Having delivered our short lecture (illustrated with examples) to the six brown eyes, and also to the six white ears—like quaint sea-shells from the shores of Elysium—we all proceeded to operate on the windows before mentioned, and we are glad to say with the most pleasing results.
Our scissorings with the colored paper brought to light an accomplishment of Little Pickle, which set us all to work anew with scissors and pen and ink for some time.
Master Adams's system was this: he took a small piece of writing paper, and dropping a minute quantity of ink in the centre, then folded it right across the blot and rubbed it over with his finger. When the paper was opened it displayed some curious form or another. This, with a few touches of the pen, we generally made to resemble some object in nature. Bud made an excellent stag's head on one occasion, which we subjoin.
But Little Pickle's course of instruction did not stop with blots. He folded bits of paper and cut them into grotesque patterns, and set us all to filling them up with pictures. The great art consisted in making your design conform to the outline of the paper. One of these, which we happened to have brought away by accident, we have here engraved. It was drawn by Bud, and is really very clever.
That was a very delightful evening we passed with the Adams's. Little Pickle is a very fine boy; guess we will call for him on our road up in the afternoon—to go skating.
That night, when we reached home, we found Nix had called and left us a very curious work—The Veda, or the Sacred Writings of the Hindoos. We slept sweetly, and dreamed we were reclining on the banks of the Ganges conversing pleasantly with Brahma. Singular dream, was it not?
CHAPTER XVII.
Blue and white Christmas, with his henchman, Santa Claus, having come and gone, leaving behind him, however, for a while, his raiment of white and blue, with a host of dear memories for our hearts' nourishment through the next twelvemonth's stage in this journey of life, we think we cannot better show our appreciation of his goodness than by painting a portrait of that small fraction of the universal jollity which fell to our individual lot.