice,” said Jonas.
“O, but I want you to help me make them.”
Then Jonas asked Rollo what made him think of a beetle and wedge; and Rollo told him of the conversation he had held with the farmer’s boy. Then Jonas talked a long time about it, giving him particular advice and direction about the plan, though he said he could not himself go and help him then, for he could not leave his harnesses.
The advice which Jonas gave him was, substantially, this:—
“The boy was right in what he said about the necessity of having iron wedges, to split up large logs of hard wood; but you had better have short pieces of pine boards for your logs, and then wedges of hard wood will do instead of iron; for hard wood is so much more solid than pine, that I think wedges of it will answer very well. There are some pieces of walnut under the bench, which will do finely, and I will give you one of them.”
“I’ll go, now, and get it,” said Rollo.
“No,” said Jonas, “not yet; let me tell you about making the beetle.”
So Rollo stood in the door way, waiting to hear what Jonas had to say about the beetle, but evidently quite impatient to go.
“If you make your wedges of hard wood, it will not be necessary to have iron rings to your beetle, because it will not get battered much, in driving wooden wedges. Now you must go to the wood pile, and look out a piece of round wood, about as large round as my arm, and bore a hole in it.”
“A hole in it!” said Rollo.
“Yes, a small auger hole, to put the handle into. Then you must put the wood into the saw-horse, and saw off the ends, at a little distance from the hole, so that, when the handle is put in, it will be like a mallet.”
“A mallet!” said Rollo. “But I wanted a beetle.”
“Well, a mallet is a small beetle, without rings.”
“Is it?” said Rollo, thoughtfully.
“Yes,” replied Jonas; “and if you work slowly and carefully, I think you can make a pretty good one yourself.”
Rollo thought so too, and away he ran to make the experiment. Under the great work bench, he found, among a quantity of boards and bits of wood, a number of long bars of walnut, which Jonas had split out from the wood pile to keep for handles. He took one of these, and carried it off to the shed, to look for the saw and the hatchet.
The first thing was, as he supposed, to saw off a piece of the wood just long enough for a wedge. But in this he was mistaken. In doing any piece of work of this kind, it is always very important to consider which part it is best to do first. Rollo did not think of this, and so he marked off a piece of the walnut wood about long enough for a wedge, and then sawed it off.
“Now,” said he, “I must make the sides smooth, and sharpen it.”
So he took the piece of wood in his hand, and put one end of it down upon a large log of wood, and then attempted to smooth and sharpen it, as he had seen Jonas sharpen a stake. But he could not succeed very well. The wood was very hard, and he could not cut it. Then it was so short that it was almost impossible to hold it. At almost every blow of the hatchet it slipped out of his hand; and then, besides, he was very much afraid of cutting his fingers; so that, after working laboriously for some time, he came back to Jonas in despair, holding his wedge in his hands, which, however, instead of being properly sharpened, was only rounded off a little at the corners.
“O dear me!” said he to Jonas, as he came up to him with the intended wedge in his hands, “I can’t make a wedge at all. It’s no use to try.” Then he explained to Jonas the difficulties that he had met with.
“True,” said Jonas; “I see. I advise you to give it up.”
“Yes,” said Rollo, “the wood is so hard.”
“O, no,” said Jonas; “that is no great trouble—you could easily manage that.”
“But then I can’t hold it.”
“That is of no consequence either. I could tell you a way to hold it well enough.”
“What is the reason, then, why you think I had better give up?”
“Because you have not patience enough.”
Rollo stood silent and thoughtful as Jonas said this, with his piece of wood in one hand, and his hatchet in the other.
“It takes a great deal of patience to make a thing which we never made before.”
“Why?” said Rollo.
“O, because there are always unforeseen difficulties. We don’t know exactly how to do it, and are apt to make mistakes; and so we spoil some of our work, and this makes us impatient and fretful.”
“But I could not help coming to you,” said Rollo, “when I found I could not sharpen my wedge.”
“I did not blame you for coming to me,” said Jonas.
“But you said I was impatient.”
“Yes, but not for coming to me—I judged by your looks and tone of voice. Now if you can keep good-natured and pleasant, so as to go on steadily and patiently, difficulties or no difficulties, I will help you by my advice; otherwise, I think you had better give up the plan.”
Rollo stood a few minutes leaning on the door, and swinging it back and forth a little. He seemed to be in doubt whether to be good-natured or not. At length, the better feelings triumphed, and he said,
“Well, Jonas I will try. How can I hold my wedge while I sharpen it?”
“You must not saw it off until it is all sharpened and smoothed. By that means, you see, the long end of the stick, that you make it from, will serve for a handle.”
“So it will,” said Rollo; “I never thought of that.”
So Rollo went off in pursuit of the stick from which he had sawed off his first wedge, intending to make another upon the end of it, and then saw it off when it was all ready.
He found that now he could hold his wood very easily, and there was no danger of cutting his fingers. So he could strike much heavier blows. He soon sharpened his wedge, and then carried it to Jonas to ask him if he thought it would do.
“No,” said Jonas, “I don’t think it will do, very well.”
“Won’t it?” asked Rollo, looking somewhat disappointed.
“Why, you see the sides are not smooth; and then you have not sharpened it uniformly. You have cut away more at the corners than you have in the middle, so that it is thicker in the middle. That is the way that boys always sharpen wedges.”
“Why do they?” asked Rollo.
“I suppose it is because it is easier to cut away at the edges, and so they get more off there. Now you had better get your wedge as true, and perfect, and smooth as you can, before you saw it off. It will be a great deal pleasanter to work with a good wedge than with a poor one, and so you had better take pains with it, and make as perfect a one as you can, if you make any.”
“But, Jonas,” said Rollo, “I can smooth it and finish it, after I get it sawed off.”
“Not half as easily as you can now,” said Jonas.
During all this time Jonas kept on with his own work; and now he said no more, and seemed disposed to leave Rollo to his own decision.
Rollo walked slowly back to the shed. He longed to have his wedge done; but then Jonas had often told him before, that if he was attempting to make any thing, it was best to take pains with it, and make it as complete and perfect as possible, and then he would prize it more, and take more pleasure in it, when it was done. Rollo knew that this was good advice, though, like almost all other boys, he was always in such a hurry to finish any thing that he undertook, and to have it ready for use, that he did not like to take the necessary pains.
On reflection, however, he concluded to take Jonas’s advice; and he accordingly began to smooth the sides of his wedge again with the hatchet. He did it slowly and carefully; and after some time he found that he had got the wedge into a much more perfect shape than before. He then carried it to Jonas again.
Now Jonas approved it very much, but told him that he had better smooth it a little more with his knife before sawing it off. Rollo did so; and then he carried it back to the horse, and sawed it off at the right distance, and it made an excellent wedge. The edges, at the head of the wedge, were left somewhat rough by the saw. These, however, he trimmed off with his knife, and then carried the wedge to Jonas.
“Very well,” said Jonas; “now you want one more.”
“One more?” said Rollo. “No, I want my beetle next.”
“No,” said Jonas, “one more wedge. Make all your wedges first.”
“Why, Jonas, you see, if I make my beetle next, I can try it with this wedge, and then I can make another, if I want it, afterwards.”
“No,” replied Jonas, “that is not a good way. You ought to finish up your apparatus all complete, before you try it at all. Then you will take a great deal more pleasure in trying it. Besides, if you get to work splitting up your wood, you will not want to leave it, and go to making a new wedge then. Now is the time to do it.”
Rollo felt very desirous to make his beetle first, so as “just to try it a little,” as he said. Still, he had so often found, when he had not followed Jonas’s advice, that he was sorry for it afterwards, that he concluded to make another wedge now. He accordingly went to work again, and having learned how to do it by his practice upon the first one, he succeeded very easily, and finished it much quicker than he did before.
Then he went to work upon his beetle. He selected a round stick of wood, of about the right size, and then examined it carefully to find the part which was most uniform and regular in its shape; and he bored a hole for the handle in the middle of this part. He made his handle of pine wood, for this was much easier to cut, and Jonas told him he thought it would do nearly as well. When the handle was finished, he drove it into the hole, and then he sawed off the ends of the stick of wood at the right distances from the hole. He first took pains to measure on each side, so as to have the distances exactly the same.
When this was done, he had quite a pretty little mallet. That is, it was made very much like a carpenter’s mallet; still, as a mallet is made chiefly for the purpose of driving a chisel, and this was, on the other hand, only intended to be used for splitting wood with a wedge, Jonas told him he thought it would be strictly proper to call it a little beetle. He worked so slowly and carefully, however, in doing all this, that the afternoon had entirely passed away when he got the beetle and the wedges done; and just when he was thinking that he was ready to try them, he saw Dorothy at the kitchen door, ringing the bell to call him in to tea.
