Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

“ As the seeds sprout and the vines begin to grow, they should be twined upon strings which extend up the fence and across the top between the two sides of the fence, forming the tent roof. Before summer is over, this roof will be a thick one as the vines increase their leaves and the leaves themselves grow larger and more lavish of their shade. After a while they will hang over the front of the tent helping to form a third side, and when the tent bursts into blossom the children who live inside it will feel almost as if they were in fairyland. ”

“ He goes to bed alone every evening at eight, even if the stairway is dark, and there is no light in the upstairs hall to chase away the ghosts. He never lies, and he is always cheerful. He knows that being brave and gallant and true is just as much a part of a soldier’s duty as marching, and drumming, and saluting Old Glory.
It isn’t easy to be a soldier though in a plain, everyday suit of clothes, made of homespun perhaps, and patched, and dingy brown in color. A real soldier suit cut and fitted the right size for a boy costs more money than there is in the boy’s tin bank. ”

“ A long, shallow tin with very narrow sides is the foundation for the Indian village. The tinsmith has large sheets of bright new tin, and he will make you one of these shallow tin trays for just a few cents. The florist will give you a basket of soft, black earth—enough to fill the tray—and you can mold and pat it into tiny hills and queer little valleys, and long foot paths, no wider than your little finger for the toy Indians to trail up and down. ”

“ Almost every mother is willing to give a boy things when he is trying to amuse himself all alone. She may even cut a square of gay plaid from the piece of cloth itself and turn out all the pieces from her sewing bag, where there are other scraps just right for Indians’ blankets; red flannel, and gray serge like your last winter suit, and brown merino, and yellow silk.
The Indian looks very splendid indeed in his feather headdress and a red plaid blanket. All he needs then is a bow and quiver of arrows. The bow you can make by bending a length of willow and tying a piece of cord across. ”

“ Given a fair chance, just a fine, long string and a smooth sidewalk—why, a top will play with a child all day long. It will twirl and whirl, never stopping to rest for long, and singing all the time its quaint little humming song to keep tune and time with its spinning. ”

“ You would not believe it perhaps, but in a week or ten days your little Indian camp ground will be covered with a carpet of soft, green grass really growing in the earth. After you have planted the grass seed, stick the little evergreen trees in the earth and lay your pebbles about as if they really belonged there on the ground. In one corner of the tray, if mother is willing, you may sink a shallow, round cake tin filled with water to make a miniature lake, and about the lake you can put a border of stones covered with the moss that comes in a box of Noah’s Ark animals. ”

“ It is so small that, directly a toy ship is started on its voyage, you can run around the other side and meet her.
There is the trout brook, too, down in the woods, where everything is cool and still. There isn’t a sound as you sit on the bank save when a mouse comes rustling along, pushing his way through the leaves with his queer little pointed nose, or a hedgehog plods by, blind and deaf, never seeing you at all. ”

“ A TOY INDIAN VILLAGE JUST fancy an encampment of real, live Indians in the house in a little Indian village that you made all yourself! It will be the best sort of fun to make the camp, and when it is done it will be a fine, new plaything for all winter long, as the toy Indians have sham fights, and May dances and tell each other stories around their tiny camp fires. ”

“ Noah’s Ark animals, if they are large, make excellent patterns for a child to copy. If one has no toys of the right size, the tracing paper may be laid over the picture of an animal in a farm picture book, or a book that tells about the jungle, or a book on Natural History. When the outline of the animal has been neatly traced on the tracing cloth, it should be transferred to the cardboard from which the animal is to be made. When a child has obtained a clear outline in this way, he may next proceed to make the animals alive. ”

“ Every boy knows how to draw a few animals, at least free hand. If he is clever enough to be able to do this just by watching the horses out in the street, or the tiger in the Zoo, or the kitten who sits in front of the nursery fire, washing her face, so much the better. He will not need any patterns. The child who finds difficulty in sketching an animal free hand will have to trace his patterns from a book, or a toy animal. Often [125] one of the nursery toy animals may be laid flat on the cardboard and its outline drawn and cut. ”

“ You want him to know that the big chief, your father, has just put up a fine new wigwam of skins for you to live in, a more beautiful wigwam than any other in the village. You want the cousins to know, too, that the sap has begun to run in the maple tree and soon your mother, Laughing Water, will get out the big kettle and build a fire of pine branches and boil the fresh, sweet sap into maple sirup. ”

“ These swords are so delightfully easy to make that a boy will want to roll a dozen after he has made his first one, and he can arm himself with as many paper poniards as an Indian chief has arrows in his quiver. ”

“ The top in the picture that has a series of circles of different sizes will be ever so easy to make. The circles, each a half inch smaller than the one which is to be above it, are drawn on soft wood, and are then cut out with a jack-knife. A hole is cut in the center of each circle and they are fitted on a piece of wooden meat skewer, the point of the meat skewer forming the spinning end of the top. With a box of water color paints the circular disks of the tops are then painted in gay contrasting colors and the effect will be charming when the little top begins to spin. ”

“ HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN DESK SET A DESK set is a great addition to a boy’s desk. If he has a pen tray he knows where his pencils and pens are to be found without rummaging through a tangled mess of top strings and marble bags and nails. If he puts away on the bill file that I Owe You that Billy Smith gave him for a pair of rabbits, it won’t be all crumpled up and beyond identification when Billy gets his next month’s allowance. When you come to think of it, a desk set has a great many advantages—and then, there’s the fun of making it. ”

“ The queer little circus clown in the picture spins on the tips of his toes if a top string is wound about the long peg protruding from the top of his head. He is not one bit difficult to make. The outline of a clown in a picture book is drawn on a sheet of tracing paper [98] with a soft pencil and then transferred to a piece of the soft wood. If a boy has a jig saw it will be very easy to cut the little outlined clown in a jiffy, but it can be done in almost as short a time with a sharp jack-knife. When the clown is cut, his features are drawn in with charcoal or a soft pencil. ”

“ A box has not finished its usefulness when its contents are gone. It is strong and tough often still, and ready for all kinds of fun.
Some cardboard boxes, large and small, will make the toy farm establishment shown in the picture. A box that once was filled with writing paper serves for the barn. The box stands on one side, leaving the entire front open that toy animals can be put in and taken out with greater ease than if there were a door. The long edge of the box cover is cut to fit the box, inserted and glued in place to form the front of the stalls which hold the toy animals. ”

“ You can buy a top for a penny at the toy shop, but it is just a plain, ordinary sort of wooden top exactly like all the other tops. How would you like to make your own tops? It will be the easiest task in the world to do this, and a whole lot of fun, too. The materials for home-made tops grow out of doors and are lying close at hand at home, in the wood-shed, or in the cellar.
Sharpen your jack-knife, and you may start out top hunting, at once. ”

“ The baggage car is a triumph of whittling, for it has a door that will slide back and forth just like a real one. The bottom and top of the car are oblong pieces of wood two inches by four and a half, and the end pieces measure two by two and a quarter inches. The sides are made like Fig. 5, with an opening an inch and a quarter square for a doorway. On the inside of the side pieces, extending to within a half inch of each end, and starting about an eighth of an inch from the top a groove is cut, the depth of the groove being about a quarter of an inch. ”

“ A boy who is clever with his jack-knife will be able to make a stout little sail boat from a piece [87] of an old egg crate, or the side of a cigar box. The wood must be close grained and light—that is the first essential. Cut the boat, pointed at one end, and rub it smooth with a piece of sandpaper. Glue a meat skewer to the center for the mast, and hoist a little sail. A hole may be bored in the end of the sail boat, and a long string tied in will allow you to run along the edge of the brook and keep this little craft from sailing away. ”

“ There is still more box fun. Ask mother for an empty cardboard starch box, the strong kind covered with blue paper, and see what a fine little toy garage it will make. Almost every child has a toy automobile given him for Christmas, but it is so apt to go steering away with its own gasoline, and losing itself somewhere in the house if a child has no special place in which to keep it.
Take the cover of the box and turn the box itself bottom side up. On one side, right in the center, draw a big square. ”

“ When the shut-in days come in the winter and it is too late to pick your tops out in the garden or gather them in the woods, it will be ever so much fun to see how many tops you can make of the materials you are able to find at home. The wood that is used in a cigar box is soft and easily whittled, and just one box will furnish material for countless tops. ”

“ The weather vane is the hardest toy to make. Fig. 5 shows three views of one piece of the wheel—a top view, a front view, and an end view,—just as though you looked at the piece in front and then squarely at the top, and then turned it around and looked at the end. A piece of wood three-quarters of an inch square by five inches long is used for this, and two of them are made and fitted together—making a wheel with four arms. It is better to cut the section for the joint first, for the wood is less apt to split before it has been weakened by any other cutting. ”

“ You must take a long walk now as far as the woods to find some sprays of white pine, hemlock, and spruce for the Indians’ trees. Gather some [150] little straight twigs, too, for wigwam foundations, and if the ground is still bare, pick up some of the prettiest pebbles you can find for make-believe rocks in the Indian encampment. With your jack-knife strip from the birch tree just a very little bark to make an Indian canoe—not much, for it takes a birch a long, long time to grow more bark. ”

“ JOINTED TOY ANIMALS. HOW TO MAKE THEM THEY will really do “stunts,” these toys in the picture. The grasshopper will hop if you stand him up on a table and give him a chance. The turtle will crawl along much faster than an ordinary, live turtle. The crocodile will follow you so fast that you will surely be eaten by him unless you hurry. What fun it is going to be to play with these live toys, but first a child must make them, and as many more as he likes.
Clear a low table on which to work and find some heavy cardboard or thick water color paper from which to construct the animals. ”

“ Any boy’s pocket will furnish a jack-knife, and it is pretty sure to be a sharp one.
With a knife, a pencil, and some pieces of wood, all the other tools may be made. Basswood is the easiest wood to handle because it is soft, and very close grained. If basswood can not be had, pine is the next best wood, and an old egg crate, which any grocer will be glad to get rid of, will furnish you with enough whittling material for a long time. ”

“ Every boy knows how to roll a narrow piece of paper, and make a lamp lighter. The sword that is part of this home-made soldier suit is made in just the same way. Cut some narrow strips of the book cover paper and join them with glue until there is a long strip. Roll this strip of paper tightly, in lamp lighter fashion, until it is fifteen inches long. Then press it flat between heavy weights. Roll a second strip of paper for a length of six inches and glue it to the broad end of the sword as a handle. ”

“ There should be a whole tribe of Indians, as many as you can make before bedtime, and when it comes morning run up to the play room and stand the Indian braves at the doors of their wigwams or in the little path between the trees where they can see their real green grass coming up, and enjoy the friendly shelter of their fine little camping ground.
These nut Indians will need bows and arrows when they have sham battles. Tiny twigs may be bent bow shape with rubber bands for bow strings and burned out matches may be sharpened to a point for arrows. ”

“ It is so much easier to give a proper war whoop, and scare a few of the fellows, and execute a wild war dance, or even sit by a camp fire in the woods telling stories, if only he is dressed like a real, live Indian. ”

“ There are ever so many ways of making your own tent, all of them simple and quite easy for one to follow.
One very strong and serviceable tent has a foundation of straight, young birch trees or saplings cut in the early spring and used for tent poles. Holes should be dug, and the poles set in the ground a quarter their length that no summer wind storm can uproot them. Around each pole, the earth is then pounded down, and the tops of the poles, six or eight in number, should be lashed together with cord. ”

“ Then, using the pattern which has just been made, a new pattern of the creature’s body is made, then a pattern of a leg, a tail, an ear, and these sections are all cut from the cardboard, separately, with scissors or the sharp jack-knife. In cutting out legs and paws, they should be made always a little longer than the original pattern to allow for the joint by which they are fastened to the body. As soon as all the parts of an animal [126] have been cut from the cardboard, they should be laid in place and holes punched with a coarse needle or an awl at the joints. ”