COASTING ON PONKAPOAG 317 



brought out all over New England, I fancy, on 

 all big hills where Yankee boys coasted. One of 

 these was the double-runner, or double-ripper as 

 it was sometimes called, rather ominously. I 

 meet double-runners on the hills sometimes now- 

 a-days, but not the leviathans of old. The begin- 

 ning of this community coaster is simple. It is 

 two clipper sleds fastened together so that the 

 rear one runs in the tracks of the front one. 

 Then came a board placed lengthwise across the 

 two and the double-runner was fairly begun. 

 Later this board came to be a long plank that 

 would hold a dozen. With that the capacity of 

 the common clipper sled was reached. But they 

 did not stop at that at Ponkapoag. They built 

 two big sleds specially, shod them with proper 

 steel runners at the local blacksmith shop, and 

 set high above them an enormous, stout plank 

 with foot rests and all sorts of modern con- 

 veniences. 



The men who told of this enormous rig, a 

 "double-ripper" in very truth, are dead and I 

 can't prove it by them, so I hesitate to state the 

 length of this mammoth coasting device and the 

 number of people it would carry lest aspersions 

 be cast on their veracity and mine but it was 



