Your Friends in Black. There are various advantages about a silhouette party. It admits of no small amusement, for occasionally the queerest object may be twisted to fit a name. The first thing to do is to prepare a list of your guests and find for each name something that will represent it. Set the wits of the entire family at work, for on this task two heads are infinitely better than one.
The longer time you have for the “rebusing” of the names the more entertaining the list will prove. Do not leave out a friend because at first it seems almost impossible to picture his name. The same license is allowed for a rebus as for poetry, and a point may be stretched to make the drawing fit the name, although it is not best to leave too much to the imagination.
For the mechanical part of the work provide ragged-edged cards of various sizes. One name will demand a long, narrow card for its representation; another name, a square card. The best surface for this purpose is a heavy, water-color paper which is neither smooth nor rough. Do not cut it. Crease it in such lengths as you wish to use, then tear it with a very blunt paper-knife. This gives an excellent ragged edge. Take the designs you have planned to use and trace them over black carbon copying paper on each card, leaving a generous margin. Sketch no detail except the mere outline of a figure. Fill a pen with India ink and go very carefully over the outline. Allow it to dry; then with a rather stiff, small sable brush dipped in the ink fill in the silhouette till it is perfectly black and even. Allow it to dry, and add in one corner the number which corresponds with the list. There is a good deal to learn in the adaptation of a design for a silhouette. If a human figure is chosen let it generally be in profile. As a rule, a full-face figure, either in an animal or a man, is almost meaningless unless it is full of action. When the silhouettes are completed, they should be pinned up in a conspicuous place, so that they may all be seen and examined easily and prizes awarded to the most successful guessers.
GAMES
Packing the Trunk. A game adapted from the French, that is very popular among the little people of America, is a good test for the memory.
The children must sit in a circle, and one, as leader, announces in this fashion: “I pack my trunk, and in it I put”—mentioning some articles used in traveling, as gloves, brush or cologne. The next child begins then, saying what the leader has said and adding another article, and so on around the circle, each child repeating all the articles mentioned by the previous one in their correct order, and then adding one more to the list, which after a while assumes lengthy proportions. If one boy or girl forgets one article or puts it in the wrong order, he or she must drop out of the game, and so on until only one child remains.