Patten Beard

“ And Jimsi always declared afterward that the Good Crow was the very best crow there was, and that there never was a better real aunt than Aunt Phoebe who was a play aunt—and that if it hadn’t been for The Happy Shop and Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow hundreds of happy children who played the shadow motion picture fun would have missed half the joy of their lives! ”

“ The clock in the little lame girl’s room was just striking the hour of twelve—the hour when Cinderella had to give up her ball and run home at night, the hour when Jimsi had to give up her play and run home in the morning. She lifted her rubber in one hand and waved it before she put it on. “Cinderella’s slipper,” she smiled. “But it’s not made of glass and it isn’t going to fall off and be left for anybody to pick up!” ”

“ Perhaps the Crow would have liked corn to eat. I’m afraid Aunt Phoebe’s crow, being just a stuffed play-crow, wouldn’t have eaten corn, though, if he had had it—no, not any more than a doll will eat cake at a party. You have to pretend that the doll eats. So Aunt Phoebe pretended most beautifully to pour out cocoa for the crow—a second cup, mind you! She gave him second helpings of nearly everything and Jimsi followed suit. Indeed, her appetite seemed really pretty good for a little girl who is getting well after a long sickness. ”

“ Diagram 2
“Ou!” chuckled Katherine. “Store!”
“We’ll cut round disks for money—yellow paper for gold, silver striped paper for nickles, dimes, quarters and fifty-cent pieces. We’ll make green paper bills—”
“And write on each how much each is—”
“We can do it with crayon—”
“Hush!” sighed Mother. “I want to read Katherine’s crow letter. Listen!”
“There are other things beside pin-wheels that you can make—how about bright-colored butterflies? The papers that are yellow, blue, green, red, purple make lovely butterflies. You cut them like this. Fold your paper double and cut. ”

“ By the light of the pink candle, Jimsi tore open the wee envelope and read:
“Dearest Little Girl:
When I came to perch on my shelf last night, I saw the lovely dolls you made and the wonderfully beautiful dresses and hats and cloaks and muffs and evening wraps and things. When you have finished the family, I’ll tell you something nice: make a doll house for them. I can tell you how to make furniture to fit your dolls. You’ll find ever so many things for the furnishing of a doll house right in your Magic Book. ”

“ Even if you lived away off in the country, there would be some town near-by where you could get a sample-book of wall paper, if you were to ask. And if any child wants one, there are more than enough pretty Magic Books in the world to go around—more than one apiece.”
“Well, I’m going to try to get one on my way home from school Monday,” said Henry. “I pass by a paperhanger’s shop. I’ve seen the books in his window, but I never knew they could be used for play before crow told Jimsi of The Happy Shop.” ”

“ Joyce and Jimsi began on butterflies. When they had made ever so many, they made birds—whole flocks of birds: bluebirds, crows, robins, catbirds, and most every kind of bird one could think of, as well as a good many pink and yellow birds that nobody could identify as ever having lived anywhere at all.
They pretended that the big table was a store and Henry brought all manner of things from around the room to put on it and sell, he said. Joyce was store-keeper. As for baby Katherine, she preferred to play on the floor with the paper toys, and she played in her own way. ”

“ We call your sunny little room there The Happy Shop because you are going to learn how to make some of the things that are to be found in the Magic Book every day. In The Happy Shop is a work-table and some paste and a pair of scissors. To-morrow, the Good Crow will leave a letter in the mail-box, I think, and tell you what you can do to make your own fun all by yourself for play. What do you like best to play at home, Jimsi? ”

“ She’s trying hard to put the sewing money aside for it, but that doesn’t pay very well and it’s slow. I oughtn’t to complain and I oughtn’t to talk about it at all—I hardly ever do, but when I saw you and Henry and Katherine yesterday having such a lark, I just longed to, too.”
“Oh, there ought to be some way to make the money,” declared Jimsi. “There really ought! You ought to be well right away. I wish I could help! But girls can’t earn money doing the things that boys can. Henry can shovel snow and do carpentry and he earns money. Somehow, I never can find any way [143] to earn money. ”

“ Jimsi thought. “Having Katherine helps ever so much. I’d love to wheel a baby in a carriage out-doors, if its mother would trust me—I’d like it so well I’d do it without money.”
“That’s the way with girls. They aren’t businesslike,” sniffed Henry. “It’s business to pay for errands and shoveling snow and it’s business to be paid for taking care of babies, I think.” He tied the raffia that bound his scrapbook at the back of the cover and held it up. ”

“ If I were you I’d keep my paper dolls nicely and put them in envelopes. In the drawer of the table in The Happy Shop, there is a package of big Manilla envelopes you can use. Write the name of each doll on the envelope you use for it and its dresses.
P. S. P. S.
If I were you, Jimsi, I’d pick up The Happy Shop this afternoon. The bits of paper on the floor look untidy and I think when one is cutting, it is a good plan to put a newspaper over the floor to catch scraps. I like neat children and my Happy Shop should be very well kept. ”

“ It takes a good deal of skill to act it out right. I had long times when I practiced with the figures last autumn. Then, when I thought I could do it perfectly, I’d give a motion picture play for Mother and Daddy in the evening. Often Miss Phoebe would come in to see my plays. She liked them. She used to help me sometimes. She thinks it’s fun!”
“We could make Red Riding Hood into a motion picture play,” suggested Jimsi. “We could make the bushes for the woods by cutting the paper out irregularly like the outline [65] of bushes if one saw them in shadow. ”

“ Aunt Phoebe talked for him as she had on the night of Jimsi’s arrival. And the crow always said, “Caw-caw,” when he was addressed by any member of the circle. He was a beautiful play crow. Katherine would have liked to kiss him, but kissing him as hard as Katherine kissed [102] would hurt, Aunt Phoebe explained. She let the baby stroke the glossy plumage and say, “Pretty, pretty!” (You know an ordinary crow isn’t exactly pretty, but his plumage is a beautiful satiny black—all glossy. And Jimsi insisted that Caw Caw was beautiful.) ”

“ At lunch Jimsi announced that she was going to make little girl dolls next. She thought she would have three little girl dolls in her family: a baby, a middling-sized girl of ten or eleven, and an older girl of High School [37] age. “I’m going to have one boy,” she said. “Boys won’t be so much fun because their clothes are so plain. But I’ll make a waterproof coat for this one, an overcoat, and one or two plain suits. The papa doll can have the same kind.”
But Aunt Phoebe decided that Jimsi must run out-doors in the garden after lunch and then come in and take a nap. ”

“ A sofa could be made on lines like the chair, only making the cutting of the cardboard oblong wide and giving it the depth of the chair also. The sofa was likewise upholstered. Oh, the toy furniture was great! Jimsi longed to start a doll house and looked about The Happy Shop to see if she could find a place to lay it out. At last she did discover a place, [47] on the floor at one end of the shop. She fixed it up beautifully. Bits of wall paper design cut out in ovals and oblongs, fringed by snipping with the scissors, made rugs for the house. ”

“ I like children who eat what is set before them at the table. I send you a lollipop as a reward of merit. Happy dreams.
Good-bye,
Crow.”
One might come home from school and find that Aunt Phoebe’s crow had flown in at Aunt Phoebe’s window during school hours to leave tickets to go to a special children’s performance of Alice in Wonderland to be on Saturday afternoon. Oh, the crow was always doing things that were happy. And, you know, Aunt Phoebe kept him fully informed as to what the children liked best. She knew.
Mother and Daddy and Aunt Phoebe all liked the crow. ”

“ Jimsi brought it to breakfast with her and read it aloud—exactly as if Aunt Phoebe didn’t know what was in it already! You know, that was the crow play always!
This was the letter:
“Dear Jimsi:
To-day, I want you to do something for me. You see I do quite a bit for you. I like to make you happy, you know, and tell you of jolly things to play. What I want you to do for me is to tell a little lame girl about your paper doll play and the toy furniture that my Magic Book made.
The little lame girl cannot go out-doors as you can. ”

“ But right here, just exactly as Cinderella’s clock had struck twelve strokes, so the clock on the mantel of the little lame girl’s fireplace struck, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding—DING! ”

“ How’m I going to get another—and Henry wants one, too.”
“Oh, everybody who wants a Magic Book can very easily have one,” declared Aunt Phoebe. “Just go to some store where they do paper-hanging and ask if you can have an old sample book of last year’s styles in wall paper. [136] The styles change almost every year. Every year the men have new books of styles. Their shop is full of them. These old ones are useless when the new ones come in and the paperhangers are glad to get rid of the old paper books. Most always, these are thrown away. ”

“ Jimsi protested. “I love to play with little bits of children, I do.”
“Well, I’m only telling you how girls can earn money,” said Henry. “You don’t need to take it, if you don’t want to. My, but I’m hungry! Isn’t it most time for pancakes? Aunt Phoebe said we were going to have pancakes this morning [111] .”
“And real maple syrup—yum-yum!”
“Who said yum-yum,” called Aunt Phoebe’s voice. “Breakfast’s ready! Henry, will you get the big dictionary in my study and put it in Katherine’s chair for her to sit on. There isn’t any high chair in our house. Crow doesn’t need one.” ”

“ Dear Henry:
There’s something you will like to make in the Magic Book. You can make a scrapbook. Use the heavy wall paper for the cover of the book and cut the scrapbook leaves from heavy Manilla wrapping paper. Aunt Phoebe has wrapping paper. Ask her for it. [104]
To make a scrapbook, take a big full-sized sheet from the Magic Book of wall paper. (I’m sure Jimsi will let you choose the paper you like best.) Fold the sheet together and clip the edges evenly. Glue the double edges fast together and let them dry. ”

“ She held up a dainty pink basket made of striped paper almost as stiff as bristle-board. “I suppose this paper’s ever so expensive, if it’s used on walls,” she said. “The heavy paper always is, you know. But there is a whole half of my Magic Book full of heavy paper samples.”
Baby Katherine liked the baskets. She put her butterflies inside. Henry carried his paper money in his. Jimsi cut paper flowers and put them in hers.
“I’ll send back the prettiest I can to Aunt Phoebe by you,” said Joyce. “It’ll show her that we used the crow play right away. And I’ll put a crow letter inside.” ”

“ Jimsi suggested that if one were to color the edge all around with green crayon, that would give the valentine a good finish. One could use the crayon to print on the valentine too.
Then, Jimsi improved on Joyce. She folded her paper double and cut her heart out double, making the top of her valentine heart touch the crease of the paper. Her heart opened with two sides. Inside, she wrote a verse. At the top she tied ribbon bows, using some very narrow baby ribbon that she had in the paper doll box. ”

“ The Valentines of the Happy Shop OF course after the first visit to the little lame girl’s home, Jimsi made ever and ever so many others. They not only made paper dolls and paper dolls’ furniture and paper dolls’ dresses and furnished paper dolls’ houses and had paper doll motion pictures but they did other things with their Magic Books, too. ”

“ So Jimsi took a piece of the paper that she found in the little lame girl’s Magic Book. “It’s queer paper,” she mused, “all glossy. I think it must be the kind they use in papering kitchens and bath-rooms. It’s stiff and exactly right for stencil-cutting. You know [89] there’s a special knife that comes to use for cutting stencils but I’m using scissors. I think this doesn’t need a knife. It’s easy to cut with scissors if you leave the edges clean-cut. I’m leaving the paper and only cutting out the form of the design.”
All the eight squares in the wall paper pattern, Jimsi cut carefully out. ”

“ I couldn’t, for there wasn’t that amount of money in my bunny-bank on the mantel-shelf at home.”
“I’ve one dollar and seventy-three cents saved in my bank,” Henry volunteered. “I’ve earned twenty-eight cents just lately. Once it was for doing errands for the lady next door and once I swept the snow off the walk for her, too. She said I did it well and asked me to come next time it snowed.”
“Boys can always earn money,” sighed Jimsi. “It’s different with girls. Nobody asks them to shovel snow or do errands, if there is a boy anywhere around. ”

“ A star may be made for the top of the Christmas-tree. Cut it from yellow paper. Flowers cut from wall paper may be pinned on the tree to decorate it too. And you can make small lanterns to hang by raffia exactly as kindergarten children make them: just double a square of paper end to end. Cut snips through the centre with scissors and unfold. Paste the cut paper together to make a hollow roll and the cut places will make it look like a lantern.
Try to make Christmas cards too. A tree is easily cut out by cutting a green triangle. ”

“ After the paper is dried to the glass, paste on each corner some small flower or rosebud to finish and cover the corner folds. Paste a hanger at the back of the picture and you are through with your work. You can [139] frame pictures for your own room this way and you can make dainty little gifts this way too. Save all the pretty pictures you find to use like this.
I won’t tell you any more today. I’m telling you a great deal because, you see, I want you and Henry and Katherine to enjoy the Magic Book as much as possible before train-time. ”

“ If you cut the design out larger, it can be used for a linen sofa-pillow with the four little clover things worked in each corner like the pattern in the wall paper. It would be easy embroidery—I could do it! I can’t do difficult needle-work. And, of course, if one didn’t have carbon paper or know how to use it, one could copy the design with tissue paper and trace it that way—sometimes carbon paper that one uses makes a blue spot on the cloth, if one leans on it with any pressure.”
Jimsi was looking hard at the doily pattern. “Do you know about stencils?” she asked. ”