Take the cover of your shoe-box and also the oblong box you intend to use for a steeple. This may be either a long candy box, such as chocolate peppermints are often sold in drug stores, or it may be a box such as jewelers use for hat-pins. The tower of the church should come over the door. Near the top corner of the shoe-box cover which is to be the roof of the church, mark off the shape of one end of the oblong box which is to be the tower. Cut out this square from the shoe-box roof, and cut out about a quarter of an inch more at the bottom, otherwise your steeple will not stand exactly straight.
Now, slip the roof over the points of the side walls. See! that is it! And, next, slip the tower in place down through the opening which comes in the roof over the door. (See [Diagram Three, AA], page 168.)
If your tower is to have a bell, you can buy a bell at almost any toy store. It will probably cost you a penny. You will need to cut openings in the upper part of the bell-tower box. Cut one on each side, as you see it in the picture of my Boxville Church. The belfry windows will be cut like ordinary square windows, except for a point at the top. (For cutting plain windows, see [Diagram One, A], page 166.)
The bell is next tied like a locket to a double cord or bit of string. One end of this string is used to fasten the bell to the top of the tower. It is sewed, with the help of a large darning-needle, to the cardboard top of the belfry. The other end of the cord will be the bell-rope, and this goes down through the cardboard at the base of your tower box and through the cardboard at the top of the shoe-box building. It can be threaded to the darning-needle and pressed through the holes made by the needle till its end hangs down into the church vestibule, as you see it in the picture. When you let the sexton pull this bell-rope, ding, ding goes the bell, and the noise that it makes is just the right size for a Boxville Church!
Now you are ready to furnish the inside of your church. Begin with the platform for the pulpit. This is the box cover you have—the one about three or four inches long. Place it where the platform should go, opposite the door. The spool will be the pulpit. Paste a little round cardboard disk over the opening at one end of the spool, and this will be the top of the pulpit. Paint the spool black.
Use a long, narrow box cover for the pulpit chair. (See [Diagram Six, C], page 177.) Cut the rim from box cover, beginning near the center on one long side. Cut till you have reached the point opposite. The part of the cover from which the rim has been removed will be the back of the chair. Bend it forward.
The other half of the cover will be the seat of the chair. Legs are cut in the front rim and in the side rims that remain. To make front legs, keep the corners of the box, and cut up to the part which is the seat, the upper part of the cover. Remove the cardboard from between these two cuttings. Then, make the back legs of the chair in the box rims at side. Place the little chair back of the pulpit, and color it, if you wish, to match.
At least three pews will be needed for the church. They are to be made from the three small box covers. (See [Diagram Six, B], page 176, for making high-backed benches.)
With a pencil or pin-point, mark the center of each short rim on these box covers. Then, taking one cover, cut through the rim at the two points till you have reached the top of the cover. Half of the division made will be for the back of the bench and half for the seat and the legs. Cut the legs in one half as you cut the legs for the pulpit chair. Remove from the other half of the cover the remaining end rim. Bend the rim that is left at the top upward, to make the high back of the bench, and color the bench to match the pulpit and chair.
