in the toy; even grown people are interested and amused as they watch it whiz around with its burden of happy little paper children. Another lively game for paper children is the
Flag Dance,
(Fig. 265), where each doll actually waves its own little paper flag as she dances to and fro.
Make four small flags of different colored tissue-paper, each 1½ inch wide and 3 inches long, which allows for fastening to the staff.
Four little paper girls can be cut from Fig. 266. Take four half-sheets of stiff, unruled white writing-paper, fold each lengthwise through the centre; then trace Fig. 266 and cut it out of an extra piece of paper. Lay this half figure with its straight edge on the fold of one of the papers and with a lead-pencil draw a line around it. Cut out and open (Fig. 267). Make four dolls. Cut the flag-staff off the right hand of two and off the left hand of the other two, that the hands on the outside of the group, when the dolls
Fig. 265. are in place, may hold the flags (Fig. 268). Draw or paint a face and dress on each of the little girls, being sure to use the inside of the bend or fold for the front of the doll, as this slight inclination to fold forward after the doll is cut out and straightened out flat is of great assistance in bracing the figure when it is in position. Cut a slit up between the feet, but no further. Let the legs be of one piece, to insure greater strength to the standing doll (Fig. 267). Fold the flag-staff lengthwise, also the hand holding it, and give to each of the paper children one of the home-made tissue-paper flags by pasting a flag on every flag-staff (Fig. 268). When the dolls are ready, obtain a very flexible, slender, cloth-covered, long steel from a dress-waist or stays, and tie a strong black thread from end to end, making a stretch of nine or ten inches. On the centre of this thread tie another about a yard long (Fig. 265), and on the steel foundation fasten the four dolls. They should stand erect, one on each end, and two midway between centre and ends.
Fig. 268 shows the method of pasting the feet of the figures on the steel; slide the steel up between the feet; then bend them forward and glue one foot on each side of the steel, flat against it. Fasten a flag, about four and a half inches long, on the end of a long, strong hat-pin; then stick the pin firmly in a small pastry-board and slip the steel with its pretty children over it, resting the centre of the steel flat against the pin, which is now a flag-pole (Fig. 265).
