Chessmen can be made from specimens of wood of our native trees; solid oak for king or castle, delicate poplar or birch for the queen, and so on; or of any curious and rare woods; and almost all have some beauty of grain or markings. They can be turned on a lathe, and then finished in grooves and otherwise, or wholly done with the knife. Many, as you know, are in two pieces; and the king and queen in some sets can be taken apart in two places, making three.
There are great opportunities in pieces of wood. The boy who went to the war brought home enough of Southern woods for several canes; and for convenience in packing, he cut it in sections about six inches long; purposing to fit them together on the same principle that a cap of rubber is fitted to the end of a pencil; by cutting away on one piece to slip into a hole made in the next, plug fashion, and there glued.
Relics in wood can be worked into a glove box or handkerchief box, skilfully joining the parts and as skilfully gluing them. Picture frames suggest another form. There is one here made by a clerk in a store while waiting for customers. It has over three hundred small strips, lapping in a fanciful way, and not a tack, or a brad is used in the work; but this is too complicated.
It is easier to turn out checker-men or napkin-rings, or make pen-holders, or paper-knives. Very elegant paper-knives can be fashioned, having one kind for the blade and two for the handle. But all this woodwork must be done with great care, accuracy and nicety, not only in the cutting and dovetailing or matching of the parts, but in the gluing and finishing off, including a delicate oiling to bring out the grain. It is nice work; to be sure it is. But if soldiers in prisons can do such things as some of our soldiers did, with not much besides a jack-knife to do with, pray cannot a smart Western or Eastern boy do as much?—between scroll saws and the variety of choice tools within his reach, he is not the boy I take him for if he cannot make himself a set of chessmen, or a work-box for his sister.
As for minerals, I lately saw at a State Fair a box on which broken-up specimens from that State were glued, crusting it all over with stone that sparkled in places like crystal. On each specimen was a mere speck of paper with a number on it, which corresponded to a number on a written list placed inside, telling what they were—beryl, tourmaline, quartz, etc., etc., and I thought it an admirable thing.
In a parlor, arranged in a border around the little iron fence in front of the coal grate I once saw a curious display of cobble-stones brought home from different beaches. The lady who put them there was artistic, and the effect was pretty. Sea-shells of delicate varieties can be used as necklaces or bracelets if pierced with a red-hot darning needle, or in some way bored to admit of being strung; some of those lovely, iridescent, foreign shells, strung in such a way, are greatly to be desired. You can think of so many ways to put them to pretty use!
Mosses and lichens you can group on card-board or glue them to a wooden cross. With leaves and pressed flowers you can do no end of things. You can mount them on card-board, or make a wreath of them around a piece of wire or rattan; or ornament a fan with them—a round, Japanese fan, recovering it with silk or paper of a neutral color, for background. One girl made a transparency with three or four bright autumn leaves (from a woodbine), which were gathered from among some that had fallen at Longfellow’s gate—just where the poet’s feet had passed in and out hundreds of times. She cut two pieces of coarse lace to fit the window-pane, glued her cluster of leaves in the centre between them, then overcast the outer edges and put on a deep binding of crimson velvet. As the light streamed through they were gorgeous as old stained glass.
If you collect relics, souvenirs, momentos, curiosities, they are worth arranging. If you get tired of them, give them to somebody else.
All these articles require much painstaking. They will be spoiled for any person of good taste if they are daubed, out of proportion, or awry. Don’t let them have a home-made look either. They need not. No reason why a boy of average skill should not do as well, after some experience, as those sailors in the light-ships; or why a girl should not, with care and all her trying, make as pretty things as the gypsy women or the nuns, of whom people like so well to buy.