CHAPTER XIX

BUCKEYE HORSE AND BUCKEYE RIDER

All children love the clean, glossy, brown horse-chestnuts or buckeyes. There are so many buckeye-trees in Ohio that it is called the Buckeye State, and many villages of Long Island are full of them. They are used for shade-trees and often line the streets, where they send down showers of their nuts, pretty but not good to eat. Everywhere the children gather basketfuls and take them home to play with, and in other Beard books we have told of some things that can be made of buckeyes, but the buckeye horse and rider which you see here have just arrived.

He is a very remarkable-looking horse with his funny round head and stiff legs and tail, though not more remarkable than the little man who rides him. Both are made simply of buckeyes and slender twigs. The head and body of the horse and of the man are buckeyes. The neck, ears, tail, and legs of the horse are smooth, straight twigs; the neck, arms, and legs of the man are also twigs.

The Buckeye Horse

When you make a horse let the light-colored part of the buckeye be his face. This part usually has a dark spot on it which looks like an eye. You will see it in Fig. 121. He will have only one eye unless you put in another with lead-pencil or pen and ink, but very frequently horses are blind in one eye, so it will not matter whether he has two eyes or one.

Stick two short pieces of twigs in the head for ears and a longer twig for the neck. You will have to sharpen the ends of the twigs to a point so that they will go in easily. The neck twig will need sharpening at both ends.

Before putting the head on the body of the horse, which should be as large a buckeye as you can find, push in four twigs for the legs. The front legs must slant forward, the hind legs slant backward. This will make him stand firmly. Then choose a slender twig for the tail, and split it several times at one end to show that it has hair on it, as in Fig. 121. Fasten the tail on and then push in the neck twig. This finishes the horse.

The Buckeye Man

For the body of the man who sits astride the horse, choose a buckeye which is rather flat on one side. A round buckeye will roll off. Find a small buckeye for the man's head and give him a twig neck (Fig. 122). Do not make his twig arms stand out straight at his sides; push them in slantingly so that he will hold them out in front. Put his twig legs in far apart and slant them a little forward.

Now place the man on the horse, and if he does not fit, change the position of his legs until he sits securely. Your buckeye man and buckeye horse will then look like Fig. 122.

Pine-Cones. Pine-Cone Forest

Of course you like to gather the rich-brown pine-cones that lie scattered on the ground under the pine-trees; we all do. Collect a number of those which have loosened and opened out their little leaf-like scales, then stand them up like trees in an open space on the ground. They look so much like toy trees we immediately want to play we are foresters, way off in the wild western lands, planting forest-trees for Uncle Sam.

We can make our forest as large as we want it and plant trees every day if we like, or we can gather up our nice, clean, dry cones and take them into the house to use in some other way. They make nice playthings.

A Fruit-and-Vegetable Market

If you find small, short cones, not fully opened out, notice how much they look like little pineapples; you must save these for our fruit-and-vegetable market, where we sell fat, short acorns as hazelnuts, the long acorns as pecans, and the buckeyes, or horse-chestnuts, all shiny, dark, and smooth, as eggplants, and rose-haws as apples.

There are other things in our store, too. String-beans, which are really locust-pods, and heads of white cauliflower made of bunches of the wild carrot or Queen Anne's Lace blossoms, tied together so that the pretty white flowers of the wide-spreading clusters lie evenly with edges touching. A number of these clusters are used for one head of cauliflower, and around each head are arranged green leaves with their tops cut off just as you see them around the real vegetable.

Cone Card-Rack

Save one of your fine, large-sized, wide-open cones and make a card-rack of it like the one shown in the photograph Fig. 123.

You must have a small, round or square wooden box for the base and glue the flat bottom of the cone on the lid. The box can be filled with small brass clips for holding sheets of paper together, or with pins, and it will then make a fine birthday or Christmas present for some one. The cone card-rack is very useful on a writing-desk.

If you make a number of these cone-racks they will be something new for your next fair. Remember to stick some pretty cards in each rack.

Christmas-Tree Ornaments

Perhaps you would like to keep some of your cones for Christmas-tree ornaments; they make very pretty ones.

Gild several until they shine like gold, then silver others, and they will look as if covered with white frost. If you have collected any of the prickly sweet-gum balls that look as if they were carved in little starry patterns, gild and silver these, too, and let them dangle from the tree on long gilt or silver cords.

These natural, outdoor ornaments are not easily broken, and may be kept from year to year for your Christmas tree.