Charlie and His Puppy Bingo

by Helen Hill; Violet Maxwell

Well, when he had brought his scissors and his crayons, his Auntie sat down at the table and she took a piece of typewriting paper and folded it this way and that way. Then she colored one part of it red with the red chalk, and she made three little green strokes with the green chalk, and with the scissors she cut along the creases, and folded it some more; then she pinched it here and pinched it there, and she stuck a pin in at the back, and—there was a beautiful little white house with a red roof and green shutters, and a door that opened and shut!

Charlie was delighted. He said, “Oh, oh! How beautiful! Show me how to make it. Please, Auntie, show me how to make a little house.”

So his Auntie showed him ex-act-ly how to make the little house—and you will see in the picture on this page ex-act-ly how Charlie’s Auntie cut the paper, and where she painted it red for the roof, and where she put the windows with the green shutters, and where she cut the door so that it could open and shut, and where she put the pin in at the back to keep it together. Yes, Charlie’s Auntie used a pin instead of paste, because paste does not always stick very well and it often makes things look messy unless you are very skillful.

Well, after Charlie had tried several times and his Auntie had showed him every time where he had gone wrong, he ac-tu-al-ly succeeded in making a paper house all by himself! And it was a beautiful house.

When his Auntie saw that Charlie could make paper houses just as well as she could, she said, “Now I must go upstairs and sew my dress, and you, Charlie, can make a whole, big village of little houses, and I am sure that you will think of some nice game to play with them.”

Well, Charlie did go on making his houses until he had made a whole lot of them—yes, he had made a tre-men-dous number of houses; maybe he had made fifteen houses out of paper, with red roofs and green doors and shutters. Then he thought that he had made enough and that he would like to play with them—and so he did.

I will tell you how Charlie played with the houses. First he went over to a corner of the room where there was no furniture to get in the way and there he set up some of his houses and made a village of them. Then he had a grand idea—and the idea was that he would like to have some trees in his village, and he knew ex-act-ly how to make them!

He ran into the kitchen where his Mother was making delicious preserves and he said, “Oh, Mother, I want some branches off the bush near the back door—and it is very important. Can I go out just for a minute and pick some?”

And his Mother said, “Yes. If you put on your rubber boots and your slicker and your sou’wester, you can go out for just a minute, even though it is raining, and pick the branches you want, but you must not be long.”