They both laughed. What fun!
“I wonder if yours is like mine?” questioned Jimsi. “I didn’t know you had a Magic Book too, so I brought mine along with me! I was going to tell you about how to make paper dolls and toy furniture from the papers in my Magic Book!”
“Oh, I’d love to know how,” beamed Joyce. “I think paper dolls are just the nicest play—almost. You must show me about them. I don’t know how to make them. The crow never told me. But he did tell me about the motion pictures and I made this—” she held up for Jimsi’s examination now a picture frame that was about twelve inches long and eight inches wide. At the back of the frame where the glass had been, there was stretched some heavy white cloth-cotton cloth. Back of this, where one would place the picture, if one were framing one, was the glass that fitted the picture frame.
The Motion Pictures That Were Cut from Wall Paper
Joyce turned the frame over. “You see,” she explained, “when I hold it front-face, it looks exactly as a motion picture screen does, doesn’t it?—That’s before the picture play begins!”
Yes, it was true. The frame looked like the frame of a motion picture screen.
“The difference is,” went on Joyce, “that the crow’s motion pictures aren’t photographs. They’re really shadow pictures. One cuts silhouettes out of heavy wall paper that is in the Magic Book—oh, everything—and then one puts the chairs or tables, or cupboards next to the glass to make the screen. (I always have a little paper curtain that I put before my frame while I arrange this. It is like the big curtain in the theatre because it shuts off the picture screen.) When I have arranged the furniture and am ready to make the actors walk about in the room, I take the paper away so the audience can see.”
“How splendid!” sighed Jimsi, delightedly. “I think Henry’d be quite crazy about this sort of thing. He’s my brother, you know. He’s a boy, so he thinks paper dolls are girls’ things and he won’t play with them. Do you use paper dolls? I should think that it would be hard to make them move about behind the furniture. I should think it would show that somebody was moving them.”
“It doesn’t though— You’ll see!” Here the little lame girl took the frame. “Don’t look,” she admonished with a raised forefinger. “Pretend you’re interested in the cat!”