A “pin” is a piece held in place by the danger of losing a more important piece behind it. Pins work particularly well against the enemy king. Your opponent is unable to move his blocking pieces as he cannot move into check.
A “fork” is when a piece threatens two pieces at the same time. The knight is particularly good at this and can be deadly when putting the king in check and at the same time threatening a valuable piece.
A “skewer” is the opposite of a pin, when a valuable piece is forced to move, thereby exposing a lesser piece to capture. A rook that threatens a queen may not get the queen, but may take the bishop behind her when she moves.
Remember to keep your king protected in your “castle,” stay level on points and try to get ahead. Even a pawn advantage will show itself in the endgame.
THE ENDGAME
It is possible to win in the middle game, while the board is still full of pieces, but most wins occur in the endgame. The board will be stripped of the main pieces and pawns. Strangely, the safest position for the king is now the center of the board, where its power can be used to attack and shepherd pawns toward promotion.
Promotion. If a pawn reaches the back rank of the opposing side, it can be exchanged for a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. (You can have two queens! Just turn a rook upside down to represent the second one.) In the endgame, the threat of promotion can have a serious effect on tactics.
The endgame will involve combinations of pieces, as bishops and rooks, for example, attempt to limit the enemy king’s movement, check him, and then bring about a checkmate. Rooks are particularly strong in the endgame and should not be sacrificed early.
The aim is obviously to checkmate your opponent’s king. This is the hardest part of the game and the last thing the novice learns to do well.
This is one of the only games where you get to match your brain directly against someone else. It’s a level playing field—except for experience, preparation, and intelligence. Do not underestimate preparation. Many a clever boy has been beaten by a better chess player.
It is played all over the world, from magnetic sets on trains to ornate carved bone sets in Indonesia. It’s a language we all know and every boy should be able to play chess.
Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit
EVERY STATE HAS its own gun and hunting laws and regulations. Be sure to check with your local police station as to whether air guns are permitted, the age requirements, and use restrictions. In states that do allow gun permits there is also a gun and hunting safety class available (and probably required). We highly recommend you take it first before handling any type of firearm. Most importantly, do not handle or use any type of firearm without adult supervision. There are two main types: those you cock by pulling the barrel back on itself and those that work from compressed air held in a canister under the barrel. The type that cocks is cheaper and doesn’t need recharging every 100 shots. It should last practically for ever. Target shooting can be a highly enjoyable pursuit, but a powerful air rifle can also be used to hunt game—rabbits, pheasants and pigeons.
To do so is not a game, nor is it a sport. We believe the experience is valuable as it gives an insight into the origin of those neat meat packages you see in supermarkets. The aim, however, should be to get lunch—if you kill something, you have to eat it.
It is possible to hunt rabbits with a bow and arrow, but the movement involved in pulling the string back tends to spook them and we cannot recommend this unless you are capable of holding a drawn bow motionless for ten or twenty minutes. Believe us when we say it is extremely hard to hunt rabbits with a bow. You tend to lose the arrows as well.
Before you go anywhere near a live shoot, spend time with a target set up at twenty or thirty yards. You can make a simple bull’s-eye by drawing around two cups in circles on a bit of paper. Bring drawing pins with you to fix it to a tree.
A yard is a normal walking pace, so it’s easy to set up the range. You need to be certain that when you have something in your crosshairs, the pellet will hit where you point it. The method here is to find a steady aiming spot, a tree stump, for example, and fire five shots at the bull, taking note of where they hit. If you are steady, they should be close together. If all of your shots at bull are hitting low and to the left, say, you’ll need to adjust your sights to fire up and right. Practice until you can hit the bull regularly. You should not skimp when buying the pellets—you want ones that are checked for quality and heavier than usual. Don’t bother with the pointed-head pellets. Weight is far more important. It does cut the range a little, but is more likely to result in a clean kill.
FINDING THE RABBIT
Get out into the countryside, for a start. In many states, it is not illegal to fire an air rifle within the confines of your own land, unless the pellets pass outside the boundary, in which case you are likely to have an armed police team turn up. Be sensible—look for rabbits where there are fields. Note that it is also illegal in most states to walk around with an uncovered weapon, but if the weapon is in a carrying sleeve, you can walk on public land with one. That said, the laws are different in every state, so you will need to check regulations. Also never hunt on neighbors’ land without getting permission.
Rabbits never move far from their warrens. If you have ever seen one in a field, their burrow will be very, very close by. The best thing to do will be to note where they are seen over a period of time, to have an idea of where to find them. It is possible to come upon them on a ramble, but it’s a little hit or miss.
This is one place where exercising a little common sense wouldn’t hurt. Go and ask the owner of the land if you can shoot rabbits. If it’s a field, or a farm, there’s a very good chance they will say yes. Rabbits breed like maniacs and are not much loved by farmers. You may even be given directions to the best spots. However, shooting a pheasant will provoke a very angry reaction. These birds are a cultivated crop whose value lies in the shooting fees paid for them. Poachers are not appreciated and illegal poaching carries heavy penalties.
Once in the area, find the warren. You might see rabbits in the distance, but as you come closer, they will all vanish. After you locate the complex of burrows, you should get between 60 and 90 feet (18–28 m) away—the effective range. Much further and you are likely to miss a kill. Much closer and they will remain nervous in your presence.
Have a pellet ready in the rifle, settle down flat on your stomach, and wait. You will appreciate a warm coat and possibly even a thermos of tea at this point. Your arrival will have startled the rabbit population and you’ll have to wait ten minutes or so for them to return.
Don’t have a rush of blood to the head and fire at the first rabbit you see. There will be a number of chances, but some will be too far, or the rabbit might be too young. When you are ready, take the shot, aiming at the head behind the eye if you can. There is a great satisfaction in pulling off a difficult shot over distance. If you are with someone else, never point the gun at them, even if you believe it to be unloaded. An accident at that point could last a lifetime.
In the event that you merely wound the rabbit, you should reload, approach and fire pointblank at the spot behind the eye. Try to avoid causing unnecessary suffering. If you have missed, either move to another position, or read a book for half an hour. It will take that long for the rabbits to come out again.
Rabbits bleed, so have a plastic bag ready for transport. All you have to do now is skin it and eat it.
SKINNING THE RABBIT
This is not a difficult process, though it is a little daunting the first time. If you have a heavy-bladed cleaver, simply chop off the four paws. If you are stuck with only a penknife, break the forearm bones with a quick jerk, then cut the skin around the break in a ring. Remove the head in the same way. A serrated edge will cut through the bones, but a standard kitchen knife is likely to be damaged if used as a chopper.
Cut a line down the middle of the chest, from head to anus. This can be fiddly if you’re on your
own, and a serrated edge is very useful. Be careful not to cut into the abdominal cavity—if you do, the stomach and intestines will spoil the meat.
With fingers, you can now pull back the skin to the hip and shoulders, yanking the fur off the legs like sleeves. When the legs are free, take hold of the fur at the neck and pull downward. The pelt will come off in one piece, leaving you with the carcass. The belly is quite obvious and bulges with intestines.
Holding the carcass upside down, take a pinch of loose skin near the rear legs and cut a line across it. As you turn the rabbit the right way up, most of the intestines will slide right out immediately and anything that doesn’t can be scooped out with ease.
There is a partition between the stomach area and the upper chest that can be broken with a little pressure. Behind it, you will find the heart, lungs and a few other bits and bobs. Pull it all out. The heart, liver, and kidneys in particular can be very tasty, but the intestines and stomach should be left well alone.
It is worth taking a moment to have a look at the various inner organs. Male rabbits will have testicles that should also be cut away. This is not for the squeamish, but that is the point of the chapter. If you buy a pork chop, we think you should realize what has gone into providing that meat for you. In a sense, killing for food is a link with ancestors going back to the caves.
PREPARING A MEAL
This isn’t the place for a formal recipe, but it is worth covering the next stage. You could spit-roast the rabbit, but it is easier and more common to joint it—that is, remove the legs by cutting through the joints. Fillets can also be taken from pads of flesh near the spine. You can take a fair amount of meat off a single rabbit—enough, with vegetables, to feed two men and provide hot broth against a winter chill.
Place the meat in a pot with water and bring it to the boil, adding zucchini, a little garlic, carrots, leeks, and celery until the pot is half full. Let it simmer for half an hour to forty-five minutes. Wild game is often pretty chewy because the muscles are used much more often than tame animals’. Nevertheless, rabbit cooked in this way is delicious and the broth is very good indeed.
Tanning a Skin
MAKING LEATHER from skins must be one of the oldest human skills. That said, it isn’t at all easy to get right and it’s worth knowing that small skins (like those of rabbits) can be air-dried after the fat has been cut away. The result will have the stiffness of a bit of cardboard, but there is a very good chance it will feel no better after the tanning process. Larger skins have to be tanned, or they simply rot.
First of all, cut away any obvious pouches of flesh on the inner side of the skin. The best way to do this is to stretch the skin onto a board, held in place with tacks at the edges. Use a sharp knife and a lot of care to remove the marbled pink fat without puncturing the skin beneath it. Stone Age peoples used flints and bones to scrape hides. They also chewed them to make them soft. You might want to try this, though we thought it was going a little too far.
You don’t have to get every tiny scrap of fat, but be as thorough as you can. A rabbit skin can be left in a cool room for about ten days and it will dry. Covering it in a heavy layer of salt speeds the process and also helps to prevent any smell of rotting meat. You may want to change the salt after two or three days if it becomes damp or obviously contaminated. When the skin has dried it will be quite rigid. At this point, you could trim off the rough edges with a pair of scissors.
Tanning is the chemical process that makes skin into leather—a waterproof, hard-wearing and extremely versatile material. Almost all the leather we use is from cows, as it is produced as a natural by-product of eating beef. Various chemicals are useful in the process, including traditional ones from boiled brains or excrement. However, we used aluminium potassium sulfate (alum). As well as growing crystals, alum solution can tan skin.
Once the skin is completely dry, it can be dipped in warm water with a little soap to cut the grease. There is a membrane inside all animal skins that must be removed before tanning. One way is to rub the skin back and forth on an edged object, like a wooden board or a large stone. We found steel wool useful, as well as the back of a kitchen knife. It took a long time. It smelled. Peeling off sticky wads of fatty membrane was not an enjoyable experience. Still, no one said it would be easy.
When the skin was about as clean as we could make it, we trimmed one or two of the rougher edges and prepared a solution of 1 lb (453 g) alum, 4 oz (124 g) sodium carbonate and 8 pts (4.55 l) of water. It fizzes as you mix it up, but don’t worry.
A rabbit skin should be left in the solution for two days, though larger skins can take up to five. Be careful how you dispose of the liquid, as it’s a pretty potent weedkiller and will destroy grass.
When you take it out, it will be sopping wet and the skin side will have gone white. You now need to oil it thoroughly and leave it overnight. Ideally, you would use an animal oil, but those aren’t easy to get hold of. We chose linseed oil, which is usually used for baseball bats and church pews. It smells quite pleasant, as well. We placed a plastic bag over it to seal in the oil and left it for another two days.
The next stage is to let the oiled skin dry, fur side out, but only until it is damp. This stage is crucial to create a soft final skin. While it’s damp, you must “work” it. This means gently stretching it and running it back and forth over a smooth wooden edge, like the back of a chair or a broomstick held in a vise.
How soft the final version is will depend on how well it was tanned, how much flesh still adhered to the skin membrane, and how conscientiously you work it. If it does dry out, and is too stiff, it is all right to dampen it again and repeat the process. It will get softer, but it could take a few sessions.
Finally, a quick dip in unleaded gasoline is worth doing, just to clean it and cut through excess oiliness. It will make the skin smell of gas, obviously, but this fades in a day or two. You really should get an adult to help with this.
Once you have allowed it to dry completely, imperfections can be removed with a sanding block. The skin will resemble waxed paper, but it should be strong and flexible—and it shouldn’t smell like a dead animal. Calfskin has been used as paper and rabbit skin could also be written on, though it would serve better as an outer sleeve for a small book, a drawstring pouch or, with a few more skins, perhaps a pair of gloves.
Time Line of Early American History
Growing Sunflowers
THIS IS SUCH A SIMPLE THING, but it can be fulfilling, and if we don’t mention it here, a chance could be missed. These plants (Helianthus) are called sunflowers because they turn toward the sun, and when mature, their large round heads resemble the sun. In French, they are called “tournesol” and in Italian “girasole.” You can find sunflower seeds in hamster food or a healthfood store. Growing any plants and flowers can be rewarding, but sunflower seeds are particularly good as sowing to blooming takes only sixty days of a good summer. They grow at an unusually high speed with impressive results.
Plant the seeds in fertile soil in late spring. All you have to do is get hold of some of the black-and-white-striped seeds, put them in a little earth in a plastic cup, add water, and wait a few days. They need sunlight, so make sure the cup is on a well-lit window ledge.
The growth shown below is after only one week. The seeds split open and rise on the stalks like hats. Remove the seeds when you can see the leaves.
Eventually, you may have to use thin wooden stakes to support the stems. They will produce one of the largest flowers you can grow anywhere, with a head full of edible seeds. The final height can reach 8 feet (2.4 m)!
The second picture is after a month, almost 2 feet (60 cm) high. They have been repotted, which just means a little extra earth or compost and a good watering. If you have a spot that receives regular sunshine, they will thrive in open ground—but check them for slugs and snails at regular intervals. To sustain this sort of growth speed, they do need water—so don’t forget to give them a daily splash.
When the flowers finally fade in late summer, break apart the heads with your thumbs and you will find hundreds of the striped seeds ready to begin again next year. The shells contain a pleasant-tasting inner seed that can be eaten raw. You might also try roasting the shells until they brown, then serving them with salt and butter. They are a good source of potassium and phosphorus, iron, and calcium.
Questions About the World—Part Three
1. How do ships sail against the wind?
2. Where does cork come from?
3. What causes the wind?
4. What is chalk?
1. HOW DO SHIPS SAIL AGAINST THE WIND?
When the wind is coming straight at a boat or ship, it would seem impossible to sail into it. It can be done, however, by clever use of the sails and rudder.
Fig. 1 is a plan view of a small boat with the mainsail and rudder visible. The wind comes from the direction of the arrow marked “a” and would tend to turn the boat in the direction of the arrow “b.” To counteract this, the rudder is put over as at “c” and the weight of the water against the rudder pushes the boat in the direction marked “d.” Between these two forces, like a watermelon seed being squeezed, the boat slides ahead in the direction “e.”
In order to get to a point windward (upwind), the boat must make this maneuver first to starboard (right) and then to port (left), as in Fig. 2. The boat sails to starboard, “a,” then after a time, the rudder is pushed out, “b,” and the sail is set over on the other hand—and the boat comes about and progresses on the port “tack.” By this changing or “tacking” from port to starboard and vice versa, the boat can, by a zigzag course, reach a point from which the wind is blowing—and it has sailed against the wind.
The Dangerous Book for Boys Page 27