The subject line sat in my inbox like a dare:
The first kid to try it was my neighbor’s daughter, Mira. She climbed onto that wooden monkey’s lap, pulled the levers once, and the clack-clack-clack + rock-rock-rock made her laugh so hard she snorted.
“I found these in my late husband’s workshop,” she wrote. “He was a finish carpenter. Never talked much, but he built three of these. Said the rhythm of it reminded him of the jungle he saw as a kid in the Philippines. I’m too old to lift a jigsaw now. Thought you might want to carry the pattern forward.”
