“Dearest Jimsi:I am right here for company to-day while Aunt Phoebe is away. I’m giving you a letter myself because, you know, a play crowhasto write letters.Look in the corner of The Happy Shop and see the nice thing I brought. It’s a little Christmas-tree and you can cut decorations for it from your Magic Book. I think youmust have learned how to make chains for Christmas-trees: just cut strips of colored wall paper and make links by pasting the ends of one strip at a time together. Slip the next strip through the first link and paste. You go on and on making a chain that will circle the tree.Cornucopias may be made by rolling a triangular piece of wall paper together like a cone, closed at the bottom. You can line each with a plain paper of contrasting shade.Christmas-tree pendants may be made by cutting round and diamond pointed designs out and sewing tinsel about their edge.A star may be made for the top of the Christmas-tree. Cut it from yellow paper. Flowers cut from wall paper may be pinned on the tree to decorate it too. And you can make small lanterns to hang by raffia exactly as kindergarten children make them: just double a square of paper end to end. Cut snips through the centre with scissors and unfold. Paste the cut paper together to make a hollow roll and the cut places will make it look like a lantern.Try to make Christmas cards too. A tree is easily cut out by cutting a green triangle. At its base, make a small brown trunk and cut a red pot for the tree. Mount the tree on a square of cardboard and letter the card with crayon.A card with a Christmas candle may be made by cutting out a colored candle-stick from bright wall paper and adding a paper candle at the top.Here’s enough to fill all your whole longday alone. See what you can do by the time Aunt Phoebe gets back!Crow.P. S.How about taking this tree to Joyce for her Christmas present?”
“Dearest Jimsi:
I am right here for company to-day while Aunt Phoebe is away. I’m giving you a letter myself because, you know, a play crowhasto write letters.
Look in the corner of The Happy Shop and see the nice thing I brought. It’s a little Christmas-tree and you can cut decorations for it from your Magic Book. I think youmust have learned how to make chains for Christmas-trees: just cut strips of colored wall paper and make links by pasting the ends of one strip at a time together. Slip the next strip through the first link and paste. You go on and on making a chain that will circle the tree.
Cornucopias may be made by rolling a triangular piece of wall paper together like a cone, closed at the bottom. You can line each with a plain paper of contrasting shade.
Christmas-tree pendants may be made by cutting round and diamond pointed designs out and sewing tinsel about their edge.
A star may be made for the top of the Christmas-tree. Cut it from yellow paper. Flowers cut from wall paper may be pinned on the tree to decorate it too. And you can make small lanterns to hang by raffia exactly as kindergarten children make them: just double a square of paper end to end. Cut snips through the centre with scissors and unfold. Paste the cut paper together to make a hollow roll and the cut places will make it look like a lantern.
Try to make Christmas cards too. A tree is easily cut out by cutting a green triangle. At its base, make a small brown trunk and cut a red pot for the tree. Mount the tree on a square of cardboard and letter the card with crayon.
A card with a Christmas candle may be made by cutting out a colored candle-stick from bright wall paper and adding a paper candle at the top.
Here’s enough to fill all your whole longday alone. See what you can do by the time Aunt Phoebe gets back!
Crow.
P. S.
How about taking this tree to Joyce for her Christmas present?”
Jimsi gathered all the precious sheets of crow’s letter together and looked for the tree. It was almost hidden from sight back of some palms. It was a dear little tree. She put it upon the table of The Happy Shop and began to snip industriously with her scissors. The Magic Book was indeed thin, but there was more than enough to make all the Christmas tree decorations and the Christmas cards. Jimsi began with the chain. She made it very long and pretty, pink, blue, green, red, yellow—and again she repeated the order of colors pink, blue, green, red, yellow. The chain was very lovely when done and she hung it about the tree in long festoons.
After this she made two cornucopias that were big enough to hold candy, and some little ones beside. And she cut the flowers out and pinned them to branches, too. And she made lanterns, and a big, big star, and somependants. Crow had thoughtfully put a long roll of tinsel in the drawer of The Happy Shop table and Jimsi made loops of the tinsel to hang them on the tree. She had to sew these on with a needle threaded with fine cotton that was from Aunt Phoebe’s workbasket.
photograph of small Christmas tree decorated with two cards beneathThe Christmas-Tree Decorations That Were Made of Wall Paper
The Christmas-Tree Decorations That Were Made of Wall Paper
The tree was half trimmed at luncheon time and the little maid who worked for Aunt Phoebe didn’t put the lunch on the big, lonely dining-room table. She brought it to The Happy Shop.
Just as Jimsi was swallowing the last mouthful of apple sauce and was going to take a bite of cake, the telephone bell rang in the study. Jimsi hopped up to answer it.
“Hello!” came the voice over the telephone. “Is that you, Jimsi?”
Why, it was Aunt Phoebe’s voice! And Aunt Phoebe’s voice sounded very far away at first. It grew more clear. “Jimsi,” it said, “I can’t wait to tell you, so I called you up by long distance. The firm that makes toys wants to buy the idea of the motion picture shadow play. They will pay Joyce a whole hundred dollars for the model that she made, and give her royalty after it is published.Royaltymeans that Joyce will get money on every toy sold. They are a big firm, and there will be more than enough money for the hospital. I’ll tell you more when I get home. Are you all right? It can be patented.”
“Oh! Oh,” gasped Jimsi. “Oh, I’m sohappy!Yes, Aunt Phoebe, I am all right. Everything’s all right!”
Then the wire buzzed. Aunt Phoebe had gone.
That time, Jimsi couldn’t go back to work.Shewalked around just as excitedly as Aunt Phoebe did when the story wouldn’t go the way she wanted it to go. She could think of nothing but how glad Joyce would be. How she longed to put on hat and cloak and run over there. But she didn’t. She had promised Aunt Phoebe to stay indoors.
It seemed to Jimsi that the afternoon hours would never pass. She was as restless as a caged lion. She couldn’t work on Christmas-tree decorations—and then she remembered that the tree was to be finished by the time Aunt Phoebe came home. She started feverishly to make more things. She worked very hard. Indeed, she worked so hard that the tree grew to be wonderfully pretty. It neededonly candles to make it quite complete. Then Jimsi had an idea. “I’ll tie a crow letter on the tree,” she thought, “and the crow letter shall tell Joyce all about everything. But Aunt Phoebe must write that crow letter herself.”
She decided to try making Christmas cards and blotter-cases. She was engrossed in these when there came a stamping of feet on the doorstep outside and the front door-bell rang. It was Aunt Phoebe all covered with snow and beaming from under a snow-covered hat. Hooray!
Oh, wasn’t it good to have her back, and wasn’t it jolly to be able to find out all about the real fortune that was going to come to the little lame girl!
“It’s too good to be true,” she laughed. “Oh, tell me all about it right away, Aunt Phoebe,please!”
So Aunt Phoebe, as soon as she could fling off her very wet things, sat down by the fire and told Jimsi the whole long story of how she had taken the model and found the toy merchant who published games and toys, and how he had looked it all over and tried it and said it was good—yes, very good, and so good that itdidinterest him. She told how he had carried the toy away to show to other members of the firm, and how she had had to wait what seemed hours and hours before he came back to say that they thought it an excellent thing and wanted to publish it.
At first, so she said, he had not wanted to pay any advance for it—that meant the hundred dollars, Aunt Phoebe said. But she had insisted, and he had agreed.
There was something Aunt Phoebe called a contract. This was going to be sent and signed by Joyce’s father. It was a written agreement of terms of sale.
“That’s all,” smiled Aunt Phoebe, finishing by giving Jimsi’s hand a hard and happy squeeze. “Now, let’s see the tree crow gave you.”
Jimsi took Aunt Phoebe to The Happy Shop where the little tree stood. Oh, it really did look very, very charming. Aunt Phoebe said so, and the little maid who came to announce dinner said so, and even Jimsi who had done it all herself said so. I think crow would have said so, too, if crow could have talked really and truly.
After dinner, Aunt Phoebe wrote the crowletter that told about the hundred dollars and the contract and all the other things. She wrote it on her typewriter because she wanted it very clear and easy to understand. She told how Jimsi had wanted to have Joyce get well so that she would not be a little lame girl any longer, and she told how she herself had suddenly thought of the value of the original toy made with shadow pictures. She said she had taken it to the city and that everything was all right. It only remained to hurry Joyce right off as fast as she could go. Aunt Phoebe didn’t see why Joyce couldn’t go day after tomorrow. That was the time she and Jimsi were going to the city and they could take Joyce to the hospital in a motor car.
They tied the note to the top of the tree with a bright, red ribbon. It had to be folded and folded to fit into a crow envelope. Oh, the envelope was quite bulky and fat, I assure you.
Then they both went upstairs to bed to dream of the Good Crow who had first suggested the play of the motion picture screen. Ah, yes! It was the Good Crow who belonged to Aunt Phoebe—he had done it all.
As for the little lame girl, why, of course,she went with Jimsi and Aunt Phoebe.Of courseshe got well! And Jimsi always declared afterward that the Good Crow was the very best crow there was, and that there never was a better real aunt than Aunt Phoebe who was a play aunt—and that if it hadn’t been for The Happy Shop and Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow hundreds of happy children who played the shadow motion picture fun would have missed half the joy of their lives!
Transcriber’s Notes:Varied hyphenation was retained.Asterisks in the notes below indicate missing or smudged letters.Page 15, “musn’t” changed to “mustn’t” (mustn’t be disappointed)Page 30, “muf**” changed to “muffs” (hats and muffs)Page 56, “Pheobe’s” changed to “Phoebe’s” (till Miss Phoebe’s crow)Page 59, “your” changed to “you’re” (Pretend you’re interested)Page 98, “suprise” changed to “surprise” (crow’s splendid surprise)Page 112, closing quotation mark moved to land outside of closing parenthesis (pin-wheels—)”)Page 134, opening quotation mark removed from middle of dialogue. Original read (trouble. “Today there)Page 151, opening quotation mark removed from middle of dialogue. Original read (before dark. “Good-bye, dear)
Transcriber’s Notes:
Varied hyphenation was retained.
Asterisks in the notes below indicate missing or smudged letters.
Page 15, “musn’t” changed to “mustn’t” (mustn’t be disappointed)
Page 30, “muf**” changed to “muffs” (hats and muffs)
Page 56, “Pheobe’s” changed to “Phoebe’s” (till Miss Phoebe’s crow)
Page 59, “your” changed to “you’re” (Pretend you’re interested)
Page 98, “suprise” changed to “surprise” (crow’s splendid surprise)
Page 112, closing quotation mark moved to land outside of closing parenthesis (pin-wheels—)”)
Page 134, opening quotation mark removed from middle of dialogue. Original read (trouble. “Today there)
Page 151, opening quotation mark removed from middle of dialogue. Original read (before dark. “Good-bye, dear)