The Portland daily press., 1894-12-08

One young lady was an ardent rival of
the boys in sliding down steep hills, and
proved herself a worthy associate in
that, as in everything else, thanks to
American customs.
The two clubs finally became one
The skeeing interest, of course, took
its departure, and the social element
gradually prevailed, till the Augusta
skeeists confined themselves to attend
ing a course of assemb lies together ana
talking about skees.
The writer of this article became
student at the Maine State College at
Orono in 1855, and took his skees with
him, nticipatlng more or less eXalted
position when winter should come, be-
cause of his supposed introduction OF the
new sport and his mastery of it's myster.
les. But he was chagrined to.fnd that
skees were at the college before him,
that they were better skees than he had
ever seen, and that many of the students
could accomplish feats in dashing down
great hills and leaping over high drifts
and banks that filled him with admira-
tion and ENVY.
The Orono skees were made in the col
lege carpenter shop, and sold to the stu
dents for $3.50 pair. They were OF
brown ash, from six to seven feet long
five inches wide and one third of an
inch thick. They were also provided
with the short pine board in the middle,
to which the strap was attached. But
the fastening was great improvement
over that in Use by the Deering and
Augusta boys. Before the pine board
was screwed on two Sits were made in
it about the width of the foot apart,
and on the under side two depressions
were cut close to the Sits Strips of stout
leather were inserted in the Sits, the ends
folded over and tackled into the depress-
ions, and when the whale was screwed
tightly to the skee the leather was i'm
movably fastened. The upper ends pro-
through the Sits, and across the upper
edge was row of holes. With raw hide
the two pieces of leather could thus be
laced together over the foot aud made
as tight or as loose as required. This
was Yankee notion, and an improve
ment over the Norwegian fastening,
which is a leather loop passing through
a slit through the skee itself, under the
foot, it being SO thick as to allow this.
The adjustabiiity of the Yankee fasten-
ing is it's advantage, for the leather is
always stretching when wet, or the foot
may have a different covering, or be
of different size, and it is highly import
ant that the fastening across the toe
should not be loose. as that is all that
controls these flying sandals when dash
ing swiftly down some great hill, as the
hawk or kingfsher swoops upon it's prey.
with swash and flash of flying land
scape that takes away the breath and
almost the senses.
The skees were introduced at the col
lege by Prof. Walter Flint, and to him,
and not the Augusta and Deering boy
readers of the st. Nicholas, belongs the
credit of being the first Maine boy to
make a pair of skees. He was an fE-
ventive genius like the rest and after
reading about the exciting skee race in
Boyesen's Norwegian story, "Gunnar,"
when a boy in Baldwin, Maine, when it
first appeared as serial in the Atlantic
Monthly in 1872, he made the pair of
skees that he still owns, 20 years after.
boys he perceived that wide, thin skee
was necessary for our soft Maine snow
and that to follow the Norwegian model
was unadvisable. He made a skee very
similar to that which he introduced at
the college many years late, after he had
become a professor there. The college
buildings are situated in great field,
about mile from the first house of the
village, where he and another professor
lived, and it was their custom to traverse
this great uninterrupted expanse of
snow twi.e, and frequently four times,
daily on their skees. They had worn
track as nearly straight as possible, and
over the smooth surfaces of the two
grooves in the snow the skees seem ed to
slide of their own volition.
The students were soon mounted upon
skees also, but they were not content
with a track across level field. They
sought the great hill across the ri yer.
between the foot of which and the river
bank was swampy level space, open
close to the foot of the hill, but covered
with thick alder bushes about 100 feet
distant. The hill was made up of two
slopes. The first was very steep, about
Is degrees, and about 40 feet in perpen-
dicular height. The upper slope was
not so steep and about the same in per-
pendicular height, SO that the entire hill
was about so feet high. The first slope
was so steep that in order to climb up
steps were worn in the deep snow, by
repeated treading in each oher's foot
prints or better, leg holes, and thus
footing was secured.
The top of the second slope was invisi-
bic from the bottom of the first. 1t was
not so steep as the first except near the
top, and there frequently after drifting
snow storm, the wind had blown the
snow over the crest and made an over