Do our readers remember all those ingenious toys which our mothers and
sisters improvised in order to amuse us? We took a walk into the country,
and our eldest sister or our mother picked a wild poppy, turned its red
petals back and encircled them with a thread, and stuck a sprig of grass
into the seed vessel to represent a headdress of feathers. Here was a
fresh and pretty doll (Fig. 1). Another day it was the season of lilacs.
The children gathered branches by the armful, and from these the mother
picked off the flowers and strung them one by one with a needle. Here was
a bracelet or a necklace. An acorn was picked up in the woods, the mother
carved it with a pen-knife, and behold a basket. From a nutshell she made
a boat, and from a green almond a rabbit. Sometimes she carved the
rabbit's ears out of the almond itself, but in most cases they were made
from a pretty rose-colored radish.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Doll made of a Wild Poppy.]
Do you remember the cork from which, by the aid of a few long needles for
bars, an ingenious fly-cage was formed? And the castle of cards, four,
five, and eight stories high? And then those famous card tents in a row,
that fell one after another when the first one in the line was
overturned?
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Hygrometric Doll; its Dress Colored with
Chloride of Cobalt.]
How we passed the evenings with our eyes fixed upon our mothers, who
patiently, with their skillful scissors, cut horses and dogs out of old
white, red, and blue cards! And how many plays, without costing a cent,
served to amuse the children by exercising their ingenuity! The mother
marked at hazard five dots upon a sheet of paper. The question was to
draw a man, one of the dots showing the place of the head and the other
four the feet and hands.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Old Man made of Lobster's Claws.]
When the dessert was brought upon the table, it became a question of
manufacturing a head out of an orange. That is not very difficult; two
holes for the eyes, a large slit for the mouth, and nothing easier than
to simulate the teeth and nose. The head was placed upon a napkin
stretched over the top of a champagne glass. This was one of our great
amusements. The napkin was drawn ultimately to the right and left, and
this moved the head and caused it to assume most comical positions. But
what caused irresistible laughter was when a sly hand pressed the head
and made it open its mouth wide. And then what pigs we manufactured with
a lemon perched upon four matches!
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Crocus Flowering in a Perforated Pot.]
Without mentioning Chinese shadows, how many cheap amusements there are
that can be varied to infinity merely by various combinations of the
fingers interlocked in diverse manners!
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--1. Paper Cross. 2. Method of Making the
Cross. 3. Rabbits Made of Green Almonds. 4. Basket Made of Sedges. 5.
Acorn Basket. 6. Fly-cage Made of a Cork.]
All such amusements were much in vogue in former times, but we are
assured that to-day mothers are less conversant with these curious and
droll inventions, which were once transmitted like the tales of Mother
Goose. They buy playthings for their children at great expense, and allow
the latter to amuse themselves all by themselves. The toy paid for and
given, the child is no longer in their mind. Those mothers who have
preserved the traditions of these little pastimes, and know how to
skillfully vary them, find therein so many resources for amusing their
children. Then it is so pleasant to see the eyes of the latter eagerly
fixed upon the scissors, and to hear their exclamations of pleasure and
their fresh laughter when the paper is transformed under expert fingers
into a boat, house, or what not!
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--The Lesson in Drawing.--An Illustrated
Five-spot of Hearts.]
It has required millions of mothers and nurses to put their wits to work
to amuse their children in order to form that collection of charming
combinations that at present constitutes a sort of science. Mr. Gaston
Tissandier not long ago conceived the happy idea of bringing together in
an illustrated volume a description of some of these improvised toys and
amusing plays, and it is from this that the accompanying illustrations
(which sufficiently explain themselves) are taken.
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