When the boy soldier is dressed in this home-made uniform, which will be even more effective than any which is for sale in a toy shop, he will be ready for any adventure in addition to the brave prowess of everyday life. Perhaps he and the other boys will want to take one of mother’s old blankets and two or three clothes poles for a tent, and tramp as far as the woods for a day of real scouting. Every soldier has a knapsack for carrying provisions and this play soldier will need one, too. A large, flat box makes a fine knapsack. Inside can be packed a bundle of sandwiches, two or three apples, a doughnut or two, and a piece of pie or a big slice of pound cake. When the box is packed, tie it securely with a length of cord, and have one end of the cord for a strap by means of which the knapsack is hung across the soldier’s back. Roll a square of old blanket and tie to the top of the box just as a real soldier fastens his blanket to his knapsack, and the make-believe soldier in cap, epaulets, and shield can draw his sword and start off in search of any adventure.
JOINTED TOY ANIMALS. HOW TO MAKE THEM
THEY will really do “stunts,” these toys in the picture. The grasshopper will hop if you stand him up on a table and give him a chance. The turtle will crawl along much faster than an ordinary, live turtle. The crocodile will follow you so fast that you will surely be eaten by him unless you hurry. What fun it is going to be to play with these live toys, but first a child must make them, and as many more as he likes.
Clear a low table on which to work and find some heavy cardboard or thick water color paper from which to construct the animals. Bring also, a pair of strong scissors, a sheet of tracing paper, a soft lead pencil and the box of water color paints you found in your stocking last Christmas. These are all the tools and material necessary for making a barnful of animals. Ask mother for some porcelain collar buttons to fasten the animals’ legs to the bodies. The laundry man brings so many of these useless studs every week and a crop of them will be fine for jointing the animals. If one cannot find enough collar buttons, a box of tiny brass paper fasteners will serve very well instead.
Every boy knows how to draw a few animals, at least free hand. If he is clever enough to be able to do this just by watching the horses out in the street, or the tiger in the Zoo, or the kitten who sits in front of the nursery fire, washing her face, so much the better. He will not need any patterns. The child who finds difficulty in sketching an animal free hand will have to trace his patterns from a book, or a toy animal. Often one of the nursery toy animals may be laid flat on the cardboard and its outline drawn and cut. Noah’s Ark animals, if they are large, make excellent patterns for a child to copy. If one has no toys of the right size, the tracing paper may be laid over the picture of an animal in a farm picture book, or a book that tells about the jungle, or a book on Natural History. When the outline of the animal has been neatly traced on the tracing cloth, it should be transferred to the cardboard from which the animal is to be made. When a child has obtained a clear outline in this way, he may next proceed to make the animals alive.
First, he must decide just the location of the animal’s joints. Where are the tiger’s paws fastened to his legs? Where are the grasshopper’s knees? Where, hidden underneath his shell are the turtle’s funny little flat feet attached to his body? Then, using the pattern which has just been made, a new pattern of the creature’s body is made, then a pattern of a leg, a tail, an ear, and these sections are all cut from the cardboard, separately, with scissors or the sharp jack-knife. In cutting out legs and paws, they should be made always a little longer than the original pattern to allow for the joint by which they are fastened to the body. As soon as all the parts of an animal have been cut from the cardboard, they should be laid in place and holes punched with a coarse needle or an awl at the joints. If the animal is a huge one, the collar buttons may be slipped in these holes to hold the sections together. In the case of the toy creatures shown in the picture, paper fasteners were used. When these joints have been made the toys will stand or sit, cock their ears or wag their tails, leap or run—in fact they will do anything a boy wishes.