Good Times with the Juniors

by Lilian M. Heath

A Pansy-Hunt.

From the colored plates in flower catalogues, and from advertising and other picture cards, select those having pansies, the prettier the better. Let the Juniors help collect them. This in itself would seem to be a “pansy-hunt,” but it is only the beginning.

When there are several hundred pansies, not as yet cut out, the Juniors may meet for their work. The first thing to be done is to cut out the pansies. This will not take long, and as the fingers fly some one may read aloud an entertaining story, perhaps a short one by “Pansy”; or, if that is not at hand, a bright one from the latest Christian Endeavor World is always in order at such times.

Next, the pansies are all placed in small, numbered envelopes, ten pansies in each, preparatory to playing the game of “butterfly pansy-hunt.” Half of the Juniors go out of the room, and the rest proceed to hide the envelopes. When called in, the hunting party, who are the “butterflies,” have a grand rummage, and the “butterfly” that finds the most pansies is made the leader of the hiding party next time. The divisions are reversed so that the hiders become the butterflies each time that the pansies are all found. As the envelopes are numbered, it is easy to determine when this is the case. Quick wits in thinking of new places, and sharp eyes for discovering them, are thus kept busy, and when tired of this game the Juniors may all be seated again around a long table while the superintendent produces a large pasteboard box with a pansy-decorated cover. Explaining that pansies mean “thoughts,” and that this box is full of bright and sweet thoughts to be used for people who have not quite so much to make them happy as the Juniors, she invites the children to a new kind of pansy-hunt, which is not entirely for themselves.

The box is passed around, and each Junior takes out a handful of the clippings, which, needless to say, have been carefully gathered by the superintendent and her friends, so that each one contains a thought worth reading, and within the comprehension of the Juniors. Selections found in books could be used also by typewriting them on slips of paper, and might include a number from the Bible. Several rolls of baby ribbon, one each of all the different pansy colors, should be in the box.

When the Juniors are supplied with a handful of thoughts apiece, give to each a pen and ink and a package of little cards. These cards should be a trifle larger than visiting-cards, or just large enough to contain one of the short written selections and a pansy. Let the children copy on the cards, in their own handwriting, from the clippings the ones which they like best; this will leave the original clippings to be used again for other purposes. Each Junior may write seven, one for each day in the week, after pasting a pansy on each card; then tie a ribbon a few inches long through a hole in one corner, leaving one end free, and tie the free ends of all seven ribbons together so that they can be hung up. If the ribbons used are as many as possible of the different pansy colors for each bunch, the effect will be extremely pretty. Some of the more skilful workers may find that they have time to prepare a second bunch in the same way.

These handfuls of thoughts may then be sent where they will be most appreciated, and the pansy-hunt will have served, at the very lowest estimate, a double purpose.

A Rainy Fourth.

There are bright possibilities in every cloud, and even a rainy Fourth of July is no exception. So the Joyville Juniors discovered. Of course, they were intending to have a picnic, besides enjoying the regulation fireworks; and here was a cold, steady drizzle, for all the world as if it were November.

Great were the lamentations; but just as the “Sultan of Sulkydom” was about to have everything his own way he was put to rout by a big covered wagon driven around from one house to another where the Joyville Juniors lived. There were twenty-three of them in the society; but sixteen houses contained them all, and fourteen of these were quite close together; so it was not more than an hour before the last youngsters were collected and all were landed in the big upper room of Judge Elsworth’s house. Miss Elsworth, the Junior superintendent, welcomed them with a certain twinkle of the eyes which made every Junior instantly conclude that in spite of the rain they would manage to have a good time.