By Dan Beard
Fig. 24 shows the Wooden Chip Stone Shovel or spoon which each player should make for
himself with his own pocketknife.
Sweet smelling red cedar is the choice wood, but almost any other kind will answer.
Whip-Tops--Eel-skin Whips the Best.
As a rule boys use old rags for their whips. These soon become very much soiled and look untidy, but the real sportsman, be he man or boy, takes great pride in his guns, fish-rods, skates, golf-sticks, or top-whips; and such boys prefer for a top-whip an eel-skin fastened to a short wooden handle.
Country boys catch their own eels, city boys get the skins at the fish market.
A whip-top can be made of any sort of wood, and in place of a brass hollow-headed furniture-tack is driven into the point where the peg of an ordinary top is located.
