are quite appropriate for wild flowers, and one in the shape of a canoe can be made from a strip of bark six and one-half inches long and four inches wide. Fig. 34 gives the pattern of this basket. The dotted lines show where the ends are to be sewed together; a ribbon sewed to each end of the canoe serves for a handle.
Card-board Baskets,
cut after the pattern Fig. 35, can be covered with gilt, silver, or crimped tissue-paper as desired; paper lace or fringe is sometimes placed around the edges of baskets of this kind, as a border to rest the flowers upon. The card-board basket shown in illustration is joined together by button-hole stitching of colored-silk floss; slits are cut in two sides and a ribbon slipped through, the ends of which are tied in bow-knots to hold them in place.
May-day Combat.
The Card-board Basket.
This game, although suggested by the ceremonies which, according to Waldron, usher in the month of May in the Isle of Man, is entirely new and bids fair to become popular, as it combines the elements of beauty, sentiment and mirth.
A number of young people separate into two parties, each having its queen; one the Queen of May, the other Queen of Winter. The May-queen and her attendants should be decked with flowers, Winter and her retinue being without decoration. Equipped with the appropriate implements of warfare between the two seasons, namely, a wreath of flowers for spring and a ball of raw cotton, or wool, representing snow, for winter, the contending forces draw up in opposing lines, the space between being about twelve feet. Each line is headed by its respective queen, who holds her missile in her hand.
Fig. 35.