When you start out to "bob," it is just as well to determine in advance what kind of bobbing you are going to do. There are several kinds, as most young people know—such as bobbing for apples, bobbing for eels, and bobbing on a bob-sled. A rule which would do very well when bobbing for apples would not suit you at all when sliding down hill, and vice versa. Therefore, the first general rule for bobbing is to select your kind, and then go ahead. The following rules are for the sled variety: 1. First get your bob. There is no use of trying to go bobbing without a bob. The boy who tries to bob without a bob is apt to wear his clothes out in a very short time, and to experience considerable discomfort into the bargain.
2. Having secured your bob, and got its runners and steering-gear into good working order, select a convenient hill upon which to coast, and start from the top of it. This is one of the most important of the rules of bobbing. Boys who have tried the experiment of starting to bob from the foot of the hill have met with considerable opposition not from the people about them, but from certain principles of nature which make it impossible for even the best of bob-sleds to coast up hill, and while there is no law against your trying to coast up hill which would result in your being put into jail if you broke it, persistence in the effort might result in your landing sooner or later in a lunatic asylum.
3. Having started from the top of the hill, then stick as closely as you can to the line mapped out before the "shove-off." It is always well to know where you are going to land, particularly when you are bobbing. It is true that when Columbus started out to discover America he did not know where he was going to land, or, indeed, that he was going to land at all, but he had a pretty good general idea of the possibilities, and that is what you need to have before the shove-off. The experiences of a New Hampshire boy who ignored this point will show its importance. He shoved off all right, but having left the chosen path, found himself speeding down the hill directly at the rear of the village church. He could not stop, and the first thing he knew he crashed through the stained-glass windows, down through the middle aisle, and out into the street, slap bang into the arms of the town constable. He was arrested, and his father having to pay the fine imposed, as well as to give the church new windows, and carpet for the middle aisle, where the runners of the bob had destroyed the old one, made him very uncom............