THE PLAYWORK BOOK

THE
PLAYWORK BOOK

BY
ANN MACBETH

WITH 114 DIAGRAMS

NEW YORK
Robert M. McBride & Company
1918

Printed in the United States of America

Published October, 1918

CONTENTS

THE PLAYWORK BOOK

Far enough below the surface, in every one of us there lives, very often almost forgotten, the child, who, like Peter Pan, "never grows up." It is this everlasting child in us that keeps the keys which open for each his Kingdom of Heaven, and sad it is for those of us who have lost sight of the keeper of the keys. The sweetest and loveliest things in our lives are the simplest things. They do not abide in the excitable enjoyment of luxuries and entertainments to be bought with money; they lie in the living and eternal interest of the homeliest things of daily life, wherever people are simple, and sincere of heart, and full of loving, kindly thought and care for the concerns of others; where people do things themselves instead of paying for them to be done; where wealth is counted in love, in thoughtfulness, and in interest in other people, and not in many possessions. These things are the heritage of all children, and we are happy if we can carry our heritage with us through our life; for this indeed is to be of the Kingdom of Heaven.

A child who is unspoiled by the false and ignorant estimates of others with regard to the rank and standing of those among whom he lives, is perhaps our truest socialist. He comes into the world possessing nothing, so far as he is aware, save his own identity; he knows no distinction of class; his ideas of rank are based solely on the beauty, charm, and kindness which are in due proportion the characters of those he lives with. He makes his own little kingdom if he is encouraged to work it out, or play it out, for himself; and happy is the child and happy is the parent of that child who learns to play independently, and to gather together his kingdom, without a continual cry for assistance from others. Here is one of the first great landmarks in education, and a child who is unspoiled by too many possessions in the way of toys will be one well provided, for his mind should at once move to create these possessions for himself. This power to create, this moving of the spirit to make something out of chaos, is in all healthy human beings, and it is the happiest faculty we have. It is, in fact, one of the most vital sides of religion in us, and perhaps the most important to us. It brings us into direct kinship with the Great Creator of all things. This moving of the Holy Spirit over the chaos of the world, in our businesses, in our workshops, in our shipyards, in our buildings, in all craftsman's work in our factories, is probably never realized by the churchmen among us, and only vaguely apprehended by the educational authorities. Yet does not this very power of creative thought amongst even the humblest of us constitute religion of the most living vitality? This Holy Spirit moving, and living, and creating anew in every trade and craft, and in every place where men are busy, should be better realized by us, and more respected; we should then be better men and women. The inventive minds among us are indeed our prophets, answering to the call of those whose labor is too long and heavy, and producing what will lessen the burden. Answering again the call for more light, more beauty, more music in the world, and producing our arts and our playgrounds, our games, our schools and colleges. Answering again the call for freedom from pain, and we have our hospitals, and our great doctors, and all who work for the betterment of the world. Here is the real and living church of God on earth. They say we are leaving the churches behind us. Say rather that the church is more with us, and all are its ministers who are working for the world's welfare.

We rebuke far too often that habit of children of asking questions. We say, "Be quiet," and "You will see some other day"! Yet it is by questions that the child shows most his interest in life, and his inclinations and desires and tendencies.

We instruct a child for years in the writings, doings, sayings, and contrivings of others who have gone before us. How rarely do we realize that in these little ones there may be as great, or greater, light within, only needing care and encouragement to develop and flame up, and show its creative strength? It is sad to think how often these little lights are snuffed out in their first flickerings by the thoughtless things we say, by the foolish way we tease them at the slightest sign of independent thought, by our ignorant habit of commending and praising those who give up their independence, and conform to the commonplace habits and customs we have adopted as convenient.

Many very young children show astonishingly developed faculties in certain directions even before they can express themselves in speech. I know a little boy who, in his second year, showed such an interest in machinery that his elder relatives had to learn the parts of a locomotive engine in order not to betray their own ignorance; and over and over again we see the faculties of the creative mind so strong in young children that it is difficult to persuade ourselves that they have not some previous experience to draw upon. Especially is this the case in music and the arts, for here there is perhaps less dependence on tools and previous technical training required, than in other constructive work. But it is sad to see, and very common also, that these bright beginnings too often flicker out, not because the spirit is lacking, but because these children are only too often driven to hide their lights, because they feel conspicuous, are teased, and rebuked, and chidden for their non-conformity, and are made to feel themselves outcasts if they pursue the way their spirit tends to lead them; and they lose their light, these finer little spirits, and subside into the twilight of mediocre minds.

It is indeed difficult, in these times of over-crowded schools and over-worked teachers, to foster and develop the personalities of these little ones, but we all look to a time when education may be a stronger force among us, more respected and more desired, when those who teach in our elementary schools may be the finest men and women we have, those of the greatest hearts, and the widest understanding (for into their hands we place the most precious thing we have); a time, when, realizing that the laborer is worthy of his hire, we must also be brought to realize that the hire must be worthy of the laborer.

We become more and more socialistic in our community life in these days, and a child is now so little left to the charge of his mother that his life, almost from babyhood upwards, is just a passing on from one trained hand to another till he is able to support himself independently, and often long after that. His years of school grow longer and busier, and now even his playtime is to be more closely guarded and supervised. Yet it is to be hoped that here the guarding and supervising will be specially directed to preserving his independence and his choice of leisure occupation.

Games are good for all, yet playtime should emphatically not be all games: this is where our public schools have failed us; they have given too much importance to games, and almost none to private enterprise in constructive play. In the little contrivances of children lie the germs of vast mechanical and artistic enterprises. The marvelous crafts passed on to us from ancient days in every land were never the result of training in schools, they partook more of the qualities of what I would call "constructive play," passed on from parent to child, each new thing a little different from any other, changing and varying in every age, yet all through a pleasure and a joy to their makers. Our trades and our crafts have all their beginnings in the immature constructions we make as children. We build houses, we furnish them, we make instruments of music (and un-music), we make ships, we fashion vessels of clay, and wood, and metal; we weave and we paint; we dimly foresaw the days when men should fly like birds, and we made kites. All this went on for countless generations, and then we laid captive the steam and the electric current, and lo! a change; all things are possible. Yet we have had a set back; we have forgotten awhile that the spirit in all of us is greater than the machine. We have allowed our machines to make our toys, and instead of being toy-makers our children have to some extent become toy breakers, not because they are really trying to destroy, but because they have the right and natural desire to see how a thing is made. It is not enough, however, to know this; it is very essential that a child should make for himself, and the probability is that if the thing is easily bought he will not take the trouble to make it. He will be inclined to take it for granted that just because it is a "commercial" article, a thing to be bought in a shop, he cannot make it. Toys imported from abroad have been so plentiful and so cheap of late years that the children of to-day rarely attempt to make them for themselves, and they are immensely the poorer, intellectually speaking, for the lack of this necessity to make them. It is for this reason that I have gathered together a small collection of the contrivances of past generations, and the present generation too, not in order that they serve as mere subjects for copy, but because in making such things children develop ideas for improving upon them, and for making new things.

This little collection of works and enterprises is brought together as a suggestion for what Scottish folk so aptly call "ploys," which the children may undertake without much help or instruction. Later on it may be possible to collect a more mature series of suggestions for recreative work in evening schools and continuation classes. There are people everywhere whose work during the day is so taxing that they cannot continue to strain mind and hand at the usual subjects given in evening schools, and yet they can learn to employ their leisure time very profitably by work which does not demand either mental strain, nor highly developed skill, nor any elaborate outfit, nor noisy methods of construction. It must be truly "leisure" work, and be planned to give refreshment and stimulation and "play" to weary brain and body.

Such gentle fireside crafts as the decoration of pottery, and coarse and effective needlework are delightful to practice of an evening, and need give no trouble to the tidy and anxious Marthas of the household. No evenings are more pleasant than those I have spent with friends all busy at quiet crafts round the hearth, chatting a little, or listening to a reader, or singing simple songs in parts, and with no accompaniment of instruments. Constructive design for either of these two crafts is a delightful thing for either men or women of any age. We are never too old to learn to design patterns so long as our hands are able to guide a pen. For what is writing but pattern. Each of us writes his or her name to an individual design, easily recognized so soon as our hand has learned to control our instrument. Patterns for these simple crafts should therefore emanate from the minds of the workers themselves, and should never be copied if it is possible to avoid it.

This spirit of creativeness and invention should find a special period for its development in the day's time-table, and it would be immensely helpful and interesting if teachers would make collections of "outstanding" productions from the children, and if little loan collections of these might travel round from place to place. The children themselves are always intensely interested in seeing such things—and sometimes the older folk who have not forgotten to be children are even more so. I have always urged that craft-work from our various educational centers should go "on tour" in this way, and I keep a large quantity of needlework which shows individuality, from all sorts of schools, going round the country. This usually is shown to teachers only, which limits its sphere, for the children themselves show a most enthusiastic interest in it, and whenever I have shown such work to children in elementary schools, the chorus of excited little voices usually repeats, "Oh, I could do that," which is exactly what is needed for a good beginning. How charming it would be if municipalities would have in every museum a section of "modern craft work," independent of the collections of antiquities we store up. For we also have beautiful things being created amongst us, no less beautiful because they result from the demands of modern needs and usages.

New habits of life produce new demands, and children quickly catch new ideas and adapt themselves to the use of hitherto unknown materials. This is especially the case in cities, and the suggested constructions for the playwork subjects in this book are almost all made out of the waste materials the children may readily find at hand, and they are put together as far as possible, without any particular need for skill, and with the fewest and simplest of tools. In the country there is always an immense wealth of superfluous material to play with, and the country child has a far greater treasury from which to supply the need of hand and mind than his neighbor of the city. Imagination can find an immensity of outlet and opportunity, even in the neighborhood of cities. I remember well my village of cave dwellings which I carefully hollowed out beneath the spreading roots of trees—very dirty trees—in a suburban wood in a Lancashire town. The caves were furnished with stones and twigs, and populated with earwigs or any creeping thing to be found and housed there. Later I owned an island in a Westmorland Lake, and had a beautiful house of woven branches of the growing rowan trees, with a garden planted with ferns and wild flowers among mossy bordered paths. And again, my sisters and brothers and I made fine wigwams of the branches of young oak and hazel trees found in those lakeland woods; they were tied together at the top with the fibrous stems of honeysuckle, spread tentwise at the base, and heaped outside with a covering of dead bracken and dry leafy twigs. In town too, for wet days there was always the house under the table, walled in with table cover and blankets: delightful dwellings all, and happy little "homes" to live in, for any place is a "home" to us when we look back to it with happy memory. And the garlands we made of daisies and red clover, thick as a man's arm and plaited strongly together, with which we decked the clothes-props on the drying green, and made them into Maypoles! We remember the joy these things gave, chiefly because we made them; we remember them far better than the games we played, or the entertainments we went to.

At school again, my best personal experience, and one that I have found valuable above all the other education I got, was not the lessons I learned from books; I have forgotten almost all I got from them. It was the great days when we had plays in school, and I was allowed to devise, and practically direct the whole making of the stage properties. A great time that. We made armor, and weapons, and crowns, and garments, and wings, and scenery. We had no assistance from teachers for this, and I know it taught me more than any of my teachers did. During school days I did not learn to draw because I had a drawing lesson once a week, and painfully and carefully drew perspectives of chairs and schoolrooms and other dull things. I learned to draw because I loved to scribble in my lesson books princes and princesses, and fairies, and because I had few playthings, and was always making and decorating little gifts for other people.

This practise of decorating the things we make is really far the best way to teach drawing to either children or others. We make our education in drawing a far too limited affair by directing it to a pictorial issue alone, and drawing is a far wider subject than concerns picture-making solely. If we go into our museums, we see from the ancient handicrafts left to us by primitive peoples, that in the beginning all art was purely applied to useful things. The clay jar modelled in the hands alone, with its lines and curves just emphasized with a few scratches or impressions made with a stick or a bone, what is this but just play? and yet it is art also and the art adds immensely to the value of that jar. So also to-day, if any child takes a piece of clay and makes a vessel by hand, the very same thing is produced. I have seen little pots made in schools which it is difficult to distinguish from some of those of ancient Egypt or Peru in our museums. They are not one whit less artistic, and yet the art is quite unconscious, the child was only "playing" with the clay.

We would be much the richer, commercially speaking, if schools would only take up this different side of art teaching—making patterns, instead of pictures. I am not condemning the drawing of pictures, but I am urging that pattern-making—constructive design in actual material, not on paper—should come first. Pattern is the mathematics of art, and it can develop the mathematical faculties far more widely than mere mental calculations can. It must be learned by wise gradations, and the learner must never be allowed to get out of hand or run riot with over-elaboration. If we can teach the children in their drawing lessons to decorate the useful articles they need for the home, we shall give a great impetus to the commercial arts. For example, if a child has one lesson at decorating a piece of pottery with a brush dipped in glaze paint and decorates it with nothing but a line of dots or strokes, he can have this fired and fixed and use it, and he also at once looks at every china shop with a sharply discriminating eye. In a very short time he will be able to choose between good decoration and bad, he will understand economy in production, he will very soon demand from the trade a higher class of design, and he will be willing to pay for better design because he understands the working of it.

The fashion for amateurs to practice photography did not do harm to the professional photographer, as was feared at first; it raised the standard of professional work, and brought more custom, and not less, to the professional worker. And this holds good in all work, the more widely and thoroughly it is "understanded of the people," the more desirable do the people find it.

There is a great education before art teachers, and they must realize that they must come into touch with science and mathematics and general constructive work. They must watch the changing needs and fashions of the day, and realize that not only in classic times was the art of the people a beautiful and desirable thing. They must realize, too, that in this Twentieth Century our hands are extending their powers, and that by the use of machines we are reaching a far larger public than unaided hands could do. The artist has spent two or three generations bewailing the machine; he forgot that no machine can, of its own powers, be artistic or inartistic. He left the machine alone, and therefore the machine-work has fallen into discredit. The artist craftsman is too often too conscious of his art, and does not subordinate himself sufficiently to modern ways and conditions. It is not the fault of the machine that much of our manufactured output is inartistic, it is the fault of the artist that he has not managed to control the machine. First and foremost, however, we must have some change in the training of artists, and must direct their attention to utility, rather than pictorial work. It is difficult to count the outlets possible to the decorative craftsman, provided he understands modern machinery and commercial demands. This training in handicraft begins, very rightly and naturally in the kindergarten schools, but there, unfortunately, it stops short. Now what we want to do is to plan out for our growing children such crafts as will develop intelligence and skill of hand, without demanding too great physical strength or technical training, and without undue expenditure of money upon materials and outfit.

For the younger children the easiest media to work in are clay and needlework. The clay-work should be directed to the most permanent and useful things that can be produced; pottery and tiles can be very easily made, and are very permanent if they are glazed and fired and decorated, and this can be done at very little expense. Needlework must be taught so that the worker develops intelligence and independence, and is no longer made to sew the multitudes of fine stitches which were once considered necessary, and which made the girls mere unthinking machines. There are endless new ways to be followed out in the sewing and embroidery and construction of garments and household textiles. Even the rather mechanical knitting is probably only in its infancy as yet, and we may see it do great things, and play a more beautiful part in our textile arts. To reform and renew the vitality of all these things we must realize that they have all their beginnings in the playwork of the little child, and that simply because the little child has no traditions to unlearn, and is therefore independent enough to think out new devices in his play, so must we all keep before us the fact that we have that light within us which is above, and independent of, traditions.

If we can see any way in which any work can be improved or altered, or beautified by some change in its treatment, we must be bold to try it, for only by courage and bravery of thought does the work of the world keep itself fresh and ever renewed and changing towards better things. Never be afraid that because you have not tried to do a thing you will be unable to do it. If the thought of doing it has come to you, it is a sign that some power is there, at any rate, and the impulse to improve and change a thing for the better is just that creative impulse stirring within, which I have pleaded for. Whose is that impulse? Not our own entirely. Then surely if it is good, we do right at least to try to carry it out. It is the Mind that changes matter, but it is not your mind nor mine, though it is in our charge. And happy is he who has faith to listen and give it force and visible expression.

There are in this little book things that many of the wiser folk shake their heads over—catapults for instance. Yet I have put them in; for surely if we older folk had not enjoyed our catapults we should probably have been sadder folk, as well as wiser. All children may some day or other handle instruments of offense and destruction, and it is part of their legitimate education to learn to do no harm with them, so I have put in the catapult. I enjoyed playing with mine, and I do not think I ever broke anything with it, I do not even remember hitting anything I aimed at, and probably this is the average experience. I have not attempted to enter into any lengthy suggestions as regards making boats, or other toys requiring much patience and skill and knowledge of tools. Boat-making is a most interesting thing for both boys and girls, and can be carried to great perfection by them, if they have perseverance. I see no reason why the making of model boats and mechanical toys should not be the special work of boys' manual classes, nor is there any reason why a great quantity of the craft-work and needlework in day and evening schools should not be commercialized, and disposed of by the educational authorities, both to the advantage of the teachers and the pupils. One field alone—that of providing souvenirs for sale to tourists—is a large one, and is at present open to the schools. Tourists do not come here with any desire to buy souvenirs made abroad; they would greatly prefer things with a local flavor, and preferably small and portable. I know from personal experience how immensely such a market encourages students to work at their classes in the evenings. We could keep the evening schools packed with students if they realized that their work, done in leisure hours, had some prospect of bringing in a return instead of involving outlay alone. This also is playwork; and though this small book deals only with such playwork in its infancy, yet it must be emphatically urged that it develops into great things, things that the nation needs, and which can only come to their full development because the nation's children have learned to play.

My thanks are due to my grandfather, grandmother, and my father and mother, and to my nurses whose names I have forgotten, but from whom I learned to make many things. Also to Mrs. Grisedale, Mrs. Wear, Mrs. Fry, Mrs. Fellows, Miss Allright, Miss Worsdell, Miss Douglas, Miss Arthur, Mr. J. T. Ewen, H.M.I., Mr. Forrester Wilson, and to Norman Guild, for many suggestions, and for their very practical help.

A WOOLLEN BALL

Materials Required:—

A small strip of thick cardboard, a small piece of string, wool, scissors.

Figs. 1 and 2.

This is the easiest of all the things one can make in wool. Take a narrow piece of stiff cardboard, or a flat stick about five inches long and about one inch wide, and make a slit at each end: between these two slits stretch a piece of thin string and then, about the middle of the strip of cardboard, wind the wool over and over till it is like a ball. Do not allow the wool to spread too far along the cardboard. When the ball of wool is two, or two and a half inches in diameter, loosen the string from the slits, and slip out the cardboard carefully from the ball; you will not have a bundle of wool with a string running through all the loops. Tie the string up tightly and knot it well, then take your scissors and cut the loops as in Figure 2. After all the loops are cut you will have to clip all the loose ends, till they are about even in length, and the bundle will now be a nice regular shape. This is a somewhat wasteful way of making a ball, and should only be used by very little children with waste wool or cotton yarn. It teaches them, however, a very useful thing—to wind wool evenly, and to cut and trim it.

ANOTHER WOOLLEN BALL

Materials Required:—

Two used postcards or pieces of thin cardboard, a strong darning needle, odd pieces of bright-colored wools, scissors.

Figs. 3 and 4.

A very much better way to make a woollen ball, but more difficult, is shown in Figures 3 and 4. Here you must first have a piece of fairly stiff cardboard and on it lay a teacup or tumbler with the rim on the cardboard. Draw with a pencil, or scratch with the scissors round the rim so that you have a circle about three and a half or four inches across on it, and cut these circles out. Then take some smaller circular thing, a quarter, or something about that size, and place it carefully in the center of each of your larger circles, and cut out the smaller circle like a hole in the middle of the bigger one. Now take some wool—you can have it of many bright colors, and if you have any old woollen knitted things which you do not need you can unravel them. Slip one end of your wool through the hole of both pieces of cardboard when they are laid together, tie it in a knot, and with your fingers at first, and later with a darning needle, keep winding the wool through the hole and over and over the cardboard until it is all covered. Go on winding it through the hole, until the hole is so full that even your needle will not push through. Then you must take sharp scissors and carefully cut the wool at the outer edge of this round cushion you have wound, till the scissors cut into the cardboard, so that you can slip one point between the two cards and cut right round the circle. You must be careful not to let the wool be pulled out of the hole through which you have threaded it. Now take a piece of thin strong string, slip it round between the two cardboard circles, wind it two or three times, and tie it very tightly. Next, carefully tear away your two cardboard rounds and you will have a fine firm ball, which only needs cutting and trimming with the scissors into an even shape. You can make this ball look very pretty by arranging your wool as you wind it into different layers of varying color or make a quarter of your circle of one color and the next quarter of another, and so on. Small balls made like this make pretty pompoms for shoes and hats, and tassels on bags, or they can be fixed on drawstrings in underclothing, to prevent them coming out.

A SPRIG OF FLOWERS

Materials Required:—

A little thin cardboard, wools of various bright colors, milliner's wire, a small darning needle, scissors.

Figs. 5 to 9.

This can be made very much as the second woollen ball is made. You take a circle of cardboard again, but rather a smaller one about two inches across (a small ink bottle or an egg-cup would give about the right size); and cut in it a round hole about as big as a dime. Wind bright-colored wool through the hole and over the cardboard very evenly, using a darning needle because it is such a small hole. Wind on wool until all the cardboard is covered evenly. Then take a piece of wire about six inches long, or a hairpin will do if straightened out. You can do this by holding the ends tightly in each hand and rubbing the pin backwards and forwards against the edge of a table. At one end of the wire bend it, so that it makes a little loop, the smaller the better. Now begin with green wool to wrap round the wire, covering in the loop first, and when you have covered in the whole loop wind the wool over the end of the bent piece again, and bind it tightly to the other portion, and go on down the wire for some distance. With another hairpin (not straightened out this time, but bent as much to a point as possible) or another piece of wire bent like a V, tie the green wool at the bend, and wind in and out from one side of the wire to the other, first letting the sides go wide from each other and then gradually tightening them together, till you have them closed again and they become a leaf shape. Bind this leaf into the first wire stem, and add more leaves if you wish. Now wind over the first two fingers of your left hand some yellow or dark-colored wool about a dozen times, and take the end of the wool and tie it through when you withdraw your fingers, as in making the first woollen ball. Hold these loops tight from this knotted part, and wind the end of the wool round till it is like Figure 6, a little tassel; take your darning needle and sew this tassel into the hole in the circle of cardboard so that it makes a center for your flower, and sew the cardboard flower to the loop at the end of the wire. You can make two or three small tassels for this center if you like, and bind them first around the loop so that they fill up the hole in the cardboard quite tightly. More tassels can be made and tied to wires and bound into the main wire stem like little buds. These sprigs look very pretty when worn in hats, and they will not spoil with the rain: you can also put a large spray in a vase when you cannot get real flowers.

A SKIPPING ROPE

Materials Required:—

Some cheap thin string or cotton waste, some small twigs, a pencil or penholder, a strong hook fixed in a wall.

Figs. 10 to 12.

Take three or four lengths of thin string—a very cheap quality will do—about three yards long, and tie them into a knot close to each end. Be sure that every separate piece is of the same length. Then take one knotted end and slip the knot round a hook in the wall, not too high up; a curtain hook will do very well, or any other knob or projecting thing which will allow a very small loop to slip off and on, and which will hold firmly. Into the other end, at the knot, slip a pencil or penholder, and hold the strand of strings or threads with the left thumb and forefinger loosely, just beyond the place the pencil is slipped into it, as in Figure 10. With the right hand first finger hit the pencil round and round away from you, downwards, keeping it whirling so that the long strand becomes twisted. Do not hold too tight with the left hand, but be sure to keep the strands taut from the hook where they are fastened. Keep on whirling until the strand is twisted so tightly that it begins to go into kinks. Then get somebody to catch the strand about the middle, and keeping it carefully taut all the time walk round until you bring the pencil end up to the hook, and slip the strand from the pencil on to the hook. Then take the pencil to where the strand is being held in the middle and slip it into the doubled end, and holding it as tightly as possible from the hook, as before, whirl the pencil in the opposite direction, towards you, upwards, as in Figure 11. This will make a beautiful cord. The pencil can be slipped out now, and the ends on the hook must be knotted together so that the cord will not unravel. This is called a "twofold cord," and it can be made in two colors if you divide the length before the first twisting into two equal lengths of differently colored threads. A "threefold cord," can be made in the same way, but it must be folded into three different lengths before the second twisting, and three different colors may be introduced. A threefold cord is much fuller and firmer than a twofold one. Cords can be made of wool or silk or any kind of thread, and must be made of few or many strands according to the thickness required, and according to the thickness of the strands used. Thin woollen cords are very nice to run into woolen garments as drawstrings, or into bags; thick ones made of knitting yarn are splendid for dressing-gowns, and the ends can be finished off with tassels.

If you make a skipping rope in this way you will want a firm handle at each end, and you can make it by getting three or four small sticks or twigs, and laying them close to each end round your cord. Then bind these round, at both ends of your skipping rope, with firm twine. Next take the end of the rope which projects beyond the twigs, and double the strands back along the twigs for a short distance, and bind them down again and cut away any superfluous length, and knot your binding string firmly. This will make a very pretty little handle, especially if you can get pretty greenish twigs with the bark on them and tie with colored threads or twine. Figure 12.

A SUCKER

Materials Required:—

A small piece of thick leather, strong string, scissors or penknife.

Fig. 13.

This is a very interesting toy to play with. It is very simple to make: all it needs is a round piece of fairly thick leather about four inches across. Cut this into a perfect circle with a knife, if the leather is too thick to cut with scissors, and in the very middle bore a small hole and put through this a piece of strong string, about a yard long, and tie a knot in this so that it will not slip through the hole. Now soak your leather in water till it is very soft and damp, and keep it in this condition whenever you use it. By dropping the round of damp leather quickly on to the surface of a smooth stone you will be able to lift and carry quite large stones. You must be sure to drop the sucker on to the smooth surfaces, because if there are any little crevices under the sucker the air in them will prevent suction.

GOLLIWOGS

Materials Required:—

Colored wools, a little string, cotton, or silk, and a tiny piece of tape; a large-eyed needle, scissors.

Figs. 14 to 18.

These golliwogs are made of tassels of wool. First wind your tassel over your fingers much as you wound it for the first woollen ball on the cardboard. Then cut the loops, and tie very tightly with several turns of strong cotton or silk close to the end, and again about half an inch lower. This forms the head, and the ends at the top can be trimmed into a top knot. Below the head, divide off a small portion on each side for the arms, and tie each of these again about half way down, and cut off just below the tied portion, where the dotted line is in Figure 14. Tie also for the waist at the double dotted line, and then, if legs are required, divide the remaining part of the tassel into two, and tie at the feet. Take a needle with thread or wool of a different color from that you have used for the golliwog, and stitch in eyes and nose. Figure 15 makes a very good Zulu chief, if he is made in black wool. Figure 16 is a Red Cross nurse. She can be made in light blue or gray wool, and her cap and apron are made of a small piece of tape, each sewn with a red cross. Her cap must be folded and stitched up the back like Figure 17, and her neck, wrists, and belt must be wound with white thread. The little turban golliwog, Figure 18, has his headdress made of a short bundle of wool of another color pushed through the folded loop of wool which forms his head. His arms also can be a separate bundle of strands pushed through the body portion.

THE MEAL SACK

Materials Required:—

A tiny piece of calico, white cotton, cotton wool, scent powder or lavender flowers, several apple pips, needle and thread, and scissors.

Figs. 19 to 21.

This makes a very pretty scent bag or pincushion.

Take a small piece of calico or any cotton scrap, about three inches wide and six inches long, and fold it across the middle. Take a needle and cotton and tack it up the sides, and down again, if you cannot make small stitches, keeping both rows of stitches very close together. Now fray out the threads at the ends of your strip, and turn the bag inside out. You can fill it with lavender if you like, or stuff it with cotton wool and some powdered scent; or you can stuff it quite tight with bran instead, and make a pincushion of it. Tie the opening up tightly with strong thread, Figure 20. Now take one or two pips from an apple or an orange, to make a mouse: if it is an apple pip take a penknife and scratch out eyes and ears, as in Figure 21. If you use an orange pip you can ink in the eye and the ear. Now stitch your little mouse on to your meal sack, and it will be a very dainty little gift to put by for Christmas. You can also make pretty sets of scent bags out of bits of ribbon or silk patterns from the dressmaker's, or cut off any old scraps of thin materials you find. Make six little bags of different colors and stuff with cotton wool and scent, and tie round the neck of each the end of a piece of narrow baby ribbon; tie the first bag with a piece nine inches long, and each of the other bags should have a ribbon a little longer than the last. Then tie all the loose ends of the six ribbons together with a bow of ribbon, and you will have a charming cluster of sachets to hang in a wardrobe.

AN EMERY CUSHION

Materials Required:—

A tiny piece of red ribbon or silk, a tiny piece of calico or cotton material, strong red cotton thread, yellow or silk thread, green wool, a little emery powder, a tiny piece of hard soap or wax candle, scissors, and crewel needle.

Figs. 22 to 24.

To make this you must get a little bright red material about three inches square and a little thin cotton material the same size. Lay both together and fold them diagonally across from corner to corner with the red material inside, and with fine thread and needle and very small stitches sew it from the two loose corners up to the point where it is folded, so that it forms a triangular bag. Now the bag should be folded over so that you can measure off on the diagonal fold the same length as the stitched seam, and cut away the extra material as in Figure 22. Now take some hard soap, or a piece of wax candle, and rub it hard all over the cotton material in order to prevent your emery stuffing getting out, trim off any extra thickness of material at the point, and turn the bag red side out and run it very finely round the opening with strong needle and thread. Draw the thread up a little, as in Figure 23, and now take your emery powder and fill up tight with that. If you cannot get emery get some fine dry sand, or you can even pound up some cinders out of the fire, and fill your little bag very tight with the powder you make, and draw up the thread and stitch it very close. Next you must take your green wool or silk, and make long loop stitches all round the top until all the opening and the gathered up portion is neatly covered with these stitches, like sepals on a flower. Stitch on a little cord or loop of ribbon, and with a yellow thread make even stitches all over your little bag, till it looks just like a strawberry—Figure 24.

RAT-TAIL KNITTING

Materials Required:—

A large cork, large reel, or a small piece of a narrow cardboard roller, strong pins, preferably those known as "laundry pins," a small crochet hook, colored wools.

Fig. 25.

This is known as rat-tail knitting, or cork or bobbin work. It can be made either by boring a hole in a large flat cork and setting seven or eight pins in round this hole, or by setting the pins into a reel with a large hole, but I have found the best thing is to get a small tube of cardboard such as paper is rolled on (out of a toilet roll, for instance), and to stick the pins firmly into the cardboard, as in Figure 25. Five or six pins will do. Take colored wool and loop it once round each pin, then wrap it very loosely once round the whole circle of pins, and, with another large pin or a small crochet hook, lift each loop up and over the last wrap of the thread, and over the head of the pin. Do this right round the circle of pins, so that you have now a second series of loops made from the thread which was wrapped round above the first ones, while the first loops have begun to descend into the tube. Work round and round till the end of your knitted rat-tail appears out of the tube at the lower end. You can knot on lengths of wool of other colors and make very pretty reins with them. You can, if you like, work with two differently colored threads, all the time using one color for the loops you lift, over a wrap thread of another color, alternating as you work round and round your circle. This is really just the way a knitting-machine works, very much simplified. You can do the same on a larger scale with a wooden ring into which pegs of wood are inserted, and this will make quite a large woollen muffler.

A PEEP-SHOW PICTURE

Materials Required:—

A small piece of glass from an old photograph-frame, some firm brown or colored paper, any tiny flowers, leaves, etc., a piece of stamp paper.

Fig. 26.

Collect a tiny bunch of the smallest flowers you can find, daisies, buttercups, violets, even little weeds like chickweed, and small grasses, clover leaves, or sprays of moss; tie them very loosely in a little bunch. Now lay your piece of glass down on your paper (the paper may be any color, but the blue sugar-bag paper looks very pretty.) Take your little bunch of flowers and arrange it flat on the glass, with the faces of the flowers pressed against the glass, and the leaves and moss pressed flat on top of them. Put the prettiest side of them next the glass. When all the surface of the glass is fairly well covered fold the paper over the flowers so that it makes a neat parcel, and fasten down the corners of the parcel with stamp paper. Then turn your parcel over, and round three sides, about half an inch from the edge, cut a neat line, so that the paper will now lift like a flap and show your very pretty picture. Seaweeds can be used instead of flowers—and if so, they should be arranged on the glass in a dish of water and floated into place.

CUP AND BALL

Materials Required:—

A piece of thin cardboard about eight inches square, scraps of tissue paper, string, odd scraps of veiling, net, or thin silk or muslin, paste or mucilage, scissors.

Fig. 27.

This is a very good toy to play with, and can be easily made. Get a piece of cardboard about six inches square and draw a line from corner to corner and cut it across. Then roll this triangle of cardboard into a long cone shape, about two and a half inches wide at the open end, and with a strip of thin gummed paper across the overlapping edge fix it down tight, so that it will not open out again. With the scissors trim the open end to an even round. Next take a large piece of tissue or any other thin soft paper, and roll it into a neat round ball, which must loosely fit the opening of the cone. Wind a thread of wool over it in one direction, and another so that it keeps its shape. Now, if you can get a piece of a black veil, or some very thin soft net or muslin, cover over the ball so that it looks quite neat and round and even, and stitch a thin string about eighteen inches long to it. You can now cover the cup also with the veiling if you wish to, and if so, leave about three inches over at the open end, which must be drawn together, and the draw thread then pushed down inside the cone and fastened off at the closed end. It can have a little cork put in to fill it up. Put the end of the string through a hole near the opening of the cone and your cup and ball is finished.

STORKS

Materials Required:—

Large flat corks, ordinary bottle corks, large and small. Hairpins, burnt matches, small feathers, penknife.

Fig. 28.

First, for the body of the big stork get a good large cork, and with a penknife cut it into a longish egg shape; then another small cork must be cut almost round for the head. For the base the stork stands on one of the large corks out of pickle jars does best, but if you cannot get one take several pieces of thick cardboard and paste them together, or take the lid of a small cardboard box and make holes for the ends of the legs in it, and after pushing the ends of the hairpins through, run them into small pieces of cork, so that they will keep in place when standing. Now get a burnt match and sharpen it at either end, and push one end of it into the head, and the other into the body, and set the legs into place in the body also. Use hairpins that have no waves or angles in them, so that the bend of the pin makes the right bend for the leg. Make the beak of two matches, trimmed to a sharp point, and you can use a tiny black bead for the eyes, or draw them with ink. The feathers for the crest and wings and tail must be stuck into holes, after having a little mucilage put on the end of the quill.

A RABBIT

Materials Required:—

Large cork, tiny piece of brown paper, a fragment of cotton wool, needle, strong thread, penknife, scissors.

Figs. 29 and 30.

This also is of cork, shaped out to rather a point at the head and cut flat underneath. Cut little nicks on each side to define the feet. The ears are of brown paper cut like Figure 30, with corners folded over and glued or put on with a stitch of strong linen thread, small dot of ink or a small bead makes the eye.

A CORK DOLL

Materials Required:—

Flat cork, two bottle corks, burnt matches, a tiny piece of thin cotton material, the same of white paper and of colored ribbon, a large; pin, a little black or brown wool, needle, mucilage.

Figs. 31 and 32.

The body is a nice smooth cork and the pinafore is a piece of white paper tied on with the piece of ribbon The arms and legs are matches sharpened and well pressed in; it is best to have their points glued. The head is a small cork covered with a piece of white cotton material cut in a circle and tied tightly at the neck. Draw in the eyes, nose, and mouth with a soft black pencil, or paint them with rather dry water-color paint. Take dark wool and make large loose stitches for the hair, and then run through, from crown to neck, a large strong pin to fix the head to the body. The frill of material below the place the head is tied on makes a neat tucker when it is arranged nicely. For each foot lay a little piece of match on the base of cork, where the leg is stuck into it, and glue it down.

A CORK HORSE

Materials Required:—

A flat cork, and one large and one small bottle cork, burnt matches, black wool, a little black tape, a tiny piece of colored paper, needle, scissors, penknife.

Fig. 33.

Use a nice smooth cork for the body, and cut out a little saddle in colored paper, and glue it into place, bind it round with a piece of tape or ribbon for the girth, and you can make little stirrups out of wire or silver paper and hang them on from this. The head is a small cork out of a medicine bottle, with brown paper ears, cut just like the rabbit's but much smaller and with only one fold. The mane is of loops of black wool sewed on to tape, and bound firmly down to the match that makes the neck. The tail is also of black wool, and the stand or base can be either a cork or box lid; if it is the latter the legs must be glued into holes carefully cut to fit them.

AN ENGINE AND TENDER

Materials Required:—

One large bottle cork and several small ones, one matchbox, large strong pins, preferably "laundry" pins.

Fig. 34.

Use a large cork for the engine and a portion of a small cork for the funnel. The dome can be made of the remaining piece of the latter and must be rounded at one end. Pin both onto the boiler portion. The wheels are slices of cork set into place with pins. The tender is a matchbox with the sides cut down at one place to make the entrance, and another matchbox makes the windscreen. To make the wheels of the tender hold steady, cut long slices of cork the width of the matchbox, and run the pins into these after piercing the sides of the box, as seen in the top view of the engine.

A CHEST OF DRAWERS

Materials Required:—

A number of empty matchboxes, a number of shoe buttons, colored or brown paper, mucilage.

Fig. 35.

This is a very neat chest of drawers, or writing-desk, made of matchboxes; it also makes very good furniture for a toy grocer's shop. Have all your matchboxes of one size and color, and fix them all together in their outer cases with mucilage. Next get a piece of pretty colored paper (pieces of flowered wall-paper look very nice, or blue paper of a sugar bag), and glue this round the ends and top of your chest of drawers. Now in the end of each box cut a small hole and push through it the shank of a shoe button, and peg this through with a tiny slip of wood or a roll of paper, so that it holds quite firm. Glue on to the bottom of your chest of drawers some buttons without shanks, or wooden button moulds, to form the feet.

A CRADLE

Materials Required:—

An empty matchbox, a cork, needle and thread, scissors, mucilage, penknife.

Fig. 36.

Use an empty matchbox, and on the bottom glue two halves of a slice of cork for rockers. For the hood take the outer case of the matchbox and unfasten it where it is joined, and cut off a lengthwise strip about three-quarters of an inch wide, using one of the corners of this for the peak of the hood. Take a needle with strong thread, and with two large firm stitches fasten this strip to each side of the box, taking care to make the hood a nice even shape. Now you can take a little muslin and lace and sew it on for little curtains and frills, to trim the cradle with, and roll some scraps of material up to make a neat mattress and pillow.

A DOLL'S TABLE

Materials Required:—

A small box lid of cardboard, large reel, mucilage.

Fig. 37.

This table is made of a round box lid fixed with mucilage on to a spool. A square lid will do equally well.

A DOLL'S BED

Materials Required:—

Small cardboard box and lid, needle and thread, lace or ribbon, small piece of wadding and muslin, or a piece of thin material, scissors.

Fig. 38.

First cover the bottom of the cardboard box with a layer of soft material or wadding, with thin cotton over it, and take large tacking stitches to fasten this down. Next fix on your canopy by setting the lid upright on to the end of the box, and glue or fix it into place with stationers' paper clips or large stitches. Trim the canopy round the top with a little frill of lace or muslin, and put the same, as a valance, round the bed portion. You can also add curtains at each side of the canopy, and, if you want a footboard, that also can be fixed across the bottom with big stitches or paper clips before the valance frill is sewed on. You can make quite large beds in this way, and if you have not a very pretty box you can trim it up with pieces of wall-paper pasted inside the canopy.

A DOLL'S CHAIR

Materials Required:—

Slice of cork or a chestnut, large strong pins, colored wool.

Fig. 39.

The seat is a slice of cork or a chestnut, and the legs and back are made of pins, the large ones called "laundry" pins are the best. Wind pretty wool in and out between the pins to make the back look like a nice cushion. You can cover the cork seat with a piece of colored material if you wish.

ANOTHER DOLL'S CHAIR

Materials Required:—

Small piece of thin cardboard or post card, small piece of pretty material, a spool, needle and thread, scissors.

Fig. 40.

This chair is harder to make than the last one. First cut a piece of cardboard or two pieces of old post cards to the shape marked A. It must be large enough to allow it to reach halfway round the top of a reel at its widest part, where the corners are. Now tack on to this a piece of velveteen or any other pretty material, so that the edges turn over to the wrong side of the cardboard. On the second piece of card take the material only down just a little below the two corners of the cardboard, and you need not turn it in on the straight edge between these corners. Tack both cards together with the material outside, and overseam or topsew them as shown in Figure 40 A. Next take your reel and bind tightly over each end of it a round piece of material, and then take a narrow strip of material or ribbon, and turn in the edges and wrap it round the reel as in 40 B, and tack the strip into place very tight. Now fix on the back as in 40 C with neat little stitches, and your chair is finished.

NECKLACES

Materials Required:—

Needles, strong thread of linen or silk, seeds, beads, acorn cups, daisies.

Figs. 41 to 43.

These are some of the necklaces you can make of things you find in the country, or of seeds you come across.

Figure 41 is made of rose hips threaded together. If you want to make the cross or pendant, you can use a few small beads so that your radiating hips will hold more steadily. These will hold better into place if you put a strong surrounding line of stitches into them.

Figure 42 is of melon seeds or sunflower seeds, either will do.

Figure 43, of the same, but threaded twice through each seed, with a tiny bead between and a pendant loop of seeds and beads below.

Figure 44 is a snake made of acorn cups. Begin at the head (with is a large acorn with the shell cut to make eyes and mouth), and thread through the mouth, then thread on your biggest acorn cups, gradually choosing smaller and smaller ones till you get to the tail, where it should be finished with a tassel.

Fig. 44.

Figure 45 is the prettiest daisy chain. The stems are nipped off and the daisies threaded through the center. This makes a very beautiful wreath.

Figs. 45 to 47.

A HATBAND

Materials Required:—

Small autumn leaves, broad tape or carpet binding, needle and thread.

Pick up the prettiest leaves which are nearly the same in size. Use a thread of brown mending yarn and carefully sew the leaves down on to a piece of broad tape or carpet binding. After you have finished the sewing press the hatband for some days under a pile of newspapers or heavy books, so that the leaves will dry flat.

A FAN

Materials Required:—

Large leaves of Spanish chestnut, smaller leaves, thin cardboard, needle and brown silk or wool.

This fan is made of the large leaves of the Spanish chestnut; you can pick these up already beautifully dry and flat in the woods in autumn. Get about twenty of the same size, and cut a semicircle of firm cardboard and sew them on to it, so that the fan holds very firm, then over your stitches sew on smaller leaves of varying colors. You will find this makes a most beautiful ornament for your mantelpiece.

Figures 48 to 55 are windmills, some very easy and some more difficult, but all very interesting toys.

A PIN-WHEEL OR WHIRLIGIG

Materials Required:—

A square of stiff writing paper, an old penholder, skewer, or a straight twig, a strong pin or a slim upholstery nail with a large head, scissors.

Figs. 48 to 50.

This pinwheel is made of a piece of firm writing paper. Cut the paper into a perfect square, and fold it diagonally from corner to corner and smooth out again, then cut along your folds to within an inch of the center. Now cut a tiny round of strong paper or a piece of a postcard about half an inch across and take a strong short pin and put it through the middle. Then push your pin through each right-hand corner of your square of writing paper, and lastly through the center of the square, and take a piece of stick or a penholder and push the point of the pin in till it is halfway in. You will find your windmill will turn as you run, if you hold it out straight in front of you. If you can get two good sticks you can use a long one as the upper part of a weather vane. Rut a nail through, rather nearer your pinwheel than the middle of the stick. At the other end make a long slit and put in a paper tail, so that the pinwheel will keep its head to the wind. Fix your nail into the end of the other stick, and set the stick upright in the ground as in Figure 50.

A TIN WHEEL OR BUZZER

Materials Required:—

A circle of thin tin or a tin lid, a stick of soft wood, an upholsterer's nail, tin cutters.

Fig. 51.

This windmill is made of tin; this is rather difficult to cut unless your hands are strong, but sometimes you can get very thin tin or brass from kindergarten stores, and it is quite easy to make it of this. Draw a circle about four inches across on the tin, round a jam pot or some such thing to give you a good even circle, and cut this out with the scissors. Now take a ruler and scratch lines across your circle, at right angles first, so that you have your circle divided into quarters; now divide these quarters again into three or four divisions, and draw a smaller circle on your tin about three quarters of an inch, or less, from the outer edge. Now make a clean cut with the scissors from the edge to the inner circle along each line. The tin will always bend in one way as you do this, and you must leave the little divisions bent very evenly. Make a hole in the center of your wheel and fix it strongly with a nail into a stick. You will find you can hardly hold your windmill if you stand with it facing a steady wind. This windmill is a grand one to go.

A WOODEN MILL

Materials Required:—

Two narrow strips of thin, soft wood, a stick for a holder, a screw, penknife, gimlet.

Figs. 52 and 53.

This is a wooden mill and it requires some care and skill to make it. It can easily be made with a penknife out of two pieces of thin, soft wood. First you must cut a neat socket across each piece of wood in the center, halfway through its thickness. The socket must be exactly the same width as your piece of wood, so that when you set each piece socket to socket they fit exactly. Now with an awl or pricker make a neat hole in the center of the two pieces when they are fitted together. Next you must shave away with your penknife the right-hand edge of each of the "arms" or "sails" of your windmill, graduating the shaving evenly from the left-hand edge, where it is thick, to a fine blade at the right-hand edge. Now fit together the two halves and put a nail through the hole and fasten it into the end of a stick. If the nail is apt to split the stick you can put a reel on to the end of it and fix the nail into the stick through the hole of the reel. It is a very good thing to put your nail through a large glass bead between the windmill and the stick.

A FEATHER WHEEL

Materials Required:—

Four large quills, a piece of firm cardboard, a cork, a box for a gas mantle, a straight stick or old penholder, paper, mucilage, needle and strong thread.

Fig. 54.

This windmill is made of goose quills, or any other large strong quill; these must be chosen with the wider webbing of the feather all on the same side, and must be the same size. Cut a circle of firm cardboard and lay each quill with its point in the middle of this circle and stitch them firmly down at right angles to each other. Glue the wrong side of the cardboard on to a reel or a piece of cork, and fix this on the end of a small stick or penholder. Now take a small cylindrical cardboard box—those used for gas mantles are excellent—and bore holes through opposite sides of this, about halfway down. Push the stick through and fix into a slit at the end of it a "tail" of paper or cardboard. Take another piece of cardboard and shape it into a cone, exactly as in Figure 27 for the cup and ball. Cut a hole in the bottom of your box and fit it on to the end of the cone, which must be cut down to allow the stick to pass clear of the end of the cone.

Materials Required:—

A narrow strip of soft wood, a cork, four luggage labels or post cards, a penholder, strong glue, a penknife, an upholsterer's nail, a gimlet.

Fig. 55.

This is made of two pieces of wood socketed as in Figure 53, and with slits made in each end into which a luggage label is inserted. Use glue to hold these firm, and also to stick on to the center of the cross of wood a slice of cork, pierce a hole through the cork and the cross of wood, and through it run a nail with a fairly large head. Now make a hole at each outer left-hand corner of each label and, loop through this with a needle and a firm thread. Tie the thread round the nail and run the nail into your stick.

AN AIR PROPELLER

Materials Required:—

A piece of soft wood three-quarters of an inch thick and about six or seven inches long, a gimlet, a soft wood skewer, penknife, sandpaper.

Fig. 56.

This is a little air propeller which is rapidly whirled between both hands and released: if properly done it should return to the hands. The propeller is cut out of wood on the same principle as in Figure 52, but it may be of thicker wood with a greater amount of angle to the blades. The stick must be carefully fitted to the hole in the blades and must be thicker at the other end. Both blades and stick should be well smoothed with sandpaper.

A REVERSING PROPELLER

Materials Required:—

Two pieces of wood as above, also two larger round sticks, such as are used to roll paper upon, a cork, two long nails, a piece of thin tin or cardboard for the tail.

Fig. 57.

This windmill is made of two propellers cut like Figure 56, but with the bevelling of the blades of one reversed so that it will turn in the opposite direction. A piece of wood or cork or a bead may be put between each propeller. The tail may be made of cardboard or tin.

A WATERWHEEL AND SHUTE

Materials Required:—

Smooth straight twigs about half an inch thick, a thin wooden sweet-box or other light wooden box, two small pieces of white soft wood, about one-third of an inch thick and five inches long and one inch broad, a piece of thick wire, small tacks, pliers, a gimlet, small staples, strong thin string.

Fig. 58.

This is a waterwheel with a watershute, and it turns a crank and has a little man attached. The waterwheel has flat blades with no bevelling, and a thick wire is inserted through its axis. This wire should be bent with pliers to form the cranks. Set up crosswise into the ground some strong twigs tied firmly into position with strong twine. If there is a handy little stream it should be diverted to run a channel into your watershute, which should be of two flat pieces of wood nailed together at right angles; this can also be supported on trestles. Set the shute so that the end is above the blade of the waterwheel and allows the water to fall on it with sufficient force to turn it round. The man may be cut with a fret-saw in three ply wood, and small staples should be run loosely through the holes at the ankles into a thicker piece of wood which acts as a base, so that with the movement of the crank he will appear to be turning the wheel. Fasten arms and legs to the body with a thick wire which works loosely in the holes, or with a thin nail which may be bent over at the point.

A POP-GUN

Materials Required:—

A large goose quill, a small twig, a slice of raw potato, a penknife.

Fig. 59.

This is a most simple little toy and very easy to make. Get a large quill feather with as wide and strong a quill as you can, and cut it off where the quill is thickest. Then get a little stick or branch, preferably a little bent at the thicker end, and peel and smooth it, so that it will fit nicely into the quill with the thicker bent end projecting. This makes the ramrod, but it must be fitted into the quill so that it reaches only within half an inch of the pointed or smaller end. Now take a slice of raw potato about half an inch thick or a little more, and into it push the wider end of the quill so that it takes out a neat round piece of the potato. With the ramrod gently push this first "bullet" to the smaller end of the quill and take out another slice from the potato with the wide end. Now quickly and smartly push in your ramrod and you will find your first bullet shoots off splendidly, leaving your second one at the point of the quill ready for the next shot. Large popguns can be made with a piece of tin tubing, or even cardboard rollers and corks used as bullets. The ramrod must be padded with cotton wrapping in order to fit the tube closely.