Cut two slender sticks about six and one-half inches long for the sides; then cut seven or eight short sticks for the crosspieces or rungs. The rungs should be one and three-quarter inches long. Bind and tie the ends of the rungs to the side sticks (Fig. 66), placing them about three-quarters of an inch apart. The ends of the rungs must cross the side sticks and extend out about one-quarter of an inch. If properly tied, your little ladder will be firm and strong.
Place the ladder one end resting on the ground, the other end on the front edge of the porch, then stand off and admire your work. It is certainly worth admiring, for the house will be a perfect miniature Filipino home, and you may imagine you can see tall cocoanut-palms and many other strange and beautiful trees and plants that grow in the hot Philippine Islands. You might copy some of these with grasses and small flowering wild plants.
If you have a Noah's ark it will be a good idea to select some of the animals that live in the Philippines and put them in the little rattan and bamboo jungles which you have made of grasses. A piece of looking-glass or plain window-glass can represent water not far from the house, and here you should have a crocodile sunning himself on the bank. Let a wild boar be plunging out of the jungle, and deep in the bamboo grove you might hide the tremendously large snake called a boa. I don't think there will be a boa in your Noah's ark, but you can make one of bread dough, or of clay. With all these dangerous creatures prowling round, do you think it strange that the Filipino people put their houses on stilts?
If this were a real house in the real Philippines you might see a number of natives, wearing little or no clothes, coming toward you bringing small snakes which they had caught to sell in the towns for rat-catchers. And near the house there would be most wonderful flowers, some of them orchids, the flowers that live on air; while all around would be strange and rare birds.
At one side of the house, some distance away, there would, perhaps, be a wet rice-field where the queer water-buffalo, called a carabao, would be drawing a strange-looking plough, the driver, a little brown man, wearing an immense umbrella-like hat woven of palm-leaves.
Listen! Do you hear that deep, booming sound? It comes from the peculiar tree which a native is striking with his big club in slow, heavy blows on one of its immense, wall-like roots. The sound goes rolling far over the land, telephoning to other natives that white people are coming.
A Doll Filipino Woman
To make the little house seem more real, dress a doll in genuine Philippine costume and stand her near the ladder with arms extended as if in welcome. The dress must be a white waist with flowing sleeves, a light-colored skirt, a large gay handkerchief, called a pañuelo, folded around the doll's neck, and an overskirt made of a square of dark cloth drawn tightly around her body from waist to knees. No stockings are needed, but you can give her heelless slippers with only a narrow strip over the toes to keep them on.
CHAPTER X
GRASS DRESS AND GRASS HEAD-DRESS
Look at the little girl in the photograph who is wearing her new grass dress made of the wavy hair-grass and playing that she is a wood-nymph. She feels very proud and is greatly pleased with her pretty costume.
Almost any kind of long, slender grasses can be used for a dress of this kind, but you must gather an armful or more. It takes a good deal of material, for the fringe must be close and thick.
Divide the grass into bunches, each bunch about as thick as your thumb, and have the heads of all the grasses together at one end of the bunch, and the stem ends together at the other end.
Tie a strong string around the stem ends of one bunch. Hold this tied bunch under your left arm, stem ends to the front, and take up another bunch (Fig. 70). Bring the long end of the string across the front of the second bunch and form a loop (A, Fig. 67). Hold the loop while you pass the string around the back of the bunch (Fig. 68), then slide the end through the loop A, Fig. 69. Draw this loop-fastening very tight and it will hold. Now place the second bunch under your arm with the first bunch, and make a loop-fastening around the third bunch. Keep on adding bunches of grass in this way, always drawing the last bunch close to the one before it, and holding them all together under your arm as in the photograph (Fig. 70). In this picture the grass bunches are purposely left far apart that you may see exactly how to make the fringe.
The grass dress will be finished when you have made a strip of fringe long enough to reach around your waist, for the skirt—it needs no waist—is really only a fringe of grasses to be worn over a light summer dress.
Grass Head-Dress
The grass head-dress to be worn with the wood-nymph skirt is quite as wild-looking, but is simply a band of grasses, with bunches of the bristle-spiked cyperus grass (Fig. 71) hanging downward on each end. The band goes across over the top of the head, and the grass side ornaments fall over the ears.
Wear the grass costume and carry a light branch of green leaves in each hand when you give your next outdoor fancy dance, or take part in outdoor tableaux where you could represent either a wood-nymph or the spirit of the grasses.
PART III
GREEN LEAVES
CHAPTER XI
OAK-LEAVES
To dress up and pretend is something every little girl, and boy too, for that matter, likes to do, and there is no better place for having this kind of fun and no greater storehouse for dress-up material than the wide, sunny fields and green, shady forest on a summer's day.
If you want to be a wood-nymph, a fairy, or a pioneer; if you would be a fashionable lady decked in jewels rare, or a rollicking cowboy, or Robinson Crusoe, it is all the same to Mother Nature's department store. Fields, Woods & Co. can furnish all you need. If the goods are not always ready to wear, they are at least ready to be made up into what you want.
Why, you can even be a little savage and wear a skirt made of a fringe of long grasses, like the wood-nymph's dress, and bracelets of slender, golden-brown rootlets, if that pleases you; all the materials are ready to your hand. And you can make a
Robinson Crusoe Hat
The photograph given here shows one little girl who likes immensely to wear her Crusoe hat, and Fig. 72 shows just how the hat looks when not on her head.
It won't take more than five minutes to make the hat, but first you must gather the leaves. Ordinary oak-leaves are too small to use; it is on the scrub-oak that you will find them large enough. The scrub-oak grows low, like a bush, and the leaves will be quite within your reach. Like a good shopkeeper, this kind of oak shows his customers leaves of various sizes, but it is the very largest that you must take, and only the ones that are dark-green in color. The pretty new light-green or brownish leaves will soon wilt and curl on the edges, while a hat made of the older, tougher ones will last in good condition several days if left out in the dew at night or kept damp in the house.
The number of leaves needed depends upon the size of the leaves and the size of your head. It is well to have at least a dozen and a half; then you can select the best. The largest leaves are not always perfect, but unless very much torn or eaten away by insects they will answer. To gather all you need you will probably have to visit several of the little scrub-oaks.
If you are at home when you make your hat, use broom-straws to pin the leaves together; if you are in the woods find some smooth, slender twigs, break them in short pieces, and they will take the place of the straws.
Begin by pinning two leaves together as they are in Fig. 73. These leaves are lettered U and V. You see that U is lapped over V and then pinned to it in two places, first near the stem and then through the lower side lobe. The next leaf would be letter W, and W would be pinned to U just as U is pinned to V. Make the stems meet at the top and keep adding leaves, pinning one to another, until the hat is large enough to fit your head comfortably, then pin the last leaf to the first.
Do not make the hat too flat; if you find it flattening out, lap the leaves over more at the bottom. When finished it should be shaped like Fig. 72.
Oak-Leaf Mask
Among other frolics in the woods you can have a masquerade—a real one, where you wear a mask, and that mask made of one of the largest leaves of the scrub-oak. Not even a pair of scissors will be needed to make this mask, and it is a funny one too (Fig. 74). See the turned-up eyelids and the wide nose tilted at the end.
When you have found a leaf large enough (the one in the drawing was nine inches long and seven inches wide) use your thumb-nail to cut out the eyes and nose. The outlines at the top of Fig. 74 show how to shape them, and the dotted lines show where they are bent up.
There is no mouth, none is needed, for the leaf, below the nose, drops down loosely over your mouth like the curtain on a mask one buys at a shop. The oak-leaf mask will stay on your face if you wet the under parts of each side and stick them to your cheeks.
Another way to make the mask is to turn the leaf around, stem down, and then cut the eyes and nose in the wide part, leaving the narrower stem end for a long chin. This kind you can hold in front of your face by taking the stem in your hand. It requires so short a time to make a mask that when one wears out or is lost you can have another to replace it in a minute or two.
The Little Oak-Leaf Dog
He has the funny expression of a real dog when he is making up his mind what to do next, even if he is only an oak-leaf. It was an ordinary leaf four inches long which was, by tearing a little here and bending a little there, transformed into his absurd dogship (Fig. 75).
Fig. 76 is the tracing of the leaf actually used for the dog. Fig. 77 shows the same leaf with its stem nipped off and the other end torn up, not very evenly, where the dotted lines are in Fig. 76. This makes the little dog's tail. The tear on either side reaches to the mid-rib of the leaf, but does not cross it, and the mid-rib being unbroken holds the tail out stiff and straight.
The two hind legs are bent down just where the tear ends in making the tail. The dotted line in Fig. 77 shows this. The other two legs, formed by the side lobes of the leaf, are bent down as the dotted lines indicate. The tip of the lobe on the left side had to be torn off because that leg was longer than the opposite one.
In making the neck the narrow part of the leaf was bent up and then down, the two dotted lines show where. Then the ears were bent up and the little oak-leaf dog was placed standing as you see him in Fig. 75, to have his picture drawn.
CHAPTER XII
GRAPE-LEAF DRINKING-CUP
A wild-grape leaf will do quite as well as a cultivated one for a drinking-cup if it is large enough. You want a large leaf, because a small one will hold only a sip of water, and when one is really thirsty that is certainly not enough.
Whether wild or cultivated, the grape-leaf should be washed in clean water to take off dust and any possible insects that may be on it. Where there is water to drink there is water for washing the leaf, so there can be no difficulty about that, and the large green leaf, freshened by the water, looks very cool and inviting.
It is simply a matter of folding, first one way, then the other, that turns the grape-leaf into a cup. Fig. 78 is a tracing of the leaf from which the cup (Fig. 79) was made. It measured eight inches at its widest part, almost seven inches from tip to stem, and the cup held a good supply of water.
Begin to fold by bringing the two lower lobes of the leaf together in the way shown in Fig. 80. This makes the middle bend that is indicated by the dotted line in Fig. 78. Then bring the two lobes around to the left, or to the right if that comes easier, hold them close together and lap them over the upper lobe on that side. That makes the two side bends which join at the middle bend (Fig. 78), and rounds the cup into shape.
The bottom of the cup is pointed, as you see, and, of course, will not stand; then, too, the cup falls apart when you loosen your hold, but neither of these things are of any consequence, for you can let your cup lie flat and fold it again very quickly when it is needed. As long as the folds are held tight in your fingers, the cup will keep its shape and hold water without leaking a particle. Use the upper, or green, side of the leaf for the inside of the cup; the under, or light, side is fuzzy and may harbor small insects even after it is washed. Be sure you look into the water before drinking it. This should be done no matter what you drink from or where you get the water.
CHAPTER XIII
GREEN-LEAF DESIGNS
Beech-Leaves
Remarkably pretty designs can be made entirely of green leaves; also with leaves and their seed-pods, their nuts and berries. You can press a design of leaves alone, but one having seed-pods, berries, or nuts cannot be pressed. It is fun to make it, even if it cannot be preserved by pressing, and you will like to do it.
Fig. 81 is the drawing of a charming design made of two twigs broken off a beech-tree. On one twig were two beechnuts in their pretty green, spiky outer shells; on the other was just one nut. Each twig had three leaves. Nothing was cut off and nothing was added for this design; the twigs were used exactly as they came from the tree. The stems were simply crossed, with the lower leaf of one twig falling over the stem of the other twig, and that finished it. The easiest thing in the world to do if you happen to think of it.
Violet-Leaves
There is one thing about the green leaves of the violet which makes it a joy to use them in a design, and that is, the stems are so pliable, so easily bent and curved, you can do almost anything with them.
See how the stems add to the beauty of the violet-leaf design Fig. 82.
The curve of the stem of Fig. 83 is a natural one for it to take, and you can probably find a leaf with its stem curved very much like it, but it is another thing to come across one of the same size which has a stem curved in the opposite direction, and such a stem is necessary for a design like Fig. 82.
Very well! Since the stem does not naturally curve the way we want it, we will make it do so. All we have to do is to draw it through our fingers several times and, by pressure, gently persuade it to turn as we wish.
Fig. 84 is the under-side of the small leaf at the bottom of the design (Fig. 82), and shows how the stem loop above the leaf was made.
First a violet-leaf with stem curved like the one in Fig. 83 was laid down on a sheet of paper, then another leaf of the same size, with stem made to curve in the opposite direction, was placed beside but not touching the first leaf, and with its stem crossing the other stem. The two stems meeting at the bottom formed a pear-shaped loop. The small leaf, after its stem had been formed into a loop and the end tucked in at the back, was fitted on top of the stems of the large leaves, as you see it in Fig. 82.
Violet-leaves are seldom flat; they are apt to curl at the edges; some are so curled as to form little cornucopias. Choose the flattest you can find for a design like Fig. 82, and paste them to the paper with a touch of paste on the under-part of the tip and of the two lobes at the bottom of each leaf. Paste the stems down also with a touch of paste here and there.
The violet-leaf design can be pressed.
Ground-Pine
Deep in the shadowy woods, often where pine-trees are growing, you will find the ground-pine. Clinging close to the ground, curling in feathery, green clusters on its vine-like root, it runs for yards over the surface, while its root, lying along the top, sends down slender rootlets into the earth. Push away the dry leaves or pine-needles that usually cover the root, and you can pull up long strips and soon gather enough to make the prettiest kind of festive decorations.
Festoons of the ground-pine are very pretty on walls, stair-banisters, porch-railings, over picture-frames, and hanging from chandeliers, and this ready-made evergreen rope is as suitable for outdoor as for indoor decoration, as beautiful in summer as in winter.
When you want to "dress-up" in the woods use the ground-pine for trimmings. Loop it over your skirt and make a wreath for your hair. Last summer at camp we used the ground-pine in this way and the little girls, arrayed for a dance, never looked prettier. For table decorations at camp and for decorating the tent doorways the ground-pine is charming.
Fig. 85 shows how the short, curled clusters grow on the long root, and Fig. 86 gives a wee pine-tree made of one cluster picked off the root and planted in an outdoor doll's garden.
This is what our American writer and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said of the ground-pine:
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath."
PART IV
CULTIVATED FLOWERS
CHAPTER XIV
PHLOX
Phlox Tower and Phlox Design
In a great bunch of garden-flowers given me by a friend I found some pink-and-white phlox (Fig. 87), and from it I made first a
Phlox Tower
As you know, the blossom is trumpet-shaped and flares at the open end into five petals. The tube part is long and narrows to a point, so it is easy to push one flower into another. That is what you do in building the phlox tower. You pull the blossom off its stem and out of the little green calyx which holds it, then you push the end of the tube part into the round red eye in the centre of another flower as far down as it will go. Then you push another blossom into that one and build up until your tower is as high as you want it, or as high as it will stand without toppling over. A bud stuck in the top flower makes a good finish (Fig. 88).
Phlox Design
The design Fig. 89 was made by first putting three blossoms together, sticking one inside the other as for the tower, to form the long side sprays, and afterward arranging three blossoms below the side sprays and one above with their stems meeting at the middle, as they are in Fig. 89. On each side of the upper flower was placed a sprig of buds; then the tube part of a blossom was cut off and the petal part fitted in the centre of the design to cover the ends of the other flowers where they met.
The tube parts of three more flowers were cut away, and the petal parts arranged in the position shown in Fig. 89. This formed a scattered design quite different from any of the others made of flowers.
Touches of paste on the under part held all the flowers in place. The phlox design is a good one to preserve by pressing.
The Tiger-Lily Leopard
From the brilliant-orange tiger-lily, with its dark-brown or black spots, we are going to make a—tiger? No, a leopard. Tiger-lilies may have spots, but tigers, you know, are striped.
It is really wonderful how much this little animal, made of parts of a beautiful flower and broom-straws, looks like the stealthy, prowling, wild creature which lives in Africa and Asia. The yellow coat of the live leopard is covered with black spots, and so is that of our flower leopard. The fierce living animal has a long tail that it moves slowly back and forth in anger or when it threatens to attack another animal or a man. Our little leopard also has a long tail which, if it does not really move, looks as if it were just going to. But while the live animal is ferocious and will kill, we can only pretend that of the tiger-lily leopard. Though he looks dangerous, he cannot even nibble a green leaf.
The illustration of the tiger-lily given here is a drawing of the one from which the lily leopard (Fig. 90) was made. You will notice that at the right of the flower (Fig. 91) there is the stem and pistil of a blossom that has fallen apart.
When we make the leopard we cut off this lily-stem close to the stalk, leaving the pistil attached, to use for the back-bone and tail. Four broom-straws, about an inch and a half long and sharpened at one end, we use for legs. The pointed ends of two of the legs are pushed into the stem at the front, and the other two in part of the pistil at the back, as shown in Fig. 92. That makes the skeleton.
Now we have to fit on the skeleton the leopard's spotted coat. After pulling the perfect flower apart we select the petal best suited for this purpose (Fig. 93), and then take the curl partially out of it by pressing it down on the table with our fingers. The tip of the petal will have to be cut off because it comes down too far over the tail.
The blunt end of the petal will be the leopard's head, and it can be rounded up and moulded with your fingers until it looks like the head of the leopard in Fig. 90. Small ears of bits of broom-straw, pointed at one end, we must stick in the head where they belong and then, in order to make the coat stay in place, we will pin it to the skeleton at the neck, in the middle of the back, and again at the tail, with fine broom-straws. So we have the little leopard complete.
CHAPTER XV
CULTIVATED FOXGLOVE
Fairy-Caps
Do you know the cultivated foxglove with its tall spikes of thimble-shaped flowers, prettily spotted inside? (Fig. 94.) And do you know that these flowers will fit on the ends of your fingers like tall caps on the heads of little fairies?
Perhaps there are foxgloves growing in your garden now. If there are, pick five blossoms off the stalk, selecting a large one for your thumb and a small one for your little finger; the others should be of a size in between these two.
Turn these blossoms upside down and they at once become fairy-caps. Fit the caps on all five fingers of your left hand. Then on your fingers, just below the caps, draw little faces with pen and ink. Now you have five living, moving fairies who will do all sorts of things and be very spry about it (Fig. 95). They will nod at you joyously, they will bend low in solemn salute, and they will put their little heads together to plan some piece of mischief.
They can be fairy children at school, if you like, with the short, fat thumb fairy for the teacher; and you can make the fairy pupils stand close together, shoulder to shoulder, then at a word from the teacher, separate and stand alone again.
It will be fun to name the fairies, such names as Pepper-grass, Mustard-seed, and Catnip, and with the teacher standing before his class, have him call the roll and have each fairy bob his head as he answers to his name.
Perhaps you will want the teacher to require each pupil to sing a little song or recite a short verse. When a fairy does that, he moves forward in front of the others, and stays in that place until he has finished. Here is a pretty verse for a flower-capped fairy to recite:
Intimate friend of the Bobolinks,
Lover of Daisies, slim and white,
Waltzer with Buttercups at night.
· · · · · · · ·
Oh, who knows what the Clover thinks?
No one! Unless the Bobolinks."
Sweet Pea—the Peacock
You use a little pretended magic when you turn a sweet-pea blossom into a peacock, and that makes it seem more mysterious and more interesting. It doesn't take a second but while you are doing it you must repeat this transformation rhyme:
Your petals unlock.
I turn two down,
And you're a peacock."
Your petals unlock."
And you're a peacock."
Snapdragon—Lady's Head and Lion's Head
The magic that turns a blossom of the large, cultivated snapdragon into a little lady's head, upon which rests a dainty, ruffled sunbonnet, or into a ferocious-looking lion's head, is the magic of pen and ink, not of rhyme.
The blossoms of the cultivated snapdragon are very much larger than those of its wild cousin, called by some people butter-and-eggs, but the cultivated flowers grow on a stalk in the same way as the wild ones. You would hardly recognize the cultivated flowers as snapdragons because of their size and wonderful colors. A sure test is to pinch one; if it opens its mouth it is a real snapdragon; if it doesn't it is not; but you must know how to pinch it, else it may refuse to snap.
The illustration (Fig. 98) shows a stalk of the cultivated flower, and looking at the blossoms in that position you can see neither the lady's head nor the lion's, yet they are there.
LADY'S HEAD
Pick a blossom off its stalk, leaving the little stem attached, and turn it around until you discover the sunbonnet and see that it looks like Fig. 99, then with pen and ink draw eyes, nose, and mouth on the part under the bonnet that is the face. This part is white, while the sunbonnet is sometimes a dainty pink and sometimes a gorgeous scarlet or orange, with deeper color on the edges.
LION'S HEAD
Turn another blossom upside down and the crown of the bonnet becomes the lower jaw and beard of the lion, while the other part is the lion's face. On the face you must make two fierce eyes like those in Fig. 100. When you take hold of the lion's jaws at the back and pinch them he will open his great, wide mouth as if to send out a tremendous roar, only to snap it shut again without a sound as you stop pinching. Fig. 100 shows how to hold the flower to open the lion's mouth.
The pink snapdragon is best to use for the lady's head and the orange-colored one for the lion's. If you would rather call it a dragon's head, you can, you know, but it looks more like a lion.