THIS is a party for the country, and though it sounds like a boys’
party, the girls will enjoy it, too.
For this you will need a target, one of the new guns which shoots
rubber-tipped arrows, several boxes of beads, a set of quoits,
boomerangs (which you can buy for twenty-five cents at a toy store), a
football, and a number of prizes. These may be Indian baskets, birch
bark canoes, or anything that is Indian. For your costume you can buy
a “Hiawatha” or “Minnehaha” suit from a dollar up, or for twenty-five
cents you can get a kind of Indian apron which is stamped on muslin,
all ready to cut out. Write your invitations on birch bark, with your
pyrography set (if you have one), and ask your friends to wear Indian
costumes and to take an Indian name for the occasion.
A Hiawatha Party should be a field day of outdoor sports, so arrange
a program of races, (obstacle and hurdle races would be fun) and have
a prize for each winner. Quoits is an Indian game, or at least, the
Indians play a game very much like our quoits, and when your guests are
tired of this, set up your target for an archery contest. The girls
will enjoy making bead necklaces, and if they have brought their
dolls, each doll must be strapped to a board in “papoose” style, and be
fastened to her “mother’s” shoulders.
Indians are fond of football, although they don’t play by rules, for
they simply kick the ball about, and each tries to keep it as long as
possible.
Boomerangs are very fascinating toys, which will sail through the air,
circle around the object you aimed at, and come back to you.
“Skilled was he in sports and pastimes,
In the merry dance of snow shoes,
In the play of quoits and ball play;
Skilled was he in games of hazard,
In all games of skill and hazard,
Pugasing, the Bowl and Counters,
Kuntassor, the Game of Plum Stones.”
HIAWATHA.
When the braves and squaws have grown hungry, the kettle of steaming
“venison” should be brought in, and the whole tribe sits down around
it. It is not really venison, but stewed chicken, which the “tribe”
probably prefers to venison, and with it are passed hot cornbread and
ears of corn. Berries may be served in birch bark dishes, and little
birch bark canoes are good for souvenirs.
[Illustration: The Braves and the Squaws.]
After supper the whole tribe should take part in an Indian war dance
about a camp fire, and then, having said farewell to Hiawatha and
Minnehaha, return along the trail, each to his own tepee.
The springtide has followed the winter so chilly
And brought to the garden Miss Daffy-down-dilly.
I’ll give in her honor, a daffodil tea,
So may I expect you precisely at three?