The Wooden HorseBut What Wood ? 



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HAT kind of wood was 

 the Trojan horse 

 made of?" 



"What kind of 

 what? " I said, looking 

 up from the newspa- 

 per, in response to the 

 ten-year-old's query. 

 " You know; the wooden horse that the 

 Greeks got into, and then the people of 

 Troy dragged it inside the city, and the 

 Greeks got out and captured 'em." 



He was looking at a set of books that 

 I bought because it was advertised to 

 answer every question a child could ask, 

 and therefore seemed a good thing for 

 our family of four children. So far it 

 seemed only to suggest new subjects 

 about which questions could be asked. 

 This Trojan horse idea was a fair sample. 

 It showed at once that I did not know 

 more than the twenty volumes contained. 

 Not that I minded any such little thing as 

 that myself, but it seemed to disgust the 

 children so much, and to give them such 

 a poor idea of their father. 



Maybe old Homer tells somewhere 

 what kind of wood it was; if he does I 

 have forgotten it. It was always just a 

 wooden horse to me and no more. I 

 thought it might have been pine because 

 pine is easily worked; in this case, how- 

 ever, it seemed to all of us that the Tro- 

 jans were the ones who were easily 

 worked. Then we got to discussing the 

 fact that to most folks wood is just wood. 

 Yet every kind of wood is different 

 from all other kinds, and even trees of 

 the very same kind will give different 

 sorts of wood. I have seen two pieces of 

 Cuban pine, one of which was twice as 

 heavy as the other, and of a much darker 

 color. It grew more slowly, had more 

 pitch, its annual rings were closer 

 together; almost anyone picking up the 

 two pieces would have said they came 

 from trees entirely different from one 

 another. 



THROUGH thousands of years cer- 

 tain woods have been recognized 

 as best suited to certain uses. In 

 the main, these have been the 

 right uses for the woods, but people got 

 so set in their ideas that they thought no 

 wood, other than the one they had long 

 been accustomed to, would do for a par- 

 ticular purpose. Now we are finding out 

 that litUe-known or little-used woods are 

 just as good as the time-tried ones. 



At the same time it must be granted 

 that for some woods there is nothing 

 else " just as good." Hickory is one of 

 these, and nothing does so well for the 

 handles of tools that strike, such as ham- 

 mers, picks, and axes. It is elastic and 

 tough, and will stand shocks which 

 would shatter handles of other materials. 

 For the same reason it is the exclusive 

 wood for golf sticks ; were it not used the 

 amateur golf player would have even 

 more excuse for bad words than he now 

 has when he hits the ground instead of 

 the ball. 



The driving heads of wooden golf clubs 

 are made of persimmon or dogwood be- 

 cause these are hard and heavy and will 

 stand knocks without being splintered or 

 badly dented. For the same reason they 

 are chosen for making bobbins and 

 shuttles in the cotton mills. These are 

 thrown back and forth, through the warp 

 of the cloth, hurled by steel, striking 

 against steel, and being hurled back 

 again. Other woods have been tried, 

 and none of them lasted long enough to 

 make their use worth while. It can be 

 truly said that they are the only ones 

 which will " stand the racket." 



PENCILS are always made with that 

 nice smelly wood like the big 

 drawer in mother's clothes-press," 

 chirped up the youngest, who ought 

 to know about pencils, because he 

 manages to make away with most of 

 mine. " I like the taste of it too," he 



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