order to learn where everything is. The more one knows about the
things in store--the size of the barn, the height of the haystacks,
the number of horses, the name of the watch-dog, the position and
character of the pond, and so forth--the simpler will it be, on going
to bed, to make plans for the visit.
Finding Hens' Eggs
The farmer's wife usually has charge of the chickens and ducks, but
very often it is her daughter or a servant. No matter who it is, as
soon as she is convinced that you will be careful and thorough she
will let you hunt for eggs. This is very exciting, because hens have a
way of laying in nests in the wood and all kinds of odd places, hoping
that no one will find them and they will thus be able to sit and hatch
out their chickens. The hay in the stable is a favorite spot, and
under the wood-pile, and among the long grass. Sometimes one
overlooks a nest for nearly a week and then finds three or four eggs
in it, one of them quite warm. This is a great discovery. Just at
first it is easy to be taken in by the china nest-eggs, and to run
indoors in triumph with one in your hand. But the farmer's wife will
laugh and send you back with it, and the mistake is not likely to be
made again. After a while one gets to know the hens personally, and to
know the noise which means that they have just laid. Sometimes, if a
hen is going to lay just as you come to her nest, she will run off
clucking and screaming and lay the egg on the ground.
Ducks' Eggs
Ducks' eggs, which are rather larger than hens' eggs, and pale green
in color, are often more difficult to find. They have to be hunted for
in the grass by the pond.
Feeding the Chickens
The farmer's wife also lets her visitors feed the chickens if they are
gentle with them and thoughtful. It needs quite a little thought,
because if you throw down the grain without thinking, many of the
weaker and less greedy ones will get nothing, and many of the stronger
and greedier ones will get too much. After a few handfuls you can see
which are the weaklings, and after that you can favor them
accordingly. A greedy hen is so very greedy that she will always,
whatever you do, get more than her share; but it is possible to snub
her a little. The very little chickens and ducklings do not have
grain, but soft food, which is put in a saucer and placed inside the
coop. It is after they have finished eating that they can most easily
be picked up, but one must be very careful not to squeeze them.
The Dairy
If the farmer's wife makes her own butter there will be an opportunity
to help her. Perhaps she will let you use the skimmer. Turning the
churn is not much fun except just when the butter forms.
Bee-Swarming
Bees swarm on hot days in the early summer, usually in a tree, but
sometimes in a room, if the window is open, and often in a bush, quite
close to the ground. When they swarm in a tree you would think a black
snow-storm was raging all around it. Every moment the cluster of bees
grows larger and larger, until, after half an hour or so, it is quiet.
Then the swarm has to be taken. This is the most interesting part, but
you must be careful not to be too near in case an accident occurs and
the bees become enraged and sting you.
If the farmer has the new wooden hives with a glass covering he will
very likely let you peep in and see the bees at work. Before doing
this you certainly ought to read something about their exceedingly
wonderful ways. One of the best books is Sir John Lubbock's (Lord
Avebury's) _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_, but most encyclopaedias contain
very interesting articles on the subject.
The Cows
The man who looks after the cows is a very valuable friend. He may
even let you try to milk, which only specially gifted children ever
succeed in doing at all well; and he will teach you the cows' names
(in some farms these are painted up over each stall--Primrose,
Lightfoot, Sweetlips, Clover, and so on); and perhaps he will give you
the task of fetching them from the meadow at milking time.
Sheep
In a general way sheep are not very interesting, especially in
low-lying farms. But though sheep, as a rule, are dull, there are two
occasions when they are not--at sheep-washing and sheep-shearing. The
washers stand up to their knees, or even their waists, in the brook,
in oilskin clothes, and seizing the struggling sheep one by one by the
wool, plunge them into the water. Shearing is a finer art; but the
sheep is hardly less uncomfortable. He has to be thrown into various
positions (on his back for one, and with his head between the
shearer's knees for another), while the shears clip-clop all over him.
The wool is not taken off in scraps, as our hair is at the barber's,
but the whole fleece is removed in one huge piece.
The Blacksmith
It may be that while you are at the farm the day will come for having
the horses shod, and you may go with them to the blacksmith. The
blacksmith is of course a very important person to be friends with;
and people are very fortunate if their lodgings in the country are
close to a smithy. Some blacksmiths permit their friends to stand
right inside the smithy, instead of just at the door, where strangers
have to stay. Perhaps the blacksmith will ask you to blow his bellows
while he is making a horseshoe, and it may happen that if he has not
much work on hand he will make you a hoop that will be far cheaper
and stronger than a bought one (see p. 169). In hot weather the flies
are so troublesome to horses which are being shod, and make them so
restless, that some one has to stand beside them and brush the flies
away with a green branch. This job might fall to you.
Birds'-Nesting
One of the advantages of being in the country in spring is that that
is the time when birds build. In May the weather is not yet
sufficiently warm to make sitting about out-of-doors very comfortable,
but birds'-nesting can make up for that. It is of no use to say in
this book, "Don't take the eggs," because it is possible only for one
person here and there to be satisfied with merely finding a nest and
then passing on to find another. But it is a pity for any one who is
not a serious collector to take more than one egg. For your purposes
one is enough, and the loss of a single egg rarely causes a bird to
desert her nest. Of course if you know for certain that the nest is
deserted, it is right to take all. You can find out by visiting it two
or three times, and if the eggs remain cold or wet and there is no
sign of the bird you may safely feel that she has abandoned them.
Birds have so many natural enemies to fear that it is hard that we
should harm them too.
Blowing Eggs
For blowing eggs a brass or glass blow-pipe is the proper thing, using
only one hole, which is made at the side with a little drill. But for
your purpose a hole at each end made with a pin is simpler and equally
good. In blowing you must be careful not to hold the egg so tightly in
the fingers that its sides crush in. Before making the holes it is
well to put the egg in a basin of water. If it sinks it is fresh and
can be blown easily; but if it floats it is set--that is to say, the
young bird has begun to form--and blowing will be difficult. In such
cases it is wise, if you are using a blow-pipe, to make a largish hole
and put a little water in and leave the egg to lie for a day or so;
then blowing it will be not much trouble. But if you have no blow-pipe
the best thing to do is to make one good-sized hole in the less
interesting side of the egg, and empty it with a bent pin. Then, when
it is empty, you can put it in the egg box with the broken side
underneath. Country boys often thread birds' eggs on a string which
hangs from the ceiling, but the ordinary way is to put them in
cotton-wool in a box with cardboard compartments. Making this box is a
good country occupation for wet weather.
Butterflies
Butterfly-hunting begins when birds'-nesting is done and the weather
is hot. Here again it is not the purpose of this book to go into
particulars: the subject is too large. It is enough to say that the
needful things are a large net of soft green gauze, a killing-bottle
with a glass stopper, a cork-lined box with a supply of pins in which
to carry the butterflies after they are dead, and setting boards for
use at home. The good collector is very careful in transferring the
butterfly from the net to the bottle, lest its wings are rubbed or
broken; and before taking it out of the bottle and putting it in the
box you should be quite certain that it is dead. The way to get the
butterfly into the bottle is to drive it into a corner of the net and
hold it there, and then slip the bottle inside, remove the stopper,
and shake the butterfly into it. The stopper should be off as short a
time as possible. For handbooks for a butterfly collector see the
"Reading" section.
Collecting Flowers
A quieter pastime, but a very interesting one, and also one that,
unlike egg-collecting and butterfly-collecting, goes on all the year
round, is collecting flowers. For this purpose tin cases are made,
with straps to hold them from the shoulders, in which to keep the
plants cool and fresh; but there is no need to wait for the possession
of one of these. An ordinary box or basket will, if you have not very
far to walk, serve equally well. You will also need a press, which can
be simply a couple of boards about a foot long and six inches wide,
with a good supply of blotting-paper between. The flowers are pressed
by spreading them very carefully, to show their beauty to best
advantage, between the blotting-paper, and then piling a few books on
the boards. The weight need not be very heavy and the blotting-paper
should frequently be renewed. You will soon learn how long the
pressing need continue, but it is of the highest importance that the
flowers are thoroughly dried before you mount them in your album or on
separate sheets of paper. The simplest form of mounting is to glue
little strips of paper here and there across the stems. A botanical
collection is more valuable if the roots of the plants are also
included; and this will make it necessary for you to have a long
trowel. For the collector of flowers a handbook is compulsory. Such a
book as Alice Lounsberry's _The Wild Flower Book for Young People_
gives many details of the growth and nature of plants, told with a
story that makes the book unusually interesting, and will arouse your
enthusiasm to gather wild flowers and see how large a collection of
them you can make.
It is interesting, if you have any skill in painting, to make
water-color copies of all the flowers that you find; another good
occupation for wet days in the country.
Nuts and Blackberries
In nutting you want a hooked stick with which to pull down the
branches. For blackberries a hooked stick is not so important, but it
is well to have leather gloves. The blackberries ought to be dry when
they are picked. Rain takes their flavor away; so you should wait
until the sun comes again and restores it. One thing that you quickly
notice is that all blackberries are not after the same pattern. There
are different kinds, just as there are different kinds of strawberry
and raspberry. Some are hard and very closely built; some are loosely
built, with large cells which squash between the fingers; some come
between these two varieties; and there are still others. For eating on
the spot the softer ones are the best, but for cooking and for jam the
harder ones are equally good.
In picking blackberries you soon find that it is better to have the
sun at your back, because if it shines through the bush into your eyes
you cannot distinguish clearly between the shades of blackness. An
open basket full of blackberries is a radiant sight. Each of the
little cells has a point of light, and thousands of these together are
as gay as jewels.
No one need starve on the open road in September, for there is food on
every hedge--two good courses. Nuts are there as the standby, the
backbone of the meal, and after come blackberries, as pudding or
dessert. To pick the two for an hour, and then, resting beneath a
tree, to eat until all are gone--that is no bad way to have lunch. If
you take advice in this matter, you will not crack the nuts with your
teeth but between stones.
Ponds and Sailing Boats
Near the farm is certain to be either a pond or a stream. If it is a
clean and high pond, not in a hollow surrounded by trees, it will be
good to sail boats on. Sailing boats on inland water is much better
than on the sea, because, with a pond, directly the boat is fairly
started on its voyage you can run round the other side and meet it.
Even with a very poor pond it is still possible to have a very good
time. In buying or making a boat, be sure that the lead along the keel
is heavy enough. So little do toy-shop people think of these things
that they very often put no lead at all on their boats, and more often
than not put too little. Once a boat is properly weighted in this way
you are certain to have fun in sailing her, but otherwise it will be
useless to try. In boat-sailing it is well to have a long stick with a
hook at the end with which to draw the ship to land. For suggestions
as to making a useful and simple sailing-boat see p. 295.
Little Boats on a Stream
Sailing boats in a stream is little good, because there is no
steadiness of wind, but ordinary boats will float along in the current
splendidly. It is interesting to launch one and follow its adventures
from the bank. Sometimes it will be caught in a weed; sometimes an
eddy will sweep it into a back water; sometimes, in shooting the
rapids, it will be overturned. But a long stick can always put things
right. Or one of you will go down the stream to a given point and the
other will send down messengers--pieces of wood, walnut boats (see p.
298), paper boats (see p. 285), or whatever it may be.
A Stream's Fascination
But there is no absolute need for you to have boats in order to enjoy
a stream. There are so many other things to do, not the least
interesting being to make a dam and stop or divert the course of the
water. And when tired of playing it is very good to sit quite still on
the bank and watch things happening: perhaps a water-rat will swim
along suspecting nothing, and then, seeing you make a movement, will
dive and disappear, and suddenly come into view ever so far away on
the other bank. Perhaps a kingfisher will flash by or settle on a
branch overhanging the water. Kingfishers grow more rare every year,
owing to the merciless and unthinking zeal with which they are shot;
and maybe before long there will be no more to be seen anywhere.
Solitary Watchfulness
Indeed, to keep absolutely quiet and watch things happening is for
many people one of the most delightful occupations which the country
holds. When there is no one else to play with it is as good a way of
spending the time as can be found.
Mice and Moles
In a wood or in any place where there are old leaves, as in a dry
ditch, you will usually get through the ear the first tidings of any
moving thing. For instance, you will hear a field-mouse rustling long
before you can see its queer pointed nose pushing its way through the
dead leaves. Or it may be a mole blundering blindly along. If by any
chance a mole is caught in a trap while you are in the country, be
sure to examine its little hands and feel the softness of its fur.
Perhaps the farm boy will skin it for you.
Snakes
Sometimes the rustling is a snake on his way to a sunny spot where he
can bask and sleep. Very slender brown speckled snakes, or
blind-worms, are quite harmless, and so are the large grass-snakes,
which are something like a mackerel in lines and markings. The adder,
however, which is yellowish brown in color with brown markings and a
"V" on his head, is dangerous and should be avoided.
Ants
On p. 205 is given the title of a book about bees. Hardly less
wonderful are ants, concerning whom there is much curious information
in the same work, the reading of which makes it ten times more
interesting to watch an ant-hill than it was before. One sometimes has
to remember that it is as serious for ants to have their camp stirred
up by a walking-stick as it would be for New York if Vesuvius were
tossed on top of it.
Swallows and Hawks
In the flight of birds there is nothing to compare for beauty and
speed with the swift, or for power and cleverness with the hawk. On
moist evenings, when the swifts fly low and level, backward and
forward, with a quaint little musical squeak, like a mouse's, they
remind one of fish that dart through the water of clear streams under
bridges. The hawk, even in a high wind, can remain, by tilting his
body at the needed angle, perfectly still in the air, while his steady
wide eyes search the ground far below him for mice or little birds.
Then, when he sees something, his body suddenly seems to be made of
lead and he drops like a stone on his prey. A hawk can climb the sky
by leaning with outspread wings against the breeze and cork-screwing
up in a beautiful spiral.
Squirrels
The time to see squirrels is September and October, when the beech
nuts and hazel nuts are ripe. In the pictures he sits up, with his
tail resting on his back, holding nuts in his little forepaws; but one
does not often see him like this in real life. He is either scampering
over the ground with his tail spread out behind him or chattering
among the branches and scrambling from one to another. The squirrel is
not seen at his best when he goes nutting. His beautiful swift
movements are checked by the thickness of the hazels. In a beech
grove he has more liberty to run and leap. Sometimes you will see
twenty at once all nibbling the beech nuts on the ground. On hearing
you they make for a tree trunk, and, rushing up it for a yard or two,
stop suddenly, absolutely still, with fearful eyes, and ears intently
and intensely cocked. If you stand equally still the squirrel will
stay there, motionless, like a piece of the tree, for a minute or so,
and then, in a very bad temper, disappear from view on the other side
of the trunk, and probably, though you run round the tree quickly
several times and search every branch with your eyes, never come into
sight again. It is a good thing to sit under a tree some distance from
the beech trees, making as little movement as possible; and by and by
you will cease to be considered as anything but a regular part of the
landscape and the squirrels may come quite close to you.
A Country Diary
If you are fond of writing you might find a good deal of interest in
keeping a country diary: that is to say, a small note-book in which
you set down evening by evening all things seen during the day that
seemed to be sufficiently out of the way to be worth recording.
A Camera in the Country
Nothing is said in this book about amateur photography, because to own
a camera is still the exception rather than the rule, and if once we
began to say anything practical about photography we should have to
say very much more than the scheme of the volume permits. But we might
urge any reader who has a camera to use it in the country in taking
pictures of animal life and old buildings. Old-fashioned farmhouses
and cottages are disappearing so rapidly that we ought to keep as many
records of them as possible, and well-chosen photographs of animals
are not only beautiful pictures, but are also very useful. Mr.
Kearton's work in this way, which may be studied in _With Nature and
a Camera_, is extremely valuable.
Country Books
In the "Reading" chapter will be found the titles of several books
which describe life in the country, and tell you all about the habits
of animals, birds, and insects.
DOLLS' HOUSES
The most magnificent ready-made dolls' house in the world, with gables
and windows, stairs, front garden, and the best furniture, cannot
quite make up to its owner for all the delight she has missed by not
making it herself. Of course some things, such as cups and saucers,
glasses and bottles, saucepans and kitchen utensils, must be bought;
but almost all the really necessary things for house-keeping can be
made at home.
Dolls' Gardens
One advantage of making the dolls' house yourself is that you can
arrange for it to have a garden, a provision rarely made by toy-shops.
Grass plots can be made of green baize or other cloth of the right
color; garden paths of sand sprinkled over glue, or of strips of
sand-paper; flower-beds of brown paper, and the flowers of
tissue-paper and wire. A summer-house, and a dog-kennel to hold a
china dog, might also be added (see p. 241), and, if you have room,
stables.
Garden Chairs and Tables
Garden seats and tables can be made of cardboard and cork. For a seat,
take a card two or three inches long and not quite as broad. Mark it
right across, lengthwise, in the middle with a sharp knife, and then
half fold it. This will make the back and seat. Glue the seat to four
slender corks for legs and paint the whole green. To make a table,
glue four cork legs to a strong piece of cardboard.
The House
A dolls' house can be made of almost any kind of box. For the simplest
and smallest kind cigar boxes can be used and the furniture made of
cork, for which directions are given later; or a couple of low shelves
in a bookcase or cupboard will do. Much better, however, is a large
well-made packing-case divided by wooden and strong cardboard
partitions into two, four, or six rooms, according to its size. A
specially made box is, of course, best of all; this should be divided
into four or six rooms, and should have a sloping roof to give attic
room for boxes and odd furniture. The house can be stained outside or
papered a plain dark color. One or two windows should be cut out of
the walls of each room by the carpenter who made the box, and there
must be doors between the rooms. A piece of thin glass cut to the
right size can be fixed on the windows at home. But before this is
done the house must be papered. The best kind of paper is that used by
bookbinders for the insides of the covers, because the patterns used
are so dainty and small; but this is not always easy to get. Any
small-patterned paper will do, or what is called lining paper, which
can be got in every color. The paper must be very smoothly put on with
paste. Always start at the top when pressing it to the wall, and
smooth it downward gently. Dadoes or friezes can be divided off with
the tiny beading which frame-makers use, or with a painted line, which
must be straight and evenly done.
Fireplaces
Fireplaces, which can be bought or made at home, should be put in
next. To make one yourself, take a strong cardboard-box lid about four
inches long and two wide (though the size must depend on the size of
the room). Very neatly cut off a quarter of it. This smaller part,
covered with gold or silver paper, will make the fender. Then cut off
both sides of the remaining piece, leaving the strip at the top to
form the mantelpiece. Glue the back of the cover to the wall, hang
little curtains from the shelf, put some ornaments on it, arrange the
fender in front, and the fireplace is complete. A grate can be
imitated in cardboard painted black and red.
A Furnishing Game
A splendid game of shop can be played while the furnishing is going
on: in fact, from the moment you have the bare house a board or sign
with "_To Let or For Sale_" will quickly attract house-hunting dolls,
and when a couple have taken it they will have their days full of
shopping before it is ready for them. You will, of course, yourself be
the manufacturers and shopkeepers. It is well to make out careful
bills for everything sold, and the more things you can display in your
show-rooms the better. All house-hunting dolls require plenty of
money.
Curtains
Windows have been mentioned, but they are not by any means a
necessity. Yet even if you cannot have windows, you should put up
curtains, for they make the rooms prettier. Shades can be made of
linen, edged at the bottom with a piece of lace, and nailed on the
wall just above the window. During the day these are rolled up and
tied. White curtains should be bordered with lace and run on a piece
of tape, which can be nailed or pinned on both sides of the window.
They will then draw. The heavy inside curtains can be hung on a pencil
(which may be gilded or left its own color) supported by two picture
screws. Fasten these curtains back with narrow ribbons. Some dolls'
houses, of course, are fitted with real doors. But if you do not have
these, it is perhaps well to hang the doorway with curtains, also on
pencils.
Floors