They wanted these dolls to have silk clothing like real Chinese people, but as they did not have the goods, they just imagined that the paper was silk and were happy in the make-believe.
THE PEANUT CHINESE WOMAN
The Acorn Family
IN the autumn when the acorns began to fall the children found no end of amusement in making them up into all sorts of people and animals.
Some were converted into soldiers—Japanese, with blue kimonos and Russians with long fur overcoats—and often they were lined up for battle. Ruthlessly the children shot them down with bean shooters. Since their sympathies were with the Japs, of course the Russians suffered most, yet there were losses on both sides.
While the brown of the acorns suggested Japs and Filipenos, it was equally suggestive of our own negro people, so numbers of these were made with their blue checked gowns and red bandanas.
Then there were just ordinary acorn men and women, with acorn heads on toothpick necks, and bodies of twisted paper.