a spinning jenny.”
“I understand the spinning part, but where did the jenny part come from?”
“I don’t know, that’s just what it’s called.”
“Well, who told you how to make it?”
“You know what else?” he said without answering my question.
“What?”
“Instead of two people running around the stump and then jumping on the board, they both could just go ahead and get on and let a third person push them real fast, and I bet it would just about sling you off that board.”
“But wouldn’t the board hit the person pushing when they stopped pushing?”
“If they was dumb enough to just stand there, I ’spect it would. But it wouldn’t be hard to just get out of the way real quick after it got going real fast. You want to let’s give it a try?”
I was still a little leery of that spinning jenny. “I don’t know. Maybe if we done it real slow at first, you know, just run at about half as fast as we really can, then I would.”
“Okay, get at your end of the board,” Fred said. “And remember, when I yell ‘go,’ stop running and jump on. I’ll do the same thing. Oh, and one more thing, when it stops we both have to get off at the same time?”
“How come?”
“’Cause if one person gets off before the other one without the other one knowing, your own weight can pull you down and you can mash your foot under the board.”
When we were both in place my brother nodded, and we began running around the stump, each of us holding on to our end of the board. After about three circles Fred yelled the signal, and we both leaped simultaneously onto the board.
I expected it to spin so fast that it would make me dizzy and sling me clean off. It barely made one slow circle before it came to a stop, making a grinding sound on the surface of the stump.
We sat in dazed disappointment for a few moments. Finally Fred said, “Okay, let’s get off. It didn’t exactly sling us off, did it? Something’s wrong.”
He stood there studying the situation for a few moments before he said, “There must be something I forgot.”
I certainly didn’t know what it was.
Suddenly he exclaimed, “I know what it is, wait right here!”
I watched as he dashed off toward the tool shed again. In no time at all he returned with a can of axle grease in one hand and a stick in the other and began dipping a gob of the dark, heavy grease out of the can with the stick. Next, he pushed the grease into the hole where the wagon axle went through the board.
Then he smeared more grease all over the surface of the stump, and I knew I would have to find a new place to crack nuts.
When he finished he set the can of grease aside and tossed the stick off into the woods.
“All right, smarty pants,” he said, “let’s give it another try. And let’s run harder this time before we jump on.”
I didn’t expect the results to be much different, so I agreed.
When we were poised at each end of the board, Fred instructed, “Same rules as before, okay?”
I agreed and we began running. I noticed right off the board was much easier to push.
“Come on, just a little faster,” he yelled.
We were running almost full out when he yelled, “Go!”
When we leaped on that board it seemed to have an engine running it. I managed to hold on for two, maybe three turns, before it slung me off. I heard a yelp of pain from Fred as I went tumbling through the grass. He came limping over toward me and asked, “You okay?”
I sat up, felt of myself, and said, “Yeah, I think so. How about you?”
“My foot got smashed a little under the board when you went flying, but it’s okay. That thing really took off!”
I could hear the excitement in his voice and could tell he was proud he had gotten the spinning jenny to work, in spite of the injuries we had both narrowly escaped. “I know what it needs to keep you from being slung off.”
“I ain’t getting back on that thing,” I told him.
“Aw, come on,” he implored. “What it needs is something on the board, kind of like handle bars on a bicycle, for you to hang on to.”
“I don’t know—that thing was flying!”
“I know it was. But I’m gonna nail a strip of wood on each end of the board so you can hang on with both hands, and I promise we’ll go easy until we get the hang of it.”
It didn’t take us long to find two strips of hickory, strong and straight, from the woodpile. In the shed we took our father’s hammer and pulled four rusty, but serviceable, nails from a board on the shed’s exterior.
Once again, I held the board steady while my brother did his work. He drove two nails through each of the hickory strips and into the board, leaving room to sit on the end and hold on with both hands. I held the board up while he clinched the points of the nails underneath; then we stood back and surveyed our work.
Suddenly Fred stepped forward, put both hands on one end of the board, and said, “Stand back. Let’s see how fast it’ll go with no one on it.” Then he slung it as hard as he could.
That board took off like an electric fan blade. I leaped back in alarm as it whipped around going, “whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.”
It finally stopped and we stood there in awe. “It went around twelve times,” I said. “I counted them!”
“Now that’s a spinning jenny,” Fred said, all puffed up with pride. “Let’s give it another try.”
“Are you plain crazy? I’m not getting back on that thing. Next time it’ll probably sling me way off yonder into the woods.”
“All right, I’ll tell you what, let’s just get on it while it’s sitting still, push it along real easy with our feet and kind of get the feel of it. You’ll try that, won’t you?”
“Yeah, I suppose I’ll try it like that.”
We each headed toward opposite ends of the board. “Remember the rules now,” Fred instructed. “We both get on and off at the same time.”
When we were seated and had firm grips on the handles, Fred said, “This feels a lot better with something to hold on to, don’t it?”
I had to admit he was correct. “Uh-huh,” I nervously replied.
We used our toes and the balls of our feet to get it moving, and I was amazed at the ease with which the board moved around its axis on the stump.
After a few turns, Fred said, “What do you think? You want to try it with a running start again?”
I did feel much better about the thing now that I had something to hold on to, so I agreed to give it another go.
We were both running hard and fast when Fred shouted out the signal to get on board. As soon as we jumped on, the spinning jenny seemed to have a power source of its own as it whipped us around the stump. I hung on for dear life and felt as if I would be lifted off the board and laid straight out in the air and slung off out into a nearby tree top if I dared let go of the handle.
When the jenny finally slowed to a stop, we dizzily stumbled off the board and collapsed breathlessly onto the ground.
Fred was the first to speak. Between heaving breaths, he said, “That was great! I can’t believe how fast it went! Did you count the times we went around?”
“No, I was too busy trying