y 
' 
 
To make and shoot the longbow is another. There is a sub- 
versive belief among laymen that in the hands of an expert the 
bow is an efficient weapon. Each fall, less than a hundred Wis- 
consin experts register to hunt deer with the broadheaded 
arrow. One out of the hundred may get a buck, and he is sur- 
prised. One out of five riflemen gets his buck. As an archer, 
therefore, and on the basis of our record, I indignantly deny 
the allegation of efficiency. I admit only this: that making 
archery tackle is an effective alibi for being late at the office, 
or failing to carry out the ashcan on Thursdays. 
One cannot make a gun-at least I can't. But I can make a 
bow, and some of them will shoot. And this reminds me that 
perhaps our definition ought to b-amended; a good hobby, in 
these times, is one that entails either making something or 
making the tools to make it with, and then using it to accom- 
plish some needless thing. When we have passed out of the 
present age, a good hobby will be the reverse of all these. I 
come again to thedfiance of 
A good hobby must also be a gamble. When I look at a 
rough, heavy, lumpy, splintery stave of bois d'arc, and envision 
the perfect gleaming weapon that will one day emerge from 
its graceless innards, and when I picture that bow, drawn in a 
perfect arc, ready-in a split second-to cleave the sky with 
its shining javelin, I must envision also the probability that it 
may-in a split second-burst into impotent splinters, while I