Aunt Phoebe was so late in waking that Jimsi had to scurry to get dressed and couldn’t go downstairs at all after that letter. And then there was breakfast immediately. But afterwards—afterwards, she and Aunt Phoebe dashed to the mail-box that stood on the crow’s shelf in The Happy Shop. Sure enough, there was the letter!
Jimsi tore open the envelope—why, there was nothing written in it. It was just some diagrams of the promised furniture for the paper dolls—but wasn’t that worth getting! All the time, Jimsi had been wondering how to cut furniture. She hadn’t known at all. She had hoped the crow would send her the directions but here were just diagrams, the very things to puzzle over and use! Under each diagram was written what it would make and the diagrams were like this.
Of course, the Good Crow couldn’t draw very well but he did wonderfully considering that he had to write and draw with a claw instead of a hand, Jimsi thought. The idea of the crow’s drawing made her laugh. “Aunt Phoebe,” she giggled, “that crow of yours is ever so funny! Imagine a crow’s drawing pictures! But I’m going to make the furniture and start right away!”
Toy Furniture: The Bed, the Chair and Stool were made from Wall Paper
Toy Furniture: The Couch, the Table, the Bureau
Diagram 1
So Aunt Phoebe shut the doors of The Happy Shop and went to her work while Jimsi began to puzzle over the crow’s diagrams. First there was the bed. That was to be cut from a long piece of paper about as long as a paper doll—the longest doll, of course. Jimsi decided that the very, very heavy wall paper might be used to make the toy furniture and she found some that was wood-color in the Magic Book.
She cut the bed’s legs about an inch and a quarter long and parallel with the length of the oblong piece of cardboard. Then, she bent the legs down and the rest of the ends upward to make baseboards. That made a paper bed.