Part 7

And so, when the snow goes away, and the frost comes out of the ground, and the sap begins to run in the trees, and a boy’s toes wiggle and wiggle and long to kick out of his shoes and dig themselves into the soft mud, it is quite the proper thing for him to hunt up all his last year’s marbles, and ask his sister--or somebody else’s sister--to make him a bag to hold them, so that he will be ready for the season’s marble campaign.

The simplest marble bag to make is one which is made in just the same way as a tobacco pouch. Take an oblong piece of heavy tan canvas, measuring twelve inches long by five inches wide. Tan does not show the dirt readily, and the heavier the material is the better, for the bag is not going to be gently handled. Double this piece of canvas in the center, so that it forms a bag six inches deep by five wide. Sew up the two side seams with a coarse needle and very heavy linen thread, and make the seams very strong. The sewing should be about a quarter of an inch back from the edges. Then “scrape” the seams open, which simply means to run your thumb nail along the seams right where the joining is, so that one raw edge shall be folded toward each side. Next make a hem at the top by folding the material over once, and then again. This hem should be about a quarter of an inch wide, and in sewing it down leave a space unsewed on one side where it crosses the seam, so that the draw string can be run in. Turn your bag so that it will be right side out, and the seaming all on the inside. A piece of heavy, wrapping-paper twine twelve inches long will make a fine draw string, by running it through the hem with a bodkin and tying the two ends together.

Another marble bag that will prove very satisfactory, and will be so unusual that the boy who owns it can gloat over the other fellows, is made of very heavy chamois, or buckskin. A paper pattern is made first, like Fig. 1. It measures two and a half inches across the top, four and a half inches from side to side at a point three and three-quarters inches below the top, and its height is six and a half inches. After these points have been determined a boy can mark in the vase shaped outline freehand. When the pattern is made and cut out, lay it on the buckskin, holding it carefully, so that it will not slip, and cut four pieces just alike. Then take a large darning needle or a “rug” needle and thread it with a strand of raffia. If red, or blue, or green raffia are used instead of the ordinary natural color, it will make the sewing very decorative. Take two of the pieces of buckskin, and, beginning at the bottom, sew them together with the stitch that is used for making baseballs. This is done by taking a stitch up from underneath, then crossing over, and taking a stitch up from the under side of the other piece, then back to the first piece and so on, drawing the raffia snug each time. Instead of making a knot at the beginning, leave the raffia hanging loose for about an inch or more, and when the top of the seam is reached, fasten the raffia tight before cutting off. Next join the third piece to the second in the same way, the fourth to the third, and then the fourth to the first, so that all four together form a bag. Take the four ends of raffia at the bottom and knot them snugly together, two by two. They may be trimmed off short, or left hanging loose to form a tassel for decoration. Now take a narrow piece of soft wood and slip it inside the mouth of the bag, so that you can cut slits for the draw string. They are cut with a sharp penknife and should come just at the narrowest part, or neck of the bag. If the upper ends of the cuts are three-quarters of an inch from the top of the bag, and the cuts themselves a half inch long, they will be about right. There are four cuts in each section making sixteen cuts in all. Next take three pieces of raffia twenty-four inches long. Knot the three together at one end, and then braid them tightly into a cord. When the other end is reached knot it as you did the first. String this cord through the slits in the neck of the bag just as though you were weaving--under one, over one, under one, over one--and then when it is all strung, tie the two ends together in a square knot.

It makes an exceedingly unique bag, and will hold all the marbles a boy can win, and besides winning marbles he will win the envy of every other boy who sees his fine, new marble bag.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN SCHOOL BOX

Every boy needs a pencil box. Plain little oblong boxes most of them, with a flat hinged cover, and a little lock that you keep carefully fastened with the key. That is, a boy locks his pencil box when he is able to find the key, but whether it was in his pocket, or fastened to his watch chain, the school-box key always does manage to get away, somewhere--to make its escape.

One day, however, the boy sees displayed in the window of a stationery shop, a new sort of pencil box, a most fascinating kind. The cover of the box is made of narrow strips of wood fastened side by side like the strips in the top of a roll-top desk, and when the shopman opens the pencil box to show the boy the inside, the cover just _slides_ right back out of sight, while the boy looks on in open-eyed astonishment. The shopman’s supply of these magic boxes is limited, though, and there is a wild scramble for their possession among the boys who can produce ten cents--for that is the exorbitant price charged by the shopman. The boy wants one of those magic boxes. His fingers just tingle and burn to hold one and try to make the cover slide in its charming way, but he has only five cents, he can’t buy one.

The boy will be able to make his own pencil box, though, and this is the way he must go about it in order to construct one of those fascinating, roll-top ones, just like the one in the shop window.

In the first place, a boy must know how to whittle. All that he needs in the way of material is a jack-knife, some pieces of wood three-sixteenths of an inch thick, some more pieces an eighth thick, a strip of white cloth, and some little three-eighth inch nails.

The first piece to make (Fig. 1) is the side of the box. It is just a plain oblong of the three-sixteenth inch wood, measuring nine inches long by two and a quarter inches wide. All the pieces are made three-sixteenths thick except the strips for the cover. Two of these sides are necessary of course.

Next come two strips nine inches long and a quarter of an inch wide which are fastened, notched side up on the inside of each side, “flush”--even--that is, with the top, with four little nails driven from the outside. The piece which is cut from the end of each of these, as shown in the drawing, is to make a joint which is later to be fitted with Fig. 10.

Fig. 3 is eight and nine-sixteenths inches long and one and seven-sixteenths wide and one end is rounded into a half circle. Figs. 3 and 4 are nailed in position on the inside of the side pieces, and together they form the track around which the cover runs. Two of each are required. Fig. 5 is the bottom piece, and is simply an oblong nine inches long by two and a half wide. It is placed in position with the side pieces upright on either side of it and nailed from the outside.

It is best to make the cover next, so that you can test it and see that it works smoothly before any more of the box is put together. It is made of little strips (Fig. 6) three-eighths of an inch wide and two and a half inches long, “sliding fit,” which means that they are to be a little less than two and a half, so that they will slide in a space two and a half inches wide. A sharp rub on the ends with sandpaper will make this slight difference. There are twenty-two of these strips, and they are glued side by side on a strip of white muslin cloth. If you use a piece with a selvage on one side, you will be more sure of making the cover perfectly straight.

Fig. 7 is the handle and is to be nailed flat to the second strip--the one next to the end strip.

Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 are a false bottom and false end, which form the receptacle for the pencils, and hide the mechanism of the cover. They are nailed in position as shown in Fig. 12. The nails to fasten these in place must be a little longer than the others, because they have to be nailed from the outside and must go through two thicknesses of wood and project into a third.

The next piece to make is Fig. 10--an oblong measuring one and a half inches by two and a half, and cut to make a joint with Fig. 2. This is placed across the top and nailed down, covering the rounding end of the “track.”

Now the cover may be slipped into position and the end pieces (Fig. 11), oblongs two and a quarter inches by two and seven-eighths, nailed on, and the box is done.

It is a convenient size, the receptacle for pencils is ample, and to one who does not know, the disappearance of that cover when it opens is a mystery that borders on black art.

A HOME-MADE CHRISTMAS TREE STAND

Nobody will deny that a Christmas tree has plenty of backbone, but somehow it doesn’t seem to have intelligence enough to use it. Or else it resents the taking away of its roots and the substitution of a shop-made standard that it considers inadequate. As a matter of fact the standards that you can buy in the shops _are_ inadequate for a tree of any size. And so, if the boy of the family is handy with tools, it is up to him to make one.

A very good standard for a Christmas tree--strong, durable, and ornamental as well--may be made from a strip of one-by-two-inch “dressed” lumber 12 ft. long (which costs about a cent and a half a foot), and some pieces of an old dry goods box.

First, saw off from your one-by-two-inch strip four pieces twelve inches long and four pieces eleven inches. These are to make Figs. 1, 2, and 4. Make four pieces like Fig. 1 and two pieces like Fig. 2; the notch at the end is cut with a saw across the grain, and then split out with a chisel.

When these are done, join two of the twelve-inch pieces and two of the eleven inch to form a square frame. The joint is shown in Fig. 3, and it should be glued or nailed, or both, which is safer.

Next make the other two eleven-inch pieces like Fig. 4. These are just like Fig. 2 except that a groove four inches wide and one inch deep is cut in the middle of each. Then they are joined with the other twelve-inch pieces to form a frame similar to the first. The first frame is to go at the bottom of the standard, and the second frame, placed with the grooves _up_, is for the top.

Now cut from the remainder of the strip two more pieces twelve inches long. With a compass set at an inch-and-a-half radius, and the center in the exact middle of one edge, draw a half circle on each, and chip it out with a chisel like Fig. 5. The use of these will be described later.

The remainder of the strip will make four pieces eighteen inches long, with a bit left over. These are to stand on their two-inch faces, and the upper edges of each end should be rounded off with a “block” plane. Then two grooves are cut in each piece, two of the pieces having the grooves on the upper side and two on the under side, like Figs. 6 and 7.

Now cut from your packing box sixteen strips or pickets one and three-quarters inches wide and fourteen inches long, like Fig. 8. These may be “ripped out” with a saw and smoothed up with a plane and sandpaper.

To “assemble” the standard join first the two Fig. 6 strips and two Fig. 7. This leaves a hole two inches square in the center and two strips projecting from each of the four sides. Place the first square frame that you made on this, so that its sides will be equally distant from the center, and nail in position. Next nail the pickets in position so that the lower end of the pickets will be “flush” with the lower side of the frame. Next, hold the upper frame, with the grooves up, in position, eight inches above the lower frame and nail the pickets to that. Fig. 9 shows the complete assembly.

Now give the frame, and the two pieces like Fig. 5 a coat of dark green paint, and the standard is ready for use. Slip the tree into the square hole in the base. If the trunk is a bit too large, whittle it to fit. Then place the two pieces like Fig. 5 around the trunk at the top of the frame for a clamp, and slip them into the grooves in the upper frame, and you will find your tree quite ready to stand up and behave.

HOW TO WRAP CHRISTMAS PARCELS

How many boys and big folks, too, have at some time received a Christmas gift which was broken, or crushed, or spoiled in some way through the careless packing of the sender. Even at ordinary times the mail service and Express Companies are hard enough upon packages given to their care. The term “baggage-smasher” ought not to be restricted to the employees of the railways alone, and when at Christmas time the mails and express lines are congested with packages of all descriptions, and the men are tired and overworked trying to deliver gifts that have been sent at the last minute--then it is doubly needful to insure the safety of your Christmas presents by careful packing.

Of course the wrapping of a gift cannot change its value, but you should bear in mind that your gift will _seem_ doubly attractive to the one who receives it, if inside of the serviceable outside wrapping, there is another dainty one, and the expense is so trifling that it need hardly be considered. A dozen sheets of tissue paper cost only a dime. Pure white or warm “Christmassy” red are the most desirable kinds. Another dime will purchase a box of Christmas seals--small ones with pictures of holly and mistletoe, or large ones with Santa Claus heads or Christmas bells on them. If you prefer tying, to sealing, the ten cents will buy a dozen yards of “tying” ribbon, which is crimson “baby” ribbon in a cheaper grade than is ordinarily sold. Gilt cord is also very attractive for tying up gifts, and a tiny spray of holly tucked under the cord or ribbon gives a final dainty Christmas touch.

Perhaps, though, you live so far away from a town that you are not able to buy these Christmas seals, and the tying ribbon. Almost, if not quite as pretty to fasten the inside tissue paper wrapping of a gift will be some very tiny, red maple leaves gathered in the fall with the thought of Christmas in mind, and pressed with a hot flat iron on which some beeswax has been rubbed. This preserves the bright color of the leaves and keeps them stiff until you need to use them. After carefully folding in the ends of the tissue paper about the gift, the paper is fastened down by gluing on a few of these gay, pressed leaves, and in the folds of the paper a wee spray of pine or a little wreath made of ground pine, or a bunch of partridge berries may be tucked. Another way of making a gift look like the country is to tie it with strands of sweet grass.

When the gifts are wrapped, and you are ready to pack them for shipment, there are a few general rules that must be remembered.

First: That the gifts must be packed as snugly as it is possible to do without harming them.

Second: That nothing--not even excelsior--is quite as effective in stopping the transmission of bumps and jars as crumpled up newspapers.

Third: That the name and address of the person to whom the gift is sent and also the address of the sender must be legibly written in your best school hand on the outer covering where they are not liable to be torn off. You must remember that, while the names and addresses are perfectly familiar to you, they are totally unknown to the men through whose hands the parcels go, and in handling thousands of packages, illegible writing means much delay.

The rule of packing things tightly refers to _everything_--even things which would seem most crushable, for there is far more harm done by packing these loosely so that they slip around with every turn of the package, than by crushing them flat in one position. Take a delicate waist, for instance. If packed loosely, it will come out of its box rumpled and wrinkled in every direction, but if it is folded flat, the sleeves stuffed with crumpled tissue paper, and the spaces around it in the box filled with the same, it will reach its destination quite as fresh as when it started.

It is better to _box_ all gifts if possible. Very pretty Christmas boxes of all sizes and shapes may be bought in the shops, or, in place of these, you can use empty candy boxes which most people stow away for just such purposes.

Do not select a box that is too small and leaves too little space for filling in with crushed paper, and try and think, too, of the weight of the gift in selecting your box.

If you are packing odd pieces of china, wrap each piece separately, and see that they are well segregated with the crushed paper. If you are packing a number of pieces of uniform size and shape--such as saucers, plates, etc.--place them in a pile with every _second_ one well wrapped. Then wrap the whole pile and pack _edgewise_.

China should be packed in a wooden box, with an addressed baggage tag nailed on, or the address put on the wood itself with India ink.

Flat things, calendars, cards, photographs, and handkerchiefs, gloves, neckties, ribbons, etc. if unboxed, must be protected by pasteboard. For this, the corrugated pasteboard that is used by department stores is much more effective than the ordinary flat sort. It is much less easily bent, and is lighter in weight, which is of course a great advantage, because it makes the cost of mailing less.

This corrugated pasteboard is also very good for wrapping things which are light in weight, but bulky and of awkward shape, for it may be rolled to accommodate almost any object.

Doilies, centerpieces, and other flat embroideries must necessarily be kept uncreased in shipping, but are too large to be sent flat. Lay them first on a sheet of heavy wrapping paper, cut square and slightly larger than the embroidered piece. Then lay over the embroidery a sheet of tissue paper, and carefully roll the whole thing. Then form a tubular covering of the corrugated pasteboard, and wrap with hardware paper outside. In tying up a tube, the cord should go twice around the tube--once near each end--and the cord which goes lengthwise should go through the opening of the tube so that the contents will not slip out.

In tying packages for mailing, use good strong cord, and remember that a package must bear no kind of a seal and contain no kind of writing beyond a simple Christmas greeting if it is to go as “merchandise.” Even one of the little paper seals stuck over the string will render the package “first class” and subject to letter postage.

Just one more thing to be remembered at Christmas time. Courtesy is only another name for kindness, and it would be discourteous to send a gift which was not fully prepaid; or to send a gift “across the line,” which is dutiable to any great extent. And in courtesy to the men and women who have to handle your gifts on their journeys, send your Christmas presents long enough ahead of time so that these men and women may not be too tired when Christmas comes to feel themselves its blessed peace and cheer.

YOUR OWN WIRELESS RECEIVING STATION

Most boys are interested in wireless telegraphy, and it is possible for any one of them to make a simple apparatus by which they can “cut in” and receive any wireless message that happens to be passing through their particular zone.

The receiving set will require a number of different parts, but they are easily made--when one knows how.

For actual hearing you will need a telephone receiver of some sort. One may be bought for about seventy-five cents at an electrical supply house, or an old one, provided it is in good condition, may be used.

Next comes a “detector.” This consists of a wooden base about six inches long by four wide and an inch thick, on which is mounted a piece of silicon about the size of an egg. An insulated wire passed once around the silicon and then through two holes in the base will hold the silicon in position in the center of the block. Put a brass screw an inch long at each end of the block and “connect up” the silicon in the following way: First take a piece of No. 22 single-covered copper wire, scrape off a few inches of the covering, and wind this bare copper wire several times around a small round stick to form a spring. The bare end of the spring must be filed to a point and rest against one end of the silicon, while the other end of the wire is wound around one of the brass screws. Next, take a piece of ordinary insulated telephone wire, bare one end far enough to wind firmly around the free end of the piece of silicon, and then wind the other end of this wire around the second brass screw. This makes a metallic circuit through the silicon which will “make” or “break” with the touching or removing of the spring.

Next you need a “tuning coil.” This has a wooden base twelve inches by six and an inch thick. To make the coil itself a stick twelve inches long and one and a half inches in diameter--a piece of an old curtain pole will do--and wind carefully on it a half pound of the No. 22 single-covered copper wire. The end of this wire is fastened to the stick with a small tack, and it should be wound very evenly and closely. The last end is left free for a connection. After it is wound give the wire three coats of shellac, making sure that each coat is dry before another one is put on. When it is thoroughly dry mark two straight lines from end to end, a quarter of an inch apart. With a sharp knife scrape off the insulation so that the wires are bare on the outside, but be careful not to disturb the insulation between the wires. To mount the coil, nail at each end a wooden strip three inches wide, three and a half high and one inch thick. This has also to be nailed to the base, and it should be placed so that the coil will clear the base by a half inch. The strip of bare wire on the coil should be uppermost. Now get a brass rod one quarter of an inch square and thirteen inches long; a thin brass strip one quarter inch wide and two inches long; another strip one inch wide and one and one-quarter inches long; and two round headed brass screws. Bend the wider brass strip around the brass rod to form a slider. Bend the narrow brass strip in the center to form a V spring. Solder one end of this to the slider so that it is in the position shown in the drawing. Slip the slider on the brass rod, place the rod in position directly over the pathway of bared wire on the coil so that the lower end of the V spring will press on this pathway, and fasten the rod securely with the brass screws to the wooden end pieces.