Fig. 2.
Some years ago I became acquainted with a large number of children who lived on "our block," and their mothers and their fathers; in fact, I was one of the fathers. As a rule, they were all pleasant young people, and it became a pastime with me to entertain, amuse, and find them something to do, particularly during holidays and on Saturdays. In course of time two large and vacant rooms were secured in one of the houses, and I received a sort of standing commission from the parents of the children to fit up and furnish the two rooms as a play house. The following description will give a pretty fair idea as to how the walls were furnished.
Fig. 3.
First a reliable and communicative colored kalsominer was called in to kalsomine the walls of one room in alternate perpendicular bands of a very light blue and a very quiet gray tint, each band or stripe of color being nine inches in width. The other room was papered with a cheap wall-paper which cost about nine cents a roll. This paper was twenty inches wide; the pattern consisted of several styles of imitation chestnut-wood graining. Having on hand a very large quantity of autumn leaves, we set to work disposing of them on the walls of the rooms in the following manner:
First two glue-pots were made, as shown in Fig. 1, from empty fruit cans, the inner or smaller can to contain the glue, and the outer or larger boiling water. To the outer can a wire handle is attached. With the two cans a constant supply of hot glue was always on hand.
To the grained paper the leaves and tendrils of the Virginia creeper were fastened as shown in the right hand part of Fig. 2. The design, which is here horizontal, will of course be upright on the wall. To every other stripe of graining the leaves of the Virginia creeper without the tendrils were fastened, so as to avoid too much sameness. In this room the top bordering consisted of sumac leaves and berries, as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.