Box

“ These boxes are old and paintless and weather-beaten; and at night the very dusty-looking keepers, who from early morning until dark have had their shabby-backed wares spread out where dust and sunlight and wind and rain can attack them, pack them in the body of the box on which they are lying and close the lid. ”

“ Tom glanced in deep perplexity at the box, and then about the room. He had a very distinct recollection of stuffing the coin back into the box just as the flame from the lamp leaped out, and of dropping the closed box on the sideboard. ”

“ The boxes are each large enough to hold three or four families; the king’s box is a great drawing-room; next to it is that of the city officials, in which sits the mayor or whoever presides at the spectacle. Then there is the box for the ministers, for the governors, and for the ambassadors; every noble family has one; the young bon tons, as Giusti would say, have a box to themselves; then there are boxes to let which cost a fortune. ”

“ Another box that was given me was wide and flat. Into it I put all pretty papers that came my way—lace-paper, pinwheel paper, sheets of waxed sandwich paper and glacine book covers, crape paper, spools, cotton, pencils. Everything that could lie flat went into this wide, flat box, to be stored till needed. This box packed into the first box easily.
The third box was broad, and square, and deep. Into it I packed the playthings I had made after I had finished playing with them. It fitted into the side of the first box above the wide and flat one. ”

“ Mrs. Jeep owned one; Keziah and Patty Ingles the between-maid shared another. One was a spare room for chance servant visitors, and the end one over Pamela's and Hughie's rooms was what is called a "box" room. Here was "luggage"--big, old-fashioned trunks, leather portmanteaux, large hat boxes. Neat piles of cardboard boxes--the sort that drapers and dressmakers send out--all sizes, and tidy stacks of brown paper--sacking--cords--all the odds and ends necessary for packing of any kind. ”

“ Your halma man as you buy him in a box is ever a bit of a starveling. If you cut your peg into three, the middle section will make short round pillars to support little galleries, the roof being a strip of mill-board or the lid of a narrow box.
CLOTHES PEGS.
Cardboard and wooden boxes of all sizes and shapes are always easy to get. These can be coloured as explained in another chapter, and little doors and windows cut in them. But be sparing of windows; too many windows detract [182] from the dignity of your tower, and make it look like a factory. ”

“ Box′-keep′er, an attendant who opens the doors of boxes at theatres or other places of public amusement; Box′-lobb′y, the lobby leading to the boxes in a theatre; Box′wood, wood of the box-tree.—In the wrong box, in a false position, in a scrape.—To be in a box, to be in a fix; To box Harry, to take a beefsteak, mutton-chop, or bacon and eggs with tea or ale, instead of the regulation dinner of the commercial traveller; To box the compass, to name the 32 points in their order and backwards, hence to make a complete roundabout in any opinion. ”

“ There is a green square box, with a gold plate on it, a box so heavy that those twenty men cannot drag it up the bank. Let us go, brothers, and help pull at the ropes, and perchance we may see what's inside. ”

“ Box A is—well, you all know Box A, ladies and gentlemen, so I will simply say that it is the best box in the house. It will hold all the friends any man breathing has any use for. It would hold the largest family who ever received the Queen's bounty. Box A is one of those elastic boxes, ladies and gentlemen, which have no limit. You can fill it chock full, and if the right person knocks at the door there will still be room for another. Who will start the bidding at forty guineas?"
"I will give you fifty," Jocelyn Thew said, promptly raising his hand. ”

“ The general receptacle of these multiplied treasures played at any rate, through the years, the part of a friendly private-box at the constant operatic show, a box at the best point of the best tier, with the cushioned ledge of its front raking the whole scene and with its withdrawing rooms behind for more detached conversation ”

“ You and I are the ones who hire the men who carry the box.”
“Who said a long box that might hold a man? It will be a short, rather tall box, packing-case shape. Remember, he is as limber as you are and can be accommodated to any position. He will be put in it sitting bolt upright. It will be only half the length of a man, with nothing in its shape to suggest that it might hold a man. Who said take it to the medical school from here? I hire a drayman to take a box to the Union Depot. He dumps it there on the sidewalk near the places for in-going and out-going baggage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She wheeled about and pointed at the other side of the alcove, where stood the metal box, sullen, defiant, secure.
“By Jove, that's so, tool Why, I'd all but forgotten that! You're a brick, Beta! The box, by all means. Perhaps the most important things of all are still in safety there. ”

“ Inside the store, a long hat-pin box makes a counter. Flowers, leaves, pretty pebbles, shells, and little toys such as you may find among your own playthings may be displayed upon the counter.
A roly-poly tumble toy will make a clerk for the store, or, if you like, you may find both clerk and customers in magazine pictures, and you can mount them on thin cardboard and cut them out. There is no end to the plays you can invent when your store is finished. Polly Ann of shoe-box cottage, Boxville, has just come to the store to buy a loaf of bread. ”

“ In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most obscure corner of the shop, considerably removed from either of the gas-lights, are a young delicate girl of about twenty, and an elderly female, evidently her mother from the resemblance between them, who stand at some distance back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopman. ”

“ The box consisting in the inner part of two boxes, being painted on the outside white and green, to distinguish the affirmative from the negative side, is so made that when your hand is in it, no man can see to which of the sides you put the suffrage, nor hear to which it falls, because the pellet being linen, makes no noise. The strategus and the orator having begun, all the rest do the like. ”

“ The box itself is a marvel of neatness and cheapness. It consists of an inner box, without a top, in which the matches are placed, and of an outer case, open at each end, into which the first box slides. The matches, then, are to be cut, and the empty boxes filled, by one boy. A bundle is opened; he seizes a portion, knowing, by long habit, the required number with sufficient exactness ”

“ The wood box made of old dry goods boxes should appeal strongly to the home. It can be kept by the stove or on the porch or in some convenient place to be reached, and to be filled by the man before he goes to his daily work. A lid will not only cover up the contents of the box, but it will serve as a comfortable seat to be used while preparing the meal.
[Pg 38] Materials:
1 packing box, 24” deep × 231⁄2” wide × 32” long. 1 pair 2” (butt) hinges with 5⁄8” screws to fasten on top. 1⁄4 lb. 8-penny nails to make box. Sandpaper and stain. Dimensions:
Body: 1 box 24” deep × 231⁄2” wide × 32” long. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The boy with a box is dominant. Wherever a short, but eager watcher stands to look, the boy comes, with his offer of a box to stand on, a box to sit on, as the purchaser may please, for the nominal cost of ten cents. Always, one finds at hand this boy, with the box that he offers for your sitting or for your feet, as you will. ”

“ The tools for your boxcraft, scissors, and paste, and paint-box, may go into the large, deep treasure box too.
Here in this book you will find the toys that the fairies have shown me how to make. There are many, many more. You can try the magic craft of the fairies for yourself in your own way. If your boxes are not always exactly like mine, make them answer by adapting the general plan of the toy to the box which you have. Learn to make much out of little. ”

“ The butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers, the milliners, the druggists, the jewelers, the stationers, the grocers, and the dry goods firms, as well as all the others, are constantly sending boxes to your home. The shoe stores, and the book stores, and the toy stores, and ever so many others, are throwing boxes away just because nobody seems to realize what magic there lies in them for the children.
When Happy Thought, Nimblefingers, and Play first told me about boxcraft, I did not find any trouble in securing the kind of box that I needed for the toy-making. ”

“ A box has been made of proper dimensions, free within from all outside disturbance or motion of air. In this box is placed a steel frame, which moves like a gate on a very delicate hinge, so as to avoid all possible friction. ”

“ Make a box, a foot high, eighteen inches wide, and about three inches deep. Two of the opposite sides of this box must be quite open, and in each of the other sides let there be a groove wide enough to admit a stiff paper or pasteboard. You fasten the box against a window, on which the sun's rays fall direct. The rest of the window should be closed up, that no light may enter. ”

“ Contrive a six-sided box, six inches in diameter and ten deep, lined with tin or other polished surface, and with a double convex lens in the centre of one side. On the opposite side, exactly in its middle, cut out a hole to receive the face of a watch, with a little shelf outside to hold the case firmly.
Support the box in the centre on a hollow leg, which is watertight and is filled with water, to float a night-light, and let the leg fit into a stand to go on a table by the bed-side or on a shelf at the foot of the bed. ”

“ Our girls, moreover, packed with corrugated paper and matchbox-wood box partitions when everybody else was using expensive young men to pack through the top of the box with straw, many breakages and much waste and confusion. ”

“ The box is a necessary appendage to every good stable; indeed, it may, with great propriety, form a part of the stable: and I would advise that, whenever a new one be erected, so to frame it, that every standing may, by a moveable partition, be readily made into a distinct and separate box. ”

“ One night, when I was sitting on my box, a large one placed near me, against which the men might kneel when telling their little story, a man came rushing in and knelt so suddenly that he knocked over the larger box, and then fell on it as it reached the ground. ”

“ The Money Box Trick.
A piece of money, or a ring, is put into a box, in the presence of a person who holds it; the operator stands at a distance, and bids him shake the [194] box gently, and the piece is heard to rattle inside; he is desired again to shake it, and then it is not heard to rattle; the third time, it is again heard, but the fourth time it is gone, and is found in the shoe of one of the company. The box must be made on purpose, in such a manner that, in shaking it gently up and down, the piece within is heard ”

“ The Indian box-and-basket trick was for a long time a mystery even among magicians, and now it puzzles astute people to understand how the young man or young woman who has been tied in a sack and placed under lock and key in a wicker basket on top of a box not only locked and sealed but tied in all directions with stout rope, can get out of the sack and basket and into the box within very few minutes. ”

“ There were two strong staples fixed upon that side of my box which had no window, and into which the servant, who used to carry me on horseback, would put a leathern belt, and buckle it about his waist. Being in this disconsolate state, I heard, or at least thought I heard, some kind of grating noise on that side of my box where the staples were fixed ”

“ In filling the boxes, some hundreds of empty ones are placed on a big table, and two or three women lay in the sugar-plums, one sort at a time in each box. Strange to say, you cannot hurry up this packing business. ”

“ There is a flat metal piece in the inside of the box at the bottom, which, when pushed forward, instantly and securely locks the box, preventing the discovery of its mechanism, should any of the players request permission to examine it. ”

“ Fit the box into the cover; hold with both hands, and slide the box up or down until it looks like a dresser.
3. Mark where you wish the bottom of the box to be cut off. Cut it off and fasten the two parts together.
4. Cut a hole for the “mirror” and fasten an extra piece of cardboard behind it. Paste silver paper on the cardboard, or fasten a real piece of looking glass between it and the back.
5. Cut pieces of cardboard for the “drawers,” and fasten them so that the fasteners look like knobs.
6. Paint to match the other furniture. Mark key holes.
[47]
Details of Dresser. ”

“ In packing household furniture, for moving, have each box numbered, and then have a book, in which, as each box is packed, note down the number of the box, and the order in which its contents are packed, as this will save much labor and perplexity when unpacking. ”