CHAPTER V
PRIMITIVE REED CURTAINS
THESE pretty rustic hangings can be made very easily and quickly. They are light in weight and the general tone of coloring, when the reeds have been carefully dried at home, is a pleasing soft gray green, with suggestions here and there of gray browns, reds, and yellows. The curtains may be either of these reeds or fresh green cat-tails, and even of the silvered gray stalks left standing from last season. The cost in actual outlay of money for several curtains need be only a few cents for cord, staple-tacks or nails, and screw-eyes, but, like the early savage whose method of work you are imitating, you must collect the
Raw Material
out in the open. So away to the spot where the finest cat-tails grow, gather a lot of them, cutting the stalks off clean and smooth at the base, that the cat-tails may not be bent or split, for as reeds in your curtain they must be as near perfect as possible. Cut the velvety brown head off from each one, making all of the stalks the same in length; then, with several long leaves twisted together for string, tie the stalks into a bundle and march home with the treasure.
Fig. [49].—Beginning a primitive curtain.
