We were scattered about our sitting-room table; the early tea was just
over, and a good long evening before us. (Us means papa, Bob, Mamie, and
Nelly. I am Nelly, and the eldest of the family--except papa, of
course.)
Papa was reading the evening paper--something about stocks, I suppose;
Bob had both elbows firmly planted within two inches of the
student-lamp, handy for upsetting in case he sneezed; Mamie was looking
as doleful as if she had lost her kitten; and I was gazing in the fire
and dreaming.
"Wish I had something to do," yawned Bob.
"So do I," said Mamie.
"Play checkers," I suggested.
"No; only two can play that," objected Mamie. "Papa, don't you know
something we can play?"
"Well," said papa, folding up his paper, "let me see. Bob, take yourself
out of the lamp. Play 'Recondite Forms.'"
"What's _recondite_?" growled Bob.
"Recondite means _hidden_, _concealed_, and this game is called
'Recondite Forms' because-- But you will understand it better after you
have played it. I want pencils and some rather thin paper."
Bob and Mamie collected the pencils, I brought a supply of French
note-paper from my desk, and we all drew our chairs about the table,
ready for work.
[Illustration]
Papa took a pencil, and made a kind of wiggle, like No. 1 in the
picture; then he laid over that another sheet of paper, which was thin
enough to allow the pencil mark to show through; this he carefully
traced, so as to have an exact copy, and did the same with two other
sheets; then gave us each one, and told us to see what kind of a picture
we could make out of it; we might add to the line as much as we pleased,
but we must not alter nor cross it.
"Oh," said Bob, "I don't know what to make!"
"Hush!" said Mamie; "I want to think."
Then silence reigned--at first puzzled, but afterward busy.
"I've got it!" shouted Bob, dropping his pencil.
"So've I," echoed Mamie.
"Now for a grand exhibition!" said papa, collecting the papers, and
laying them in a row on the table.
Bob had made a parrot out of his "wiggle," papa a graceful floating
figure, Mamie a high-heeled shoe, and I a fool with cap and bells.
"Now," said papa, "do you see why this is called 'Recondite Forms'? In
this first line all the other figures were hidden, and it took only a
few pencil strokes to bring them out."
"Yes, I see," said Bob. "Now let's try some more wiggles."
"Wiggles!" said papa; "I don't know but that's a better name than the
other."
"Oh yes; re-con-dite is awful hard," said Mamie.
"Wiggles it is, then," said papa.
And "wiggles" it has been ever since. I will add, for the benefit of
those outside my own small circle, that instead of French note-paper,
the common white wrapping-paper, such as grocers use in tying up parcels
of tea, is just as good for the purpose, and a great deal cheaper. With
several sheets of this, and two or three lead-pencils, "wiggles" may be
played for a whole evening.
In the picture No. 6 is a new "wiggle" for _you_ to try your hand upon.
See what you can make of it, and in the next number I will give you _my_
idea.
* * * * *
=Hats.=--The felt hat is as old as Homer. The Greeks made them in
skull-caps, conical, truncated, narrow, or broad-brimmed. The Phrygian
bonnet was an elevated cap without a brim, the apex turned over in
front. It is known as the cap of Liberty. An ancient figure of Liberty
in the times of Antonius Livius, A.D. 115, holds the cap in the right
hand. The Persians wore soft caps; plumed hats were the head-dress of
the Syrian corps of Xerxes; the broad-brim was worn by the Macedonian
kings. Castor means a beaver. The Armenian captive wore a plug hat. The
merchants of the fourteenth century wore a Flanders beaver. Charles
VII., in 1469, wore a felt hat lined with red, and plumed. The English
men and women in 1510 wore close woollen or knitted caps; two centuries
ago hats were worn in the house. Pepys, in his diary, wrote: "September,
1664, got a severe cold because he took off his hat at dinner;" and
again, in January, 1665, he got another cold by sitting too long with
his head bare, to allow his wife's maid to comb his hair and wash his
ears; and Lord Clarendon, in his essay, speaking of the decay of respect
due the aged, says "that in his younger days he never kept his hat on
before those older than himself, except at dinner." In the thirteenth
century Pope Innocent IV. allowed the cardinals the use of the scarlet
cloth hat. The hats now in use are the cloth hat, leather hat, paper
hat, silk hat, opera hat, spring-brim hat, and straw hat.
* * * * *
=Sponges.=--The coarse, soft, flat sponges, with large pores and great
orifices in them, come from the Bahamas and Florida. The finer kinds,
suitable for toilet use, are found in the Levant; the best on the coast
of Northern Syria, near Tripoli, and secondary qualities among the Greek
isles. These are either globular or of a cup-like form, with fine pores,
and are not easily torn. They are got by divers plunging from a boat,
many fathoms down, with a heavy stone tied to a rope for sinking the
man, who snatches the sponges, puts them into a net fastened to his
waist, and is then hauled up. Some of the Greeks, instead of diving,
throw short harpoons attached to a cord, having first spied their prey
at the bottom through a tin tube with a glass bottom immersed below the
surface waves.
* * * * *
[Illustration]