wall; but in the house, ambition in this accomplishment does not often
extend further than that and one or two other animals, and this is
why only the rabbit, dog, and swan are given here. The swan can be
made more interesting by moving the arm which forms his neck as if he
were prinking and pluming, an effect which is much heightened by
ruffling up and smoothing down the hair with the fingers forming his
beak. To get a clear shadow it is necessary to have only one light,
and that fairly close to the hands.
[Illustration: SHADOWS ON THE WALL]
Skeleton Leaves
Leaves which are to be skeletonized should be picked from the trees at
the end of June. They should be perfect ones of full growth. It is
best to have several of each kind, as some are sure to be failures.
Put the leaves in a big earthenware dish or pan, fill it with
rain-water, and stand it in a warm and sunny place--the purpose of
this being to soak off the green pulpy part. There is a great
difference in the time which this takes: some fine leaves will be
ready in a week, while others may need several months. Look at the
leaves every day, and when one seems to be ready slip a piece of
cardboard under it and shake it about gently in fresh cold water. If
any green stuff remains, dab it with a soft brush and then put it into
another basin of clean water. A fine needle can be used to take away
any small and obstinate pieces of green. It is now a skeleton and must
be bleached according to the following directions:--Pour into a large
earthenware jar a pint of water on half a pound of chloride of lime.
Mix thoroughly, breaking up any lumps with the hand. Add two and a
half quarts of water, cover over, and leave for twenty-four hours.
Then pour off the solution, leaving the sediment behind. Dissolve two
pounds of soda in one quart of boiling water, and pour it, while on
the boil, over the chloride solution. Cover it, and leave for
forty-eight hours; then decant into bottles, being careful to leave
all sediment behind.
Fill an earthenware dish with this solution, lay the leaves in it, and
cover tightly. The leaves will be bleached in six to twelve hours.
They should be taken out directly they are white, as the lime makes
them very brittle. After bleaching, rinse the leaves in cold water,
float them on to cards, and dry between blotting-paper, under a heavy
weight.
Ferns
It should be noted that if you intend to skeletonize ferns, they
should not be picked before August, and they must be pressed and dried
before they are put into the bleaching solution, in which they ought
to stay for three or four days. The solution should be changed on the
second day, and again on the fourth. After bleaching they can be
treated just as the leaves are.
Wool Balls
Cut out two rings of cardboard, of whatever size you like, from one
inch in diameter up to about four inches. A four-inch ring would make
as large a ball as one usually needs, and a one-inch ring as small a
one as could be conveniently made. The rim of the largest rings should
not be wider than half an inch. Take a ball of wool and, placing the
cardboard rings together, tie the end of it firmly round them. Then
wind the wool over the rings, moving them round and round to keep it
even. At first you will be able to push the ball through the rings
easily, but as the wool is wound the hole will grow smaller and
smaller, until you have to thread the wool through with a needle. To
do this it is necessary to cut the wool into lengths, which you must
be careful to join securely. Go on until the hole is completely filled
and you cannot squeeze another needle through. Then slip a pair of
scissors between the two rings and cut the wool all round them; and
follow this up quickly by slipping a piece of string also between them
and tying it tightly round the wool that is in their midst. This is to
keep the loose ends, which were made directly you cut the wool with
the scissors, from coming out. All that is now necessary is to pull
out the cardboard rings and shape the ball a little in your hands. The
tighter the wool was bound round the cards, the smaller and harder the
ball will be and the more difficult will it be to cut the wool neatly
and tie it. Therefore, and especially as the whole purpose of a wool
ball is softness and harmlessness, it is better to wind the wool
loosely and to use thick wool rather than thin.
Wool Demons
To make a "Wool Demon," take a piece of cardboard as wide as you want
the demon to be tall, say three inches, and wind very evenly over it
wool of the color you want the demon to be. Scarlet wool is perhaps
best. Wind it about eighty times, and then remove carefully and tie a
piece round about half an inch from the top to make the neck. This
also secures the wool, the lower looped ends of which can now be cut.
When cut, gather up about twenty pieces each side for the arms, and,
holding them firmly, bind them round with other wool, and cut off
neatly at the proper length. Then tie more wool round to form the
body. The legs and tail are made in the same way as the arms, except
that wool is wound round the legs, beginning from the feet and working
upward, only to the knees, leaving a suggestion of knickerbockers.
Eyes and other features can be sewn on in silk.
Bead-Work
Among other occupations which are not in need of careful description,
but which ought to be mentioned, bead-work is important. It was once
more popular than it now is; but beads in many beautiful colors are
still made, and it is a pity that their advantages should be
neglected. Bead-work lasts longer and is cleaner and brighter than any
other form of embroidery. Perhaps the favorite use to which beads are
now put is in the making of napkin-rings. Bead-flowers are made by
threading beads on wire and bending them to the required shapes. Boxes
of materials are sold in toy-shops.
Post-Office
"Post-Office" is a device for providing the family with a sure supply
of letters. The first thing to do is to appoint a postmaster and fix
upon the positions for the letter-boxes. You then write letters to
each other and to any one in the house, and post them where you like;
and at regular times the postmaster collects them and delivers them.
The Home Newspaper
In "The Home Newspaper," the first thing to do is to decide on which
of you will edit it. As the editor usually has to copy all the
contributions into the exercise-book, it is well that a good writer
should be chosen. Then you want a good title. It is better if the
contributors are given each a department, because that will make the
work more simple. Each number should have a story and some poetry.
Home newspapers, as a rule, come out once a month. Once a week is too
often to keep up. There is a good description of one in a book by E.
Nesbit, called _The Treasure-Seekers_.
Paper and Cardboard Toys--A Cocked Hat
[Illustration: FIG. 1]
To make a cocked hat, take a sheet of stiff paper and double it. Then
fold over each of the doubled corners until they meet in the middle.
The paper will then resemble Fig. 1. Then fold AB AB over the
doubled corners; fold the corresponding strip of paper at the back to
balance it, and the cocked hat is ready to be worn. If it is to be
used in charades, it is well to pin it here and there to make it
secure.
Paper Boats
[Illustration: FIG. 2]
If the cocked hat is held in the middle of each side and pulled out
into a square, and the two sides are then bent back to make another
cocked hat (but of course much smaller); and then, if this cocked hat
is also pulled out into a square, it will look like Fig. 2. If the
sides A and A are held between the finger and thumb and pulled out, a
paper boat will be the result, as in Fig. 3.
[Illustration: FIG 3.]
Paper Darts
[Illustration: PAPER DARTS]
Take a sheet of stiffish paper about the size of this page and fold it
longways, exactly double. Then fold the corners of one end back to the
main fold, one each side. The paper sideways will then look as in Fig.
1. Then double these folded points, one each side, back to the main
fold. The paper will then look as in Fig. 2. Repeat this process once
more. The paper will then look as in Fig. 3. Compress the folds very
tightly, and open out the top ones, so that in looking down on the
dart it will have the appearance of Fig. 4. The dart is then ready for
use.
Paper Mats
[Illustration: PAPER MATS]
Take a square piece of thin paper (Fig. 1), white or colored. Fold it
in half (Fig. 2), and then again in half (Fig. 3), and then again from
the centre to the outside corner, when it will be shaped as in Fig. 4.
If you want a round mat, cut it as marked by the dotted line in Fig.
4; if square, leave it as it is. Remember that when you cut folded
paper the cuts are repeated in the whole piece as many times as there
are folds in the paper. The purpose of folding is to make the cuts
symmetrical. Bearing this in mind cut Fig. 4 as much as you like, as
suggested by Fig. 5. Perhaps it would be well to practice first of all
on a rough piece. The more delicate the cuts the prettier will be the
completed mat.
Paper Boxes
[Illustration: PAPER BOXES]
Take an exactly square piece of paper (cream-laid note-paper is best
in texture), and fold it across to each corner and press down the
folds. Unfold it and then fold each corner exactly into the middle,
and press down and unfold again. The lines of fold on the paper will
now be seen to run from corner to corner, crossing in the middle, and
also forming a square pattern. The next thing is to fold over each
corner exactly to the line of this square on the opposite half of the
paper. When this is done, and the paper is again straightened out, the
lines of fold will be as in Fig. 1. Cut out the triangles marked X in
Fig. 1, and the paper will be as in Fig. 2. Then cut along all the
dotted lines in Fig. 2, and stand the opposite corners up to form the
sides and lid of the box: first A and B, which are fastened by folding
back the little flaps at the tip of A, slipping through the slit at
the tip of B, and then unfolding them again; and then C and D, which
are secured in the same way.
Cardboard Boxes
Cardboard boxes, of a more useful nature than paper boxes, are made on
the same principle as the house described on p. 239, and the furniture
to go in it, as described later in the same chapter. The whole box can
be cut in the flat, out of one piece of cardboard, and the sides
afterward bent up and the lid down. Measurements must of course be
exact. The prettiest way to join the sides is to use thin silk instead
of paper, and the lid may be made to fasten by a little bow of the
same material.
Scraps and Transfers
Paper boxes, when finished, can be made more attractive by painting on
them, gluing scraps to them, putting transfers here and there, or
covering them with spatter-work (see p. 275). Scraps can be bought at
most stationers' in a very great variety. Transfers, which are taken
off by moistening in water, pressing on the paper with the slithery
clouded surface downward, and being gently slipped along, used to be
more common than they now are.
Directions how to make many other paper things will be found on pp.
243-262.
Ink Sea-Serpents
Dissolve a teaspoonful of salt in a glass of water, dip a pen in ink
and touch the point to the water. The ink descends in strange
serpent-like coils.
A Dancing Man
[Illustration: A DANCING MAN]
The accompanying picture will show how a dancing man is made to dance.
You hold him between the finger and thumb, one on each side of his
waist, and pull the string. The hinges for the arms and legs, which
are made of cardboard, can be made of bent pins or little pieces of
string knotted on each side.
Velvet Animals
The fashioning of people and animals from scraps of velvet glued on
cardboard was a pleasant occupation which interested our
great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers when they were children many
years ago. A favorite picture was of a boy and a St. Bernard, in which
the boy's head, hands, collar, and pantaloons, and the dog, were made
of white velvet painted. The boy's tunic was black velvet, and its
belt a strip of red paper. The dog's eye was a black pin-head. The
whole was mounted on a wooden stand with wooden supports at the back,
one running up to the boy's head and the other to the tip of the dog's
tail. With some scraps of white and black velvet, and a little
patience and ingenuity, one could make all the animals on a farm and
many in the Zoo.
Hand Dragons
All the apparatus needed for a "Hand Dragon" consists of a little
cardboard thimble or finger-stall, on which the features of a dragon
have been drawn in pen and ink or color. This is then slipped over the
top of the middle finger, so that the hand becomes its body and the
other fingers and thumb its legs. With the exercise of very little
ingenuity in the movement of the fingers, the dragon can be made to
seem very much alive. The accompanying picture should explain
everything.
[Illustration: HAND DRAGONS]
Various games can be played with the fingers. Tiny caps and hats can
be made, features drawn with ink on the fingers and little tissue
paper dresses made. A whole play can be acted or sung by these tiny
finger marionettes.
Other Uses for Cardboard
Once you have begun to make things out of cardboard, you will find no
end to its possibilities and should be in no more need of any hints.
After building, furnishing, and peopling a dolls' house, a farm or a
menagerie would be an interesting enterprise to start upon. E. M. R.
has a stud of ninety-two horses, each named, and each provided with a
horse-cloth, a groom, and harness. She has also several regiments of
soldiers and a staff of nurses, all cut from cardboard and painted.
She chooses her horses from _Country Life_, or some such paper, and
copies them. Another enthusiast has a cardboard theatre in which plays
and pantomimes are performed.
It might be added that cardboard figures can be made to stand up
either by leaving a strip of cardboard at the bottom, in which teeth
can be cut and bent alternately one way or the other, or by slipping
the feet into grooves cut in little blocks of wood.
Cardboard Cut-Outs
There are a great many cut-outs issued nowadays, which may be bought
for a small sum at any toy shop. Perhaps the best among these are "The
Mirthful Menagerie," "The Agile Acrobats" and "The Magic Changelings."
"The Mirthful Menagerie" when properly cut out and pasted together,
make a lot of animals that have _thickness_ as well as length and
height; "The Agile Acrobats" can be made to assume almost any
position, and in "The Magic Changelings," Little Red Riding Hood,
for instance, can be changed into the wolf, and then back again!
Books of cut-outs are also made, in which the books are intact after
the cut-outs have been removed. "The New Mother Goose" gives
illustrations of many of the Mother Goose rhymes to be cut out and
pasted together, and has a story and other pictures besides. "The
Electric Fire Fighters" is on the same order, only in this case the
pictures to be put together are of the Electric Fire-Engine, the
Electric Water-Tower, etc. They are all easily made, and are
fascinating games for stormy weather, or for indoor games at any time.
Particulars of "Snap" cards and other home-made cards will be found on
pp. 77 and 78.
Kites
In China, and to some extent in Holland, kite-flying is not the
pastime only of boys, but of grave men. And certainly grave men might
do many more foolish things. To feel a kite pulling at your hands, to
let out string and see it climb higher and higher and higher into the
sky--this is a real joy. For good kite-flying you want plenty of room
and a steady wind; hence a big field is the best place, unless you are
at the seaside when there is a wind off the land, in which case you
can fly your kite from the beach. To make an ordinary, serviceable
kite, take two laths (which can be bought for a penny from any
builder), one three feet long (AA in the picture) and the other two
feet (BB). Screw BB with two screws exactly in the middle, at right
angles to AA, at C, a foot from the top. Then take some stout twine of
good quality and make the outline of the kite by tying it securely to
the ends of each of the laths. Next take the thinnest unbleached
calico you can find, stretch it fairly tightly, and sew it over the
strings. (Or strong but light paper will do, pasted over the string.)
Make a hole (D) through the upright lath and calico, midway between
the cross-piece and the top, and another hole (E) about fifteen inches
below the cross-piece, and tie a strong string, two and a half feet
long, to these holes, with a loop (F) in it a foot from the top hole.
To this loop you will tie the string of the kite. The tail (G) is made
of pieces of paper about six inches long, rolled tightly and tied at
distances of a foot. Its exact length will depend on the strength of
the wind and can be determined only by experience, but, roughly
speaking, it should be five times the height of the kite, or, with the
kite which we are making, fifteen feet long. It is best to have the
tail in two or three pieces, and then it can be lengthened or
shortened at will. For instance, if the kite plunges in the air and
will not keep steady, the tail is not long enough; but if it will go
up only a little way, the tail is probably too long. Be sure to have
plenty of string, carefully wound, so that there will be no hitches
in paying it out. When starting a kite you need the help of some one
who will stand about thirty yards away, holding the kite against the
wind, and throw it straight up when you have the line tight and give
the signal. If it does not rise it may be well for you to run a few
yards against the wind. At first you must not pay out line very
rapidly, but when the kite is flying steadily you may give it, also
steadily, all the string it wants.
[Illustration: A KITE]
[Illustration: "TO FEEL A KITE PULLING AT YOUR HANDS--THIS IS REAL
JOY"]
Kite Messengers
A messenger is a piece of cardboard or paper with a good-sized hole in
it, which you slip over the string when the kite is steady, and which
is carried right up to the kite by the wind.
A Simple Toy Boat
The following directions, with exact measurements, apply to one
of the simplest home-made sailing-boats. Take a piece of soft
straight-grained pine, which any carpenter or builder will let you
have, one foot long, four inches wide, and two inches deep. On the top
of the four-inch side draw an outline as in Fig. 1, in which you will
be helped by first dividing the wood by the pencil line AB, exactly in
the middle. Then turn the block over and divide the under four-inch
side with a similar line, and placing the saw an eighth of an inch
each side of this line, cut two incisions right along the wood about a
quarter of an inch deep. The portion between these two incisions forms
the keel. Then carry the line up the middle of the end A, and repeat
the incisions as along the bottom, these making the boat's stem-post.
Next turn to the top again, and make a line, similar to the dotted
line CC in Fig. 1, about three-eighths of an inch inside the outline
of the boat, and then carefully hollow out with a gouge everything
inside this dotted line. It must be very carefully done; it is
better, indeed, to err on the side of not hollowing her out enough,
and then a little more can be removed afterward. Next shape the
outside, first with a saw and then with a chisel, again using the
utmost care. Try to give her a fine bow, or "entry," and a good clean
stern, or "run." If the boat were cut in two crossways in the middle,
the section ought to resemble that in Fig. 2. This flat "floor" will
be graduated away to nothing at bow and stern. Next fix on the lead
keel (see K in Fig. 3), which should be a quarter of an inch thick, a
quarter of an inch deep at the bow, and three-quarters at the stern,
fastened on with four long thin screws. Next make the deck, which
should not be more than an eighth of an inch thick and should fit very
closely at the edges.
[Illustration: A TOY BOAT]
The mast (C), which should be about three-eighths of an inch in
diameter at the foot, and should taper slightly, must stand one foot
above the deck, and pass through the deck four and a half inches from
the bow. First pass it through the hole in the deck and place it in
position, leaning a little back from the bows; then slip up the deck
and mark the place in the bottom of the boat where the mast rests, and
there fix, with four small brass screws, a block of wood with a hole
in it, into which the mast can be firmly "stepped." Then on the upper
side of the deck, just in front of the mast-hole, screw a small
eyelet. This is to hold the line called the foresail sheet (L), but as
the deck is only an eighth of an inch thick you must place a little
block of wood under the deck, into which the eyelet can be screwed.
Directly this is done, the deck is ready to be screwed firmly to the
boat with brass screws. If you are in any doubt as to its being
water-tight, you had better bore a hole in it and put a cork in, so
that you can tip it up and empty it after each voyage.
[Illustration: A TOY BOAT]
The bowsprit (J), a quarter of an inch in diameter, should be three
and a half inches long, two inches of which project beyond the bow.
Screw it firmly to the boat. You have now to shape the boom (F) and
gaff (D), which must have a fork at the end, as in Fig. 4, to embrace
the mast, the ends of this fork being joined by string. The boom
should be eight and a half inches long and three-eighths of an inch in
diameter, and the gaff five inches long and a quarter of an inch in
diameter. The gaff is kept in position, about three inches from the
mast-head, by the throat halyards and peak halyards, to which we now
come. The peak halyards (H), throat halyards (G), and foresail
halyards (F) should be of very fine fishing-line. After being tied
respectively to the gaff and foresail, they pass through small holes
in the mast, down to eyelets screwed into the bulwarks on each side of
the mast.
The foresail sheet (L) and main sheet (M), which are some four inches
long, are hitched to eyelets screwed into the deck amidships, one just
in front of the mast, as already explained, and the other about two
inches from the stern. The sails must be of thin calico, neatly hemmed
round. Both sails should come to about three inches of the head of the
mast. The foresail is fastened only to the tip of the bowsprit, the
foresail halyards, and foresail sheet; the mainsail to the gaff, all
along, and to each end of the boom.
Nothing has been said about a rudder, because a boat built and rigged
in the manner described would balance herself, and so keep on any
course on which she was laid. With a very little wind she ought to
cross and recross a pond without any hitch, all that will be necessary
being to let the sails have plenty of play, by loosening the foresail
sheet and main sheet, and to give her a steady push.
Walnut Shell Boats
To make a boat from a walnut shell, you scoop out the half shell and
cut a piece of cardboard of a size to cover the top. Through the
middle of this piece of cardboard you thrust a match, and then,
dropping a little sealing-wax into the bottom of the shell, and
putting some round the edge, you fix the match and the cardboard to
it. A sail is made by cutting out a square of paper and fastening it
to the match by means of two holes; but the boat will swim much
better without it.
Walnut Fights
Here it might be remarked that capital contests can be had with the
empty halves of walnut shells. A plate is turned upside down, and the
two fighters place their walnuts point to point is the middle. At the
given word they begin to push, one against the other, by steady
pressure of finger and thumb on the stern of the shell. The battle is
over when the prow of one shell crashes through the prow of the other.
This always happens sooner or later, but sometimes the battles are
long and severe. At the end of each contest the number of shells
defeated by the victor should be marked on it, and it should be
carefully kept for the next conflict. At school we used to have
tremendous excitement when two champions met, a walnut with a record
of 520, for instance, and another with 700. The winner in such a
battle as this would, of course, be numbered 1,221, because you always
add not only your defeated adversary to your score, but all his
victims too.
Suckers