Chapter VI: Preface (6)

I also made two acting companies, one of big animals, and one
for the children, with a boar-hound called Sir Philip of
Ravenswood for the manager of the first, and a little black
and white kid, named Tim, for manager of the second, and at
the Christmas of the same year that I formed the two
companies I had two plays, the children acting "Hansel and
Gretel," and the big animals "The Yeomen of the Guard."

Being now unable to get any fresh families of small animals,
I started a collection of big china animals, and soon had
thirty-five, among whom were a Jersey bull and cow, another
brown bull and a brown and white cow, two beautiful horses,
several dogs, two donkeys, and two goats.

These I kept apart from the small animals, in another
cupboard; but I still kept the lion king over them as well,
and gave them two big animals, a bloodhound and a St.
Bernard, as governors over them.

Among the small animals I had a very learned-looking pig
called Orsino, whom I made doctor, while an old bulldog,
Dimboona, to whom I had been obliged to give two wooden legs,
was Prime Minister. I also had a treasurer, a rent collector,
a steward, and an under-steward. I also made a young
boar-hound, called Panther, the son of Sir Philip, keeper of
the stables, which consisted of ninety-two horses which I had
made.

And this brings the narrative of the growth of my china
animal collection up to the present time, when I have 555
small animals and 35 big ones, 590 in all.

AT THE SEASIDE

Low Tide

The first thing to do on reaching the seaside is to find out when it is low tide. In each twelve hours low tide comes twenty minutes later, and knowing this you can arrange your days accordingly. Nothing is so saddening as to run down the beach in the belief that the tide is going out and to find that it is coming in.

Paddling

To boys who wear knickerbockers the preparations for paddling are very simple; but girls are not so fortunate. Lewis Carroll (who wrote _Alice in Wonderland_) took their difficulties so seriously that whenever he went to the seaside to stay he used to have with him a packet of safety-pins for the use of any children that seemed to be in need of them. This piece of thoughtfulness on his part might determine you to carry them for yourselves.

A Cork Ship

Sailing a good boat in the sea is not the best fun, but there is a kind of boat which is very easily made as you sit on the beach, and which is useful to play with when wading, and afterward to throw stones at. You take a piece of cork for the hull. Cut a line down the middle underneath and wedge a strip of slate in for a keel to keep her steady. Fix a piece of driftwood for a mast, and thread a piece of paper on that for a sail.

Wet Clothes

When wading it is just as well not to get your clothes wet if you can help it. Clothes that are made wet with seawater, which probably has a little sand in it, are as uncomfortable as crumbs in bed. There is no reason why you should get them wet if you wade wisely. Sitting among the rocks, running through the water, and jumping the little crisping waves are the best ways to get soaked.

Rocks

Seaside places where there are rocks and a great stretch of sand are the best. Rocks make paddling twice as exciting, because of the interesting things in the little pools--the anemones, and seaweeds, and shells, and crabs, and shrimps, and perhaps little fish. Sometimes these pools are quite hot. To enjoy the rocks properly you want a net.

Sand Castles, and Other Sand Games

To make full use of the sands a spade is necessary and a pail important. The favorite thing to make is a castle and a moat, and although the water rarely is willing to stay in the moat it is well to pour some in. The castle may also have a wall round it and all kinds of other buildings within the wall. Abbeys are also made, and great houses with carefully arranged gardens, and villages, and churches. Railways with towns and stations here and there along the line are easily made, and there is the fun of being the train when the line is finished. The train is a good thing to be, because the same person is usually engineer and conductor as well. Collisions are interesting now and then. The disadvantage of a railway on crowded sands is that passers-by injure the line and sometimes destroy, by a movement of the foot, a whole terminus; it is therefore better at small watering-places that few people have yet discovered. If an active game is wanted as well as mere digging and building, a sand fort is the best thing to make, because then it has to be held and besieged, and perhaps captured. In all sand operations stones are useful to mark boundaries.

Burying one another in the sand is good at the time, but gritty afterward.

Seaweed

Seaweed and shells make good collections, but there is no use in carrying live fish home in pails. The fun is in catching the fish, not is keeping it; and some landladies dislike having the bath-room used as an aquarium. On wet days seaweed can be stuck on cards or in a book. The best way to get it to spread out and not crease on a card, is to float the little pieces in a basin and slip the card underneath them in the water. When the seaweed has settled on it, take the card out and leave it to dry. The seaweed will then be found to be stuck, except perhaps in places here and there, which can be made sure by inserting a little touch of gum. It is the smaller, colored kinds of seaweed that one treats in this way; and it is well to leave them for a day in the sun before washing and preparing, as this brings out their color. The ordinary large kind of seaweed is useful as a barometer. A piece hung by the door will tell when rain is coming by growing moist and soft.

Shell Work

A good use for little shells is to cover small boxes with them. The shells are arranged in a simple pattern and fastened on with glue. If the shells are not empty and clean, boil them, and scrub them with an old tooth-brush.

Good Seaside Friends

So many interesting things are to be seen at the seaside that there is no need to be always at play. Fishermen will come in with their boats, which need pulling up; or a net that has been dropped near the shore will be drawn in from the beach, and you can perhaps help. If the town is not merely a watering-place but also a seaport, it is, of course, better, because then there will be the life of the harbor to watch. To be friends with a lighthouse man is almost as good a thing as can happen; and if there is both a lighthouse and a shipbuilder's you could hardly be more fortunate.

IN THE COUNTRY

This chapter has been written more for readers who live in a town and visit the country only during the holidays than for those whose home is always there. Regular country dwellers do not need to be told many of the things that follow; but none the less there may be a few to find them useful. The principal special attractions of the country are--

In the spring Birds' nests.
" June Bee-swarming and hay-making.
" July Sheep-washing and shearing.
" August Early windfalls and harvest.
" September Blackberries, nuts, hops, mushrooms, and squirrels.

Making Friends

The most important thing to do when staying at a farmhouse is to make friends with the principal people. The principal people are those in charge of the chickens and ducks, the cows and the horses. The way to make friends is to be as little trouble as possible.

Exploration

On reaching the farm, it is well to make a journey of discovery, in order to learn where everything is. The more one knows about the things in store--the size of the barn, the height of the haystacks, the number of horses, the name of the watch-dog, the position and character of the pond, and so forth--the simpler will it be, on going to bed, to make plans for the visit.

Finding Hens' Eggs

The farmer's wife usually has charge of the chickens and ducks, but very often it is her daughter or a servant. No matter who it is, as soon as she is convinced that you will be careful and thorough she will let you hunt for eggs. This is very exciting, because hens have a way of laying in nests in the wood and all kinds of odd places, hoping that no one will find them and they will thus be able to sit and hatch out their chickens. The hay in the stable is a favorite spot, and under the wood-pile, and among the long grass. Sometimes one overlooks a nest for nearly a week and then finds three or four eggs in it, one of them quite warm. This is a great discovery. Just at first it is easy to be taken in by the china nest-eggs, and to run indoors in triumph with one in your hand. But the farmer's wife will laugh and send you back with it, and the mistake is not likely to be made again. After a while one gets to know the hens personally, and to know the noise which means that they have just laid. Sometimes, if a hen is going to lay just as you come to her nest, she will run off clucking and screaming and lay the egg on the ground.

Ducks' Eggs

Ducks' eggs, which are rather larger than hens' eggs, and pale green in color, are often more difficult to find. They have to be hunted for in the grass by the pond.

Feeding the Chickens

The farmer's wife also lets her visitors feed the chickens if they are gentle with them and thoughtful. It needs quite a little thought, because if you throw down the grain without thinking, many of the weaker and less greedy ones will get nothing, and many of the stronger and greedier ones will get too much. After a few handfuls you can see which are the weaklings, and after that you can favor them accordingly. A greedy hen is so very greedy that she will always, whatever you do, get more than her share; but it is possible to snub her a little. The very little chickens and ducklings do not have grain, but soft food, which is put in a saucer and placed inside the coop. It is after they have finished eating that they can most easily be picked up, but one must be very careful not to squeeze them.

The Dairy

If the farmer's wife makes her own butter there will be an opportunity to help her. Perhaps she will let you use the skimmer. Turning the churn is not much fun except just when the butter forms.

Bee-Swarming

Bees swarm on hot days in the early summer, usually in a tree, but sometimes in a room, if the window is open, and often in a bush, quite close to the ground. When they swarm in a tree you would think a black snow-storm was raging all around it. Every moment the cluster of bees grows larger and larger, until, after half an hour or so, it is quiet. Then the swarm has to be taken. This is the most interesting part, but you must be careful not to be too near in case an accident occurs and the bees become enraged and sting you.

If the farmer has the new wooden hives with a glass covering he will very likely let you peep in and see the bees at work. Before doing this you certainly ought to read something about their exceedingly wonderful ways. One of the best books is Sir John Lubbock's (Lord Avebury's) _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_, but most encyclopaedias contain very interesting articles on the subject.

The Cows

The man who looks after the cows is a very valuable friend. He may even let you try to milk, which only specially gifted children ever succeed in doing at all well; and he will teach you the cows' names (in some farms these are painted up over each stall--Primrose, Lightfoot, Sweetlips, Clover, and so on); and perhaps he will give you the task of fetching them from the meadow at milking time.

Sheep

In a general way sheep are not very interesting, especially in low-lying farms. But though sheep, as a rule, are dull, there are two occasions when they are not--at sheep-washing and sheep-shearing. The washers stand up to their knees, or even their waists, in the brook, in oilskin clothes, and seizing the struggling sheep one by one by the wool, plunge them into the water. Shearing is a finer art; but the sheep is hardly less uncomfortable. He has to be thrown into various positions (on his back for one, and with his head between the shearer's knees for another), while the shears clip-clop all over him. The wool is not taken off in scraps, as our hair is at the barber's, but the whole fleece is removed in one huge piece.

The Blacksmith

It may be that while you are at the farm the day will come for having the horses shod, and you may go with them to the blacksmith. The blacksmith is of course a very important person to be friends with; and people are very fortunate if their lodgings in the country are close to a smithy. Some blacksmiths permit their friends to stand right inside the smithy, instead of just at the door, where strangers have to stay. Perhaps the blacksmith will ask you to blow his bellows while he is making a horseshoe, and it may happen that if he has not much work on hand he will make you a hoop that will be far cheaper and stronger than a bought one (see p. 169). In hot weather the flies are so troublesome to horses which are being shod, and make them so restless, that some one has to stand beside them and brush the flies away with a green branch. This job might fall to you.

Birds'-Nesting

One of the advantages of being in the country in spring is that that is the time when birds build. In May the weather is not yet sufficiently warm to make sitting about out-of-doors very comfortable, but birds'-nesting can make up for that. It is of no use to say in this book, "Don't take the eggs," because it is possible only for one person here and there to be satisfied with merely finding a nest and then passing on to find another. But it is a pity for any one who is not a serious collector to take more than one egg. For your purposes one is enough, and the loss of a single egg rarely causes a bird to desert her nest. Of course if you know for certain that the nest is deserted, it is right to take all. You can find out by visiting it two or three times, and if the eggs remain cold or wet and there is no sign of the bird you may safely feel that she has abandoned them. Birds have so many natural enemies to fear that it is hard that we should harm them too.

Blowing Eggs

For blowing eggs a brass or glass blow-pipe is the proper thing, using only one hole, which is made at the side with a little drill. But for your purpose a hole at each end made with a pin is simpler and equally good. In blowing you must be careful not to hold the egg so tightly in the fingers that its sides crush in. Before making the holes it is well to put the egg in a basin of water. If it sinks it is fresh and can be blown easily; but if it floats it is set--that is to say, the young bird has begun to form--and blowing will be difficult. In such cases it is wise, if you are using a blow-pipe, to make a largish hole and put a little water in and leave the egg to lie for a day or so; then blowing it will be not much trouble. But if you have no blow-pipe the best thing to do is to make one good-sized hole in the less interesting side of the egg, and empty it with a bent pin. Then, when it is empty, you can put it in the egg box with the broken side underneath. Country boys often thread birds' eggs on a string which hangs from the ceiling, but the ordinary way is to put them in cotton-wool in a box with cardboard compartments. Making this box is a good country occupation for wet weather.

Butterflies

Butterfly-hunting begins when birds'-nesting is done and the weather is hot. Here again it is not the purpose of this book to go into particulars: the subject is too large. It is enough to say that the needful things are a large net of soft green gauze, a killing-bottle with a glass stopper, a cork-lined box with a supply of pins in which to carry the butterflies after they are dead, and setting boards for use at home. The good collector is very careful in transferring the butterfly from the net to the bottle, lest its wings are rubbed or broken; and before taking it out of the bottle and putting it in the box you should be quite certain that it is dead. The way to get the butterfly into the bottle is to drive it into a corner of the net and hold it there, and then slip the bottle inside, remove the stopper, and shake the butterfly into it. The stopper should be off as short a time as possible. For handbooks for a butterfly collector see the "Reading" section.

Collecting Flowers

A quieter pastime, but a very interesting one, and also one that, unlike egg-collecting and butterfly-collecting, goes on all the year round, is collecting flowers. For this purpose tin cases are made, with straps to hold them from the shoulders, in which to keep the plants cool and fresh; but there is no need to wait for the possession of one of these. An ordinary box or basket will, if you have not very far to walk, serve equally well. You will also need a press, which can be simply a couple of boards about a foot long and six inches wide, with a good supply of blotting-paper between. The flowers are pressed by spreading them very carefully, to show their beauty to best advantage, between the blotting-paper, and then piling a few books on the boards. The weight need not be very heavy and the blotting-paper should frequently be renewed. You will soon learn how long the pressing need continue, but it is of the highest importance that the flowers are thoroughly dried before you mount them in your album or on separate sheets of paper. The simplest form of mounting is to glue little strips of paper here and there across the stems. A botanical collection is more valuable if the roots of the plants are also included; and this will make it necessary for you to have a long trowel. For the collector of flowers a handbook is compulsory. Such a book as Alice Lounsberry's _The Wild Flower Book for Young People_ gives many details of the growth and nature of plants, told with a story that makes the book unusually interesting, and will arouse your enthusiasm to gather wild flowers and see how large a collection of them you can make.

It is interesting, if you have any skill in painting, to make water-color copies of all the flowers that you find; another good occupation for wet days in the country.

Nuts and Blackberries

In nutting you want a hooked stick with which to pull down the branches. For blackberries a hooked stick is not so important, but it is well to have leather gloves. The blackberries ought to be dry when they are picked. Rain takes their flavor away; so you should wait until the sun comes again and restores it. One thing that you quickly notice is that all blackberries are not after the same pattern. There are different kinds, just as there are different kinds of strawberry and raspberry. Some are hard and very closely built; some are loosely built, with large cells which squash between the fingers; some come between these two varieties; and there are still others. For eating on the spot the softer ones are the best, but for cooking and for jam the harder ones are equally good.

In picking blackberries you soon find that it is better to have the sun at your back, because if it shines through the bush into your eyes you cannot distinguish clearly between the shades of blackness. An open basket full of blackberries is a radiant sight. Each of the little cells has a point of light, and thousands of these together are as gay as jewels.

No one need starve on the open road in September, for there is food on every hedge--two good courses. Nuts are there as the standby, the backbone of the meal, and after come blackberries, as pudding or dessert. To pick the two for an hour, and then, resting beneath a tree, to eat until all are gone--that is no bad way to have lunch. If you take advice in this matter, you will not crack the nuts with your teeth but between stones.

Ponds and Sailing Boats

Near the farm is certain to be either a pond or a stream. If it is a clean and high pond, not in a hollow surrounded by trees, it will be good to sail boats on. Sailing boats on inland water is much better than on the sea, because, with a pond, directly the boat is fairly started on its voyage you can run round the other side and meet it. Even with a very poor pond it is still possible to have a very good time. In buying or making a boat, be sure that the lead along the keel is heavy enough. So little do toy-shop people think of these things that they very often put no lead at all on their boats, and more often than not put too little. Once a boat is properly weighted in this way you are certain to have fun in sailing her, but otherwise it will be useless to try. In boat-sailing it is well to have a long stick with a hook at the end with which to draw the ship to land. For suggestions as to making a useful and simple sailing-boat see p. 295.

Little Boats on a Stream

Sailing boats in a stream is little good, because there is no steadiness of wind, but ordinary boats will float along in the current splendidly. It is interesting to launch one and follow its adventures from the bank. Sometimes it will be caught in a weed; sometimes an eddy will sweep it into a back water; sometimes, in shooting the rapids, it will be overturned. But a long stick can always put things right. Or one of you will go down the stream to a given point and the other will send down messengers--pieces of wood, walnut boats (see p. 298), paper boats (see p. 285), or whatever it may be.

A Stream's Fascination

But there is no absolute need for you to have boats in order to enjoy a stream. There are so many other things to do, not the least interesting being to make a dam and stop or divert the course of the water. And when tired of playing it is very good to sit quite still on the bank and watch things happening: perhaps a water-rat will swim along suspecting nothing, and then, seeing you make a movement, will dive and disappear, and suddenly come into view ever so far away on the other bank. Perhaps a kingfisher will flash by or settle on a branch overhanging the water. Kingfishers grow more rare every year, owing to the merciless and unthinking zeal with which they are shot; and maybe before long there will be no more to be seen anywhere.

Solitary Watchfulness

Indeed, to keep absolutely quiet and watch things happening is for many people one of the most delightful occupations which the country holds. When there is no one else to play with it is as good a way of spending the time as can be found.

Mice and Moles

In a wood or in any place where there are old leaves, as in a dry ditch, you will usually get through the ear the first tidings of any moving thing. For instance, you will hear a field-mouse rustling long before you can see its queer pointed nose pushing its way through the dead leaves. Or it may be a mole blundering blindly along. If by any chance a mole is caught in a trap while you are in the country, be sure to examine its little hands and feel the softness of its fur. Perhaps the farm boy will skin it for you.

Snakes

Sometimes the rustling is a snake on his way to a sunny spot where he can bask and sleep. Very slender brown speckled snakes, or blind-worms, are quite harmless, and so are the large grass-snakes, which are something like a mackerel in lines and markings. The adder, however, which is yellowish brown in color with brown markings and a "V" on his head, is dangerous and should be avoided.

Ants

On p. 205 is given the title of a book about bees. Hardly less wonderful are ants, concerning whom there is much curious information in the same work, the reading of which makes it ten times more interesting to watch an ant-hill than it was before. One sometimes has to remember that it is as serious for ants to have their camp stirred up by a walking-stick as it would be for New York if Vesuvius were tossed on top of it.

Swallows and Hawks

In the flight of birds there is nothing to compare for beauty and speed with the swift, or for power and cleverness with the hawk. On moist evenings, when the swifts fly low and level, backward and forward, with a quaint little musical squeak, like a mouse's, they remind one of fish that dart through the water of clear streams under bridges. The hawk, even in a high wind, can remain, by tilting his body at the needed angle, perfectly still in the air, while his steady wide eyes search the ground far below him for mice or little birds. Then, when he sees something, his body suddenly seems to be made of lead and he drops like a stone on his prey. A hawk can climb the sky by leaning with outspread wings against the breeze and cork-screwing up in a beautiful spiral.

Squirrels

The time to see squirrels is September and October, when the beech nuts and hazel nuts are ripe. In the pictures he sits up, with his tail resting on his back, holding nuts in his little forepaws; but one does not often see him like this in real life. He is either scampering over the ground with his tail spread out behind him or chattering among the branches and scrambling from one to another. The squirrel is not seen at his best when he goes nutting. His beautiful swift movements are checked by the thickness of the hazels. In a beech grove he has more liberty to run and leap. Sometimes you will see twenty at once all nibbling the beech nuts on the ground. On hearing you they make for a tree trunk, and, rushing up it for a yard or two, stop suddenly, absolutely still, with fearful eyes, and ears intently and intensely cocked. If you stand equally still the squirrel will stay there, motionless, like a piece of the tree, for a minute or so, and then, in a very bad temper, disappear from view on the other side of the trunk, and probably, though you run round the tree quickly several times and search every branch with your eyes, never come into sight again. It is a good thing to sit under a tree some distance from the beech trees, making as little movement as possible; and by and by you will cease to be considered as anything but a regular part of the landscape and the squirrels may come quite close to you.

A Country Diary

If you are fond of writing you might find a good deal of interest in keeping a country diary: that is to say, a small note-book in which you set down evening by evening all things seen during the day that seemed to be sufficiently out of the way to be worth recording.

A Camera in the Country

Nothing is said in this book about amateur photography, because to own a camera is still the exception rather than the rule, and if once we began to say anything practical about photography we should have to say very much more than the scheme of the volume permits. But we might urge any reader who has a camera to use it in the country in taking pictures of animal life and old buildings. Old-fashioned farmhouses and cottages are disappearing so rapidly that we ought to keep as many records of them as possible, and well-chosen photographs of animals are not only beautiful pictures, but are also very useful. Mr. Kearton's work in this way, which may be studied in _With Nature and a Camera_, is extremely valuable.

Country Books

In the "Reading" chapter will be found the titles of several books which describe life in the country, and tell you all about the habits of animals, birds, and insects.

DOLLS' HOUSES

The most magnificent ready-made dolls' house in the world, with gables and windows, stairs, front garden, and the best furniture, cannot quite make up to its owner for all the delight she has missed by not making it herself. Of course some things, such as cups and saucers, glasses and bottles, saucepans and kitchen utensils, must be bought; but almost all the really necessary things for house-keeping can be made at home.

Dolls' Gardens

One advantage of making the dolls' house yourself is that you can arrange for it to have a garden, a provision rarely made by toy-shops. Grass plots can be made of green baize or other cloth of the right color; garden paths of sand sprinkled over glue, or of strips of sand-paper; flower-beds of brown paper, and the flowers of tissue-paper and wire. A summer-house, and a dog-kennel to hold a china dog, might also be added (see p. 241), and, if you have room, stables.

Garden Chairs and Tables

Garden seats and tables can be made of cardboard and cork. For a seat, take a card two or three inches long and not quite as broad. Mark it right across, lengthwise, in the middle with a sharp knife, and then half fold it. This will make the back and seat. Glue the seat to four slender corks for legs and paint the whole green. To make a table, glue four cork legs to a strong piece of cardboard.

The House

A dolls' house can be made of almost any kind of box. For the simplest and smallest kind cigar boxes can be used and the furniture made of cork, for which directions are given later; or a couple of low shelves in a bookcase or cupboard will do. Much better, however, is a large well-made packing-case divided by wooden and strong cardboard partitions into two, four, or six rooms, according to its size. A specially made box is, of course, best of all; this should be divided into four or six rooms, and should have a sloping roof to give attic room for boxes and odd furniture. The house can be stained outside or papered a plain dark color. One or two windows should be cut out of the walls of each room by the carpenter who made the box, and there must be doors between the rooms. A piece of thin glass cut to the right size can be fixed on the windows at home. But before this is done the house must be papered. The best kind of paper is that used by bookbinders for the insides of the covers, because the patterns used are so dainty and small; but this is not always easy to get. Any small-patterned paper will do, or what is called lining paper, which can be got in every color. The paper must be very smoothly put on with paste. Always start at the top when pressing it to the wall, and smooth it downward gently. Dadoes or friezes can be divided off with the tiny beading which frame-makers use, or with a painted line, which must be straight and evenly done.

Fireplaces

Fireplaces, which can be bought or made at home, should be put in next. To make one yourself, take a strong cardboard-box lid about four inches long and two wide (though the size must depend on the size of the room). Very neatly cut off a quarter of it. This smaller part, covered with gold or silver paper, will make the fender. Then cut off both sides of the remaining piece, leaving the strip at the top to form the mantelpiece. Glue the back of the cover to the wall, hang little curtains from the shelf, put some ornaments on it, arrange the fender in front, and the fireplace is complete. A grate can be imitated in cardboard painted black and red.

A Furnishing Game

A splendid game of shop can be played while the furnishing is going on: in fact, from the moment you have the bare house a board or sign with "_To Let or For Sale_" will quickly attract house-hunting dolls, and when a couple have taken it they will have their days full of shopping before it is ready for them. You will, of course, yourself be the manufacturers and shopkeepers. It is well to make out careful bills for everything sold, and the more things you can display in your show-rooms the better. All house-hunting dolls require plenty of money.

Curtains

Windows have been mentioned, but they are not by any means a necessity. Yet even if you cannot have windows, you should put up curtains, for they make the rooms prettier. Shades can be made of linen, edged at the bottom with a piece of lace, and nailed on the wall just above the window. During the day these are rolled up and tied. White curtains should be bordered with lace and run on a piece of tape, which can be nailed or pinned on both sides of the window. They will then draw. The heavy inside curtains can be hung on a pencil (which may be gilded or left its own color) supported by two picture screws. Fasten these curtains back with narrow ribbons. Some dolls' houses, of course, are fitted with real doors. But if you do not have these, it is perhaps well to hang the doorway with curtains, also on pencils.

Floors

The floors can be stained or painted either all over or round the edges. Carpets are better not made of ordinary carpet, for it is much too thick, but of colored canvas, or chintz, or thin felt, or serge. A rug made of a plain colored material with a cross-stitch or embroidered pattern around it is very pretty. Fine matting can also be used, and oil-cloth is excellent for the kitchen.

General Remarks on Furnishing

In another place in this book (pp. 228-233) will be found instructions for making furniture for very small and simple dolls' houses; but for a good dolls' house with several good-sized rooms you would probably prefer, for the most part, to use bought things. Square tables are of course easy to make (a cardboard-box lid on four legs is practically the whole thing), and there are other articles which, if you see your way to devise, are better made at home, instructions for which will be found as you read on; but chairs and round tables and so forth are perhaps most satisfactory when they come from the toy-shop. Both in buying furniture and in making it, it is necessary always to remember the size of the rooms and of the dolls, and the size of whatever furniture you may already have, so as to keep everything in proportion.

Beds

Beds can be made of cardboard-boxes of different sizes. The box turned upside down makes the bed itself, and the cover should be fixed upright behind it for curtains to hang from. These curtains and the frill round the bed should be made of any thin material, such as muslin. The mattress, bolster, and pillows are best made of cotton-wool covered with muslin or calico. Sheets may be made also out of muslin; pillow-cases should be edged with lace; for blankets you use flannel, button-hole-stitched round with colored silk or wool, and the quilt will look best if made of a dainty piece of silk, or muslin over a colored sateen to match the curtains. A tiny nightdress case should not be forgotten. Beds for doll children can be made in the same way out of match-boxes; and for cozy little cots for babies there are walnut shells.

Bead Furniture

Chairs can be made with wire, beads, a little silk or cotton material, some cardboard and cotton-wool. To make a chair in this way, cut a piece of cardboard the size that you want the seat to be. Lay a good wad of cotton-wool over it, and then cover it neatly. On a piece of strong wire thread enough beads to go round the seat of the chair. Sew this firmly to the seat. Then thread beads on four pieces of wire the right length for the legs, and leave a little piece of wire with which to fasten them to the wire round the seat. Then make the back from a longer piece of wire, bent into shape and attached to the seat in the same way, and put a short row of beads across the middle. You will need a pair of tweezers to cut the wire and to finish the fastening securely.

Pictures

Pictures for the walls can be made very easily. The picture itself will be a scrap or tiny photograph. This is pasted on a piece of cardboard larger than itself, and round the edge of that you place a strip of whatever colored paper you want for the frame. The picture cord, a piece of cotton, can be glued on the back. More elaborate frames are cut out of cardboard and bound round with colored silk and covered with gold paint. The picture is then stuck into it.

Bookshelves and Books

The simplest bookshelves are those that hang from a nail on the wall. They are made by cutting two or three strips of cardboard of the size of the shelves and boring holes at the corners of each. These are then threaded one by one on four lengths of silk or fine string, knots being tied to keep the shelves the right distance apart. Care has to be taken to get the knots exactly even, or the shelf will be crooked.

Books can be made by sewing together a number of tiny sheets of paper, with a colored cover and a real or invented title. Sometimes these books contain real stories.

Other Articles

A dolls' house ought to be as complete as possible, and though this will take a long time it is absorbingly interesting work from start to finish. It should be the ambition of the mistress of a dolls' house to have it as well furnished as the house of a grown-up person, and if she looks round the rooms in her own home carefully she will see how many things can be copied. There will be cushions to make, fancy table-cloths for different tables, toilet-covers and towels for the bedroom, splashers to go behind wash-stands, mats in front of them, and roll-towels and kitchen cloths for the kitchen.

Everything should be made of the thinnest and finest material, cut with the greatest care and sewn with the tiniest stitches. Light and dainty colors are best for a dolls' house. If you have several rooms, it is a good plan to have a pink room, a blue room, a yellow room, and in each room to have everything of different shades of that color and white. Perhaps no material is so useful to the owner of a dolls' house as art muslin. It is soft, cheap, and very pretty.

Coming to other furniture which can be made at home, we find screens (made of cardboard and scraps), music for the piano, walking-sticks, flowers (made of colored tissue-paper and wire), flower-pots (made of corks covered with red paper), cupboards to keep linen and glass in (made out of small cardboard boxes, fitted with shelves), and many other little things which, if you look round your own home carefully, will be suggested to you. Even bicycles can be imitated in cardboard and placed in the hall.

The Inhabitants

As to dolls, the more the merrier. They are so cheap and can be dressed so easily that it seems a great pity not to have a large family and a larger circle of friends who will occasionally visit them. There must be a father and a mother, a baby and some children, servants (in stiff print dresses with caps and aprons), and certainly a bride, who, if her dress can not be changed for an ordinary one, ought to be kept carefully hidden, except when there is a wedding.

Dressing Dolls

It is rather difficult to dress these tiny dolls so that their clothes will take off and on, but it is much better to do so if possible. In any case they can have capes and hats which take off. The thinnest materials make the best underclothes, but stiff material for dresses makes it possible to stand the dolls up. Glove buttons, and the narrowest ribbons, tapes, and laces, are useful things to have when you are dressing dolls'-house dolls.

Dolls' Dinner Parties

Dolls occasionally require parties. The food may be real or imitation. If real,--such as currants and raisins, sugar and candied peel,--it is more amusing at the moment; but if imitation, you have a longer time of interest in making it. Get a little flour, and mix it with salt and water into a stiff paste, like clay. Then mould it to resemble a round of beef, a chicken, a leg of mutton, potatoes, pies, or whatever you want, and stand it in front of the fire to dry. When dry, paint (in water-color) to resemble these things still more. If there is clay in the garden, you can make all these things from that, and many others too.

Dolls' Flats

Just as people live not only in houses but in flats, so may there be dolls' flats as well as dolls' houses. A dolls' flat consists of a board on which the outline of the rooms is made with single bricks. For example, a four-roomed flat might be arranged like this--

To lay the bricks on a board is not necessary. They can be laid on the floor equally well, except that when you have done playing you will have then to put them away again, whereas if placed on a board they can be left till next time. Nor is there any reason why the walls should not be higher than a single brick; that is merely a matter of taste. Once the walls are ready the furniture and dolls can be put in in the ordinary way.

Smaller Dolls' Houses

So far we have been considering larger dolls' houses. But there are also smaller ones, which naturally require much smaller furniture. These dolls' houses can be made of cardboard (as described on p. 237 and on), or they can be merely small boxes--even cigar boxes; and the dolls and furniture in them can be, if you like, all paper, or made of materials in ways that are now suggested.

Cork and Match-box Furniture

This furniture, if very neatly made, can be very successful, and it costs almost nothing. Plain pins will do quite well, although the fancy ones are much prettier. Velvet or thin cloth is best for the dining-room furniture; silk for the drawing room; and some light-colored cotton material for the bedrooms.

Materials

You will need--

Several good-sized corks, or pickle corks, for the larger things.
Some pieces of fancy silk or velvet.
A number of strong pins of different sizes. (The fancy pins with
large white, black, and colored heads are best.)
Some wool, silk, or tinsel which will go well with the silk or
velvet.
A strong needle and a spool of cotton.

Chairs

Cut a round or square piece of cork about quarter of an inch thick and one inch across. Cover it with a piece of silk or velvet, making all the stitches on that side of the cork which will be the under side of the seat. For the legs put a pin firmly into each corner. Wind a little wool or silk firmly round each leg, finishing it off as neatly as possible. The back of the seat is made by sticking four pins rather closely together and winding the wool or silk in and out of them. Fasten the wool with a tiny knot both when you begin winding and when you finish. Armchairs are made in the same way, except that they are rather larger, and arms--made of small pins--are added.

Chestnut Chairs

an be made of chestnuts. The flatter side of the nut is the seat, and in this are stuck pins for the back (and arms if necessary), which may be bound together with gold or silver tinsel. Other pins are stuck in underneath for legs.

Sofas

For a sofa a piece of cork about two inches long and half an inch thick is needed. This must be covered, and then quite short pins stuck in for legs. Put a row of short pins along one side and the two ends, and wind the wool neatly in and out of them.

Tables

Round tables can be made best of different-sized pieces of cork, with very strong pins for legs; and square ones of the outside of a wooden match-box, with four little medicine-bottle corks glued under it for legs. In either case it is most important to have the legs well fixed on and of exactly the same length. It is not necessary to cover a table, but a table-cloth of silk, either fringed, or hemmed with tiny stitches, and a white table-cloth for meals, should be made.

Fancy tables can be made by taking a flat round cork and sticking pins into it at regular intervals all round. Weave silk or tinsel in and out of the pins until they are covered. (See above.)

Foot-Stools

Several small pieces of cork may be covered to make foot-stools.

Standard Lamp

A serviceable standard lamp can be made by taking a small empty cotton spool, gilding or painting it, and fixing the wooden part of a thin penholder firmly into it. On the top of it glue a round piece of cork, on which a lamp-shade, made of one of the little red paper caps that chemists put on bottles, can be placed.

Bedroom Furniture--Materials

You will need--

Two large wooden match-boxes.
Several corks of different sizes.
Some pieces of chintz, of cotton material, flannel, linen,
oil-cloth, and a little cotton-wool.
An empty walnut shell.
Several wooden matches with the heads taken off.
Pins of different sizes.
Wool, silk or tinsel, for the backs of the chairs.
A tube of glue.

Beds

To make a bed, take the inside of a match-box and cut away the bottom of it. Then take two matches and glue them to the two corners at the head of the bed so that a portion sticks out below the bed for legs and above the bed for a railing. Cut two more matches to the same length as these others, less the part of them that serves for legs, and fasten these at equal distances from each other and from the two others already glued in position. Along the top of these place another match for a rail, and the head of the bed is done. For the foot of the bed repeat these operations exactly, except that all the upright matches must be a little shorter. Then cut off one end of the bottom of the box and fit it in to form the part of the bed that takes the mattress. The bedstead, when made, should be like the one in the accompanying picture. A little mattress must now be made to fit the bed exactly; it can be stuffed with cotton-wool or bran. A pillow, blankets, sheets, and a fancy coverlet may also be made, and a very thin and tiny frill should be put right round the bed to hide the box.

A very pretty baby's cradle can be made out of half a walnut shell. It should be lined, and curtains should be hung from a match fastened upright at one end of the shell.

Dressing-Tables

The outside of the same match-box that was used for the bed will make a dressing-table. Stand it up on either side of its striking sides, and glue or sew a piece of light-colored thin material all round it, and then over this put a muslin frill. Make a little white cloth to lay on the top of the table. The looking-glass is made by fixing a square of silver paper in a cardboard frame.

Washstands

Take the inside of another match-box and stand it up on one of its sides. Then take five or six matches and cut them to that length which, when they are glued in an upright row at equal distances apart to the back of the match-box, will cause them to stand up above the top of it about a third of an inch. On the tops of them then lay another match to make a little railing. Cover the box as you did the dressing-table. Put a little mat of oil-cloth on the top of the box, and make another large one to lay in front of it. Proper jugs and basins will, of course, have to be bought, but an acorn cup or small shell makes a very good toy basin.

Wardrobes

The wardrobe is made by standing the inside of a match-box on end, fixing inside several little pegs made of small pieces of match stuck in with glue, and hanging two little curtains in front of it. If, when done, it seems too low, it may be raised on four little corks.

Towel-Rack

A towel-horse can easily be made with six long pins and two small pieces of cork.

Clothes-Basket

To make a clothes-basket, take a round piece of cork about a quarter of an inch thick and stick pins closely together all round it, as in the above picture. Then weave wool in and out of them.

DOLLS' HOUSES AND DOLLS OF CARDBOARD AND PAPER

A cardboard house, furnished with paper furniture and occupied by paper dolls, is a very good substitute for an ordinary dolls' house, and the making of it is hardly less interesting. The simplest way to make a cardboard house is to cut it all (with the exception of the partition and the roof) in one piece.

The plan given here is for a two-roomed cottage, the measurements for which can be multiplied to whatever size you like (or whatever is the utmost that your sheet of cardboard will permit). The actual model from which this plan was made (the house was built from a royal sheet of Bristol board) had a total floor measurement of 8 inches by 14. The end walls were 5 inches high, the side walls 5 inches, sloping up to 7 in the middle, and the partition was 7 inches. The roof was slightly wider than the floor, in order to make wide eaves, and as much longer as was needful not only for the eaves but also to allow for the angle.