Wreckless (Moto Grand Prix #2) 1st

Edition Katie Golding

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/wreckless-moto-grand-prix-2-1st-edition-katie-golding
/
 Thank you for downloading this
Sourcebooks eBook!

You are just one click away from…

• Being the first to hear about author
happenings
• VIP deals and steals
• Exclusive giveaways
• Free bonus content
• Early access to interactive activities
• Sneak peeks at our newest titles

Happy reading!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Books. Change. Lives.

Also by Katie Golding
Moto Grand Prix
Fearless
Copyright © 2021 by Katie Golding
Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks
Cover art by Kris Keller/Lott Reps
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are
trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their
respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product
or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
 Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11
Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Excerpt from the next MotoGP

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover
For my husband—I remain your biggest fan.
Wanna battle?
 Chapter 1

Lorelai Hargrove—March; Doha, Qatar

Third gear.
The cool night air screams past me as I downshift in my approach
to turn fourteen, a hard right corner on the Losail International
track. A smile rushes across my lips as my Dabria lies deep into the
tighter-than-tight turn, my knee scraping the Qatar track rippling
past my helmet.
I tuck in my elbow and control my breathing, harnessing all my
anticipation into crisp, unbridled focus. Twenty-one laps down, two
turns to go, and then I will fly over the finish line: the first woman in
history to win a race in Moto Grand Prix. The first woman ever to
race in MotoPro. And all I have to do is what I’ve done for ten years:
beat Massimo to the finish line.
Fourth gear. I tilt my bike vertical and charge toward the sharp left
of fifteen. Fifth gear. Sixth. Golden dust flashes on my right, black
pavement and gray bailout gravel rushing by my left. The stars of
Doha are sparkling above me, but the stadium lights of Losail lead
the way—a lit path on the dark track guiding me home to the
checkered flag, riding the glory rained down on me from the
thousands of screaming fans I can’t hear over my engine.
They want it—for me to win—and I can’t wait to give it to them.
 Time to deal with Massimo.
I fade left, forcing my oldest rival farther inside the lane than he
wants to be. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what he gets. Massimo
peeks at me over his shoulder, and I don’t care how sexy his stubble
is. Today is the day I’m going to make history.
Fifth gear. Fourth. Third, and lean.
My body lies flat, my bike flexing under ruthless speed and gravity
pulling it further down. It takes everything I have to stifle the primal
fear that wants to creep in, screaming how I’m going to crash and
die because I’m going too fast to hold it. There’s too much speed,
too much weight, and the laws of physics don’t mean crap, because
they don’t exist.
I swallow the lies and bury them under the truth: even though
looming death is on my left, my body is caught in the middle of a
love-and-war affair between gravity and centrifugal force, and it’s
the only place I want to be. But when I lean harder into the turn,
Massimo’s blue chassis and front tire are all I can see around the
curve, blocking my view of the finish line. And I’m sick of him taking
my finish line.
His right knee is closer to my helmet than my own gloves, the
space between us growing dangerously closer. When I check, I’m
clear to move: there’s at least a four-second gap between us and the
rest of the field.
See ya, sucker…
With the first hint of victory swirling through me, I let off the
accelerator so I can duck around behind Massimo. He should push
dangerously right, but the jerk slows down with me. I curse in my
helmet and speed up, over the games and ready to secure my win.
He stays with me, then starts to drift outside and directly into my left
knee and elbow. He’s out of the apex and taking me with him.
 I’m already calculating my options, none of them good. Once
again, he’s risking my win, my bike, and my life. It’s crap like this
that made me realize it doesn’t matter how intoxicating his smile is.
The cold truth is we both need to win more than anything else, and
if he’s going for the kill every chance he gets, so am I.
I can’t afford to downshift into second gear and lose any more
speed to get around him. Hard way it is. Gritting my teeth, I hold the
turn, my arms and abs bellowing in anguish from the G forces, but I
refuse to cower. I won’t drift farther right and toward the gravel
bailout. I know I can hold it…
My heartbeat thuds in my ears, my breathing fast and increasing.
Blue paint and black tires are inching closer to my bright red fairings,
and survival instincts tell me that if I don’t move over in the next
half second, he’s going to hit me and crash me out, and… Shit!
I let off the accelerator or risk losing it all, my engine slowing as I
careen right, my tires bumping on the curbstone and the bike
wobbling in the gravel. My breath cascades into my lungs as I
grapple for control, my reflexes throwing a glance to my left to make
sure I won’t run over Massimo and kill him. He should be sliding on
the ground in front of me. Maybe tumbling down the dark pavement.
There’s no way he held that turn at that speed when he was so far
out of the apex. Except when I look, Massimo’s gone.
He’s just freaking gone.
A roar rises from the stands as my head whips forward, and blue
paint is meters ahead. He didn’t crash, somehow pulling off that
screwed-up apex without hitting the gravel.
I swerve back onto the racetrack, my determination screaming as I
shift up fast from third gear to fourth. Massimo’s transmission roars
deep in sixth, and his helmet peeks over his shoulder. When he sees
the space between us on the last straightaway, the asshole pops a
freaking wheelie as he takes the win.
The stands explode, booming his name as green, white, and red
flags billow from every direction. Television cameras rise on cranes
as fireworks light up the night sky, and I curse where no one but me
can hear it, soaring across the finish line behind him two seconds
too late.
Bye-bye, history. And first place.

***

I step down off the podium, squinting from the lights and my cheeks
hurting from smiling as I pump my silver trophy in one hand and a
bottle of champagne in the other. A new wall of screams erupts from
the fans in the stadium, all shouting every translation of
congratulations while waving signs with my name and picture and
#77.
The whole place is a massive party waiting to explode. It always is
after the night race in Qatar: the first Grand Prix of the nineteen-
race circuit that takes us all over the world from March to November.
There’s also nothing quite like the capital city of Doha—spicy desert
air, the hum of Arabic tickling your veins as you sit in traffic, staring
up at a skyline that beats New York any freaking day of the week.
Especially at night, when the buildings are lit up so the world is a
neon rainbow reflected in the Persian Gulf.
It’s a hell of an upgrade from my family’s ranch in Memphis, where
the horses are treated like kings and farmhands come and go like
seasonal allergies. But partying in Doha isn’t an option for me when
my diet is on lockdown, I’ve got a plane to catch for the next race,
and really, I’m counting the minutes till the cameras are off me so I
can cry in private over my first MotoPro loss.
 Everyone expected me to win this one. Which I know because they
didn’t have a problem telling me beforehand—my mom, my dad,
even Billy King. The reigning World Champion’s ankle is still healing
from his brush with a bull, and he whispered to me on our flight
from Memphis that I need to enjoy every minute of Qatar. Because
after that, he would be fine and was coming for me. But taking
advantage of Billy being slow didn’t even matter when Massimo was
still too fast.
After one last wave, a smile and flirty wink to the crowd, I head
toward the door that leads to the pit boxes where our crews will
meet us. I tuck my trophy under my arm to haul it open. But I get
knocked aside when Santos Saucedo brushes past me, whistling his
way down the hall with his third-place trophy propped on his
shoulder. Jerk.
I follow him into the hall, the sounds of the crowd and the stadium
disappearing behind the door. Even though I shouldn’t, I drink
deeply from my bottle of champagne. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to
be a woman in the racing world. I certainly didn’t expect the guys to
take turns braiding my hair between practice and qualifying sessions.
But I never expected the ostracizing to last all the way from the
Rookie Cups to MotoPro.
“Lulu,” an Italian accent drawls behind me, and I lengthen my
strides away from the worst of them. It doesn’t do me any good.
Two seconds later, I have Massimo in my face. Then he drops to his
knees.
My patience is already nil and quickly creeping into the negative as
Massimo smiles up at me with his arms outstretched, the
champagne we sprayed on the podium still sparkling in his black
hair: shaved brutally short on the sides, long and thick on top, and
all slicked back in that weird Italian bouffant thing.
 He’s been wearing the same bad haircut since we were fifteen, and
I refuse to tell him. It’s the best running joke I can think of. Although
it’d probably be a lot funnier if he didn’t pull the look off so well,
balanced against the controlled stubble darkening his cheeks and
nearly black around the line of his jaw.
Taryn swears I called him “damn hot” one night when she and I
went swimming in a bottle of tequila. But I have no memory of
saying that, and I’m betting she made it up just to mess with me.
She knows that is not—and never will be—an option.
“Marry me, Lorina,” Massimo says in his thick Italian accent. I roll
my eyes, so not in the mood for his crap right now. This is no less
than the fifth time he’s done this. Usually, he’s drunk, but
sometimes, his wins pull out his proposals. Like beating me to the
flag is the way to get me to the altar. Yeah, okay. “Today is the best
day of my life. Marry me.”
I shrug, wondering if there’s a path of least resistance here that I
haven’t tried before. “Yeah, all right.”
His smile stretches wider. “Sì?”
“No!”
I walk around him, but he’s back in an instant. Guess that didn’t
work. “Why are you always so difficult, Tigrotta?” He leans closer,
whispering, “You know you love me.”
I elbow him out of my personal space, tucking my trophy under my
arm and turning to face him. He’s still freaking smiling as I jam my
finger into the front of his leathers. The plate underneath protecting
his lungs and ribs is like a block of cement, and I wonder if his heart
beneath is made out of the same stuff. “How could you do that to
me today? I don’t care what the win is. We aren’t supposed to try to
hurt each other.”
 His dark eyes flash and burn a little more fiercely, a dangerous
smile curving his lips. Like that’s supposed to scare me. “No?”
I push my finger harder into his chest even though it makes my
knuckle ache and he probably can’t even feel it. “No.” Of all the
people I figured would wager a win against my life and still dive for
the flag, I never expected it from him. He knows what it’s cost me to
be here, how hard I’ve had to fight to be on the grid beside him.
“You crossed the line, Massimo.”
He swallows, but he doesn’t apologize. He never has, whether I
deserved to hear his “Mi dispiace” or not. I grit out a frustrated huff
and storm around him. I’m barely past his shoulder when he
snatches my hand, tugging me back into his chest.
My eyes fly wide, adrenaline from the race still pumping strongly in
my veins and surging even faster at the regret sinking the corner of
his mouth. I check around for anyone else in the hallway who could
report to the world that one of Moto Grand Prix’s most talked about
rivalries filters a little differently behind closed doors. But luckily, or
maybe not, we’re completely alone.
Massimo’s grip on my hand loosens to just a gentle press of his
palm covering mine, keeping the back of my hand flat against his
leathers. It’s too much—how close he is, how his eyes seem to peer
straight through me and see it’s not the loss making my eyes want
to prickle with betrayal. It’s the fact that he thought five points were
worth me possibly ending up broken in the hospital, never able to
race again.
Stay focused, Hargrove.
“Well?” I do my best to keep my voice steady under the intensity
of his stare, his bottle of champagne dangling forgotten in his other
hand and his trophy gone, possibly on the floor. “Are you going to
apologize to me or not?”
 “You want me to apologize for crossing a line? Sì, it is true. I did,
Lorina, and I will not lie to you and say I did not.”
His grip on my hand tightens, and my eyes drop to where he has
them secured against his chest. His personally crafted version of my
first name isn’t new, nor is the softness in my chest when he says it.
But when he leans forward to whisper in my ear, his lips are so close
that I can almost feel his stubble scrape my cheek, and I’m no
longer the fearless moto racer from fifteen minutes ago. I am now
completely frozen.
Talking is one thing. Whispering, alone, while he’s holding my
hand, is another.
“I crossed the line,” he breathes, and a shiver I’m not proud of
trembles through me. “I crossed the finish line, first.”
I reel back, my gaze narrowed as Massimo puckers a kiss at me. I
snatch my hand away from him, Massimo throwing his head back in
laughter as he turns, striding down the rest of the hallway. Once he’s
a few steps away, I pick up the tattered shreds of my dignity and
stuff them back into my racing boots, carrying me down the hall
behind him.
I should be used to it by now: his jokes that aren’t funny, his
pranks that only serve to piss me off. But it still hurts.
As soon as we’re in pit lane, Massimo’s manager and crew rush
over to hug him while screaming victory accolades in Italian.
Basically treating him like the God’s gift to racing he thinks he is. So
he won here at Qatar—big deal. There are eighteen races left in the
circuit, and the competition is far from over.
Heading into my garage, I leave Massimo for where my own crew
is waiting by my bike. It helps a lot that Billy and his younger
brother, Mason—my Dabria teammate—have left their own pit boxes
and are waiting to congratulate me. We may be competitors on
Sundays, but Billy and Mason stumbled into their racing careers as
farmhands on my mom’s ranch. So it’s kinda nice to have their
country accents around when we’re traveling in Europe so much.
“Lori, gimme some sugar, girl!” our manager, Frank, bellows before
he runs over to wrap me in a hug, even though I probably smell like
pure Pennzoil.
When I pull back, I give him a sweet smile as I hand him my
trophy. “You know your old gut can’t handle no sugar.”
Frank bursts out laughing as he drops a kiss to my forehead. He
turns to the King brothers and my other crew members, already
busy passing around my trophy.
“Hell of a race, Lorelai,” Billy says in a drawl that’s thicker than my
leathers. He tips his Yaalon-covered cowboy hat at me before he
ducks off to a corner of my pit box, his cell phone permanently
pressed to his ear. He’s been that way ever since he and Taryn got
back together, but at least she seems happier. For now.
“He isn’t kidding,” Mason adds, holding out his hand. I clasp it in
mine, my teammate’s crystal-blue eyes still alive from the battle on
the track that landed him in fifth place to my second. He pulls me in
for a bro hug, the only one who ever does, reeking of sweat and
cologne over the faintest trace of whiskey. “Hope no one breaks the
news to Massimo that we’re still getting the kinks worked out of the
engines.”
I laugh, loving the way he thinks, and I lean back to point at him.
“I won’t say a word if you don’t.”
Mason scrunches up his face at me under his cowboy hat, the
picture of innocence. “A word about what?” He winks and lets me
go, probably to go bug his brother. Fine by me. There’s one other
hug I need before we head home to Memphis for the two long
weeks before we race in Argentina.
 Nudging my way past my constructor and crew, I head for my bike
and our customary postrace ritual. I squeeze her tight, petting her
fairings and thanking her for keeping me safe until an unmistakable
whistle catches my attention.
I rise and turn to find Massimo leaning against the open door of
my garage, the strangest look on his face like he wants to try to
smile, to talk to me again, but can’t decide whether he should. I’d
almost bet my bike it’s because even though he just messed with
me, the truth is, he’s not-so-secretly worried about the damage the
near hit caused to our already strained relationship.
He’d never admit it, but he really can’t seem to stay away from
me. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world except that he
also doesn’t know how to apologize for the crap he does. He’s
probably never apologized for anything in his life.
The part that kills me is that as angry as I get, I can’t really claim
any innocence in this situation. I’ve gone after him too. Attacked him
too. Even though there have been so many times when I thought
there could be something more between us than just rivalry. At the
very least, I wondered if somehow, someday, we could be friends.
“All right, Lori,” Frank says, shaking hands with my crew. “You
about ready to hit the road, girl? I need to get you and Billy and
Mason to the airport. Oh,” he adds, “Taryn called to say, and I quote,
‘Way to go, bitch.’”
I snort at my best friend’s message, wondering when she hung up
with Billy long enough to leave it for me. But I can’t seem to muster
more of a response than that. Because without saying anything,
Massimo sets down a clean, white towel at the entrance to my
garage. When he straightens, dark eyes locked with mine, I cross my
arms and stand a little taller. It’s not the apology I want, not by a
long shot, but it’ll do for now.
 The smile he was restraining breaks free, and with nothing more,
he turns and heads the other direction, leaving me to wonder what
words would have come from him if we were alone instead of
surrounded by the watchful eyes of hundreds of thousands of fans,
on top of the ever-nosy press.
Mostly because the younger, naive part of me wants to hold close
the idea that this silent, private ritual—the clean white cotton, soft,
carefully folded, and laid at my door—is the safest language in which
he can communicate that he’d never try to hurt me. However, the
twenty-five-year-old professional racer me says I also don’t need him
to tell me to brush myself off and keep going. Not to get
discouraged just because today, he beat me to the checkered flag.
I’ve been doing this as long as he has, and I don’t need his help.
Frank’s massive barbecue-filled frame knocks into me, shaking me
into awareness. I chuckle as his arm comes around my shoulders,
squeezing tight. “You okay?”
I nod absently. But really, I’m still wondering if Massimo’s white
towel of truce would carry the scent of him. That familiar spicy
sweetness of exhaust and that stuff he puts in his hair. The aroma
that’s never been far and I’m drawn to breathe more deeply than I
should… It’s as comforting as a promise from my crew, as familiar as
a scolding from my conscience.
“Yep,” I tell Frank. “Just thinking about that apex in sixteen.” And
whether Massimo would’ve had nightmares about me dying on the
way to the hospital if he’d crashed me out. The way I did when he
wrecked in the Netherlands last year.
“Aw, don’t sweat it, Lori. You’ll get it next time.” Frank winks, then
hollers over my shoulder, “Boys, hit the showers.” He gives me
another pardoning smile, steering us out of the garages and toward
our respective RVs so we can at least shower and change before we
leave for the airport.
“Yeah, honey,” Billy rumbles a few feet behind me. “Should be
home soon, in plenty of time to make your dad’s work thing. Oh
yeah? What’d he do—Taryn! Stop letting Dax do that. I don’t care.
It’s my horse, Dax is a hired hand, and I made it very clear that
Gidget—carrots?”
“Uh-oh,” Mason mutters, snickering.
As Billy keeps whining on the phone about his beloved stallion, I
glance over my shoulder at my bike, like I always do when I have to
leave her between cities. At that towel, left where Massimo laid it.
It was only six weeks after the Netherlands that Massimo came
back to the circuit following his biggest wreck to date, and the
nightmares eventually stopped. I’ve come back after my own
crashes, and I’m sure I would’ve even if I had crashed today. The
extra weight of my chest and back plates on my body, the restriction
of my elbow and knee sliders, and the imprint on my chin from the
strap of my helmet say so.
But after all the races, all the close calls, and all the times I’ve
challenged him…
After all the almosts and all the fights, all the times when I’ve
wondered and hoped and had those dreams come crashing down…
After ten years of racing against Massimo, I have to accept the
truth: it’s too late for anything to change.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Garden Plow Made of Pick-Up Material
By T. T. STURGEON

T he labor of spading a garden of even moderate size is sufficient to

warrant the person who undertakes the job in making a hand plow
like that shown in the illustration, for it will serve many years, with
reasonable care. I made one worth about $5 at an outlay of 25 cents,
gathering the necessary wood and metal from among old machine
parts and pick-up material.
An old wheelbarrow provided the 16-in. wheel. The handles were
made from a ⁷⁄₈ by 4-in. strip of spruce, 5 ft. long. They were marked
on the strip so that one of the curved grips was at each end, on
opposite edges. The curved parts of the grips were cut with a
keyhole saw, and when a kerf long enough to admit a large ripsaw
was cut, the board was ripped into the two handles. They were
smoothed and the grips trimmed with a sharp knife. A section of
broomstick was cut for the upper brace. The lower one is made of a
strip of iron, ¹⁄₄ by 1¹⁄₄ by 12 in., drilled for ¹⁄₄-in. bolts, and bent at
right angles, 1¹⁄₂ in. from each end. Drill a ¹⁄₄-in. hole at the middle, to
engage a bolt on which the vertical strip is supported, and adjusted
to the operator, as shown in Fig. 1.
 Fig. 1
Fig. 4
Fig. 2
Fig. 5 Fig. 3

This Hand Garden Plow was Made of Old Material, a Shovel being Used for
the Making of the Moldboard

Cut a strip, ¹⁄₄ by 1¹⁄₄ by 18 in., for the vertical support, shown in
Fig. 5. Drill four ¹⁄₄-in. adjusting holes, 1 in. apart, at the upper end,
and three ¹⁄₄-in. holes at the lower end for fastening the strip to the
moldboard, as shown in Fig. 3. Drill a ⁵⁄₁₆-in. hole at the 7¹⁄₂-in. mark,
for bolting the strip to the braces, the other ends of which are fitted
on the ³⁄₈ by 10-in. bolt used as an axle. Cut the two braces 14 in.
long, of ¹⁄₄ by 1¹⁄₄-in. strips, and drill a ³⁄₈-in. hole in the forward end
of each, to fit the axle, and a ⁵⁄₁₆-in. hole in the opposite ends, 1 in.
from the ends in each case. Cut a strip, ¹⁄₈ by ³⁄₄ by 12 in., for the
landside, as shown in Fig. 2, bent under the moldboard, and bolted
to it. The proper angle can best be bent after the moldboard is made
and fitted.
The method of marking the shape of the moldboard on the blade
of an old shovel is shown in Fig. 4. Make a pattern of cardboard,
marking it into 1-in. squares. Draw the shape of the moldboard by
tracing the outline through the corresponding squares, using the
diagram as a guide. Mark the position of the bolt holes, for fastening
it to the vertical support, indicated by the dash lines at the right. Cut
out the pattern and trace around it on the shovel, using the thickest
part for the point of the share. Cut out the outline, smooth the edges,
and point up the cutting edge. Drill holes for fastening the moldboard
to the vertical strap with ¹⁄₄-in. bolts, and for the fastenings to the
landside, with ³⁄₁₆-in. bolts.
 Curve the moldboard into shape and fit it to the various supports
so that it sits properly, as shown in Fig. 1, seen from the furrow side,
in Fig. 2, from the rear, and in Fig. 3, from the land side. Bend the
12-in. strip into shape, as shown in Fig. 3, and bolt it into place, to
form the landside. Assemble the parts, being careful that the wheel
and landside are set in line, as shown in Fig. 2, and that the rear
edge of the latter is raised slightly, as in Fig. 3. The plow should be
given a coat of paint, and the cutting parts made smooth, and oiled.
An Interesting Water Telescope
 A water telescope is easy to make and will afford much pleasure in
exploring plant or animal life in comparatively shallow water. The
device is made by fitting a heavy glass disk into the end of a round
metal tube, about 2 in. in diameter. The glass is fitted between two
rings of metal, preferably with a small flange set against the glass. A
waterproof cement is used to fix the glass between the rings. To use
the “telescope,” rest it on the side of a boat or other convenient place
at the water, and set the lower end, containing the glass, under the
water. Remarkably clear views may be had in this way.—S. Leonard
Bastin, Bournemouth, England.
 Writing on a Moving Train
Writing legibly on a fast-moving train is difficult to a person
unaccustomed to it. The railroad conductor knows the trick of it and
manages to get along quite satisfactorily. He prefers to write in a
standing position and holds his right elbow firmly against his side.
The reason for this is that in a sitting posture there is too much
lateral movement in the trunk of the body, while in a standing
position this is more easily controlled. When the arm swings freely,
as in ordinary writing, several joints of the body are affected in the
process, each of which is capable of its own motion. Holding the
elbow against one’s ribs “breaks” these motion tendencies, except
that of the wrist, which movement is necessary in writing, and thus
the pencil, or pen, is more easily controlled.
The same principles modified apply in using a typewriter on a
moving train. Many traveling men, news correspondents, and others,
carry portable typewriters and do much of their writing while traveling
on trains, not to mention the various railroad and government men
who travel in office cars and necessarily must get out their
correspondence en route. It is extremely difficult to execute neat
typewriting on a moving train with free-arm movement, even though
the central portion of the car where the vibration and swing is less
severe, is selected. As I am employed in such capacity, I had to
evolve some plan to expedite the work. I am able to do typewriting
quite rapidly by resting the palm of the hands, near the wrists,
against the front edge of the typewriter frame surrounding the
keyboard, and using the swing of the fingers instead of that of the
whole arm, as in ordinary typewriting.—Victor Labadie. Dallas, Tex.
A Revolving Window Display
 A jeweler attracted passers-by and not a few customers by placing
a revolving display in his window which was kept in motion by means
of the arrangement shown in the sketch. A 10-in. cut-glass bowl was
placed, upside down, near the front of the show window. An inverted
tumbler was set upon it and a small tin box was pivoted on the
tumbler by means of a needle soldered inside of it. Six arms of wire
were soldered to the box, and watches were suspended from them.
The carefully balanced frame revolved easily on the point of the
needle. It was kept in motion by the draft from a fan hidden behind a
mirror.—H. S. Hart, Shreveport, La.
 A Horse-Drawn Sod Cutter
The cutting of a considerable area of sod is tedious work when
done by hand, and it is difficult to make the sections of uniform
thickness and size. These important features are provided for by the
use of the homemade sod cutter shown in the sketch. To start a cut
across a meadow or lot, a notch is cut in the turf for the blade, and
the device is set into place, stamping it down to give a good start.
The operator stands on the plank in front of the blade, and a little
practice will soon determine the best position for ease in operation.
When a cut has been completed, the cutter is dragged to a fresh
starting place, the driver turning it over on the upper side. The strips
are cut into suitable lengths and piled conveniently for removal with a
stone boat or wagon.
 With This Device Sod may be Cut Quickly and of Uniform Width and
Thickness

The device may be made of any suitable width; 15 in. between the
inner edges of the blade, and the latter set to cut a depth of about
2¹⁄₂ in., being desirable. The board is a 2-in. plank, about 4 ft. long.
The blade should be set with the cutting edge slanting slightly
downward so as to make the device “bite” into the ground. A smaller
cutter may be made for use by boys, several of whom may draw it.—
F. H. Sweet, Waynesboro, Va.
 A Match-Box Trick

All that is required to perform this trick is a box of safety matches.

Four matches are removed and three of them arranged as shown in
the sketch. The performer then tells his friends that he will light the
fourth match and set the cross match on fire in the center, then asks
which match of the standing ones will light first. Most persons will not
stop to think and guess either one or the other. As a matter of fact,
after the cross match is set on fire it soon burns the wood away, and
the pressure of the two side matches will cause it to spring out so
that neither catches fire.—Contributed by Abner B. Shaw, North
Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
 Cutting Glass Bottle with Electricity

Performing an experiment in a laboratory, it became necessary to

have some apparatus which we did not possess at the time. A bell
jar could have been used, but this we did not have, and as a
substitute we used a large glass bottle, 8 in. in diameter, with the
bottom removed. In order to do this, we first made a mark around the
outside of the bottle near the bottom with a glass cutter. A piece of
copper wire, ¹⁄₃₂ in. in diameter, was then wound around the outside
on the mark and connected to the circuit.
 As the wire would expand enough to make it slip off the bottle
when heated red-hot, pliers were used to keep it taut about the bottle
when the current was turned on. A current of 110 volts and 5
amperes was run through the wire, heating it red-hot, and this
cracked the glass exactly on the line marked by the glass cutter.—
Contributed by R. E. Hollis, Chicago, Ill.
 Nail Cabinet with Muffin-Pan Trays
Muffin-pan trays used by the housewife in baking make
serviceable containers for nails, screws, and other small articles
used in a shop. The illustration shows the pans fitted into a box, and
sliding in grooves cut into the sides with a saw.

The Metal Trays Are Substantial and may be Removed Readily for Use
Elsewhere

The box is made with the end pieces lapping over the top and the
bottom this being a better construction to carry the weight of the
trays. The wood used in the sides is ⁷⁄₈ in. thick, in order that a saw
cut may be made to a depth of ¹⁄₄ in. without weakening the support.
Thinner wood may be used if instead of saw cuts small strips of
wood are nailed against the side on which the trays may slide.—
Contributed by Harry J. Blacklidge, San Rafael, Cal.
 Waterproofing Matches
Dipping ordinary parlor matches into melted paraffin and
permitting them to dry thoroughly will enable them to withstand
water. The paraffin acts like a wax candle and is unaffected by the
moisture. This should be of aid to campers and others who find it
hard to keep matches dry.—Contributed by T. W. Lambert, Jr., New
York, N. Y.