CHAPTER XXIV

GREEN-PEA TOYS AND A GREEN-PEA DESIGN

PRESS your thumb on the rounded edge of a fresh, fat green pea-pod, and, pop! it goes splitting open at the top. Then push your thumb into the opening, run it down the pod and the two halves separate, showing a row of fine, large peas that look like great green pearls in a soft, silk-lined case made expressly for them.

You have done this ever so many times when helping mother, haven't you? And you know that the next thing to do when the pod is open is to run that same little thumb down again and scoop out all those round green peas, letting them fall with a patter into the pan in your lap.

Now as a reward for such helpfulness suppose you ask mother or the cook to give you a good big handful of peas which have not been shelled, and ask also for some wooden toothpicks such as are used in the kitchen for fastening meat together; or a number of nice, straight, strong broom-straws if there are no wooden toothpicks. Take all these out on the porch if the day is fine and sit down comfortably to make the remarkable things which I am going to tell you how to make. It is a good plan to have a box and its cover to hold the shelled peas and their pods, but it does not really matter except that the round peas are apt to roll away and get lost if you put them in your lap.

The Greeny Girl

The little green-pea greenies, cousins of the brownies, shown in the illustration are funny, aren't they? But the drawing is not as funny as the real greenies, and you can make them in all sorts of absurd positions.

Two little men and a widely smiling greeny girl are given here (Fig. 164). The large green peas that come late in the season are used to make these little people. In fact, it is only the large peas that can be used for any of the things described. Fig. 165 shows how the greeny girl is put together. Her arms, legs, and neck are made of broom-straws. Her body and head are green peas. Her dress is one end of a pea-pod and her feet are bits of a pea-pod cut the shape you see in Fig. 165.

First cut short pieces of broom-straws for the legs and point them at both ends so that they will be easy to push into the peas and pods. Cut another piece the same length, pointed at the top end for the support. Push the legs and support into the large pea used for the body as you see them in Fig. 165. Now cut another piece of broom-straw pointed at both ends for the neck and push one end into the pea you have selected for the head.

Cut off the stem of a large pea-pod, leaving the little leaves at the top, which were the calyx of the pea-blossom, for a collar, and then cut the pea-pod dress the proper length to fit the little woman. When that is done put the dress on over the headless body and push the lower end of the broom-straw neck in at the top, down through the collar, and into the pea which forms the body. With a pin make a hole on each side just under the collar and push a broom-straw arm in each of the armholes you have made. Bend one straw in the middle, as in Fig. 165, to give the bent elbow.

Last of all cut two three-cornered feet like the one in Fig. 165 from a pea-pod and push a foot on the end of each leg. Turn the toes in and the little figure will look very comical. To give her a face, dip a pen in black ink and make two round eyes in the head, a round nose, and a wide mouth turned up at the corners. The pen must be pushed through the skin of the pea to do this. When the greeny girl stands up, her dress hides the support at the back so that it cannot always be seen, and she looks as if she stood on her two feet just as you stand on yours.

The Greeny Men

The illustration (Fig. 164) shows how the greeny men are put together. The little dancing fellow must have two supports because one foot is lifted. The tiny ridiculous cap on the head of the other man is the little cap that holds the pea to the pod and sometimes clings to the pea after it is shelled.

Pea-Pod Tents

The greenies' little tents are made of pea-pods and it takes three pods for each tent. After you have taken out the peas split the pods up along the back edge, but leave the two halves fastened together at the stem. Stand up two pods by pushing the stem end of one pod between the two halves at the top of the other, as they are shown in Fig. 166. Then separate the halves of the third and longest pod and place it astride the first two (Fig. 167). This will make quite a strong tent, and, if you like, you can have a whole camp of them.

The Green-Pea House

The greenies need not always live in tents. Like other people, they can have houses as well.

It is best to use the wooden toothpicks in making the house. They are stronger than broom-straws and all the same length. Begin by putting the front of the house together. Make the peak first. Choose a large pea, push the end of a toothpick into it, then not far from that push in the end of another toothpick slantingly so that the lower ends will be separated as you see them in Fig. 168. On each of these lower ends stick a pea like Fig. 169. That is the peak for the roof. Now make a long upright for each side by using a pea to join two sticks (Fig. 170), and push the upper end of each upright into the peas at the lower ends of the peak (Fig. 171).

Shorten two toothpicks by breaking half an inch off each of them, then join them as you did the uprights by pushing one end of each stick into a large pea (Fig. 172). This is the front joist or crosspiece of the upper floor of the house, and you must fit it in between the two uprights of the front by pushing the ends of the crosspiece into the peas at the middle of the uprights (Fig. 173).

The back of the house is made in the same way with a third upright added which runs down through the middle from the point of the peak to the bottom of the house. This third upright is made by shortening two toothpicks and joining them with a pea, then fitting them in between the pea at the top of the peak and the pea at the middle of the crosspiece. A whole toothpick with the upper end pushed into the lower part of the pea at the middle of the crosspiece finishes the long upright (Fig. 174).

When the front and back are made all there is to do to finish the frame of the house is to put in the crosspieces to hold them together. Fig. 175 shows all these crosspieces or joists. One crosspiece between the two peas at the top of the front and back peaks for the ridge-pole (K, Fig. 175), one on each side between the peas at the bottom of the peaks (L and M), one at each side between the peas at the ends of the front and back crosspieces (N, O), and one between the two peas at the middle of the front and back crosspieces (P).

Now you have the frame of a two-storied house or a house with only an upper story, but it needs a roof and a floor. Split some of your pea-pods in half and lay one at a time across the ridge-pole at the top and the crosspiece at the bottom of the peak. Put half of a pod on one side of the peak, half a pod on the other side of the peak, then another half pod on the first side, and the next one on the second side, and so on until the space is covered and the house is roofed in. The stem ends of the pods must be up. The stems lock together and hold the roof in place.

Make the loosely laid floor also of the split pea-pods, putting them across from front to back.

Your little house (Fig. 176) now looks like those which strange people in far-away, hot countries build for themselves. They have no lower story or what we call a first floor, but are lifted on posts far above the sometimes very damp ground, and out of reach of any wild animals that may be prowling around.

The Fence

You can make a fence to put around the house in this way: Push a large pea on each end of a whole toothpick like Fig. 177, then break a toothpick exactly in half, stick one end of each half into the lower parts of the peas to form uprights, and push the lower end of each of these uprights into another pea as shown in Fig. 178. For the slanting crosspiece stick one end of another toothpick into the upper pea at the left-hand side, and the other end into the lower pea at the right-hand side (Fig. 179). Add a toothpick between the two lower peas, and one section of the fence is finished (Fig. 180).

Begin another section by sticking one end of a toothpick into a new pea and the other end into the upper pea at the left side of the section you have just finished (Fig. 180), then put in half a toothpick for the upright, a pea on the bottom of that, a whole toothpick for the slanting crosspiece, and another whole toothpick for the bottom.

In this way you can keep on adding section after section and make your fence any length. To turn a corner all you have to do is to push the toothpicks which form the upper and lower crosspieces of a new section in at the back of the top and bottom peas of an end section of the fence.

The Tropical Plant

You will notice that in the illustration there is a plant growing at the side of the house which looks something like a cactus and adds to the tropical, or hot-country look of the little greeny people's home.

Seven half pea-pods are used to make this plant, four to stand up and three to lie down flat. Wrap and tie the stem ends of the four half pods together with a bit of string. Push a toothpick for a flower-stem through the middle of the bunch. Cut away the stem of a pea-pod, then cut off the calyx, or circle of little leaves, with the knob below attached. This is to be the blossom of the strange plant. Stick the flower on its toothpick stem, knob down, as you see it in the picture.

To make the plant stand firmly lay the three extra half pods down flat with the stem ends one on top of the other and the outer ends at equal distances apart, and force the toothpick flower-stem through the pods where they cross. These three flat pods make a base which holds the rest of the plant upright, while they look as if they were a part of it.

A Pretty Design of Green Peas

This is not a toy, but you will like to make it just the same, and afterward, perhaps, you will want to try another design all by yourself. If you can draw at all, with a soft pencil make some curves on a piece of white paper like Fig. 181, only ever so much larger, then a straight line up from the centre. The distance between the two largest curves at their widest part should be about eight inches. If you cannot draw these curves, ask some older person to do it for you.

Lay your paper with the pattern drawn on it flat on the table before you, shell some peas and carefully place them on the pencil lines of the curves. Begin with the largest peas at the centre of the design and finish with the smallest at the ends of the curves. Fig. 182 shows how this is done. Put the first pea on the curve at the place shown by the arrow in Fig. 181.

You won't be able to keep the peas in place unless you stick them to the paper with paste. Hold the tube of paste in your left hand, squeeze out a very little, take it off the tube with one of the peas and push the pea, paste side down, onto the paper where it belongs.

When the peas are all placed on the curves open two pea-pods as you did for the greenies' tent, slide one pod between the two halves of the other, and with a little paste on the stem ends and the tips, fasten them in the middle above the curves of peas as they are shown in Fig. 182. The two halves of each pod are not opened wide but are like Fig. 183. Above the pods, on the straight, upright line, place four more peas, beginning at the bottom with a large pea and ending with one much smaller.

The success of this design will depend upon making one side just like the other and in keeping it equally balanced. That is, one side must not sag down below the other and the pods at the top must fit exactly on the line, half on one side, half on the other.

The peas, you see, do not touch each other, but are separated by little spaces, and the spaces are all of the same length.