Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1892 — SURE SIGNS OF SPRING. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SURE SIGNS OF SPRING.

FACTS ABOUT TOPS KNOWN JO BOYS. Toptime Is as Welcome to the Youngsters as the Flowers That Bloom In the Spring —Peculiar Traits of Popular Toys. Tops and Tops. . Tops are signs of springtime. In every home where there is a boy there are from one to a dozen tops. Some have pegs and some have not, and some are badly battered and others in the collection .show signs of newness. I'here is a reason for every symptom observable in tops, and a boy can explain everything. All boys can spin tops. No one knows where or when or how they learned, or who taught thqm, but they know how just the same. There Is a popular impression to the effect that a boy is born knowing about it. He knows how to spin a top the same as a girl knows how to put her doll baby to sleep, or the same as a boy knows how to whistle. No one says anything about it, or thinks anything about it, when 10, one day he winds a top up and throws it, and it spins. He doesn’t even know how it happened, and if you are ambitious and inquire into it yourself, he will smile a quiet smile while he winds it up, and then he will throw it as a sort of

an object lesson and tell you it is “easy enough.” It does seem to be easy enough, but if you are not a boy you can try till the erack ot doom and never once succeed. You may throw it with all your might, and away it will go, reeling and scurrying off into some snug, Inaccessible corner and bid you pursue it. The boy who spins a top well has a curious- little trick of wedging the end of his tongue between his teeth and holding his head a bit on the side while he winds the top. But this really has nothing to do with the success of spinning a top, because you may hold the end of your tongue between your teeth till you bite it off and it will not help you at all. The top business is booming just at present. The most popular top is a small one painted green and suggests the color of the glass and the leaves which will soon appear. This top only costs a penny and the string also penny. The string should have a wooden button ofi one end of it to facilitate matters. This little green top has a wooden knob on the

top of it. This knob, as an adjunct to the spinning powers of a top is a mooted question. Some boys take the knob out and fill the hole with lead. They claim it makes it spin better. The next boy you meet will deny this assertion and spin the top as well with the knob on as the other boy did with the lead filling. Another very popular top is the whip top. This one spins by being vigorously, persistently and skillfully lashed with a whip so full of lashes that it looks like a cat o’ nine tails. The whip top is. wholly unlike the usual string top. Its upper surface is flat and the peg is very blunt In some shops a stick and small leather string attached is presented to each customer who purchases a penny top, but as a usual thing the whip is home made. Whip tops make great inroads upon the household linen by the demand they create for lashes. A particularly fascinating top is the Chinese top. It spins wlti) a

string from a fork, and from time to time it disgorges other lesser tops and the entire family spin together. The gyroscope is the most wonderful top. It is a phenomenon and one of the few things which even science has failed to explain. It consists of two wheels at right angles with each

other. As one wheel spins horizontally from a pivot in which it rests the other wheel spins in a perpendicular position. The humming-top sings a solo as it spins, and the music is as mysterious as the sound of the ocean which every boy and girl has heard in a sea shell. But the hole in the side of the top, which is sometimes of tin and sometimes of wood, has all to do with the music. A top which is often used for indoor games is hexagon in shape. Any boy will tell you that every opposite pair of figures sums up to make seven. Thus, if you observe 5 on one side of the top, you may know its opposite number is 2. The careful, thrifty boy has a pet top which he cherishes from one year to the next. This top is well trained. It will walk a tight rope or it will spin on his hand, and, under any and all circumstances, it may be relied on for good behavior, and always reflect credit upon the skill of the owner. The top is a standard toy. It is as necessary to a boy’s happiness as a knife, and the tulips and crocuses are

not more surely to be expected or are rfiore reliable harbingers of the approaching spring.

STRING AND-WHIP TOP.

TWO HUMMING TOPS.

A CHINESE TOP.

THE GYROSCOPE AND HEXAGON.