photograph2 paperdolls many dresses, scissorsThe Paper Dolls That Were Cut from Magazines and Whose Clothes Were Made from Wall Paper
The Paper Dolls That Were Cut from Magazines and Whose Clothes Were Made from Wall Paper
At last Jimsi decided to leave the Magic Book and make at leastonepaper doll that could be dressed. She settled herself cosily on the wicker couch with a pile of the fashion books beside her. Of course, she found a pretty lady right away. The lady had dark hair done up in a very modern and stylish way. Jimsi cut her out.
But the paper doll had a dress on! Oh dear!Howcan you put another dress on a doll that already has a costume on her? Jimsi thought: she decided to take the lady’s outline as a guide and make a new body using the head as it was printed. So she placed the paper doll on the sheet of cardboard and traced around her to get the outline. Then she pasted the head on the cardboard and drew stockings and slippers. She colored the arms on the cardboard flesh-tint and the stockings and slippers black. Then she cut out the cardboard outline that had the paper head and there, if you please, was a real paper doll, as splendid as any you ever saw anywhere!
Of courseonepaper doll is lonely by herself and Jimsi had to make the lady doll a sister. This time, she chose a fashion print that had light hair. But she made the paper doll as she had made the other. It was terribly exciting now! Jimsi had to make up her mindwhatkind of a dress to make for the first paper doll. She named her Mrs. Sweet. The sister was Miss Pretty.
At last, Jimsi thought Mrs. Sweet ought to have the dress with pink flowers and MissPretty the one with yellow buds. She placed the doll—Mrs. Sweet—on the sheet of wall paper and outlined all around her with a pencil, making the skirt of the frock just a stylish ankle length. At the top where the shoulders were, Jimsi drew tabs to bend and hold the dress on the doll. Then she cut the dress out, making it have aVneck. The pink flowers were in a long stripe right down the front of the dress. They looked like a dainty trimming. But the dress still needed to be finished, so Jimsi found the box of crayons that thoughtful crow had left on the table and she made jiggles to represent lace, straight parallel lines to represent tucks, little dots to represent smocking. Black dots that were larger were buttons, of course. One could make almost any sort of trimming in this simple way. The black crayon could bevery blackindeed. One could make black velvet trimming? Oh, it was splendid fun! Jimsi was so occupied that she never even heard Aunt Phoebe open the glass doors of The Happy Shop and it was not till Aunt Phoebe stood right beside her that she was aware. Aunt Phoebe laughed. “Well, Jimsi, you foundsomeof the magic, didn’t you? It’s exactlyten minutes past twelve. Did you know it was so late?”
Jimsi held up the beautiful Mrs. Sweet in one hand and the handsome Miss Pretty in the other. “Oh, I’ve just begun,” she protested. “I haven’t done anything but start. See!——”
“Well, I’ve finished,” declared Aunt Phoebe. “I’ll help. Suppose I make some hats!”
So Aunt Phoebe made the hats. She made them by cutting big and little ovals out of the wall paper. Cutting a strip horizontally across the center, one could slip the doll’s head up through this and put the hat right on. Aunt Phoebe trimmed the hats she made with wall paper flowers or bows cut from paper or by drawing on them with crayon. There were big and little hats—some plain walking hats and others evidently meant for dressy occasions.
While Aunt Phoebe was helping with the hats, Jimsi cut a cloak for Miss Pretty. It must have been an opera cloak for it was loose and flowing and made of something quite silky. (For the wall paper had a satin stripe in it, you know.) It was an exceptional success.Jimsi surveyed it happily. It was splendid. Such a cloak ought to cost at least—but how much do cloaks cost? It must be nice to be a paper doll and be able to dress so well in “just paper”!
Oh, yes, Jimsi made Mrs. Sweet a tailor suit all of plain brown wall paper and both of the dolls had separate skirts for shirt waists, kimonos, dressing-jackets and muffs. (The muffs were made of dark wall paper and were fat ovals with slits cut at either end so the doll’s hand could be slipped in.)
Aunt Phoebe and Jimsi were so very, very busy that they were both ever so surprised when suddenly the little white-aproned maid who worked by the day for Aunt Phoebe appeared at the door of The Happy Shop. “Lunch is served,” said she. And there was nothing but to leave the play and run as fast as possible to wash the paste off hands and give one’s hair a smart pat with a hurried hair-brush.
At lunch Jimsi announced that she was going to make little girl dolls next. She thought she would have three little girl dolls in her family: a baby, a middling-sized girl of ten or eleven, and an older girl of High Schoolage. “I’m going to haveoneboy,” she said. “Boys won’t be so much fun because their clothes are so plain. But I’ll make a waterproof coat for this one, an overcoat, and one or two plain suits. The papa doll can have the same kind.”
But Aunt Phoebe decided that Jimsi must run out-doors in the garden after lunch and then come in and take a nap. After that, of course, she could do anything she wished in The Happy Shop. Aunt Phoebe thought it might be pleasant to write Mother a letter. So the afternoon passed with the out-doors and the nap and the letter. Jimsi found the little girl dolls in the fashion papers and had them all ready to cut and paste next day, but by that time had flown by so fast that the evening had come and with it there were new interests to draw her away from paper dolls. There was the crow who came back mysteriously and whom Jimsi discovered sitting up high on one of Aunt Phoebe’s bookshelves; there was the going for stamps to mail the letter home. It was quite chilly and the stars in the night sky were bright like diamonds when the two came back and opened the front door at Aunt Phoebe’s. Jimsi hadn’t beenlonely at all—why the whole day had passed and she had been almost all the time alone. Only the time before lunch and just before dinner at night, had Aunt Phoebe been with her; yet Jimsi had been happy. The secret, Aunt Phoebe said, was that she had been busy with happy play and work. “That, as everybody knows, is the one way to keep glad—but there’s another, Jimsi. Maybe the crow’ll tell you what that is some day.”
The next day Jimsi dashed down to the Good Crow’s letter-box hoping for a letter. But there was none. Aunt Phoebe said thatshethought the crow meant that there was no need for him to write till Jimsi needed a new kind of magic play. It was a bit disappointing not to find a letter in the mail-box, but Jimsi consoled herself. Aunt Phoebe was going to let her water the plants every morning. There was a cunning little watering-pot painted red. It stood in a corner of The Happy Shop. It was really fun to water the thirsty plants and watch to see that dead leaves were kept from them. After having done this little duty to help, Jimsi went to market again with Aunt Phoebe and then, afterwards, she was again in The Happy Shop to play at cutting doll dresses. Oh, she made the little girl dolls this time. They were made in the same way as the lady dolls. And she also made the gentleman dolland the little boy. By that time it was lunch again. Oh, dear! There had been not a second yet to dress the boy doll!
And then came the out-door and the—yes, thehorridold nap! (Don’t you hate to take naps! I hope you don’t have to—but if you do, Idohope you’re good about it and that you don’t pout and act disagreeable. I do! The nap has to come, so you might much better be pleasant and happy about it and have nothing to be ashamed of.)
Jimsi believed in doing what she was told to do and, beside,thatnap had been one of the conditions that governed the visit to Aunt Phoebe’s and The Happy Shop—and both Aunt Phoebe and Jimsi hadpromised.
When she woke up, Aunt Phoebe told her she could play in the shop till dinner-time, if she chose. It was rather damp and chilly out-doors. So Jimsi made the boy doll’s clothes and cut out the daddy of the family.Thatwas a good afternoon’s work!
At bed-time, Jimsi was about to hop into the cosy white four-poster when, somehow, her hand began to feel under the pillow and there, my dear, there—therewasa letter!How like the crow to make it a surprise and not put it in the letter-box downstairs!
By the light of the pink candle, Jimsi tore open the wee envelope and read:
“Dearest Little Girl:When I came to perch on my shelf last night, I saw the lovely dolls you made and the wonderfully beautiful dresses and hats and cloaks and muffs and evening wraps and things. When you have finished the family, I’ll tell you something nice: make a doll house for them. I can tell you how to make furniture to fit your dolls. You’ll find ever so many things for the furnishing of a doll house right in your Magic Book.Lovingly,Crow.P. S.You were good to take that nap without pouting. I wish Mother had seen you start right on the dot. I like children who keep their promises. Look for a letter to-morrow.”
“Dearest Little Girl:
When I came to perch on my shelf last night, I saw the lovely dolls you made and the wonderfully beautiful dresses and hats and cloaks and muffs and evening wraps and things. When you have finished the family, I’ll tell you something nice: make a doll house for them. I can tell you how to make furniture to fit your dolls. You’ll find ever so many things for the furnishing of a doll house right in your Magic Book.
Lovingly,Crow.
P. S.
You were good to take that nap without pouting. I wish Mother had seen you start right on the dot. I like children who keep their promises. Look for a letter to-morrow.”
Jimsi woke quite early the next morning, even before the sun began to shine through the boughs of the evergreens outside the window. It was first dusk and then soft pink and then came faint sunbeams that grew brighter and brighter. But the clock on the bureau was pointing to an early hour and Jimsi waited for Aunt Phoebe to move. She did not want to wake her, for she was a thoughtfullittle girl—but shedidwant the crow letter that she knew must be in the mail-box in The Happy Shop!
Aunt Phoebe was so late in waking that Jimsi had to scurry to get dressed and couldn’t go downstairs at all after that letter. And then there was breakfast immediately. But afterwards—afterwards, she and Aunt Phoebe dashed to the mail-box that stood on the crow’s shelf in The Happy Shop. Sure enough,there was the letter!
Jimsi tore open the envelope—why, there was nothing written in it. It was just some diagrams of the promised furniture for the paper dolls—but wasn’tthatworth getting! All the time, Jimsi had been wondering how to cut furniture. She hadn’t known at all. She had hoped the crow would send her the directions but here were just diagrams, the very things to puzzle over and use! Under each diagram was written what it would make and the diagrams were like this.
Of course, the Good Crow couldn’t draw very well but he did wonderfully considering that he had to write and draw with a claw instead of a hand, Jimsi thought. The idea of the crow’s drawing made her laugh. “AuntPhoebe,” she giggled, “that crow of yours is ever so funny! Imagine a crow’s drawing pictures! But I’m going to make the furniture and start right away!”
Toy Furniture: The Bed, the Chair and Stool were made from Wall PaperToy Furniture: The Couch, the Table, the BureauDiagram 1
Toy Furniture: The Bed, the Chair and Stool were made from Wall Paper
Toy Furniture: The Bed, the Chair and Stool were made from Wall Paper
Toy Furniture: The Couch, the Table, the Bureau
Toy Furniture: The Couch, the Table, the Bureau
Diagram 1
Diagram 1
So Aunt Phoebe shut the doors of The Happy Shop and went toherwork while Jimsi began to puzzle over the crow’s diagrams. First there was the bed. That was to be cut from a long piece of paper about as long as a paper doll—the longest doll, of course. Jimsi decided that the very, very heavy wall paper might be used to make the toy furniture and she found some that was wood-color in the Magic Book.
She cut the bed’s legs about an inch and a quarter long and parallel with the length of the oblong piece of cardboard. Then, she bent the legs down and the rest of the ends upward to make baseboards. That made a paper bed.
But, somehow, when the bed was placed on its legs it sank under the weight of the paper dolls, so Jimsi made another bed out of cardboard and pasted the wall paper bed over it. That did splendidly!
She made a pillow of white wall paper and added a coverlet. (There might have been afancy blanket under the coverlet, of course. This would have been cut from some other paper with a pattern design upon it.)
Photograph: two chairs, a bed, a rug and a paper dollThe Paper Doll Furniture That Was Cut from Cardboard and Upholstered with Wall Paper
The Paper Doll Furniture That Was Cut from Cardboard and Upholstered with Wall Paper
Jimsi made a table next. It was cut like the bed, but in finishing it, the footboard parts were entirely cut off. And then, too, the table had longer legs than the bed. It was made to fit the size of the dolls by measuring. It was necessary to cut the legs the length of the paper dolls from feet up to waist. Thetable was measured to fit the big lady doll and the gentleman.
The chairs were a bit different: to make a chair one had to cut a piece of cardboard the least little bit smaller than a table—and not half so wide. One cut the front legs to fit below the table and cut off the bit of cardboard there as the table end was cut. The rear of the chair oblong was straight then. The next step was to cut legs of the same length as the front legs. These were bent down like the first and the part that remained was the back of the chair! Jimsi upholstered the chairs with fancy designs cut from other colored sheets of wall paper. It was jolly! Jimsi made enough chairs for all the doll family. Indeed, the dolls seemed most sociable as they sat in a row on The Happy Shop’s table!
A sofa could be made on lines like the chair, only making the cutting of the cardboard oblong wide and giving it the depth of the chair also. The sofa was likewise upholstered. Oh, the toy furniture was great! Jimsi longed to start a doll house and looked about The Happy Shop to see if she could find a place to lay it out. At last she did discover a place,on the floor at one end of the shop. She fixed it up beautifully. Bits of wall paper design cut out in ovals and oblongs, fringed by snipping with the scissors, made rugs for the house. If Jimsi had only had a box of some kind—if shecouldhave interrupted Aunt Phoebe to ask for it, she could have made carpets of wall paper and had wall paper curtains too.
When the house was done, Jimsi made believe that Mr. and Mrs. Sweet went to walk in the park. The park was all of the greenery of The Happy Shop. The ferns made a wonderful grove. All the Sweet children wanted to have a picnic there. So Jimsi made a white table cloth from the Magic Book’s paper and cut rounds for plates and funny snips of three cornered wall paper bits for sandwiches. And there was a big round cake too! Oh, yes-and some pies that were colored with crayons.
After Jimsi had played all this, it was lunch time and again the hours had flown by fast.
In the afternoon, when Jimsi went upstairs, right on top of her pillow there was another crow letter!
“Dear Jimsi:I have told you about two new plays that I think ever so many little girls would like to know about. I hope you will tell other children about them when you go home. I don’t think Henry would care much but Katherine will when she grows older.There is a little lame girl next door. I know her, just as I know you. Don’t you want to tell her about your Magic Book and showherthe plays you have found out about?It would be ever so nice to have somebody to play paper dolls with and I’m sure she’d like to know you.Some day, I’ll write you where she lives more exactly and I’ll send you word when you can go to see her.YourCaw Caw.P. S.If I were you I’d keep my paper dolls nicely and put them in envelopes. In the drawer of the table in The Happy Shop, there is a package of big Manilla envelopes you can use. Write the name of each doll on the envelope you use for it and its dresses.P. S. P. S.If I were you, Jimsi, I’d pick up The Happy Shop this afternoon. The bits of paper on the floor look untidy and I think when one is cutting, it is a good plan to put a newspaper over the floor to catch scraps. I like neat children and my Happy Shop should be very well kept.Thank you for watering the flowers.C. C.”
“Dear Jimsi:
I have told you about two new plays that I think ever so many little girls would like to know about. I hope you will tell other children about them when you go home. I don’t think Henry would care much but Katherine will when she grows older.
There is a little lame girl next door. I know her, just as I know you. Don’t you want to tell her about your Magic Book and showherthe plays you have found out about?
It would be ever so nice to have somebody to play paper dolls with and I’m sure she’d like to know you.
Some day, I’ll write you where she lives more exactly and I’ll send you word when you can go to see her.
YourCaw Caw.
P. S.
If I were you I’d keep my paper dolls nicely and put them in envelopes. In the drawer of the table in The Happy Shop, there is a package of big Manilla envelopes you can use. Write the name of each doll on the envelope you use for it and its dresses.
P. S. P. S.
If I were you, Jimsi, I’d pick up The Happy Shop this afternoon. The bits of paper on the floor look untidy and I think when one is cutting, it is a good plan to put a newspaper over the floor to catch scraps. I like neat children and my Happy Shop should be very well kept.
Thank you for watering the flowers.
C. C.”
A wave of shame came to Jimsi sitting there on the bed—Oh, dear! She wanted to run right down and clean up the shop. She remembered that those bits of paperdidlook untidy. Oh, dear! But the nap came first. Soon she was sound asleep.
Nothing of great importance happened the rest of that day, for Jimsi spent a large part of time in tidying The Happy Shop when she woke. Then she fixed up the paper dolls in the envelopes. And it was bed-time. That night, however, the paper dolls slept in beds all arranged on Jimsi’s dresser at bed-time.
When she went to sleep, she dreamed that she and the Good Crow were making toy furniture and that the crow was really using scissors with his claw. She woke up in the middle of the night laughing and Aunt Phoebe heard her and asked if anything was the matter. “It was just the crow,” chirped Jimsi. “I was dreaming of The Happy Shop and he was there cutting toy furniture for paper dolls.”
“I think,” Aunt Phoebe’s voice answered, “that maybe a real little girl playmate would appreciate paper dollsmore, wouldn’t she?” Jimsi said, “Yes,” and then drowsed off to sleep again, hoping that the Good Crow would tell her soon that she could go and amuse the little lame girl who lived somewhere nearby.
SURE enough, there was a crow letter in the mail-box next morning! It was written on the same wee note paper with a real crow stamp that was drawn in pencil in the upper right-hand corner. Jimsi brought it to breakfast with her and read it aloud—exactly as if Aunt Phoebe didn’t know what was in it already! You know,thatwas the crow play always!
This was the letter:
“Dear Jimsi:To-day, I want you to do something forme. You see I do quite a bit foryou. I like to make you happy, you know, and tell you of jolly things to play. What I want you to do formeis to tell a little lame girl about your paper doll play and the toy furniture that my Magic Book made.The little lame girl cannot go out-doors as you can. She has to stay in a wheel-chair and the hours are very long for her. I would like to have you help her. You can help hermuch better than I can becauseyouare a little girl and I am only a play crow.Good-bye,Caw Caw.P. S.Her name is Joyce. She lives in the third house from the corner.”
“Dear Jimsi:
To-day, I want you to do something forme. You see I do quite a bit foryou. I like to make you happy, you know, and tell you of jolly things to play. What I want you to do formeis to tell a little lame girl about your paper doll play and the toy furniture that my Magic Book made.
The little lame girl cannot go out-doors as you can. She has to stay in a wheel-chair and the hours are very long for her. I would like to have you help her. You can help hermuch better than I can becauseyouare a little girl and I am only a play crow.
Good-bye,Caw Caw.
P. S.
Her name is Joyce. She lives in the third house from the corner.”
“Oh, I’d love to go!” declared Jimsi. “When can I go?”
“As soon as we’ve had our walk,” Aunt Phoebe answered. “Maybe you’d like to do something else for Joyce and the Good Crow—would you?”
Jimsi nodded. “I’d love to!”
“Well, when we go to town, we’ll buy Joyce some crayons like yours and a bottle of five-cent library paste. You shall take them to her to work with and you can tell her the crow sent them.”
“Splendid!”
So they went to market and Jimsi bought the crayons in the ten cent store. She insisted on paying for them herself because she said that this time it was going to behercrow. Then, when they reached home, Jimsi wrote a crow letter to the little lame girl, Joyce, and did the crayons up with the five cent bottleof paste that Aunt Phoebe insisted washercrow.
With a box full of paper doll envelopes and toy furniture, and Jimsi’s own crayons and scissors from The Happy Shop, the Magic Book rolled up to make a big package to carry under one arm, Jimsi ran over to the third brown house from the corner and rang the bell. It was rather a dingy little house. It did not look pretty. It looked poor and sad.
But when the door opened, it opened on the most cheerful room you can imagine. It was Joyce’s mother who opened it. She wore a big white apron as if she were busy working and she beamed down at Jimsi standing on the steps with her arms so full of the Magic Book and the box of paper dolls that she could hardly hold them.
“I came because the Good Crow wrote me a letter about Joyce,” stated Jimsi. “The Good Crow said she’d like to know about my paper dolls so she could play at making dresses too. So I came.”
“Oh, come right in, little girl,” invited Joyce’s mother. “Yes. The crow sent Joyce a letter yesterday to say that his friend, Jimsi,was coming over with a magic book. We’re very glad you came, aren’t we, Joyce?”
Jimsi hadn’t seen Joyce but now she looked toward the window and saw a wheel-chair with a beautiful dark-haired girl of twelve propped up in it and holding out a welcoming hand. “I’m ever so glad you came,” she laughed. “Don’t you love the Good Crow? I do. Miss Phoebe’s ever so lovely, I think. She’s every day thinking up something nice for me to do, almost. There’s sure to be a crow letter full of fun whenever I need it most.”
“Yes,” declared Joyce’s mother. “I don’t know what I’d do, if it weren’t for the Good Crow who belongs to Miss Phoebe. There’s only one thing Joyce wants do do when she isn’t reading. It’s checkers! I’ve played more games of checkers than you can shake a stick at, Jimsi! But when the crow letters come with new suggestions for things to do—why, you know, Joyce doesn’t want to read or even play checkers! The Good Crow’s play is best of all. Tell Jimsi about the motion picture play, darling!”
Motion picture play! Why the very idea of it! Goodness, how interesting! Do you knowanything that is nicer than motion pictures! At once Jimsi was wide awake and eager. “Oh, I want to know about the motion picture play!” she exclaimed. “Oh,pleasedo tell me! Was it really true moving pictures?”
“Yes,” asserted Joyce, “they were real, weren’t they, Mother? But the pictures weren’t photographs at all. You wait and I’ll show you my motion picture screen and my whole outfit! Mother, will you get them for me, please?—You see, Jimsi, it was in the fall when the crow told me about these pictures. In summer I can go outdoors and once Daddy wheeled me into town and they let me see the motion pictures. (I can’t go often because it is such a long ride for me.) Well, I could think of nothing else afterwards but how much I wanted to go again! You know how it is.”
Jimsi wagged her head hard, “yes.” She didn’t want to interrupt the story.
“One day when Miss Phoebe was over here, I told her about how I wanted to go to motion pictures again and Miss Phoebe said she’d see what the crow could do about it— You know how Miss Phoebe makes believe always!”
Again Jimsi nodded. “I love to make believe the way auntie does,” she beamed. “Please tell me what happenednext.”
“Well, next, of course, came a crow letter. I found it in a bunch of flowers Miss Phoebe sent over.” (Joyce was trying to cover up the things that her mother had laid in her lap. Jimsi’s eyes had been busy with the details. There looked as if paper dolls were there.)
“You mustn’t peep,” admonished Joyce. “It won’t be a surprise if you see. Itwasa surprise for me!Ididn’t know that one could really make motion picture fun right at home—not till Miss Phoebe’s crow wrote me a play letter about it.”
“Well, I can’t see how you do it!”
“You can do it with the papers in theMagic Book,” declared Joyce.
“Oh, have you a magic book too!”
They both laughed. What fun!
“I wonder if yours is like mine?” questioned Jimsi. “I didn’t know you had a Magic Book too, so I brought mine along with me! I was going to tell you about how to make paper dolls and toy furniture from the papers in my Magic Book!”
“Oh, I’d love to know how,” beamed Joyce.“I think paper dolls are just the nicest play—almost. You must show me about them. I don’t know how to make them. The crow never toldme. But he did tell me about the motion pictures and I madethis—” she held up for Jimsi’s examination now a picture frame that was about twelve inches long and eight inches wide. At the back of the frame where the glass had been, there was stretched some heavy white cloth-cotton cloth. Back of this,where one would place the picture, if one were framing one, was the glass that fitted the picture frame.
photograph of sillouette scen of table, chair, sideboard, additional pieces outside of frame, two dolls, a dog a tree, a candleThe Motion Pictures That Were Cut from Wall Paper
The Motion Pictures That Were Cut from Wall Paper
Joyce turned the frame over. “You see,” she explained, “when I hold it front-face, it looks exactly as a motion picture screen does, doesn’t it?—That’s before the picture play begins!”
Yes, it was true. The frame looked like the frame of a motion picture screen.
“The difference is,” went on Joyce, “that the crow’s motion pictures aren’t photographs. They’re really shadow pictures. One cuts silhouettes out of heavy wall paper that is in the Magic Book—oh, everything—and then one puts the chairs or tables, or cupboards next to the glass to make the screen. (I always have a littlepapercurtain that I put before my frame while I arrange this. It is like the big curtain in the theatre because it shuts off the picture screen.) When I have arranged the furniture and am ready to make the actors walk about in the room, I take the paper away so the audience can see.”
“How splendid!” sighed Jimsi, delightedly. “I think Henry’d be quite crazy about this sort of thing. He’s my brother, you know.He’sa boy, so he thinks paper dolls are girls’ things and he won’t play with them. Do you use paper dolls? I should think that it would be hard to make them move about behind the furniture. I should think it would show that somebody was moving them.”
“It doesn’t though— You’ll see!” Here the little lame girl took the frame. “Don’t look,” she admonished with a raised forefinger. “Pretend you’re interested in the cat!”
Indeed, Jimsi hadn’t noticed the cat before. But now she ran over to the big open fireplace where pussy was purring before the wood fire. Joyce’s mother was sewing on a machine. She seemed very busy indeed. Jimsi waited for her new friend to give the word. She stroked the comfortable tabby and thought how wonderful it was that a sick girl who couldn’t go about except in a wheel-chair could be so cheerful and so happy. “I hope if I’m ever sick like that that I won’t be a whiney person,” she thought. “It’s splendid to be happy and glad when things are like that and you know you aren’t going to be able to run about and play—ever. Oh, I like the crow’s little lame girl wonderfully!” And it did seem strange that the little lame girlwas telling Jimsi aboutherplay even before Jimsi had told the little lame girl about hers!
But right here, Joyce sang out, “Ready!” so Jimsi forgot the pussy cat instantly and sprang to her feet.
“I put the frame on a table when I have a real motion picture performance,” Joyce explained. “But you can see in the daylight better if I hold the frame in the sunlight. Look!”
Sure enough! There was the furniture in a small room: table, chair, cupboard! They were outlined in shadow.
“One ought to have motion pictures in the dark,” Joyce laughed. “I used to play that way last fall. I lit a candle in the dark and placed the candle behind my frame on the table. Then I moved the actors about so—”
Jimsi watched. Joyce had a paper doll-like actor cut in outline. To the back of this was pasted a strip of heavy paper. As she moved the doll across the back of the motion picture screen, holding it by the long strip of cardboard, one could only see the figure move across the little room. One did not see the hand that moved it or the strip of cardboard by which it was held.
Jolly! I should say so! Why, that was exactly the best fun Jimsi had ever seen!
“Hurrah for the crow!” she chuckled. “Why, I thinkthat’sbetter than paper dolls—almost!”
“I’ll show you some more,” the little lame girl volunteered. “You just wait.”
Again she changed the things that lay beside the white cloth and the glass. When Jimsi looked, she saw that now there was out-door scenery: bushes, trees, a fence. Why, it might have been a street in a little town!
“I’ll show you something else!”
This time, the “something” was an automobile.
As Joyce held the frame in the clear sunlight, its shadow on the screen was plain. As Jimsi watched, the automobile rushed rapidly across the screen from one end of the frame to the other! Oh, what fun! And the shadow people in it seemed evidently out for a joy ride. One wondered that the automobile didn’t spill them out till Joyce turned the frame around and showed Jimsi that the automobile was cut out of heavy paper and that it and the people were all one piece!
“I’d like to see one of your motion pictureplays,” declared Jimsi. “Can’t you start one and make it go right through from beginning to end?”
“If it were only dark, I could,” said the little lame girl. “But you see Mother needs the light for her sewing just now. So we can’t draw the curtains. I’ll show you my scenery instead. Some other time we’ll make the whole motion picture play— Wouldn’t it be fun for the paper dolls, when I have made mine! Your paper dolls and mine can go to see the pictures: we’ll have a big time! Maybe, we can make up a new play and I can show you how to cut the scenery for it—shall I?”
“What plays have you made?”
“Well,” said the little lame girl, “you know I read a great deal. I make the plays of the stories that I read. I madeAlice in Wonderlandfor one. I traced the pictures from the illustrations in my book and cut them out of heavy wall paper. (One can use cardboard for furniture and scenery and actors, only it’s more expensive, you know.) I traced most of my actors but not all. Some I had to draw—I’m not very good at drawing because I never had lessons. Mother says,shethinksI could draw if I did have lessons but I just do the best I can without.”
“Ithink,” Jimsi insisted, “I think that you must know how to draw pretty well to cut out outlines of people from paper.”
“Oh, no,” contradicted Joyce. “Sometimes I can’t think the way things ought to look. Then I go through some pictures in a book and when I find an outline that will be good to use, I copy it. Or else, sometimes, I just double a piece of thin paper and cut out the waylittlechildren do to make paper dolls when they make both sides exactly alike. Mother used to make dolls in strings that way when I was small.”
“I sawAlice in Wonderlandin moving pictures,” said Jimsi. “It was the crow who gave us all tickets once when Aunt Phoebe was visiting us. And I sawCinderellawith Mary Pickford.Did you?”
The little lame girl smiled. “Yes, the Good Crow gave me a ticket for it, and Mrs. Smith who has an automobile carried me up there. Wasn’t it lovely!”
The two little girls gazed into each other’s eyes, beaming. “After that, I made a play of Cinderella,” said Joyce. “Mine was justa kind of paper doll play, but I had ever so much fun doing it. Sometime, I’ll show it all to you when it is dark and we can use a candle. Here’s the fairy godmother!”
She held up a silhouette doll cut with a long cloak and a pointed hat. The godmother had a wand in her hand. One would have known anywhere that it was Cinderella’s fairy!
“Here’s the pumpkin,” Joyce explained. “See! And here’s the coach! And here’s Cinderella before the fairy transformed her! (I had to make a second Cinderella figure for the playafterthe fairy touched her with the wand.) The way I do this is to change the figures very quickly. It takes a good deal of skill to act it out right. I had long times when I practiced with the figures last autumn. Then, when I thought I could do it perfectly, I’d give a motion picture play for Mother and Daddy in the evening. Often Miss Phoebe would come in to see my plays. She liked them. She used to help me sometimes.Shethinks it’s fun!”
“We could makeRed Riding Hoodinto a motion picture play,” suggested Jimsi. “We could make the bushes for the woods by cutting the paper out irregularly like the outlineof bushes if one saw them in shadow. You cut trees, didn’t you?”
The little lame girl assented. “I’ve cut trees and fences and little hills and the outlines of houses and—oh, ever so many things more than I can think of. InAlice in Wonderland, I really made a rabbit hole and when Alice was in the field, I made the funny rabbit go walking by and go down it and I made Alice follow him and—”
“Howdid you ever do it!” exclaimed Jimsi. “Idon’t see how you did that!”
“You see how I made the field by putting bushes and a fence in the frame, don’t you?”
Jimsi nodded.
“The rabbit hole was a kind of oval with the middle part cut out,” went on the little lame girl. “All I had to do to make the rabbit godownwas to pass the rabbit figure right into the centre of that and then draw him quickly away out of sight. It was the same with Alice. And oh, I did have such a splendid Pool of Tears with the mouse swimming in it! I made the Walrus and the Carpenter and Humpty Dumpty andeverything!”
“What play couldwegive?”
“We might make one up!”
“What would it be about?”
They wondered.
“It would be harder to make one up than to copy a story,” thought Jimsi.
“I tell you what we could do,” suddenly flashed Joyce. “It isn’t exactly aplay, but it would be fun even if it wasn’t a real story. We could make Mother Goose motion pictures!”
“That sounds nice,” agreed Jimsi. She waited for the little lame girl to explain.
“We’d cut out a scene for Mother Hubbard’s house, you know,” pursued the little lame girl. “Then when we’d made the cupboard and the chairs and things, we could cut out Mother Hubbard and the dog and make a motion picture of it—just a short one.”
“AndJack and Jill Went Down the Hill!”
“AndThe Lion and the Unicorn!”
“AndLittle Bo-PeepandLittle Boy Blue, too.”
“And—and—”
But right here, just exactly as Cinderella’s clock had struck twelve strokes, so the clock on the mantel of the little lame girl’s fireplace struck, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding—DING!
Oh, dear! There it was exactly the time when Jimsi had promised Aunt Phoebe to come home!
She jumped from her chair. “Oh, I was having such a good time,” she declared. “I didn’t know that it was anywhere near twelve. Oh, dear! I hate to say good-bye. I’ve had a perfectly splendid time—but I haven’t shown you my paper dolls at all! And the crow told me to show youmycrow play and here I’ve just been listening to yours! But I’ll leave my paper dolls for you to look at and the toy furniture too. You’ll see how it is done. Then, some time when I come over, I’ll take them back. I’ll take my Magic Book home with me. Good-bye andthank you!”
“Come back soon,” sang the little lame girl as Jimsi turned to wave from the street. “Comesoon!”
Then Jimsi waved a frantic and happy “Yes,” and sped back to Aunt Phoebe’s. She burst into the study where Aunt Phoebe was putting away her papers and clearing her desk. “Oh, oh,” she laughed, “do you know what I think, Aunt Phoebe?”
She waited.
“Ithink,” she beamed, “that your crow isabout the nicest crowever!The little lame girl told me all about the motion picture play he gave her and I didn’t even have a chance to tell her about the paper dolls! We hadn’t half begun to play when the clock struck twelve! Oh, dear! I didn’t want to come right away—but I tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to write to Henry and tell him about the crow’s motion pictures. He’d love to make them. He could act outRobinson CrusoeandTreasure Island.”
OF course after the first visit to the little lame girl’s home, Jimsi made ever and ever so many others. They not only made paper dolls and paper dolls’ furniture and paper dolls’ dresses and furnished paper dolls’ houses and had paper doll motion pictures but they did other things with their Magic Books, too.
Once, they tried kindergarten weaving with strips that they cut out of colored papers. Another time, they twisted long strips of the wall paper to make old-fashioned “lamp-lighters” for Joyce’s mother to use in lighting the fire in the fireplace. It was when they were doing this one day that, suddenly, Jimsi gave a big bounce out of her chair. She jumped up and down andupand down in the funniest excited manner, and she kept squealing delightedly, “Oh, I’ve got an idea! I’ve got ani-dea!”
“What!” exclaimed Joyce. “WHAT IS IT?”
“Um-m! Um-m!” came from the happy Jimsi. “Oh, you guess!”
“I can’t guess!”
“Oh—no, you can’t guess! You wouldn’t think of it! Oh, it’s lovely—splendid—scrum-ti-fer-ous!”
“Well, what is it?” The little lame girl was almost impatient but she was as glad as Jimsi to prolong the suspense. She knew that Jimsi was making the most of her discovery.
“It couldn’t be better if the crow had written about it,” she asserted, stopping to sit down beside the little lame girl’s table. “I’ll tell you what it is: It’s VALENTINES! It’sVALENTINES!All the beautiful fancy papers are just the thing to make valentines! Think how beautiful valentines will be when they’re made out of the flowered papers! Let’s try it! We can save the valentines till we need them—put them away in a box or, I’ll tell you what!—Why couldn’t we send them up to The Children’s Home for a valentine party? Once I went with Daddy to an entertainment at The Children’s Home.I felt as if I’d love to do something for the children there. It’s so—so very unhomelike!”
photograph of eleven ValentinesThe Valentines and Cards That Were Made out of Wall Paper
The Valentines and Cards That Were Made out of Wall Paper
The Valentines and Cards That Were Made out of Wall Paper
“It would be splendid to do that,” agreed Joyce. “Let’s begin right away. You take your Magic Book and I’ll take mine. You can spread newspapers on the floor so we won’t make a clutter and let’s see who can make the prettiest. We’ll have a valentine exhibition afterwards and invite Miss Phoebe and the crow.”
“All right!”
The leaves of the magic wall paper sample books turned and turned. There were squeals of delight from Joyce and chuckles from Jimsi. “Oh, I’ve found something that will be lovely!” one would cry. “Oh, look at this!” the other exclaimed. And the little lame girl’s mother who was called to admire couldn’t tell which was the prettiest paper—you seebothwere lovely!
First the little lame girl found some paper that had sprays of yellow roses on it. She cut out a big heart that was figured all over with them. It really was a beautiful,beautifulvalentine.
Jimsi suggested that if one were to color the edge all around with green crayon,thatwould give the valentine a good finish. One could use the crayon to print on the valentine too.
Then, Jimsi improved on Joyce. She folded her paper double and cut her heart out double, making the top of her valentine heart touch the crease of the paper. Her heart opened with two sides. Inside, she wrote a verse. At the top she tied ribbon bows, using some very narrow baby ribbon that she had in the paper doll box.
Joyce made valentines like it onlysheput pictures as well as verses inside the double heart. Some of the verses she made up. Others, she copied from old valentines that were in her scrapbook.
After they had tried all manner of heart valentines, made of plain papers, flowered papers, papers with designs, papers with figures, striped papers, cross-barred papers, they decided to try something different. Jimsi cut out a diamond-shaped figure from her paper. It was really lovely. It was a basket of daisies. The diamond was bordered with blue and Jimsi cut diamond-shaped pieces of white paper and put them at the back of the picture with a verse—the old, old verse that everybody changes. It begins: