little sail boat from a piece of an old egg crate, or the side of a
cigar box. The wood must be close grained and light--that is the first
essential. Cut the boat, pointed at one end, and rub it smooth with a
piece of sandpaper. Glue a meat skewer to the center for the mast, and
hoist a little sail. A hole may be bored in the end of the sail boat,
and a long string tied in will allow you to run along the edge of the
brook and keep this little craft from sailing away.
There are other boats which will want to join this toyland fleet.
Peanut shells may have very tiny paper sails pinned to the ends. A race
between two rival peanut boats will be great fun.
A cigar box boat may have squares cut from the sides with a knife for
oar locks; with meat skewer oars, it will make a very creditable scow,
flat-bottomed, and perfectly safe for any doll to go clamming in.
Clam shells may have paper sails fastened on with glue, and any kind of
flat shell loves to go sailing away by itself on the water.
A strong square of birch bark may be folded and cut rounding at the
ends to resemble a canoe. The ends are then sewed with a needle
threaded with strands of sweet grass or stout cotton, making a tiny
Indian craft. If you wish the canoe to be perfectly water tight, it
can be lined with waxed paper.
There will be fun for all summer long for the boy who makes and sails
his own fleet of toy boats.
[Illustration: WHITTLED TOY SAIL BOAT]
HOW TO MAKE A PLAY TENT
Having a tent out in the garden or on the lawn during the summer
vacation makes each long, happy day twice as long, and just twice as
happy. A boy can play that he is an Indian, or a first settler, or a
cave dweller, or even an old story book king if he has even the crudest
kind of a roof over his head and some sort of a play shelter beneath
which he can live and play, and dream all manner of delightful things.
Of course the nicest tent of all is one from a real tent factory made
of canvas and having staples and pegs to fasten it to the ground, but
such a tent costs ever so much money, and not every mother and father
can afford to buy it. One family of children went without fireworks on
Fourth of July that they might save the money which they would have,
otherwise, burned up and with it they bought themselves a tent which
lasted much longer than the smoke and noise of the fireworks would have.
There is, though, a very fine tent indeed, and one that will give a
group of boys quite as much pleasure as any manufactured one. This
is the home-made tent. It is the tent that seems to really belong to
you because it is a sort of a makeshift and you make it with your own
hands. There are ever so many ways of making your own tent, all of them
simple and quite easy for one to follow.
One very strong and serviceable tent has a foundation of straight,
young birch trees or saplings cut in the early spring and used for
tent poles. Holes should be dug, and the poles set in the ground a
quarter their length that no summer wind storm can uproot them. Around
each pole, the earth is then pounded down, and the tops of the poles,
six or eight in number, should be lashed together with cord. A couple
of old army blankets may be stitched together to make a covering for
this tent. A hole is cut in the center and the covering is slipped
over the supports and tied to the base of each pole. There will be
enough extra blanket to make a flap in the front of the tent to act as
a door. If there is a summer shower when the children are playing in
this blanket tent they may pull the flap tight shut, and just snuggle
inside, listening to the raindrops that do not soak through the blanket
covering one bit.
A second home-made tent has a foundation of bean poles or clothes poles
for supports. These are sunk in the ground and fastened together at
the top as were the saplings used for the blanket tent. The covering,
however, is of brown denim. Twelve yards will make a very good-sized
tent. The lengths are cut to fit the poles used as tent supports; they
are pointed at the top, and stitched together. Tape sewed at the top,
center, and base of each seam, on the inside, may be tied around the
poles and fasten the covering to the props. This tent may be decorated
in such a way that it will make a real patch of color on the lawn or
in the back yard, and will have the appearance of an Indian’s wigwam.
Red and green, or yellow denim is used for the decorations. Small
conventionalized trees, moons, stars, leaves, or any preferred designs
are cut from the colored cloth and stitched to the brown covering.
Another way of decorating the denim tent is to paint pictures on it
with stencil colors, using stencil patterns of Indians, animals, or
flowers. These colors are “fast” and the rain will not wash them off as
is apt to happen in the case of designs applied with colored cloth.
A flower tent is a new sort of playhouse and is quite delightful in
sunshiny weather. When it rains you can watch your tent grow from the
house windows. It will be wise to select a fence corner, where a row
of castor beans will sprout in a night almost to help form the back of
the tent. Between these castor plants, there may be some quick-growing
vine planted; mock orange, morning glory, or moon flower. As the seeds
sprout and the vines begin to grow, they should be twined upon strings
which extend up the fence and across the top between the two sides of
the fence, forming the tent roof. Before summer is over, this roof
will be a thick one as the vines increase their leaves and the leaves
themselves grow larger and more lavish of their shade. After a while
they will hang over the front of the tent helping to form a third side,
and when the tent bursts into blossom the children who live inside it
will feel almost as if they were in fairyland.
These tents all take time to make, but there are other home-made tents
that can spring up in a day in the garden. A very little boy can set up
grandfather’s big green umbrella for a tent and have a pleasant time
sitting under it. The handle can be buried a little way in the ground
and there will be plenty of room beneath its delightful green shade for
a boy and a picture book, or a little girl and her doll. To make this
umbrella tent still more snug and sheltering, grandmother’s shawl can
be draped around it, or a rug may be pinned to the edges to form the
back and walls.
Two boys who live next door to each other and are the friendliest of
neighbors can make a tent that they can share. The village carpenter
will furnish four stout pine posts a little taller than the fence
between the boys’ homes is high. Two of these posts are set up on one
side of the fence about eight feet from the fence itself, and two on
the other side in just the same position. The ticking cover of an old
feather bed may be cut down to the right size, and nailed to the posts
for a roof. A couple of old sails may be cut into straight curtains
for the sides of the tent, with strips of lath in the hem so that they
can be rolled up in pleasant weather. The tent is very cozy when it is
finished, and before the summer is over nearly every boy in town will
have been up to visit these boys in their little two-room tent.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN TOPS
Some toys don’t know how to play. They just stand still and wait for
a child to carry them around the garden or drag them by their strings
across the nursery floor. They have no proper play spirit, these lazy
toys, but that isn’t the case with a top. Given a fair chance, just a
fine, long string and a smooth sidewalk--why, a top will play with a
child all day long. It will twirl and whirl, never stopping to rest for
long, and singing all the time its quaint little humming song to keep
tune and time with its spinning.
You can buy a top for a penny at the toy shop, but it is just a plain,
ordinary sort of wooden top exactly like all the other tops. How
would you like to make your own tops? It will be the easiest task in
the world to do this, and a whole lot of fun, too. The materials for
home-made tops grow out of doors and are lying close at hand at home,
in the wood-shed, or in the cellar.
Sharpen your jack-knife, and you may start out top hunting, at once.
A beet makes a queer little top that will spin gayly for a day, and
if it breaks on the sidewalk or curbing, why you may pull up another
top from the beet patch in the garden. The picture shows you a beet
top that looks like a very own cousin to a wooden top because it is
just the same shape, and the same size. There should be a pointed peg
whittled from a scrap of soft kindling wood and stuck in the pointed
end of the beet. The beet top is then wound with a string that has a
small button mold or a little china button on the end and when you
throw it as you do an ordinary wooden peg top, it will spin finely.
A small turnip will make a top, too, if it has a whittled peg, and a
little radish makes a fine top, save that it is too small to be wound
up and should have a bit of toothpick stuck in opposite the peg to
twirl it by.
[Illustration: WHITTLED CLOWN TOP]
The woods as well as the garden are full of tops. Let us go out top
gathering under the nut trees some fine, frosty morning, taking the
heroic little jack-knife, too, to help finish the tops. Fat acorns
make splendid tops. A bit of twig should be whittled down to the right
size and stuck in the flat end of the acorn by which to spin it. Every
acorn has a fine point upon which to spin and a half dozen of these gay
little acorn tops may be set spinning at once by a group of children
in a top contest to see which will keep twirling longest. Horse
chestnuts may be used for tops, too, if a child selects the very round,
flat kind of nut. Horse chestnuts gathered when they first fall from
the tree are soft and easily bored with an awl or darning needle, or
the smallest blade of a jack-knife. A hole should be made exactly in
the center of the nut and a perfectly straight piece of twig inserted,
pointed at one end and extending a half inch above the horse chestnut
at the top to hold it by. Another way to make a horse chestnut top is
to cut the nut in half, crosswise, and insert halves of toothpicks in
each section, making two tops instead of one.
When the shut-in days come in the winter and it is too late to pick
your tops out in the garden or gather them in the woods, it will be
ever so much fun to see how many tops you can make of the materials
you are able to find at home. The wood that is used in a cigar box is
soft and easily whittled, and just one box will furnish material for
countless tops. The queer little circus clown in the picture spins
on the tips of his toes if a top string is wound about the long peg
protruding from the top of his head. He is not one bit difficult to
make. The outline of a clown in a picture book is drawn on a sheet of
tracing paper with a soft pencil and then transferred to a piece of
the soft wood. If a boy has a jig saw it will be very easy to cut the
little outlined clown in a jiffy, but it can be done in almost as short
a time with a sharp jack-knife. When the clown is cut, his features are
drawn in with charcoal or a soft pencil. If you spin him hard enough,
he will rise right up off the ground once in a while and then settle
down again and go on spinning. If a child has a book of brownies he can
make a brownie top in the same way that the clown top was made. The
brownie will spin on the tips of his little pointed toes.
The top in the picture that has a series of circles of different sizes
will be ever so easy to make. The circles, each a half inch smaller
than the one which is to be above it, are drawn on soft wood, and are
then cut out with a jack-knife. A hole is cut in the center of each
circle and they are fitted on a piece of wooden meat skewer, the point
of the meat skewer forming the spinning end of the top. With a box of
water color paints the circular disks of the tops are then painted in
gay contrasting colors and the effect will be charming when the little
top begins to spin.
[Illustration: (A) BEET TOP. (B) TOP MADE OF GRADUATED DISKS. (C)
BUTTON MOLD TOP.]
Button molds make tops. The big wooden molds that the tailor uses
for coats are best to make into tops. The hole in the center must be
enlarged to admit of a sharpened end of a meat skewer being inserted.
These button mold tops may be painted, too, and a splendid game can be
played with them on the nursery table. Two stakes may be set up--the
stakes from a parlor croquet set will do nicely--at the opposite ends
of the table. The boys playing the game then choose colors and spin
their button mold tops, whipping them with tiny whips made of meat
skewers and colored twine, and trying to see whose top will make the
distance between stakes first at the one spinning.
THE FARM THE SCISSORS BUILT
It will be almost as fine as a real farm when it is finished and ever
so much easier to make, because one will not need any boards, or tools,
or huge nails to use in putting it together.
What do you suppose the barn is made of? Why, just a big piece of heavy
wrapping paper that some one has brought to the house, and then has
dropped on the hall table to be thrown away because it does not seem to
be of any use now its wrapping days are over.
[Illustration: Folding for Barn.]
First, one should cut the heavy wrapping paper into a large square.
Then fold the square into sixteen small squares like the folding
indicated in the diagram. Some of the lines in the diagram are dotted.
Those show how the square is folded to make the little squares. Some
of the lines are solid, heavy lines. Those are the lines to be cut.
Make these cuts very carefully with scissors. There will be three cuts,
each one square long and one square apart on two opposite sides of
the paper. The two middle squares which are marked “a” in the diagram
should be superimposed. That is a very, very long word, is it not? It
means something very simple, though. These two squares are laid, one on
top of the other, and are glued into place. Next, the squares marked
“b” are brought together and their edges are glued. Then--one end of
the wrapping paper barn is finished. Glue the squares at the other
end of the barn in the same way, and cut a wide barn door. The door is
made by cutting on a vertical crease on one side of the house, making
two other cuts at right angles with the first one, and folding back the
two sides of the door at the opening. If you want a window where you
can toss hay up into the barn loft, it may be cut just above the door.
A boy who has seen the inside of a real barn will be able to cut some
strips of the heavy paper, and paste them together, fastening them to
the back wall of the barn to show where the cow and the horse stalls
are.
Some more strips of paper may be pasted together to form a barnyard
fence. The barn may stand on the nursery table with the fence all
around it, or an old suit box of mother’s will make a very fine
barnyard indeed. The sides of the box should be ruled with a pencil
to look like the bars in a real barnyard fence. Then you can cut the
bars with a jack-knife, or some sharp pointed scissors. When you have
finished the suit-box barnyard, the barn may stand in one corner of it.
Now you are ready to cut some animals to live in the barn.
The pictures in your animal picture books will make splendid patterns
for the barnyard animals. Trace the animals with some tissue paper
and then transfer these patterns to some stiff paper. When you have
cut carefully on the traced outline, you may paste the animal’s feet
to cardboard standards to make them stand up. There may be cows, and
horses, and a donkey, and a whole flock of barnyard fowls. Then you may
color the barn creatures with your water color paints or with colored
pencils.
[Illustration: Finished Barn.]
You can make a fine, large farm wagon, also, to stand beside the barn.
To make the wagon, you should fold a small square of paper as you
folded the large one for the barn. Instead of using the whole square,
though, as you did for the barn, you must cut off a strip of four
squares. Then make the short cuts as you did for the barn in the
ends of the oblong piece of paper. Lay the three square laps which you
have made by the cutting together, and paste them--one on top of the
other. Cut out some wheels and fasten them to the cart. Glue on some
cardboard or sticks for shafts, and the farm wagon is done.
[Illustration: CART, BARN AND BARROW, MADE OF CARDBOARD BOXES]
If you want a wheelbarrow in the barnyard, you may cut one of mother’s
old spool boxes in half. The edges where you made the cut should be
curved. A wheel made of an empty spool, or a cardboard disk may be
fastened to one end with a pin, and some cardboard legs may be glued to
the wheelbarrow.
When the paper farm is complete, you must harness the donkey to the
wagon, and set him to work. Cut out some of the gay pictures of fruit
and vegetables that fill the seed catalogues, and load the wagon.
Fill the wheelbarrow, too. Cut out some paper overall boys to visit the
farm and spend the summer. There is no end to the plays that the paper
farm will suggest to you.
MORE BOX PLAYS
One of father’s empty note paper boxes, a starch box, a box that held
spools of thread once--one, or all of these will furnish delightful
play material for an afternoon in the house. A box has not finished its
usefulness when its contents are gone. It is strong and tough often
still, and ready for all kinds of fun.
Some cardboard boxes, large and small, will make the toy farm
establishment shown in the picture. A box that once was filled with
writing paper serves for the barn. The box stands on one side, leaving
the entire front open that toy animals can be put in and taken out with
greater ease than if there were a door. The long edge of the box cover
is cut to fit the box, inserted and glued in place to form the front
of the stalls which hold the toy animals. Shorter lengths of the cover
edge are fitted in between the back of the box and this front partition
to separate the stalls and are also glued in place. When these are in,
a door can be cut. The stalls must be furnished with little grain
boxes for the play horses to eat from; and this is the way to make them.
Measure with a school ruler and cut out a four-inch square of heavy
wrapping paper. Lay the paper on a table in front of you and fold,
first, the front edge up to the back, and then the front and back edges
down to meet the center fold. Now turn the paper around, repeating the
folding until there are sixteen squares. Cut off a row of four squares,
leaving an oblong piece of paper that contains twelve squares. Make two
cuts in the opposite narrow ends of the paper, one square long and one
square apart. Fold up these squares and paste them, one on top of the
other, forming a little oblong box. One of these boxes pasted to the
back of each stall looks just like a grain trough, and may be filled
with oats, if a country boy is making the farm, for the little horse to
eat.
Some of the wrapping paper that remains after the grain boxes are
finished makes the roof of the barn. Cut a strip as wide as the barn is
deep and once and a half as long. Fold it once through the center and,
at the ends, fold down flaps by means of which the roof can be glued to
the top of the box forming a hay loft. When spring comes you can cut
grass blades with a pair of gardener’s shears, dry them in the sun,
and fill the loft of this little box barn with real, play hay.
[Illustration: CIRCUS PARADE (THE CAGE IS MADE OF A SHOE BOX)]
A box in which the apothecary packs his powders makes the little farm
cart in the picture, and another one the wheelbarrow. No cutting is
necessary for the cart, but some of the cardboard left in the cover
of the note paper box can be used for wheels. A fifty-cent bit is
the right size for the wheels. Lay one on the cardboard, and draw
carefully around it with a pencil, cutting four of these wheels with
a pair of sharp scissors. Brass paper fasteners will make strong hubs
for the little wheels. Pierce a hole through both wheel and box before
inserting the fastener, though, to help the wheel to turn. A strip of
the box cover glued to the front of the cart serves for the handle.
The wheelbarrow is just a little more difficult to make than these
other toys, but not too great a task for a child with clever fingers.
A section that is about one third of the entire length is measured and
cut off the second small box, and thrown away. It is the remaining
two-thirds of the box that is to make the wheelbarrow. The front, open
edges of the box are now curved like the sides of a real wheelbarrow.
Two narrow strips of the cover, or two small sticks are glued to
the front of the wheelbarrow for handles, and two shorter lengths of
cardboard or two very tiny sticks form the legs. Another cardboard
circle cut the same size as those used for the cart wheels is inserted
by means of a knife cut in the back of the barrow and helps it to
trundle along.
The box-built cart and wheelbarrow will be found most useful in the
spring. They can be loaded with little green apples, tiny brown pebbles
that look like toy potatoes, corn kernels, or peas. They will be strong
enough to last a whole season and help to carry fodder to the horse who
lives in the box barn.
There is still more box fun. Ask mother for an empty cardboard starch
box, the strong kind covered with blue paper, and see what a fine
little toy garage it will make. Almost every child has a toy automobile
given him for Christmas, but it is so apt to go steering away with its
own gasoline, and losing itself somewhere in the house if a child has
no special place in which to keep it.
Take the cover of the box and turn the box itself bottom side up. On
one side, right in the center, draw a big square. The lower part of
the square should come on the very outside edge of the box because
this square is to be the garage door. The door should be made in two
parts, so as to open very wide and admit the automobile when it comes
steaming along in a great hurry. To make this double door, draw a
perpendicular line that divides the square into two parts. Then, with a
pair of sharp scissors cut right up this line to the top of the square.
Next, cut along the top line to the right and left of the middle line.
Folding back the two halves that have just been cut, out toward the
outside of the box, makes two little doors and opens the front of the
garage. Square windows can be cut in the sides of the box, as many as
one wishes.
A number of empty thread boxes will make a splendid train of cars,
strong enough to drag a whole family of china dolls or a load of live
stock up and down the piazza or along the garden path. Cardboard
circles cut from the covers of the thread boxes and of the same size
as those used for the wheels of the toy cart make the car wheels. They
are fastened on, either in similar fashion to the cart wheels by means
of paper fasteners, or a bone collar button may be pushed through
cart and wheel, helping the wheels to revolve more easily. One of the
thread boxes has the cover glued on, and to the top is glued also one
large wooden spool for the engine’s smoke stack, and a block for the
engineer’s cab. These little box cars are coupled together by short
lengths of braided cord. Holes are punched in the ends of the cars with
an awl and the cord is pushed through and knotted at each end to hold
it in place. A long piece of cord is fastened to the engine and is used
to draw the cars by.
There is no end to the entertainment and fun to be had from a pile of
empty boxes. Just get to work at a few of them your next free afternoon
and find out how much they are able to help you in your play.
[Illustration: (A) THE ARK (B) CARDBOARD ANIMALS WHO LIVE IN THE ARK]
A RECIPE FOR A NOAH’S ARK
It isn’t a very difficult recipe to follow. All the stirring you need
to do will be when you mix up some flour and a little water to make the
paste. That is the first ingredient. Next in the recipe comes a pair
of sharp scissors and a pencil. After that you must find some sheets
of heavy paper, and the old animal picture books that you thought you
could not enjoy any longer because the leaves were coming apart and the
pictures were torn. Spread out all these things on the nursery table,
and you will be ready to begin the Noah’s Ark.
The Ark itself is to be a big, strong envelope for holding all the wild
animals, and this is how you must make it. One of the sheets of heavy
paper should be folded in half. The folded edge forms the bottom of the
envelope. Beginning with this folded edge, the outline of the Ark is
drawn on the paper with your pencil. It is a simple outline to draw--a
big boat with curved ends, and a sort of house resting on the top.
Then, holding the folded edge tightly so that the paper will not slip,
cut out the Ark. The ends of the Ark should be bound or glued, but the
top is left open that the animals may be put in.
Windows and a door are cut in the Ark for the animals will want to look
out as they sail away on their wonderful voyage, and the Ark may be
painted bright red with green trimmings.