"He went right on working on his invention. He dug a hole in the middle of the front lawn, put an old piece of fence post in it, then stomped back the dirt so the fence post stuck a couple of feet out of the lawn. He went to the garage, wheeled out the power mower, and put it way out on the edge of the lawn. Unfastening his mother's clothesline from the clothes poles, he tied one end of the rope to the lawn mower, the other to the post.
By this time Shoie was getting interested. 'How does it work, Alvin?'
'Well, with this good old invention I can sit on the porch and watch the power mower do all the work. I can even go in the house, mix up a glass of lemonade, come back out, and the mower will have been working all the time.
'Here's how it will
work. I'll start up the mower, put it in gear, and it will go forward
by itself. This rope will hold it so it won't mow straight, but in
a big circle around the post. As it goes around the post, the rope
will wind up, so the circle will get smaller and smaller. Pretty
soon the mower will be right in against the post and the whole lawn will
be mowed, except for a little trimming around the edges.'"
