[Illustration]
It is very easy to get the material out of which this vase is made.
You need only go to your wood-pile, or, if you have none, to the
wood-pile of a neighbor. Choose a round stick four inches in diameter
and eight or ten inches long, with a smooth bark. If you find the
stick, and it is too long, you can easily saw off an end. Now comes
the difficult part of the work: The inside of the stick must be
scooped out to within four inches of the bottom. The easiest way of
accomplishing this will be to send it to a turning-mill if there
is one at hand; if not, patience and a jack-knife will in the end
prevail. Next, with a little oil-color, paint a pretty design on
the bark, if you can,--trailing-arbutus, partridge berry, sprays of
linnea,--any wood thing which can be supposed to cluster naturally
round a stump. Set the stump in a flower-pot saucer, filled with
earth, and planted with mosses and tiny ferns; fit a footless wine
or champagne glass, or a plain cup, into the hollow end, and, with a
bunch of grasses and wild flowers, or autumn leaves, you have a really
exquisite vase, prettier than any formal article bought in a shop, and
costing little more than time and patience, with a touch of that rare
thing--taste! which, after all, is not so very rare as some people
imagine. Any friend will prize such a vase of your own making.