Under protest I attempted
the job. The Doctor says it takes about an hour to make a good arrow. I
can add that it takes about four hours to make a bad one. Still, when
completed it did look surprisingly like an arrow, and it flew point
first. Pope looked it all over and handed it back with the single
comment that I certainly had got the shaft straight. But that arrow was
very valuable. It proved to me that I could at least follow out the
process and produce _some_ result. It also convinced me that Ashan
Vitu--who was a heathen god of archers--possessed a magic that could
make one drop of glue on the shaft become at least one quart on the
fingers; and that turkeys are obsessed with small contrary devils who
pass at the bird's death into the first six feathers of its wings and
there lurk to the confusion of amateur archers. But I wanted to make
another arrow; and I did; and it was a better arrow and took less time.
I have that first arrow yet. It is a good idea to number the output;
and to preserve a sample out of every three dozen or so, just to show
not only your progress but also the advance of your ideas as to what
constitutes a good arrow.
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