FOR SANTA CLAUS'S PACK
JAMES telephoned Dorothy that he was going to be at her house on the
afternoon of the Club meeting if it was going to be downstairs and
Dorothy replied that her mother was very glad to let them have the
dining room to work in. All the members had arrived when Doctor Hancock
stopped his car at the door and Margaret got out and rang the bell for
Roger's and Tom's help in getting James into the house. Everybody hailed
him with pleasure and everybody's tongue began at once to chatter about
the dramatic happening of the evening before.
"I'm perfectly crazy to hear everything you've learned this morning,"
said Margaret, "but before we start talking about it I want to make a
beginning on a basket so I can be working while I listen."
"Me, too," said James. "I've pasted enough boxes and gimcracks to fill a
young cottage. In fact they are now packed in a young cottage that
Father is going to bring over some day when he hasn't any other load. He
said the car wouldn't hold it and Margaret and him and me all at the
same time this afternoon."
"We've been making all sorts of things this week," said Ethel Brown.
"I'm just finishing the last of a dozen balls that I've been covering
with crochet. It's the simplest thing in the world and they're fine for
little children because the slippery rubber balls slide out of their
fingers and these are just rough enough for their tiny paws to cling
to."
"I've been making those twin bed-time dolls," said Ethel Blue. "You've
seen them in all the shops--just ugly dolls of worsted--but mine are
made like the Danish _Nisse_, the elves that the Danes use to decorate
their Yuletide trees."
She held up a handful of wee dolls made of white worsted, doubled until
the little figure was about a finger long. A few strands on each side
were cut shorter than the rest and stood out as arms. A red thread tied
a little way from the top indicated the neck; another about the middle
defined the waist; the lower part was divided and each leg was tied at
the ankle with red thread, and a red thread bound the wrists. On the
head a peaked red hat of flannel or of crochet shaded a face wherein two
black stitches represented the eyes, a third the nose, and a red dot the
ruby lips. From the back of the neck a crocheted cord about eighteen
inches long connected one elf with his twin.
"What's the idea of two?" inquired Tom.
"To keep each other company. You tie them on to a wire of the baby's
crib and they won't get lost."
"Or on to the perambulator."
"They don't take long to make--see, I wind the wool over my fingers, so,
to get the right length, and then I tie them as quick as a wink; and
when I feel in the mood of making the caps I turn off a dozen or two of
them--"
"And the cord by the yard, I suppose."
"Just about. I've made quantities of these this week and I'm not going
to make any more, so I'll help with the baskets or the stenciling."
"I've been jig-sawing," said Roger. "I've made jumping jacks till you
can't rest."
"Where did you get your pattern?" asked Tom who also was a jig sawyer.
[Illustration: Jumping Jack]
"I took an old one of Dicky's that was on the downward road and pulled
it to pieces so that I could use each part for a pattern. I cut out ever
so many of each section. Then I spent one afternoon painting legs and
arms and jackets and caps, and Ethel Blue painted the faces for me. I'm
not much on expression except my own, you know."
"Have you put them together yet?"
"Dorothy has been tying the pull strings for me this afternoon and I'm
going to do the glueing now while you people are learning baskets."
"James ought to do the glueing for you," suggested Margaret in spite of
James's protesting gestures.
Roger laughed.
"I wouldn't be so mean as to ask him," he said. "He's stuck up enough
for one lifetime, I suspect."
"I've been jigging, too," confessed Tom.
"Anything pretty?" asked Roger.
"Of course something pretty," defended Helen. "Don't you remember the
beauty box he made Margaret?"
"I certainly do. Its delicate openwork surpassed any of my humble
efforts."
"It was pretty, wasn't it?" murmured Margaret. "The yellow silk lining
showed through."
"What I've been doing lately was the very simplest possible toy for the
orphans." Tom disclaimed any fine work. "I've just been cutting circles
out of cigar boxes and punching two holes side by side in each one. Then
I run a string through the two holes. You slip it over your forefinger
of each hand and whirl the disk around the string until it is wound up
tight and then by pulling the string you keep the whirligig going
indefinitely."
"It doesn't look like much of a toy to me," said Della crushingly.
"May be not, ma'am, but I tried it on Dad and Edward and they played
with it for ten minutes apiece. You find yourself pulling it in time to
some air you're humming in the back of your head."
"Right-o," agreed James. "I had a tin one once and I played with it from
morning till night. I believe the orphans will spend most of their
waking hours tweaking those cords."
"I'm glad you think so," said Tom. "Roger was so emphatic I was afraid
I'd been wasting my time."
"What's Dorothy been up to this week?" asked James.
"Dorothy couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted most to make bags
or model clay candlesticks or dress dolls this week," responded Dorothy,
"but she finally decided to dress dolls."
"Where did you get the dolls?"
"Some of them I got with treasury money--they're real dolls, and I made
galoptious frocks for them out of scraps from piece-bags."
"Were you patient enough to make all the clothes to take off?" asked
Della.
"Every identical garment," replied Dorothy emphatically. "Dolls aren't
any fun unless you can dress and undress them. I never cared a rap for a
doll with its clothes fastened on."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
Every girl in the room agreed with this opinion.
"The rag dolls are the ones I believe the children will like best," said
Helen; "that is, if they are at all like American children."
"Isn't it funny--I always liked that terrible looking old rag object of
mine better than the prettiest one Father ever sent me," agreed Ethel
Blue.
"Every child does," said Margaret.
"Dorothy made some fine ones," complimented Helen.
"Did you draw them or did you get the ones that are already printed on
cloth?" asked Della.
"Both. The printed ones are a great deal prettier than mine, but Aunt
Marion had a stout piece of cotton cloth--"
A shout arose.
"Cotton cloth! That's enough to interest Dorothy in making anything,"
laughed Tom.
"Almost," agreed Dorothy good-naturedly. "Any way, I used up the piece
of cloth making dolls and cats and dogs. I drew them on the cloth and
then stitched them on the machine and, I tell you, I remembered the time
when Dicky's stuffed cat had an awful accident and lost almost all his
inner thoughts, and I sewed every one of the little beasties twice
around."
"What did you stuff them with?"
"Some with cotton."
"Ha, ha!"
"Ha!" retorted Dorothy, "and some with rags, and one with sawdust, but I
didn't care for him; he was lumpy."
"I didn't know you could paint well enough to color them," said Roger.
"I can't. I did a few but Ethel Blue did the best one. There was a cat
that was so fierce that Aunt Marion's cat growled at it. He was a
winner!"
"All the rag dolls were dressed in cotton dresses," explained Ethel
Brown.
"Of course."
"But the real dolls were positively scrumptious. There was a bride, and
a girl in a khaki sport suit, and a boy in a sailor suit, and a baby.
They were regular beauties."
All the time that these descriptions had been given Dorothy and the
Mortons had been opening packages of rattan and raffia and laying them
out on the dining table. James sat in state at one end, his convalescent
leg raised on a chair, and his right hand to the table so that he could
handle his materials easily.
"I'm simply perishing to hear about Fraulein," he acknowledged. "Do
start me on this basket business, Dorothy, so I can hear about her."
"We don't know such an awful lot," said Dorothy slowly as she counted
out the spokes for a small basket. "In fact, we don't know anything at
all."
"Misery! And my curiosity has been actually on the boil! How many of
those sticks do I need?"
"Let's all do the same basket," suggested Ethel Brown. "Then one lecture
by Miss Dorothy Smith will do for all of us."
"Doesn't anybody else know how to make them?"
"Della and I do," replied Ethel Blue. "We're going to work on raffia,
but you people might just as well all do one kind of basket. We can use
any number of them, you know, so it doesn't make any difference if they
are all alike."
"We'll start with a basket that measures three inches across the bottom
and is two and a half inches deep," announced Dorothy, who was an expert
basket maker. "You'll need eight spokes sixteen inches long and one nine
inches long."
There was a general cutting and counting of rattan spokes.
"Are you ready? Take your knife and in four rattans make slits long
enough to poke the other four rattans through."
"They're rather fat to get through," complained James.
[Illustration: "Make slits long enough to poke the other rattans
through. Sharpen them to a point"]
[Illustration: "You'll need eight spokes sixteen inches long and one
nine inches long"]
"Sharpen them to a point. Have you put them through so they make a cross
with the arms of even length? Then put the single short piece through on
one arm--no, not way through, James; just far enough to catch it."
"That's pretty solid just as it is," commented Tom with his head on one
side.
"Nevertheless, you must wrap it with a piece of raffia. Watch me; lay
your raffia at the left side of the upright arm and bring it across from
left to right. Now pass it under the right hand arm and over the bottom
arm and under the left hand arm. Instead of covering the wrapping you've
just done you turn back and let your bit of raffia go _over_ the left
hand arm."
[Illustration: "This weaving process makes the spokes stand out like
wheel spokes"]
"That binds down the beginning end of the raffia," cried Helen.
"Exactly. That's why you do it. Go under the bottom arm and over the
right hand arm behind the top arm."
"Back at the station the train started from," announced Margaret.
"So far you've used your weaver--"
"What's that? The raffia?"
"Yes. So far you've used it merely to fasten the centre firmly. Now you
really begin to weave under and over the spokes, round and round."
"I could shoot beans through mine," announced James.
"You haven't pulled your weaver tight as you wove. Push it down hard
toward the centre. That's it. See how firm that is? You could hardly get
water through that--much less beans or hound puppies, as they say in
some parts of North Carolina."
"This weaving process makes the spokes stand out like wheel spokes,
doesn't it?"
"That's why they're called spokes. By the time you've been round three
times they ought all to be standing apart evenly."
"Please, ma'am, my raffia is giving out," grumbled Tom.
"It's time to use a rattan weaver, then. You used raffia at first
because the spokes were so near together. Now you use a fine rattan,
finer than your spokes. Wet it first. Then catch it behind a spoke and
hold on to it carefully until you come to the second time round or it
will slip away from you. You're all right as soon as the second row
holds the first row in place."
"My rattan weaver is giving out," said Ethel Brown.
"Take another one and lap it over the end of the one that is on the
point of death, then go right ahead. If they're too fat at the ends
shave them down a bit where they lap."
"This superb creation of mine is three inches across the middle,"
announced James.
"It's time to turn up the spokes then. Make up your mind how sharply
you want the basket to flare and watch it as you weave, or you'll have
it uneven."
"Mine seems to have reached a good height for a small work basket,"
decided Helen, her head on one side.
"Mine isn't quite so high, but I can seem to see a few choice candies of
Ethel Brown's concoction resting happily within its walls," said Tom.
"Let's all make the border. Measure the spokes and cut them just three
inches beyond the top of the weaving. You'll have to sharpen their tips
a little or else you'll have trouble pushing them down among the
weavers."
"I get the idea! You bend them into scallops!"
"Wet them first or there'll be broken fence pickets. When you've soaked
them until they're pliable enough bend each spoke over to make a scallop
and thrust it down right beside its neighbor spoke between the weavers."
"Mine is more than ever a work basket," said Helen when she had
completed the edge. "I shall line it with brown and fit it up with a
thimble and threads and needles and a tiny pair of scissors."
"Mine, too," was Ethel Brown's decision.
"My sides turn up too sharply," James thought. "I shall call mine a
cover for a small flower pot. Then I shan't have to line it!"
"Here are some of the most easily made mats and baskets in the world,"
announced Della. "They're made just like the braided rugs you find in
farm houses in New England. Mother got some in New Hampshire once before
we started going to Chautauqua for the summers."
"I've seen them," said Margaret. "There are yards and yards of rags cut
all the same width and sewed together and then they are braided and then
the braid is sewed round and round."
"You make raffia mats or baskets in just the same way, only you sew them
with raffia," explained Della. "You braid the raffia first and that
gives you an opportunity to make pretty color combinations."
"A strand of raffia doesn't last forever. How do you splice it?"
"Splice a thick end alongside of a thin end and go ahead. Try to pick
out strands of different lengths for your plaiting or they'll all run
out at once and have to be spliced at once and it may make them bunchy
if you aren't awfully careful."
[Illustration: The braid for easily made rugs and baskets]
"I saw a beauty basket once made of corn husks braided in the same way.
The inside husks are a delicate color you know, and they were split into
narrow widths and plaited into a long rope."
"Where the long leaf pine grows," said Dorothy, "they use pine needles
in the same way, only they wrap them around with thread--"
"Cotton thread?"
"Cotton thread--of about the same color."
"You can work sweet grass just so, except that you can wrap that with a
piece of itself."
"When you have enough material," went on Della, "you begin the sewing.
If you're going to make a round or an oblong mat you decide which right
at the beginning and coil the centre accordingly. Then all you have to
do is to go ahead. Don't let the stitches show and sew on until the mat
is big enough."
"And for a basket I suppose you pile the braids upon each other when
you've made the bottom the size you want it."
"Exactly. And you can make the sides flare sharply or slightly just as
we made them do with the rattan."
"What's the matter with making baskets of braided crepe paper?" asked
James. "My whole being has been wrapped in paper for a week so it may
influence my inventive powers unduly, but I really don't see why it
shouldn't work."
"I'm sorry to take you off your perch," remarked Ethel Brown, "but I've
seen one."
"O--oh!" wailed James in disappointment. "They were pretty though,
weren't they?"
"They were beauties. There was a lovely color combination in the one I
saw."
"You could make patriotic ones for Fourth of July--red, white, and
blue."
"Or green and red ones for Christmas."
"Or all white for Easter."
"Or pinky ones for May Day."
Just at this moment there came a rush of small feet and Dicky burst into
the room.
"Hullo," he exclaimed briefly.
"Hullo," cried a chorus in return.
"I've seen her," said Dicky.
"Who is 'her'?" asked Roger.
"Fraulein."
"Fraulein! Dicky, what have you been doing?"
Helen seized him by the arm and drew him to the side of her chair, while
all the other members of the Club laid down their work and listened.
Dicky was somewhat embarrassed at being the object of such undivided
attention. He climbed up into Helen's lap.
"I heard you talking at breakfatht about Fraulein and how thomebody
perhapth wath dead and perhapth wathn't dead, tho I went and athked her
if he wath dead."
"Oh, Dicky!"
Helen buried her face in his bobbed hair, and the rest of the Mortons
looked at each other aghast.
"We were wondering if it would be an intrusion to send Fraulein some
flowers," explained Helen,--"and--"
"--and here Dicky butts right in!" finished Roger.
"I went to the houthe and I rang the bell," continued Dicky, "and an old
lady came to the door."
"Mrs. Hindenburg."
"I thaid 'Ith Mith Fraulein at home?' The old lady thaid 'Yeth.' I
walked in and there wath Mith Fraulein in front of the fire. I thaid,
'Ith he dead?'"
"You asked her?"
"Great Scott!"
"Fraulein thaid, 'I don't know, Dicky.' And I thaid, 'Here ith a
chethnut I found. You can have it.' And Fraulein thaid, 'Thank you,
Dicky,' and I that on her lap and the talked to me a long time about the
man that perhapth ith dead, and thometimeth the thaid queer wordth--"
"German," interpreted Margaret under her breath.
"And onthe the cried a little, and--"
"Dicky, Dicky, what have you done!"
"I ain't done anything bad, 'coth when I thaid, 'Now I mutht go,' the
old lady thaid, 'Thank you for coming.'"
"She did?"
"Perhaps it did Fraulein good to cry. Poor Fraulein!"
"I'm going again."
"Did she ask you?"
"Of courth the athked me. And I thaid I'd go if the'd wear a white
dreth. I don't like a black dreth."
Silence reigned about the table.
"I wish I knew whether he's done harm or good," sighed Helen.
"Good, I should say, or Fraulein's mother wouldn't have asked him to
come again," said Ethel Blue.
"At this uncertain moment I think we'd better have some refreshments,"
said Dorothy.
"I'm certainly in need of something sustaining," groaned Roger.
"Then try these sugar cookies of Ethel Brown's."
"Let me write down right now how she makes them," exclaimed Della,
borrowing a pencil from Tom. "This is the kind you're going to make for
the orphans, isn't it?"
"Yes, they'll keep a long time, especially if they're wrapped in
paraffin paper and put into a tin."
"Recite the rule to me."
"I never can remember rules. Dorothy's got it copied into her cook book.
Ask her for it."
"Here you are," said Dorothy who had overheard the conversation, "here
on page twenty. And I know you're going to ask for the fudge receipt as
soon as you taste Ethel Blue's fudge so you might as well copy that at
the same time. It's on the next page."
So Della copied diligently while Dorothy brought in the cookies and
fudge in question and Helen and Roger discussed Dicky's performance
under their breath.
Here is what Della wrote:
"Sugar Cookies or Sand Tarts
"1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3-1/2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
Extra whites of 2 eggs
1-1/2 cups blanched almonds, chopped.
2 tablespoons sugar--extra
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
"Blanch the almonds by putting them in boiling water, let them stand on
the table five minutes, remove a few at a time from the water, rub off
the skin and dry them in a towel; then chop them.
"Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, then the beaten eggs. Sift
flour and baking powder together, add to the butter mixture gradually,
using a knife to cut it in. Add the nuts. If stiff and dry add a few
tablespoons milk to moisten slightly, and mould into a dough with the
hands. Roll out portions quite thin, on a floured board, cut out with a
cutter, brush with the extra whites, slightly beaten. Mix the cinnamon
and the two extra tablespoons sugar together, sprinkle over the cookies.
Place on a greased tin, bake about five minutes in a moderately hot
oven."
"Fudge
"3 cups brown or white sugar
1 cup milk or water
1 tablespoon butter
3 squares (inch) chocolate (about 1/4 cup grated)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
"Mix sugar, milk, butter and chocolate in a saucepan; let it melt
slowly; bring to a boil and boil about ten minutes, or until a little
forms a soft ball when dropped in a cup of cold water. Add the vanilla,
stir a few minutes until slightly thick, turn at once into greased _tin_
plates. Cool and cut into blocks. If it crumbles and is sugary, add half
a cup or more hot water, melt, boil again, and try as before. If it
should not be hard enough it may be boiled a second time."