Make the legs of the animals separately and fasten them on to the bodies with tiny nails. Place the two fore legs or two hind legs in position on either side of the body piece, and drive through them a short wire nail, a very little longer than is necessary to go through the three thicknesses of wood. Then rest the head of the nail on a piece of iron, and hammer the point, forming a little rivet to pivot the legs. The feet must also be made separately, and fastened on in the same way, so that, whatever position the legs are in, the feet will remain level.
HOW TO MAKE A SET OF MISSION FURNITURE
A VERY attractive set of furniture suitable for a doll’s nursery, may be whittled from pieces of old cigar boxes. It consists of four pieces—a “Craftsman” bed, a chair, a table, and a chest of drawers.
For the head of the bed take a piece of wood four inches square, and, placing it with the grain of the wood running up and down, mark it out like Fig. 1. As a general rule, the grain of the wood should lie with the longest dimension, but in all the upright pieces of this set it must run up and down. Outline first the “recessed edge,” which forms the legs of the bed, scoring it lightly with the point of the knife. Then cutting a little bit out at a time, and working from the center toward each end, bring it down to the line. The two openings, an eighth of an inch by a half inch, for the joints, must be cut with the point of the knife—the ends first, then the sides, and lastly the wood is chipped out, and the opening is evened up. The foot of the bed is identical with the head except that is three inches high instead of four.
Next come the side pieces—two pieces seven inches long and one inch wide, cut like Fig. 2. The half-inch ends slide through the openings in the head and foot of the bed, and fasten with little wedge-shaped pegs like Fig. 5. Inside each of these side pieces, and “flush” with the bottom edge, glue a strip cut like Fig. 3, and fit in five little slats three and three-eighths inches long by a half inch wide (Fig. 4). Then, to complete it and make it look as much like a Craftsman bed as possible, paste on the head a panel of light brown wrapping paper, on which are four little conventional kittens, painted in Van Dyke brown.
The top of the table (Fig. 6) is a piece four inches square. The end pieces (Fig. 7) are cut similarly to the head and foot of the bed, with the same recessed edge and the same openings, varying only in the outside dimensions. The sides too (Fig. 8), are similar to the sides of the bed, except that they are of course, much shorter. Slip them through the openings in the end pieces, fasten them with four little pegs, glue the top on, and the table is done.