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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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