CHAPTER XXII

THINGS YOU CAN MAKE OF LIMA BEANS

VEGETABLES are good to eat, certainly, and you know what they are like when cooked and on the dinner-table; but many are also good to play with. You can make fine toys of them, toys that are entirely different from any you have ever seen. Here is the

Swimming Fish Made of a Lima-Bean Pod

A fish that really swims, not on top of the water but in it, is the little fish (Fig. 146). You won't find that in a shop or anywhere else, for I have only just discovered how to make it myself.

A paper tail and two paper fins must be added, but that won't take five minutes when you know how to do it. The tail and fins make it wonderfully lifelike, for when the fish swims around in a big basin or dish-pan, the tail sways this way and that, the fins move back and forth exactly as they do on a living fish in a real lake or in the great ocean.

Choose a good, firm bean-pod, one as flat and even as you can find, open it carefully along the straight edge and take out the beans. Save the beans, for you can make something of them too. Do not let the pod close again after the beans are out. It must be open about half an inch, or maybe a little more, at the middle. You can widen the opening by pushing your finger in. Be careful not to split it along the upper edge. It should be like Fig. 147, which shows the opening at the bottom.

With the small blade of a pocket-knife make a slit on each side of the pod at the large end where it is marked C in Fig. 147.

These slits are to hold the fins. Directly on the curved edge of the small end of the pod, at the place marked D, cut another short slit. Don't let it reach the lower edge. This is to hold the tail.

From writing-paper, not the very heavy kind, cut two fins like Fig. 148. Double the paper and cut out both at once so that they may be exactly alike. From the same kind of paper cut the tail like Fig. 149. All you have to do now is to push the sharp point of one paper fin into the slit on one side of the pod, the other fin into the slit on the other side of the pod, and the sharp point of the tail into the slit in the edge of the pod, and there is your fish. You see the fins and tail are not pasted on and they really seem a living part of the fish. Notice that the top of fins and tail are different from the bottom, and be sure to have the top edge up when you put them in the slits.

The way to make the lima-bean fish swim is to place it, open edge down, in a large basin of water; then with a stick or spoon begin at the centre to stir the water gently and gradually round and round until it all moves faster and faster, and keeps on moving after you stop stirring. Then your little green fish will swim. Round and round the basin he will go, his tail waving and his fins moving so naturally you will shout with delight.

If at first the fish insists upon turning over on his side and floating about like a dead fish, don't give him up. He is only playing 'possum. He _can_ swim and he _will_ if you are patient and keep setting him upright until he gains his balance and becomes used to the water. Remember to put the fish _in_ the water, not on top.

Don't let the beans, that you have taken out of the pod when making the fish, get dry and hard. They can be turned into a

Lima-Bean Man

Three beans and several strong, straight broom-straws you will need for making this comical little fellow, who, upright and independent, stands squarely on his own feet. That is a good thing for any one to do, let alone a little bean man (Fig. 150).

The beans should be of different sizes. A large one for the body, next in size for the feet and a smaller one for the head. Some beans have a little point that stands out on one edge and looks like a tiny nose, while below it there is a round hollow that looks like a little open mouth. That is the kind of bean to choose for the little man's head.

The broom-straw for Mr. Bean's arms should be quite four inches long, if he is to be four inches tall. Cut one end of this broom-straw slanting to a point like E in Fig. 151, and push the point through the upper part of the body bean and out far enough on the other side to make the arms of equal length; then bend one arm up at the middle where the elbow should be, and the other arm down as you see them in the drawing of the man (Fig. 150).

The broom-straws for the legs must be two and a half inches long and cut pointed at both ends, for one end of the leg is pushed into the lower part of the body bean and the other end into the half bean which is the foot. Split the foot bean in half to make two feet and push the leg straw into the rounded side. The flat side is the bottom of the foot.

A short piece of broom-straw, hardly an inch long, is the neck. Cut this straw pointed at each end, push one end into the top of the body bean and the other end into the lower part of the head bean. Use one-half of the outer skin, that comes off the foot bean when you split it, for a hat. Being curved like a rose-petal, it fits the head very nicely, but a drop of paste on the little man's head will make it more secure.

Your lima-bean man may be a farmer and own

A Lima-Bean Pig

--a funny pig with fat sides and a turned-up snout (Fig. 152).

Look over all your bean-pods that still have beans in them, and select the one shaped most like Fig. 153. Do not take the beans out of the pod; they make the pig fat and solid. The stem end forms the snout and the head.

Cut four broom-straws about one and a half inches long for the legs. Sharpen each of these straws at one end and push the pointed end into the lower part of the body, two on each side, in the places shown by small rings on Fig. 153.

From part of another bean-pod cut two ears like F, Fig. 154, and pin them on the pig's head with a short straw as they are shown in the picture of the pig. Run the straw through one ear near the bottom, through the head and then through the other ear on the other side of the head.

Pull a narrow strip from the edge of a bean-pod for the tail (G, Fig. 154). Curl it by drawing it lightly over the blade of the scissors. Punch a small hole with the point of the scissors in the upper edge of the pig's back at the place marked by the arrow on Fig. 153, and push one end of the tail into the hole. Make small round dots with a pencil, or pen and ink, for the eyes. The ears and tail may be made of paper if you find that easier to use.