enough detail to make your brain hurt

Almanzo should have described a bob-sled for Laura prior to the publication of Farmer Boy the same way he described a bob-sled for Rose prior to the publication of Free Land. In a 1937 letter to Rose, her father wrote that "a Bob sled is just two sleds coupled together." He even drew a picture.

In Farmer Boy, the sled that Father Wilder and Almanzo build in Chapter 24 ("The Little Bobsled") is only one sled, but it has two runners, two cross pieces, two slabs, a tongue, four stout poles, and lots of pegs. I can keep up with the directions until the body is finished and they get to the pole and the tongue and the mess with the iron spike and how that would push against the iron ring in the calves' yoke and when they backed the ring would push against the spike and the tongue would push the sled backward. I'm glad there won't be a test on this tomorrow.

Helen Sewell drew a nice full-page picture of the little bobsled in action, but she probably couldn't follow the directions either, because she sort of fudged on the tongue affair and was probably glad she could just draw lots of snow-bumps to hide the runners and cross-pieces and all. Garth Williams drew an excellent bobsled, but even he doesn't really show us how the tongue attaches to the sled. And I still don't get how that spike will let you go both backwards and forwards; surely it only comes into play when you're going backwards. Is there something more to it? There's a chain involved, right?

I love the painting of Star and Bright (it's not really supposed to be Star and Bright, you know). I see the ring; I see the spike. But I still don't get it.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:00 PM