Part 6

There is not a boy but has gazed at the alluring Indian suits in the toy shop windows, wishing that he were able to buy one. It is so much easier to give a proper war whoop, and scare a few of the fellows, and execute a wild war dance, or even sit by a camp fire in the woods telling stories, if only he is dressed like a real, live Indian.

Why not make one’s own Indian suit?

It is perfectly possible for a boy to make himself a fine Indian shirt, fringed, and decorated with beads; a pair of beaded moccasins and a bead belt in which may be thrust a scalping knife, a bow and arrow and a few other implements of war. He may hang all his scalps to the belt, too.

The only materials needed for the suit will be three or four large chamois skins--or two yards of brown denim if the chamois seems too expensive for the young Indian’s pocketbook--some red and blue porcelain beads which may be bought in strings at any dry goods store for a few cents a string, a spool of heavy cotton thread, and a little patience. With a coarse needle, and a pair of scissors the boy will be ready for work. Making an Indian suit will fill a great many rainy afternoons full of fun.

The bead belt is the best part of the suit to begin with because a boy can experiment with designs as he weaves the beads together, and he will be able to form an idea of the pattern he wishes to use when he embroiders the shirt and the moccasins. One will need a bead loom on which to make the belt. These looms may be bought at a toy shop, but that is not really necessary. An old box will do quite as well for a loom. The belt in the picture was started on the cover of an old shoe box, and a cigar box with the cover and the bottom removed makes a fine bead loom. In making a loom from a wooden box, very small screw eyes may be put in the ends of the loom, about one quarter of an inch apart to hold the threads. In the card board cover shown in the picture, the warp threads--those are the lengthwise threads in the weaving--are held in place by pins to which they were knotted at the ends of the loom.

Fourteen threads are strung on the loom for a section of the belt, as tightly as the card board will allow of their being stretched. A needle is then threaded with the coarse cotton thread, and the end is tied to the warp thread at the top of the loom at the left. The needle is then brought out to the right below the warp strands, thirteen red beads--one less bead than the number of the warp strands, remember--are strung on the thread, and the beads are pressed up between the warp strands so that one bead comes between every two threads. The needle is then run back from right to left through the beads _above_ the warp threads. This makes one row of beads securely woven to the warp. For the second row of beads, six red beads, one blue one and six more red ones are strung, the blue bead forming the beginning of a simple design. The third row has three blue beads in the center, the fourth has five, the fifth three, and the sixth one, completing the design. A row of red beads is then woven in, after which the unit of design was repeated.

Many different designs will suggest themselves to the boy bead weaver. A checker board pattern of squares may be used, there may be a plain border at the edges of the belt, or a Greek fret may be introduced with charming effect.

When the section of the belt shown in the picture is finished, it may be removed from the loom, the ends of thread being tied securely about the last row of beads. A second section is strung on the loom, blue beads being strung first with a design of red in the center. Four sections, two red and two blue, may be sewed together to complete the gay little Indian belt.

Now for the Indian’s shirt. The pattern which is shown in the picture should be enlarged according to the scale, one and one half inches to a foot. If chamois skin is used for the shirt, probably one large and two smaller skins will need to be joined to give enough material, but if the shirt is made of brown denim, the pattern may be laid on a length of the cloth, without piecing, and the shirt is then cut. It will not be necessary to sew any seams in the shirt. It is folded over at the neck opening, and tied on the small boy with narrow strips of leather indicated in the picture. One strip of leather is tied under the arms, and the other about the hips. The bead embroidery finishes the neck and sides of the shirt. To do this embroidery, a needle is threaded with coarse linen thread, and knotted at the end. Starting at the right of the neck, and close to the edge, the needle is brought through to the outside of the shirt. Three beads are then strung. They are held down close to the shirt and the needle is thrust through the cloth to the inside again. The needle is then brought through, close to the first stitch, three more beads are strung, and the embroidery is continued. Red and blue beads should be alternated to form a design. This stitch described is the simplest one for a boy to use and it is most effective also, being the stitch used by the Indians when they embroidered their own shirts, moccasins, and leggins.

In starting the embroidery for the sides of the shirt, the bead border should be started about two inches from the edge, this margin being fringed carefully with sharp scissors after the beads are all sewed on. A design of beads, which may be varied according to the taste and skill of the boy who makes it, may ornament the front and the back of the shirt.

Moccasins sound very difficult to make, but here is a pattern all in one piece, with no troublesome uppers and soles to be fitted together. Chamois skin should be used, if possible, for the moccasins, or the light weight leather which may be bought at a craft shop for art work and can easily be sewed. When the pattern of the moccasin which is shown in the picture has been enlarged according to the scale--three inches to a foot--it is laid on the leather or chamois, and a pair of moccasins is cut out. It will be found easier to embroider the toe before the moccasin is sewed. The sewing which holds the moccasin in shape is done with very coarse thread in an over and over stitch. Narrow strips of leather may be used, also, for the joining, in which case, holes should be punched with a stiletto and awl to admit of the leather being passed through the material. After this joining is completed, the flap indicated in the picture is folded over on the dotted lines, and it is embroidered in the same pattern used to finish the neck and sides of the shirt.

If there is enough of the material that was used for the shirt left, two long, straight pieces may be cut, embroidered on the long edges, fringed, and tied about the Indian’s legs for leggins.

A most gorgeous headdress may be made for the Indian from crépe paper feathers. The feathers are made by fringing crépe paper and pasting this fringe to short lengths of flower wire. Gilt paint will make the feathers even more glorious, and when a number of them are finished, red, and blue, and green, and yellow--all the rainbow colors in fact--they may be wired to a headdress made of stiff cambric or heavy cardboard.

What shall we call the boy when he is dressed in his home-made chieftain’s suit, which will be more effective, even, than the one he saw in the toy shop? Hiawatha, perhaps, as he dons his war paint and feathers and starts in search of all sorts of interesting Indian adventures.

HOW TO MAKE STICK PICTURES

It is a new sort of fun that a boy can have with just plain, everyday, ordinary sticks. You can play at being an Indian, too, at the same time for the Indians did it first and called it picture-writing.

Suppose you were an Indian child in paint and feathers, and moccasins. Suppose that you never went to school, and never had seen a piece of paper or a lead pencil. Then suppose that you wanted to write a letter to your little red cousin who lived on the other side of the forest in another tribe, far away from yours.

Of course, you have ever so much to tell your little red cousin. You want him to know that the big chief, your father, has just put up a fine new wigwam of skins for you to live in, a more beautiful wigwam than any other in the village. You want the cousins to know, too, that the sap has begun to run in the maple tree and soon your mother, Laughing Water, will get out the big kettle and build a fire of pine branches and boil the fresh, sweet sap into maple sirup. Then there is a still more wonderful thing to tell your little red cousin. In the full of the last moon, a strange water creature was seen in the river in front of your wigwam. It was white, and large, and it had huge white wings that the wind filled. It was a pale face ship--much larger, and very different from an Indian’s canoe.

Now, how are you going to tell all these exciting things to the far-away little red cousin when you have no pencil and no paper for a letter, and there is no postman and no railway train to carry a letter to the other tribe? Why, it is going to be the easiest thing in the world to do. Make some stick pictures that will tell all the stories that you would like to write if you only knew how.

In the forest there is a fine old hunting ground. You know just the spot where all the tribes gather and build their great camp fires, and cook the game, and dance in the evening when the hunt is done. Before another moon your cousin’s tribe will be there. And you are going now, to the hunting ground, to make some stick pictures for that little Indian boy to find. Then he will understand that you have been there and you were thinking of him.

Jump into your canoe and paddle down the river. Tie the canoe fast to the bank, then jump out and plunge into the forest. You know the way to go, for the moss grows on the north side of the trees. There, you have come to a cleared spot in the deep, deep woods. There isn’t any sound save the chattering of the chipmunks. They won’t disturb your picture writing. Now you may go to work.

You break many of the straight, stout twigs from the pine tree. Some of the twigs must be long, and others you will break off short to fit together where there are corners in the pictures. There is a smooth bed of moss under the pine tree. That will be a splendid place for your picture writing. First, you will make a picture of the new wigwam. Just two long sticks, crossed at the top will make the outline, and you put two short sticks together to show the door. Now, for the maple tree. You will lay a long stick down on the moss to show the outline of the tree. Some shorter sticks, laid close to the sides of the longer stick make the branches. The pale face ship may be more difficult to make, but you will be able to outline the picture with your sticks. There are the sloping sides of the ship and there are the sails.

The picture letter is done. When the little cousin finds it there in the woods he will know all about the new wigwam, and the maple sirup, and the strange ship. You travel home again if you are a little Indian boy, and you don’t mind in the least not having a pencil, or a postman.

How may a little pale face child play at picture writing?

If it is vacation time, you can gather sticks in the woods just as the little Indian boy did. Be sure that they are long, straight ones, though. You may sit in the grass and lay your stick pictures on the lawn, or you may make them on the floor of the piazza.

If you want to make stick pictures in the house on a stormy day, ask mother to let you use her sewing table to put them on, or you can lay them on the kitchen floor, or the nursery hearth rug. For the indoor stick pictures, you can use burnt matches, or toothpicks, or clothes pins--anything long and straight will do. You can buy colored sticks at a kindergarten shop, and those will be the best of all for stick pictures. And if you have a game of jackstraws, the straws may be used for the pictures.

The Indians had no picture books, but you have. You can play a game with the stick pictures. You can make pictures to illustrate one of your favorite stories, and then ask the boy or girl who is playing with you to try and guess what the story is that fits the picture.

A splendid story to illustrate with stick pictures is The Three Bears.

Here is their house.

Here is the table that held the three bowls of porridge.

Here are their three chairs.

And here are their three beds.

A TOY INDIAN VILLAGE

Just fancy an encampment of real, live Indians in the house in a little Indian village that you made all yourself! It will be the best sort of fun to make the camp, and when it is done it will be a fine, new plaything for all winter long, as the toy Indians have sham fights, and May dances and tell each other stories around their tiny camp fires. And this is the way to make the fascinating toy.

A long, shallow tin with very narrow sides is the foundation for the Indian village. The tinsmith has large sheets of bright new tin, and he will make you one of these shallow tin trays for just a few cents. The florist will give you a basket of soft, black earth--enough to fill the tray--and you can mold and pat it into tiny hills and queer little valleys, and long foot paths, no wider than your little finger for the toy Indians to trail up and down.

You must take a long walk now as far as the woods to find some sprays of white pine, hemlock, and spruce for the Indians’ trees. Gather some little straight twigs, too, for wigwam foundations, and if the ground is still bare, pick up some of the prettiest pebbles you can find for make-believe rocks in the Indian encampment. With your jack-knife strip from the birch tree just a very little bark to make an Indian canoe--not much, for it takes a birch a long, long time to grow more bark. Then you may go home again, but on the way, buy a penny’s worth of grass seed at the florist’s. What are you to do with all these things?

Just listen, and you will find out.

Scatter the grass seed very softly over the earth in your tray and sprinkle it with the rubber bulb sprayer that mother uses for her house ferns. You would not believe it perhaps, but in a week or ten days your little Indian camp ground will be covered with a carpet of soft, green grass really growing in the earth. After you have planted the grass seed, stick the little evergreen trees in the earth and lay your pebbles about as if they really belonged there on the ground. In one corner of the tray, if mother is willing, you may sink a shallow, round cake tin filled with water to make a miniature lake, and about the lake you can put a border of stones covered with the moss that comes in a box of Noah’s Ark animals. The tray of earth is quite transformed now into a tiny forest.

Under the trees the Indian wigwams are scattered. Making these tepees is ever so much fun and will fill a long winter evening after your lessons are learned and you have the library table free to work on. Fig. 1 shows you how to cut out an Indian wigwam, and heavy dark brown paper or brown canvas is a strong material to use. When the wigwam is cut, it may be decorated with paints in any design you wish. A border of small squares is an attractive decoration, or some grotesque heads and bows and arrows may be painted on. Gold or red paper stars and crescents and suns may be cut and glued to the outside of the wigwam, forming a very gay scheme of trimming it, or very tiny autumn leaves may be waxed and glued on. When a number of these little wigwams have been cut, decorated, and glued together, as shown in Fig. 2, place them in your play forest, using two or three twigs crossed for supports, the ends extending through the hole in the top of the wigwam.

Now you can make the Indians. English walnuts form the heads. These are just the right size, brown enough for the complexion of any Indian, and nicely wrinkled, too. With a sharp jack-knife smooth down a few of the walnut’s wrinkles, and carve the Indian’s features, trying to give him high cheek bones. Color his cheeks with vermilion and paint his face, too, in as many different colors as you like. A roll of stiff paper or cloth glued to the nut head makes the Indian’s body, about which is wrapped a blanket of fringed crépe paper, red flannel, or any sort of gay stuff that mother will give you. This walnut Indian wears a marvelous feather headdress. The feathers come from the chicken yard or the oldest feather duster--whichever source is available--and they are glued to a strip of brown paper which, in turn is glued to the little Indian’s head.

There should be a whole tribe of Indians, as many as you can make before bedtime, and when it comes morning run up to the play room and stand the Indian braves at the doors of their wigwams or in the little path between the trees where they can see their real green grass coming up, and enjoy the friendly shelter of their fine little camping ground.

These nut Indians will need bows and arrows when they have sham battles. Tiny twigs may be bent bow shape with rubber bands for bow strings and burned out matches may be sharpened to a point for arrows. Toothpicks make arrows, too. A bow and a bundle of arrows may be laid at the door of each little Indian’s wigwam. The canoe that floats on the tin pan lake is made of a strip of folded birch bark shaped at the ends like a real canoe and stitched with brown linen thread. It will really float if it is carefully made.

For a camp fire, pile up some broken twigs in a cleared spot in your Indian encampment and put in some scraps of twisted, red tissue paper which will look like flames. One of the kettles from the dolls’ kitchen may hang on a forked stick over this make-believe fire to cook the dinner for the walnut Indian tribe.

This play Indian village will last all winter, a comfortable camping ground for the tribe, and a delightful plaything for the clever boy who made it.

There may be some walnut squaws added perhaps, and some peanut papooses wrapped in blankets cut from a scrap of old chamois and hung contentedly by thread to the sheltering trees. The grass will grow so high that it may have to be mowed with the nursery scissors, and when the trees fade, more can be gathered and put in the places of the old ones.

CORN TOYS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM

Corn cobs really look as if they would like to play. There is a whole binful out in the barn, and the chickens do not want them and neither does the farmer. He will make a big bonfire out in the wood lot some day and burn up all the corn cobs if the children do not take possession of them first, and help them to play by making them into toys.

What fine, long, straight little logs they are for a log cabin, or they might be made into Indian or toy rafts, or a rail fence, or almost anything else a child chooses.

First you can make a little rail fence that stretches across one corner of the barn floor. To do this, lay down six corn cobs in zigzag fashion on the floor with the ends not quite as far apart as the cobs are long. Then across every two cob ends lay another cob and finish the fence in this way, making it very snug.

Behind the fence lives Apple Johnny. He owns the farm whose boundary lines the fence marks out on the floor. Apple Johnny has a little hard apple for his head joined by a toothpick to a fat apple that forms his body. His legs and arms are twigs and his face is cut with a jack-knife in the smaller apple. Apple Johnny has a herd of wild potato horses on his farm. Each potato has four twig legs, and a flowing mane, made of a fringed corn husk pinned to the long end of the potato, and a straw tail pinned to the other end.

As you put the last corn cob in the fence, you heard the rain just pouring and pouring on the barn eaves. Suppose the roof of the barn should cave in and the whole inside be flooded! What would poor little Apple Johnny do, and how would he ever make his escape? Apple Johnny must have a raft. Select six more corn cobs from the binful, all of them just the same length, and lay them down on the barn floor, side by side. In one of the corners of the barn is an old last summer’s berry basket. Strip off two bits of the binding rim as long as the row of cobs is wide. Nail one to each end of the row of corn cobs, putting a nail in each cob, which holds the small raft firmly in place. Then turn the raft right side up and to one end nail a long, straight twig for a mast, to which you can glue a white paper sail. It is a fine little raft when it is completed, and strong enough to carry Apple Johnny and a potato horse or two safely through any possible flood.

But Apple Johnny has no house. Well, a house is easily planned when one has a whole bin of corn cobs to draw upon for building materials.

Gather an armful of cobs and make a corn-cob house. Lay two corn cobs opposite each other, and two more across the ends, log cabin fashion, driving nails through to hold them together. Next, put two more corn cobs over the first two and two more over the second, until the house is twice as high as Apple Johnny is tall. For a roof, nail two sides of the berry basket to the log cabin, and then with a rip saw cut out a front door high enough to let Apple Johnny step through. There will be rather wide chinks in the house, but you can play that these are windows through which Apple Johnny can watch for the corn-cob Indians and shoot at them with a twig musket when he sees them coming.

You can make a whole tribe of these corn-cob Indians, and it will be the most fun of all, even jollier than making a corn-cob fence, and a raft, and a house. First, wind corn husks around a cob to make the Indian’s clothes, but leave one end, the larger end of the cob, uncovered because that is going to be the Indian’s head. Then on this end, mark a face with a bit of charcoal; eyes, nose, and mouth; and paint the cheeks red with a crushed cranberry, rubbing the juice on the corn cob. The hens’ nests in the barn are full of ever so many pretty feathers, so you can collect as many of these as you wish and glue them to the corn-cob Indian’s head for his headdress. Last of all, ask mother if she is willing to give you a few pieces of the left over plain cloth from sister’s school dress for the corn-cob Indian’s blanket. Of course mother is willing. Almost every mother is willing to give a boy things when he is trying to amuse himself all alone. She may even cut a square of gay plaid from the piece of cloth itself and turn out all the pieces from her sewing bag, where there are other scraps just right for Indians’ blankets; red flannel, and gray serge like your last winter suit, and brown merino, and yellow silk.

The Indian looks very splendid indeed in his feather headdress and a red plaid blanket. All he needs then is a bow and quiver of arrows. The bow you can make by bending a length of willow and tying a piece of cord across. The arrows are shorter, pointed twigs with a very small hen’s feather tied to the end of each.

This Indian you can name Chief Big Cob.

HOW TO MAKE A MARBLE BAG

Nobody knows why the first of March brings marbles, but it certainly does. Some games really belong to the season in which they come as coasting and snowfights, but other games are played at certain times of the year for no reason except that they always have been and always will be. If some one should ask a boy--any boy, why it wouldn’t be better to play football in the summer and baseball at Thanksgiving time, he couldn’t tell you, but his sense of the fitness of things would be outraged.