The plaintive inquiry, "What shall I do now?" is much more frequently heard from the child who is unimaginative or who has had the play of his imagination curbed. For the child can be whatever he wishes, and have whatever he likes, his heart's desire is at his finger's end, once his imagination is free. The rocking-chair can be a great big ship, the carpet a rolling sea, and at most a suggestion is needed from the busy mother. A few chairs can be a train of cars and keep him occupied for hours. A wooden box is transformed into a mighty locomotive—in fact, give an imaginative child almost anything, a string of beads, or a piece of colored glass, and out of it his imagination will construct great happiness.
A normal child does not need elaborate toys. The only function of a toy, as someone has well said, is "to serve as lay figures upon which the child's imagination can weave and drape its fancy."
Although parents have not always understood what goes on in the child's mind when he is so busy with his play, our poets and lovers of children have had a deeper insight. Stevenson, in his poem "My Kingdom," shows us how, with the touch of imagination, the child transforms the commonplace objects of his surroundings into material for rich romance:
Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
No higher than my head.
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
Some yellow and some red.
I called the little pool a sea:
The little hills were big to me;
For I am very small.
I made boat, I made a town,
I searched the caverns up and down,
And named them one and all.
And all about was mine, I said,
The little sparrows overhead,
The little minnows, too.
This was the world and I was king:
For me the bees came by to sing,
For me the swallows flew.
I played there were no deeper seas,
Nor any wilder plains than these,
Nor other kings than me.
At last I hear my mother call
Out from the house at evenfall,
To call me home to tea.
And I must rise and leave my dell,
And leave my dimpled water well,
And leave my heather blooms.
Alas! and as my home I neared,
How very big my nurse appeared,
How great and cool the rooms!
Some children do not even need objects as a starting point for their imaginative activity. They can just conjure up persons and things to serve as material for their play. Many children, when alone, have imaginary companions. One little boy, when taken out for his airing, daily met an imaginary friend, whom he called "Buster." As soon as he stepped out of the house he uttered a peculiar call, to which Buster replied—though no one but he heard him—and he would run to meet him and they would have a lovely time together, sometimes for hours at a stretch.
Another little child received a daily visit from an imaginary cow. There was a certain place in the living-room where this red cow with white spots would appear. The child would go through the motions of feeding her, patting her, and bringing her water.