We always found that a good hardwood (walnut, cherry, maple) danced with a better sound to the tapping than did the softer woods like pine. A bit more vigorous, too.

I have a cousin-in-law in south central Pennsylvania who tells me that her father used to make LimberJacks for the kids as Christmas gifts during the depression. She said they called it a "soople-jack", even though they all knew the real word was "supple." The father would go to the drugstore and get old wooden cigar boxes that were being thrown away, and would fashion the puppets from the "re-cycled" wood.

We were told of an old deaf-mute in Huntington, Vermont, (before we moved there in 1961) who made LimberJacks for the kids in the village. I'm not sure, now, which of the many names we've collected for the toy was the one the village folk used.

One of the most beautiful examples I've ever seen was a carefully hand-carved model with boots and top hat from the late 1800s, made in Ridgefield, Connecticut. About the ugliest I ever saw was a huge, three-foot model from Louisiana, painted to look like a grotesque black-face minstrel character and called a "Dancin' Sam." There are certain elements in our traditions that would best be left behind.

Sandy