Oak-Leaf Mask
Fig.74 - The 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.