Spanish CupSpanish Cup
All kinds of balancing games are excellent when you are alone and tired of toys. There is no way to acquire proficiency in these but by practice, but practice is fascinating work. Try balancing at first a long pole (an old broom-stick handle will do) on the palm of your hand, then on your finger, then on your chin and forehead. The longer the pole, the easier to balance it. Remember one golden rule.Keep your eyes on the top of the pole.
Then try balancing a whole broom, or a chair. The practice of balancing is excellent for training yourself in quickness of eye and muscle.
Of course bricks and soldiers and ninepins, as well as balls (seep. 139), are more interesting when more than one person plays; but one can pass the time very well with them.
Where toys become tedious, games have to be made up; and in making up games no outside help is needed. At the same time, some games which E. H. describes may perhaps supply a hint or two. "One little girl," she writes, "used to find endless joy in pretending to be Douglas bearing the heart of Bruce to the Holy Land. A long stick in the right hand represented his spear; a stone in the left hand was the casket containing Bruce's heart. If the grown-ups stopped to talk with some one they met, or if there was any other excuse for running on ahead, the little girl would rush forward waving her stick and encouraging her men (represented by a big dog), and, after hurling her stone as far forward as possible, and exclaiming, 'Lead on, brave heart,' she would cast her spear in the same direction in a last effort against the Moors, and then pretend to fall dead to the ground." This little girl had found the story of Bruce inTales of a Grandfather, by SirWalter Scott. Almost every book will yield people and events to play at.
Another little girl whom E. H. knew "once spent a short time in a hotel, and while there divided the other people into camps according to the floor on which they had rooms. The designs in the windows on the various floors represented the badges or heraldic signs of each camp. For instance, one window (they were of colored glass) had a border with eagles, another had gryphons, another lions, and so on. If she met some one of another floor coming in or going out of the hotel, it represented the meeting of two rival bands. If she actually found herself in the elevator with them, it was a dangerous encounter, in which, if they got out first, she had driven them off the field, but if she got out first it was she who was in retreat. If two people of different floors were seen talking together, a truce had been declared, and so on."
The little book calledA Child's Garden of Verses, by R. L. Stevenson, has several poems which describe how a lonely little boy used to play. Thus (in "Block City"):—
Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet a sea,There I'll establish a city for me,A kirk and a mill, and a palace beside,And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.
Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet a sea,There I'll establish a city for me,A kirk and a mill, and a palace beside,And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.
And (in "The Land of Story-Books"):—
Now, with my little gun, I crawlAll in the dark along the wall,And follow round the forest trackAway behind the sofa back.There, in the night, where none can spy,All in my hunter's camp I lie,And play at books that I have readTill it is time to go to bed.
Now, with my little gun, I crawlAll in the dark along the wall,And follow round the forest trackAway behind the sofa back.
There, in the night, where none can spy,All in my hunter's camp I lie,And play at books that I have readTill it is time to go to bed.
That is ordinary play. There is also a poem describing play in bed:—
My bed is like a little boat;Nurse helps me in when I embark;She girds me in my sailor's coatAnd starts me in the dark.
My bed is like a little boat;Nurse helps me in when I embark;She girds me in my sailor's coatAnd starts me in the dark.
When more than one sleep in the same room, the time before sleep can be very interesting. Many games which have already been described are suitable for bed, such as "Telling Stories" (p. 99), "I Love my Love" (p. 88), "Spelling" (p. 166), "The Grand Mogul" (p. 166), "Rhyming Lights" (p. 167), "The Apprentice" (p. 167), "Towns and Products" (p. 168), "Suggestions" (p. 91), and "Clumps," adapted (p. 93).
On this subject B. R. L. writes:—"We made a list, which was stuck on the wall with a different game for each night. One was 'I Love my Love with an A' (seep. 88), which we steadily made up all through the alphabet. Another was 'Initials,' in which you take turns in saying the initials of people you know, while the other guesses the names. Another was 'Twenty Questions,' in which one thinks of something that has to be guessed as quickly as possible, only 'yes' and 'no' being given as answers. One very girlish game was like this: suppose you had a little girl with golden hair and blue eyes, and she was going on a visit to London, what sort of frocks would you buy her?"
E. H. recommends for girls the "Imaginary Family" game. This is her description of it:—"First you have to settle the names, ages, and characters of your family, and then you can carry on their adventures every night. One little girl who was devoted to books of travel, and who loved to pore over maps and charts, used to travel with her family every night in whatever country she happened to be interested in at the time. Thus she and a favorite son, Pharaoh, traveled for a long time in California, crossing every mountain-range by the proper passes, exploring every valley, tracing each river to its source, and so on. In the same way she traveled with her family is Central and South America, the Malay Peninsula, and the South Sea Islands. Another little girl who was very fond of adventure stories carried her family through all sorts of perils by land and sea. At one time they were shipwrecked and lived like the Swiss Family Robinson. At another time they were exploring Central Africa, and traveled about with three years' supplies in a gigantic caravan with fifty elephants. Yet another little girl had for her family any characters out of books that particularly fascinated her. Thus, when she was readingThe Heroes, her family was reduced to one daughter, Medea, a rather terrible daughter, who needed a great deal of propitiating, and for whose sake all other children had to be given up. Later on, when the same child was readingTales of a Grandfather, her family consisted of three sons, Wallace, Bruce, and Douglas. (It is rather a good thing, by the way, to have a very heroic family, especially if you are at all inclined to be afraid in the dark, as they help to keep one's courage up.) Two little girls, who lived in a clergyman's household, had an imaginary poor family they were interested in, and they planned about them every night,—how much the father earned, what their rent was, whether themother oughtn't to take in washing, whether the eldest girl could be spared to go into service, and so on. When they weren't allowed to talk at night they carried the family history on independently and compared notes in the morning."
Making plans is always interesting, but particularly so just before Christmas, when presents have to be arranged for.
The favorite way is to imagine that you see a flock of sheep scrambling through a gap in the hedge, and to count them. A variety of this is a desert with a long train of camels very far off, coming slowly near, and then passing and gradually disappearing in the far distance. Counting a million is also a good way.
A good thing to do in bed when getting better from an illness is to cut out pictures for scrapbooks. Any kind of cutting out can be done, as the scissors and paper are very light and do not, therefore, tire the arms. "Patience" (seepage 76) is also a good bed game, because it needs very little thought.
InA Child's Garden of Versesthere is a poem called "The Land of Counterpane," which tells what a little boy did when he was ill, lying among the pillows with his toys:
And sometimes for an hour or soI watched my leaden soldiers go,With different uniforms and drills,Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;And sometimes sent my ships in fleetsAll up and down among the sheets,Or brought my trees and houses outAnd planted cities all about.
And sometimes for an hour or soI watched my leaden soldiers go,With different uniforms and drills,Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleetsAll up and down among the sheets,Or brought my trees and houses outAnd planted cities all about.
Dolls are, of course, perfectly at home in bed when you are ill, but there is even more interest in a menagerie. On this subject it would be difficult to do better than quote from a letter from E. M. R., who has 590 china animals, mostly in families and all named. She began this magnificent collection with a family of monkeys.
The mother was called Sally, her eldest son Mungo, the next Pin-ceri, another, eating a nut, Jock, and the youngest, a sweet little girl monkey, Ness. I was soon given a family of three foxes, Reynard, Brushtail, and Whitepad, and from that time to the present my collection has been growing. I soon had enough to fill a shelf in a cabinet, and I turned my doll's-house into a boarding-school for the little animals with a big pig as headmaster. But when my collection rose to 400 animals, I had too many children to be all boarders at the school, so some had to be day-scholars, and the headmaster was changed to a green frog who swam beautifully, and who was assisted by two swans, a duck, a fish, two crocodiles, and a seal, who all swam. Another frog taught the children swimming by tying a piece of string round their bodies, and dangling them in the water from the edge of a basin.The animals' abode was now changed, and they were put into a large cabinet containing six small shelves and one big one.I called the big shelf a town, and the rest villages. The town was called Weybridge: the village where the birds lived, Airsbury; and that where the dogs were, Canistown. The rest had various other names. At this time an important addition was made to the collection, for a big lion was given me, which I immediately created king; then came a queen and four princesses, and shortly after a crown prince, another prince, and three more little princesses.The royal family was allowed a village all to itself, which was called Kingston, and was given five servants, two nurses, a footman, a housemaid, and a cook.As I had now two families of several of the kinds of animals, I determined that they should be married, so, nominating Sally's husband rector, I had several weddings. I built a church with some bricks I had, and formed a procession up the aisle, to the Wedding March, played on an American organ.First came the bride and bridegroom, then the best man and the bridesmaids, and last the children of the animals who were to be married, two and two. When the ceremony was over, I marched them all back to their places on the shelf.I now made eight laws, and copied them out in an exercise-book, togetherwith the names of all the animals, the number of men, women, boys, and girls, and the number of married and single families.I had had several little separate china animals given me, belonging to none of my families, so I made a law that if any family of their kind came to the collection they must adopt these little orphans.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.
The mother was called Sally, her eldest son Mungo, the next Pin-ceri, another, eating a nut, Jock, and the youngest, a sweet little girl monkey, Ness. I was soon given a family of three foxes, Reynard, Brushtail, and Whitepad, and from that time to the present my collection has been growing. I soon had enough to fill a shelf in a cabinet, and I turned my doll's-house into a boarding-school for the little animals with a big pig as headmaster. But when my collection rose to 400 animals, I had too many children to be all boarders at the school, so some had to be day-scholars, and the headmaster was changed to a green frog who swam beautifully, and who was assisted by two swans, a duck, a fish, two crocodiles, and a seal, who all swam. Another frog taught the children swimming by tying a piece of string round their bodies, and dangling them in the water from the edge of a basin.
The animals' abode was now changed, and they were put into a large cabinet containing six small shelves and one big one.
I called the big shelf a town, and the rest villages. The town was called Weybridge: the village where the birds lived, Airsbury; and that where the dogs were, Canistown. The rest had various other names. At this time an important addition was made to the collection, for a big lion was given me, which I immediately created king; then came a queen and four princesses, and shortly after a crown prince, another prince, and three more little princesses.
The royal family was allowed a village all to itself, which was called Kingston, and was given five servants, two nurses, a footman, a housemaid, and a cook.
As I had now two families of several of the kinds of animals, I determined that they should be married, so, nominating Sally's husband rector, I had several weddings. I built a church with some bricks I had, and formed a procession up the aisle, to the Wedding March, played on an American organ.
First came the bride and bridegroom, then the best man and the bridesmaids, and last the children of the animals who were to be married, two and two. When the ceremony was over, I marched them all back to their places on the shelf.
I now made eight laws, and copied them out in an exercise-book, togetherwith the names of all the animals, the number of men, women, boys, and girls, and the number of married and single families.
I had had several little separate china animals given me, belonging to none of my families, so I made a law that if any family of their kind came to the collection they must adopt these little orphans.
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.
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.
To boys who wear knickerbockers the preparations for paddling are very simple; but girls are not so fortunate. Lewis Carroll (who wroteAlice 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, andperhaps 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 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.
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.
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 thathas 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.
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—
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.
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.
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, 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.
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. Agreedy 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.
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.
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 encyclopædias contain very interesting articles on the subject.
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.
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.
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 ahoop that will be far cheaper and stronger than a bought one (seep. 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.
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.
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, theyoung 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.
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.
A quieter pastime, but a very interesting one, and also one that, unlike egg-collecting and butterfly-collecting, goes onall 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'sThe Wild Flower Book for Young Peoplegives 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.
In nutting you want a hooked stick with which to pull down the branches. For blackberries a hooked stick is not soimportant, 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.
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 seep. 295.
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 (seep. 298), paper boats (seep. 285), or whatever it may be.
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 anddisappear, 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.
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.
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.
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.
Onp. 205is 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.
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.
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 beechgrove 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.
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.
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, butare also very useful. Mr. Kearton's work in this way, which may be studied inWith Nature and a Camera, is extremely valuable.
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.
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.
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 (seep. 241), and, if you have room, stables.
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.
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, 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 goldor 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 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.
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.
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.
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 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 useflannel, 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.