CHAPTER XXVI
OPEN-AIR PLAYHOUSES
many places in the South the children have most beautiful material with which to build out-of-door playhouses. Large green palm-leaves grow close to the ground and point their slender fingers out in many directions as though holding up their outstretched hands, asking the girls and boys to come and take them. These palms, together with small, full-leaved live-oak twigs, Cherokee roses, trailing vines, and long gray moss, are fashioned into bouquets and tied in great bunches to the trees with strings made of strips of palms. Four trees growing near together are usually selected as the boundary lines of the
Fig. [502].—Florida playhouse.
Florida Playhouse,
their branches overhead serving as a roof. The walls are open, allowing a free passage of air and plenty of light ([Fig. 502]).
Similar playhouses may be built by children in any spot where trees grow within a short distance of each other. In place of tropical decorations the young builders can use the most ornamental bouquets within reach, selecting foliage and flowers which will keep fresh at least for a few hours.
If trees are not available, make the open-air