The brackets that come with these cheap poles are iron spikes bent up at one end. Two are used for each pole; they are driven into the wall about four or five inches from the ends of the poles, and the poles rest on the brackets; of course the joined corners count as ends, and are supported in the same way. Some prefer to put ring-headed screws into the poles and slip the rings over the ends of the spikes; and more expensive poles have brass “cup brackets” which of course are ornamental, but also expensive.
The wooden rings have ring screws on which to fasten the curtains. The number used is a matter of taste and depends upon the stuff the curtains are made of, the size of the folds you want, and the number of rings you have. Five or six do very well for a yard-wide curtain. Be sure and divide evenly; put one ring at each upper corner and the rest as they come; a few stitches with coarse thread will secure them, or better still, an inch of tape slipped through the ring and fastened by the doubled ends on to the edge of the cloth. You can buy curtain hooks if you like, and have them sewed on. These are something like big dress hooks: the advantage is, that when you want to take curtains down you just unhook them from the rings without taking the poles down at all.
I know a boy who made a pretty pair of curtain-poles out of two straight, slender beech saplings; he twisted rings out of stout wire and wound them with crossway strips of dark cloth. For muslin curtains, loops of bright ribbons instead of rings would be prettier still on such rustic poles.
Would you like to know what curtains went on to my sixty-cent poles? They are very “æsthetic” in color, but are just soft Canton flannel at a shilling a yard. The centre of olive, the sides dark crimson with bands between of darker olive. These are looped away on either side with bands made of the flannel and underneath are full curtains of six-cent scrim, (unbleached).
But curtain-making belongs to the girls, so having told you how to make the poles and put them up, I will leave the rest to them.