OAK-LEAVES
TO dress up and pretend is something every little girl, and boy too,
for that matter, likes to do, and there is no better place for having
this kind of fun and no greater storehouse for dress-up material than
the wide, sunny fields and green, shady forest on a summer's day.
[Illustration: Fig.72 - The Robinson Crusoe Hat.]
If you want to be a wood-nymph, a fairy, or a pioneer; if you would
be a fashionable lady decked in jewels rare, or a rollicking cowboy,
or Robinson Crusoe, it is all the same to Mother Nature's department
store. Fields, Woods & Co. can furnish all you need. If the goods are
not always ready to wear, they are at least ready to be made up into
what you want.
Why, you can even be a little savage and wear a skirt made of a fringe
of long grasses, like the wood-nymph's dress, and bracelets of slender,
golden-brown rootlets, if that pleases you; all the materials are ready
to your hand. And you can make a
Robinson Crusoe Hat
of the large leaves of the scrub-oak--a pretty and becoming hat and
one that will keep your head cool though you walk under the hottest of
noonday suns.
The photograph given here shows one little girl who likes immensely to
wear her Crusoe hat, and Fig. 72 shows just how the hat looks when not
on her head.
It won't take more than five minutes to make the hat, but first you
must gather the leaves. Ordinary oak-leaves are too small to use; it is
on the scrub-oak that you will find them large enough. The scrub-oak
grows low, like a bush, and the leaves will be quite within your reach.
Like a good shopkeeper, this kind of oak shows his customers leaves of
various sizes, but it is the very largest that you must take, and only
the ones that are dark-green in color. The pretty new light-green or
brownish leaves will soon wilt and curl on the edges, while a hat made
of the older, tougher ones will last in good condition several days if
left out in the dew at night or kept damp in the house.
[Illustration: The Robinson Crusoe Hat is pretty and becoming.]
The number of leaves needed depends upon the size of the leaves and the
size of your head. It is well to have at least a dozen and a half; then
you can select the best. The largest leaves are not always perfect,
but unless very much torn or eaten away by insects they will answer.
To gather all you need you will probably have to visit several of the
little scrub-oaks.
If you are at home when you make your hat, use broom-straws to pin the
leaves together; if you are in the woods find some smooth, slender
twigs, break them in short pieces, and they will take the place of the
straws.
Begin by pinning two leaves together as they are in Fig. 73. These
leaves are lettered U and V. You see that U is lapped over V and then
pinned to it in two places, first near the stem and then through the
lower side lobe. The next leaf would be letter W, and W would be pinned
to U just as U is pinned to V. Make the stems meet at the top and keep
adding leaves, pinning one to another, until the hat is large enough to
fit your head comfortably, then pin the last leaf to the first.
[Illustration: Fig.73 - Pin the leaves together in this way.]
Do not make the hat too flat; if you find it flattening out, lap the
leaves over more at the bottom. When finished it should be shaped like
Fig. 72.
Oak-Leaf Mask
Among other frolics in the woods you can have a masquerade--a real
one, where you wear a mask, and that mask made of one of the largest
leaves of the scrub-oak. Not even a pair of scissors will be needed to
make this mask, and it is a funny one too (Fig. 74). See the turned-up
eyelids and the wide nose tilted at the end.
When you have found a leaf large enough (the one in the drawing was
nine inches long and seven inches wide) use your thumb-nail to cut out
the eyes and nose. The outlines at the top of Fig. 74 show how to shape
them, and the dotted lines show where they are bent up.
[Illustration: Fig.74 - The Oak Leaf Mask.]
There is no mouth, none is needed, for the leaf, below the nose, drops
down loosely over your mouth like the curtain on a mask one buys at a
shop. The oak-leaf mask will stay on your face if you wet the under
parts of each side and stick them to your cheeks.
Another way to make the mask is to turn the leaf around, stem down,
and then cut the eyes and nose in the wide part, leaving the narrower
stem end for a long chin. This kind you can hold in front of your face
by taking the stem in your hand. It requires so short a time to make a
mask that when one wears out or is lost you can have another to replace
it in a minute or two.
[Illustration: Fig.75 - The little Oak Leaf Dog.]
[Illustration: Fig.77 - This shows how the dog was made.]
[Illustration: Fig.76 - The leaf the dog was made of.]
The Little Oak-Leaf Dog
He has the funny expression of a real dog when he is making up his mind
what to do next, even if he is only an oak-leaf. It was an ordinary
leaf four inches long which was, by tearing a little here and bending a
little there, transformed into his absurd dogship (Fig. 75).
Fig. 76 is the tracing of the leaf actually used for the dog. Fig. 77
shows the same leaf with its stem nipped off and the other end torn up,
not very evenly, where the dotted lines are in Fig. 76. This makes the
little dog's tail. The tear on either side reaches to the mid-rib of
the leaf, but does not cross it, and the mid-rib being unbroken holds
the tail out stiff and straight.
The two hind legs are bent down just where the tear ends in making
the tail. The dotted line in Fig. 77 shows this. The other two legs,
formed by the side lobes of the leaf, are bent down as the dotted lines
indicate. The tip of the lobe on the left side had to be torn off
because that leg was longer than the opposite one.
In making the neck the narrow part of the leaf was bent up and then
down, the two dotted lines show where. Then the ears were bent up and
the little oak-leaf dog was placed standing as you see him in Fig. 75,
to have his picture drawn.