were the axle of a wheel and your legs the spokes. Now spring upon the
bar, supporting yourself on your palms, as before; put your hands a
little farther apart, with the thumbs forward, then suddenly bring up
your knees on the bar and let your whole body go over forward: you will
not fall, if your hands have a good grasp. Try it again with your feet
outside your hands, instead of between them; then once again flinging
your body off from the bar and describing a long curve with it, arms
stiff: this is called the Giant's Swing. Now hang to the bar by the
knees,--by both knees; do not try it yet with one; then seize the bar
with your hands and thrust the legs still farther and farther forward,
pulling with your arms at the same time, till you find yourself sitting
unaccountably on the bar itself. This our boys cheerfully denominate
"skinning the cat," because the sensations it suggests, on a first
experiment, are supposed to resemble those of pussy with her skin drawn
over her head; but, after a few experiments, it seems like stroking the
fur in the right direction, and grows rather pleasant.

Try now the parallel bars, the most invigorating apparatus of the
gymnasium, and in its beginnings "accessible to the meanest capacity,"
since there are scarcely any who cannot support themselves by the hands
on the bars, and not very many who cannot walk a few steps upon the
palms, at the first trial. Soon you will learn to swing along these bars
in long surges of motion, forward and backward; to go through them, in
a series of springs from the hand only, without a jerk of the knees; to
turn round and round between them, going forward or backward all the
while; to vault over them and under them in complicated ways; to turn
somersets in them and across them; to roll over and over on them as
a porpoise seems to roll in the sea. Then come the "low-standing"
exercises, the grasshopper style of business; supporting yourself now
with arms not straight, but bent at the elbow, you shall learn to raise