Toys.Breckinridge.HISTORY-OtherFrom: KyArchives [Archives@genrecords.org]
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Subject: Toys.Breckinridge.HISTORY-Other


Toys  
Breckinridge County KyArchives History Other 
Book Title: "A Glimpse Of The Past" 
It is only nature for children to play and they play with toys.  Some children 
created their own toys. 
   Immigrants coming to this country brought with them memories of toys and 
made copies for their children, and had sometimes altered them to fit a new 
enviroment.  And those children in turn made copies for their children. 
   Some of the first toys were whittled out of wood.  Some of these toys were: 


Ball and Cup 
   This was a stick with a cup on the end, a string attached to the end next to 
the cup and a ball was attached to the other end of the string.  The idea was 
to swing the stick so the ball would drop in the cup. 


Blowgun 
   This was made of a hollow bamboo.  And object was inserted and then blown 
out. 


Bubble Blower 
  Old sewing thread spools were used for the blower, take some soap, and make a 
later in water.  Dip one end of the spool in the later and blow through the 
other end. 


Dumb Bell 
   Take a section of a hollow log and tack a piece of hide over one end.  Then 
punch a small hole in the center of the hide.  Then take a long string and tie 
a knot in one end and feed the string through the hole in the hide so that the 
knot catches against the outside of the hole and the string comes through the 
log and out the other end.  Then wax the end of the string with beeswax.  When 
you pull against the waxed end of the string it makes a sound just like a bull 
a bellering. 


Dumb Bull 
   Take a real think plank about ten inches long by three inches wide and 
sharpen the edges and bore a hole in one end.  You had to attach a string to it 
and whirl it around, and it would make an awful racket. 


Animals 
   There were cornstalk animals; they were simple to make.  Take one piece of a 
cornstalk for the legs and the neck.  Then make the head and tail out of other 
pieces. 


Fiddle 
   Cut off two joints of a cornstalk and use one for the bow and one for the 
fiddle.  Then cut thin slits in the stalk for strings taking away a little 
stalk from between the part to be strings.  Lift up and insert a small piece of 
wood for a timey bridge, the bow can be another stalk. 


Button on a String 
   This toy is made from a large button and a piece of string.  The string is 
threaded through two opposite holes in the button, and the two ends of the 
thread are tied together.  Insert a finger on each hand in each end of the 
loop, twirl the button to wind it up, then alternatively pull on the string and 
release.  The button spinning rapidly makes a whizzing sound. 


Sleds 
   Sleds come in all sizes from tiny sleds, pulled by a boy, to large field 
sleds pulled by a team of horses, mules, or oxen.  For the sled runners, a tree 
of proper size, with the proper crook, must be found.  The desired section of 
the tree is removed and split down the middle, in a vertical plane, by means of 
wedges and a sledgehammer or a naul.  The excess wood is then removed to 
produce two identical sled runners that are rectangular in cross section.  
Using two passes of an auger bore an oval eye at the front end of each sled 
runner.  A hickory crossbar, whose length determines the width of the sled, is 
now inserted in the eye of each sled runner.  This cross bar forms the part of 
the sled that is hitched to when the sled is pulled.  Next, place six hickory 
or oak flat-topped retaining knobs at a point, which determines the height of 
the bed of the sled.  Three holes are bored into the top part of each sled 
runner.  The standards are then hammered into the holes for a snug fit.  Next 
three flat cross beams, each with a hole in each end, are slipped over the 
standards and down to the flat-topped retaining knobs.  The bed of the sled is 
now constructed, by fastening white oak paling slats directly to the standards 
and cross beams, using nails, screw or dowel pins as desired. 


Slingshot 
   The very best rubber for use in making a slingshot is latex; the amber 
colored rubber sometimes used for rubber bands.  Due to the difficulty of 
obtaining latex of the proper size and length, most usually had to settle for 
rubber from an old innertube.  The best slingshot forks are made from a section 
of a dogwood branch having three equal sized forks.  The middle fork is cut out 
and removed and the bark is peeled away.  The handle is cut at the desired 
length; about four inches and the two remaining forks are each cut to a length 
of about eight inches.  The two forks, now spread widely apart, are drawn 
together into the desired shape and tied in place with a string that is first 
wrapped around the forks a number of times.  To set the wood, the assembly is 
now baked in an oven at about three hundred degrees temperature for about 
thirty minutes.  Remove from the oven, cut the string and shorten each fork to 
about three inches in length.  The forks will now be shaped and will be 
permanent.  Cut a half inch wide groove all around each fork near the top, for 
attachment of the rubber.  Using the tongue of a discarded leather shoe, make a 
pad about one and a half inches wide and about three inches long.  Cut a hole 
for attachment of the rubber at each end of the pad.  Cut two straight strips 
of rubber from a discarded bicycle innertube, each about half an inch wide and 
about sixteen inches long.  Assemble the slingshot.  At each point of 
attachment, the rubber is looped around the wood or leather and stretched 
before being tied in place with a string.  For ammo, use marble sized stones.  
The very best slingshot ammo is the small cast lead ball used as bullets in 
muzzle loading rifles. 


Stilts 
   Want to wade a creek without getting your feet wet?  Make a pair of stilts 
from scrap lumber.  The uprights for the stilts consist of two lengths of one 
by three-inch planks.  To each of these uprights, nail a footrest and a foot 
guard.  Mount your stilts and walk tall. 


Top 
   This top is made from a large wooden spool used for sewing thread.  Saw the 
spool in half in a radial direction.  Insert a tight fitting wooden stem that 
is pointed at the bottom end and tapered down slip at the top end.  Twirl the 
slim stem with your fingers and watch the topspin. 
   There were a lot of other wood toys around such as; bow and arrow, bouncing 
pig, crossbow, climbing bear, wagons, stick horses, limberjack or dancing doll. 


Dolls 
   Early dolls were hand made.  They were whittled of wood, dried from an 
apple, shaped from a sock; these representations of the human form are most 
notable for whimsy and imagination, least for fine artistry.  Using materials 
at hand, the devoted parent puzzled at problems of articulation, artistic 
proportions or structural concept.  Yet the gangly arms, shoe button eyes, and 
crude yarm wigs were very often the unique feathers. 
   Some girls had apple head dolls.  You peel an apple, and while the apple is 
fresh you shape features on it with a spoon.  Then you string them up to dry in 
an airy place and let them shrivel.  The texture of the dried apple looks like 
that of a real person's skin.  The face will last for about four years. 


Playhouses 
   Many little girls had playhouses in the early days.  There was no store 
bought furniture for these playhouses.  The playhouse was usually built under a 
shade tree or a vacant spot in the barn or other out building. 
   The furniture was made of rocks and maybe a discarded wood board.  Brooms 
were made of straw, doll beds were made of corn stalks, green moss was used for 
rugs, flat rocks were turned into beds and sometimes covered with moss as a 
spread, old broken dishes and discarded flatware was retrieved from the junk 
pile to furnish the kitchen.  Many a mud pie was whipped up in the kitchen. 
   Little girls spent several hours enjoying their playhouses. 


Marbles 
   One of the most welcomed gifts under the Christmas tree in the early 1900s, 
for most boys and some girls, was a string drawn leather pouch filled with new, 
glass marbles and a shooting taw made of agate. 
   The games of chase, holers, and Tennessee were played best when one's knees 
were on the grassless, almost level ground.  Dunks, dibs or peewees were the 
names given to small clay marbles. 
   Two persons played the chase game best, each using a taw about seven eight's 
of an inch in diameter.  The best taw, often called the shooter, was made of 
agate.  A glass marble could be used as a taw, but glass often flaked or 
chipped when struck hard.  Good agate didn't chip.  In the chaser game, two 
players stood behind a starting line.  The second player then shot his taw at 
his opponent's taw.  If the opponent's taw was hit, the opponent paid a glass 
marble.  The first player then shot his taw at the taw of the second player.  
When a taw was hit, the owner of the taw paid a glass marble to his apponent.  
Players took turns shooting.  The strategy in the chase game was for a player 
to shoot his taw and make it carom off his opponent's taw to a distance of 
about two feet or more. 
   The holers, seven, eight or more holes were punched in the ground with a hoe 
handle or dug out with a knife.  Holes were shallow and made large enough for 
the taw to fit loosely in them.  The holes were about three feet apart and 
could be all in a straight line or in a zigzag line.  The game worked best with 
two players, with each player pledging like numbers of marbles to the ante, 
which went to the winner after the game was over.  Holers was a truly knucks 
down game, meaning the shooter had to keep at least one knuckle on the ground 
when shooting.  The player, with knuckle on the ground, shot his taw at the 
first hoel.  If the taw went into the hold, the player spanned with his hand 
from the first hole toward the second, and shot his taw from the end of the 
finger that reached farthest in the span.  Whichever player shot his taw into 
all the holes with the least number of shots won the game and the ante 
marbles.  If a taaw slipped from a player's fingers, the player could 
say "slips" in a loud voice and then shoot again, unless the marble had 
traveled ten inches, which was considered a turn at shooting. 
   Dinks, dibs or peewees, were the most popular marble game.  It was strictly 
a gambling operation. A dink, a dib or a peewee, was a small clay marble that 
sold at the stores for about ten or fifteen cents per hundred.  A circle, 
square or triangle was drawn on the ground.  A line was drawn inside the circle 
and each player shot his taw toward the line, an action called "lagging" for 
deciding in which orders the players shot.  The player whose taw was closest to 
the line shot first.  Each player anted a like number of clay marbles clustered 
inside the circle.  The taw for this game was a steel ball bearing about one 
inch in diameter. 
   The agate and glass marbles of the 1920's are now mostly in the hands of 
collectors who have their own society and newsletter.  The favorite taws were 
Tiger-Eye Agates, which are still being made. 
   A new type marble has recently been manufactured.  These marbles, made of 
plastic, have magnets embedded inside them.  American astronauts have used them 
to play marbles while in space. 
Submitted by: Dana Brown 
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00005.html#0001067 



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