Part 9

THE rice shells are brought from the West Indies, and are sold by measure, or by the box, at the conchological repositories. They can be bought already prepared for use, but are more expensive in that form. To prepare the rough shell for use, you must first take a long pin and free the interior of each shell from all grit or dirt; next with your scissors clip the extreme tip of the shell so as to leave a tiny hole like the eye of a needle. This must be carefully done or the shell will be spoiled, or your eyes may be seriously injured by the flying fragments. Practice soon enables one to clip them rapidly and evenly.

It is advisable to have at hand a number of small card boxes, to hold your articles. In clipping, it is well to sort the shells by the sizes, and lay them in separate boxes. Small, flat, white shells, nearly transparent, add to the beauty of the shell-work. These must be bored by a sharp needle near the stem. When all are clipped, pour over them cold water, with a little soda and castile soap. The latter should be shredded, and mixed in the proportion of half an ounce to each pint of water. Then cover your pan and place it near a good fire, or in an oven; let it remain till scalding hot, stirring now and then; then take it away, and rub the shells gently with your hands; then pour off the water and rinse the shells; add a fresh supply of water and soap only, and repeat the same process; after being again rinsed in clear water take a few shells, fold them in a soft towel to dry them, and afterwards rub them with a silk handkerchief; then place them in a dish near the fire and shake them occasionally till they are dry. Then place them in a box ready for use. They should appear polished and pearly white. Too much soap, soda, or heat will turn them yellow. Too great heat in drying will cause them to be brittle and crack, but they must be dry before using.

Next you must procure silver wire. This can be bought at gold and silver bullion makers, or at musical instrument makers. You need several sizes, the very finest thread wire to wind around the stems, a size to twist in the shell and another for stems.

The largest shells are better for baskets and heavier work, the middle size and smallest for flowers and leaves. Each kind should have its own box. Into one box cut some two or three hundred pieces of middle sized wire, about two and a half inches in length. You should collect for use various materials, such as floss silk, fine wire chenille, roman pearl beads, (the solid or grain-like bead is preferable,) coral beads, or turquoise, pink, green or yellow, red flower seeds, velvet, satin, or silver leaves and silver bullion. Having collected materials for a wreath and sprays of various flowers, commence your work by stringing your shells on your bits of wire. Turn the wire over the shell; hold the folded wire between thumb and finger of the right hand, and turn the shell round and round until the wires are firmly twisted together. Very soon you will be astonished at the rapidity with which you string and twist your shells. They look like this cut, when prepared. Much time will be saved by keeping your different sized shells separate. Having wired several hundred, you can proceed to prepare a leaf.

The cut at the head of page 122 shows the leaf when made. It takes from five to fifteen or twenty shells to form a leaf; the number depends on the size of the leaf. The smallest shell forms the apex, the others graduated in size by pairs. Then take your shells and bind them together, one by one, with the finest wire or floss silk, leaving out a small portion of the twisted wire, gradually increasing the piece left out, as the plate indicates, leaving all the openings of the shell all one way; bind the stem firmly, leaving no ends of wire, as they catch in everything, besides looking untidy.

To form a flower or bud, take one of the lengths of the wire, thread on a shell, and then a pearl bead, then a second shell, and twist the wire firm. The place of the bead is between the points of the two shells, and both openings meet and are not seen. The figure below shows a simple flower composed of five wired shells, firmly twisted together down to the extremity. A double flower is composed of eighteen shells, twelve small ones, and six of a middle size. These latter are arranged as in the single flower. The twelve are made into four leaflets. A few pearl beads in the center of the flower improves it. It is easy to shape them as you wish by bending the wires. A simple flower may be arranged like the spokes of a wheel.

Wheat ears (see cut on next page) may be made of any number of shells, from eight to thirty, one taken as an apex, then a pair set on either side of it and one in the center, and other pairs successively to the end, binding all firmly to the points of the shells, and putting in here and there three quarter inch length of middle sized wire to resemble the beards. Ornamental groups can be made by threading good sized shells on middle sized wires, twisting them together and winding them on a fine knitting needle. When drawn out they have a spiral form. Bind several thus formed together at the ends. Their dancing, wavy motion adds to the gracefulness of your spray or wreath. The white, round shells used as leaves are very pretty; even whole flowers are often made of them. Wire chenille and colored beads increase the effect.

Neatness and grace must be studied, care must be used to avoid cutting off the thread wire, or floss, any oftener than possible. In making wreaths and sprays every one must exercise his or her own taste. Infinite varieties of forms can be designed; you can trim a head-dress exquisitely with them.

I advise young ladies to try their skill. It is fascinating work and the effect is beautiful. Bridal wreaths formed of the rice shells, Roman pearls, white chenille, and silver wire are often made. Bugle flowers can be made in the same way, taking wire the color of the bead.

Shell baskets are very ornamental. Exquisite watch stands and cigar or match stands can be formed of shells. Your frames should be made of wood or tin. Cover them thick with white paint. The painters will prepare it for you as thick as putty, with boiled oil. Paint must be selected that will not turn yellow and will dry quickly. After covering your frame thickly with this preparation, lay on the shells in whatever form your own taste may direct. Place them so thick that none of the paint will be visible, and set the frame aside until it is dry. The drying may require several days. When it is dry varnish it with white map varnish.

Watch stands, in the form of a church or other building, may be made with a tin frame. Rolls of tin may be used for columns and towers, and soldered to the frame. A circular opening must be made in the frame through which the watch can be seen, and a small case of tin must be soldered to the back of the frame in which the watch can be held firmly. Take two blocks of wood similar in form, but one of them larger than the other, and glue the smaller one on top of the other; then make a slit along the middle line of the upper block, in which the tin frame is to be inserted and fastened with glue. The blocks will represent the steps to the building, and may be covered with shells. If the building represents a church, a cross for the top may be made of tiny rice shells. The towers should be covered with larger sized rice shells, and on the summit of each a small cone shell should be placed. The opening for the watch should be surrounded by flat, round, white shells. The inside of the case for the watch should be lined with crimson velvet, glued in. The outside should be covered with shells.

Harps, guitars, etc., etc., can be ornamented in the same way. If they are riveted into marble slabs, the trouble of covering the stands with shells will be avoided. Cigar stands can be made of thick card-board, but tin is better; it must be cut about seven and a half inches long and four inches wide, and soldered together, (to make a round cup) and fastened upon a stand. Boxes, tables, vases, and all kinds of ornamental articles can be covered with shells.

ALLSPICE BASKETS.

THE allspice berries should be soaked in spirit to soften them, and then holes should be made through them. They are strung on slender wires, which are twisted or woven into diamonds or squares, or rows as you fancy, and then formed into baskets. A gold band between every two berries gives a lively look to the basket. Around the top are sometimes twisted semi-circles of berries, from which are suspended festoons of berries strung on silk, drooping over the outside.

The baskets may be lined with bright colored silk and ornamented with ribbons. Baskets can be made of cloves in the same way, by taking off the berry and soaking the long part in spirit. Bead baskets are also made in the same way; the wire should be the color of the bead. Cut glass beads are the most desirable, as they glitter prettily amidst the green boughs of the Christmas tree.

RICE OR SHELL BASKETS.

THE frame is made of pasteboard neatly lined; the groundwork can be white or colored, as you fancy; fasten on with gum either grains of rice, bugles of different colors, or small rice shells, arranged in any form you please.

WAFER BASKETS.

MAKE a neat card-board frame and bind the edges with gilt paper. Take the smallest wafers you can get; keep a whole one for the ground work; cut another in halves; wet the edges of one of the halves and stick it upright through the middle of the whole one; cut the other half into two quarters, wet the two straight sides, and place them on each side of the half wafer; this forms a kind of rosette. When you have enough prepared, wet the bottoms of the whole wafers, and fasten them on the basket in such forms as you please. It is very pretty to have the whole wafer one color and the rosette another. Stars can be made by placing six quarter wafers around the half in place of two. The handle can be decorated in the same manner, or with ribbons. Care must be taken to have the wafers cut even and uniform.

IMPRESSIONS OF BUTTERFLIES.

IF you find a dead butterfly, cut off the wings and place them upon clean paper, in the position they occupy when the insect is flying. Spread some clean, thick gum water on another piece of paper and press it on the wings; the little colored, feathery substance will adhere to it; then lay a piece of white paper upon the top of the gummed paper, and rub it gently with your finger, or the smooth handle of a knife. A perfect impression of the wings will thus be taken. The body must be drawn and painted in the space between the wings.

TO TAKE IMPRESSIONS OF LEAVES.

DIP a piece of white paper in sweet oil, and hold it over the lamp until it is thoroughly blackened with smoke; place a green leaf upon the black surface, and let it remain pressed upon it for a few moments; then put it between two pieces of white paper and press it in a book, with something heavy upon the top of it. When taken out, one of the papers will have received a perfect impression of the leaf with all its little veins. Some think the impression is more distinct if a little lamp-black and oil be passed lightly over the leaf with a hair pencil, instead of smoking it over a lamp.

PAPER LANDSCAPES.

OBSERVE well the shadows of the pictures you wish to copy; draw their shapes as exactly as you can, and cut them out. Paste these pieces on a sheet of paper, in the same relative positions they occupy in the landscape; if the shade be rather light, put on only one thickness of paper; if darker, two thicknesses and three thicknesses may be used; if the shadow is very deep and heavy, five or six pieces may be pasted on, one above another. When held up to the light, shades are produced differing in degree according to the thickness of the paper. These make very pretty transparencies for lamps in Summer. Lamp shades can be made in this way with colored paper placed between two thin white papers and so arranged that the shadows will represent grapes, or any fruit or flower. China lamp shades are prepared in the same way, that is, portions of the china are made thicker than others; in the daylight they appear perfectly white, but when the light shines through them the shades look like a soft landscape in India ink. It is on the same principle that the beautiful Parian transparencies are made for windows.

Natural Magic.

THE ÆOLIAN HARP consists of an oblong box of thin deal board about five or six inches deep, with a circle drawn in the middle of the upper side, an inch and a half in diameter, around which are to be drilled small holes. Along the upper side of the box seven, ten or more small strings of very fine gut are stretched over bridges near each end, like the bridges of a violin, and tightened or relaxed with screw pins. The strings must be tuned to one and the same note, and the instrument placed in some current of air where the wind can pass over its strings with freedom. A window, the width of which is exactly equal to the length of the harp, with the sash just raised to give the air admission, is a good situation. When the wind blows upon the strings, with various degrees of force, different musical tones will be sounded; sometimes the blast brings out all the tones in full concert, and sometimes it sinks them to the softest murmur. In many old castles these harps were fastened in the windows, and their wild music caused the ignorant to think they were haunted.

A colossal imitation of the instrument just described was invented at Milan, in 1786, by Abbate Gattoni. He stretched seven strong iron wires, tuned to the notes of the gamut, from the top of a tower sixty feet high, to the house of a Signor Muscate, who was interested in the success of the experiment; and this apparatus, called the giant’s harp, in blowing weather yielded lengthened peals of harmonious music. In a storm this music was sometimes heard at the distance of several miles.

Simply tying waxed saddler’s silk to little sticks, and pushing them into the crevices of windows, so as to receive a draft of wind (the silk being strained tight), will produce very sweet sounds.

THE MAGIC OF ACOUSTICS.

THE science of Acoustics furnished the ancient sorcerers with some of their most complete deceptions. The imitation of thunder in their subterranean temples did not fail to indicate the presence of a supernatural agent. The golden virgins, whose ravishing voices resounded through the temple of Delphos; the stone from the river Pactoles, where trumpet notes scared the robber from the treasure which it guarded; the speaking head, which uttered its oracular responses at Lesbos; and the vocal statue of Memnon, which began at the break of day to accost the rising sun, were all deceptions derived from science, and from a diligent observation of the phenomena of nature.

TO SHOW HOW SOUND TRAVELS THROUGH A SOLID.

TAKE a long piece of wood, such as the handle of a broom, place a watch at one end, apply your ear to the other, and the ticking will be distinctly heard.

A SINGULAR EXAMPLE OF SUPERSTITION.

THE following _true story_ was related to me by one who was personally acquainted with the facts. There was a certain bend in one of our western rivers which was avoided by every one, as it was supposed to be haunted by the devil. At a certain hour in the evening, for many years, terrible curses were distinctly heard. Suddenly they ceased. A gentleman skilled in the science of acoustics, hearing an account of the strange phenomena, determined to ascertain the cause, and carefully examined the river on each side for about a mile above and below the bend. He ascertained that at about the time the sounds ceased, an old fisherman, who had lived on the opposite side of the river, full a mile from the spot where the curses were heard, had died. He was told that the fisherman was in the habit of crossing the river to a village, where he found a market for his fish, and where he spent his money for liquor, and that after drinking freely on his way home, while rowing across the river at night, he would swear terribly. This gentleman then persuaded a friend to go down the river to the place where the curses were formerly heard, while he remained in a boat on the river at the point at which the old man usually crossed. He then played on a bugle and sung several songs. His friend soon returned, and with eager delight exclaimed: “Oh, ——, such glorious music fills the air just where the curses used to be heard.” The neighbors came rushing down to hear it, and some fell on their knees praying; they said “the angels have driven the devil away.” Mr. —— then asked what were the songs they heard. His friend described them correctly, and said he understood even the words, one of them being the famous Marseillaise, another a German song; the foreign words made the ignorant more sure that the sounds were supernatural. Mr. —— then played on the bugle and sang again the same songs, while his friend stood by; but his friend said the music was not equal to that he had heard below, where the sounds had really seemed heavenly.

The peculiar configuration of the river banks had concentrated the sounds, and the distance and the water had softened them.

The person who related this anecdote to me said that he and his friend had often tried the experiment. Nothing would convince the more ignorant neighbors that the sounds were occasioned by merely natural causes. A love of the supernatural is strong within us, and sometimes leads us into grave mistakes.

THEORY OF THE VOICE.

PROVIDE a species of whistle common as a child’s toy, or a sportsman’s call, in the form of a hollow cylinder, about three-fourths of an inch in diameter, closed at both ends, by flat circular plates with holes in their centres. Hold this toy between the teeth and the lips; blow through it, and you can produce sounds, varying in pitch with the force with which you blow. If the air be cautiously graduated, all the sounds within the compass of a double octave may be produced from it; and, if great precaution be taken in the management of the breath, even deeper tones may be brought out. This simple instrument, or toy, has indeed the greatest resemblance to the larynx, which is the organ of the voice.

THE VISIBLY GROWING ACORN.

CUT a circular piece of card to fit the top of a hyacinth glass, so as to rest upon the ledge, and exclude the air. Pierce a hole through the centre of the card, and pass through it a strong thread, having a small piece of wood tied to one end, which, resting transversely on the card, is prevented from being drawn through. To the other end of the thread attach an acorn; and having half filled the glass with water, suspend the acorn at a short distance from the surface. The glass must be kept in a warm room; and in a few days the steam which has generated in the glass will hang from the acorn in a large drop. Shortly afterwards the acorn will burst, the root will protrude and thrust itself into the water; and in a few days more a stem will shoot out at the other end, and rising upwards, will press against the card, in which an orifice must be made to allow it to pass through. From this stem small leaves will soon begin to sprout; and in the course of a few weeks you will have a handsome oak plant, several inches in height.

Dancing.

DANCING is the most agreeable of all indoor pastimes that combine pleasure with healthful exercise. It also gives grace and elasticity to the movements. The modern gymnasium has many of the attractions of our dancing schools, but its exercises are often too violent for delicate children. The dancing school has proved physically beneficial to many who have been sent to it as an experiment, at an early age. Such exercise invigorates the frame and does more for permanent health than can be accomplished by medicine. Exercise, to be beneficial, must have some pleasant excitement connected with it.

It is a pleasant sight to see a home circle, old and young, joining in a lively quadrille, or an old fashioned contra dance, in the early evening hour, either the mother or a daughter presiding at the piano. How joyously even children of three and four years old make their tiny feet move in time to merry music. “Pop goes the Weasel” is a dance only suited to little children, and they are apt scholars and can all join in singing the popular tune. It may be well to give the directions for this and a few other dances.

POP GOES THE WEASEL.

THIS is an old English dance revived. The positions first taken are the same as in the contra dance, the ladies and gentlemen being placed in lines opposite to each other. The couple at the top begin the figures. They first dance down outside the lines and back, then join hands and down the middle, then join hands with the lady of the couple next to them and the three dance around in a circle till the music comes to “Pop goes the Weasel.” As they sing that, the second lady passes quickly under the joined hands of the couple dancing, and goes to her place; the same couple then join hands with the gentleman opposite, and at the proper time he pops under their joined hands in like manner; then down outside, back again and join hands and down the middle; then take the next lady and dance around as before. So on through the whole line. As soon as the top couple have danced down twice, the next couple begins. If there are long lines, there is often a number of couples dancing together, and when all sing in time the dance is very pretty.

LANCERS.

THIS, also, is a very old English dance. There are innumerable changes, but those given here are the most popular.

First Change.

First lady and opposite gentleman forward and back; same couple forward a second time, turn with right hand, and return to places. First and second couple cross over, first couple joining hands and passing between the second couple, and return to places, the second couple joining hands and passing between the first. Balance at the corners, the four ladies to the gentlemen on the right, gentlemen facing the left, to return the balance. Turn partners with both hands to places. Same for the other three couples.

Second Change.

First couple forward and back. Forward a second time and leave lady in front of opposite couple facing her partner, gentleman returning to place. The same couple chassez to right and left, and turn to places with both hands. All eight forward and back in two lines; forward and turn partners to places. In forming two lines first and second times, the side couples separate from their partners, and join each side of the head couples, forming two lines, four on a side; third and fourth times the head couples join the sides.

Third Change.

First gentleman and opposite lady forward and back. Forward a second time and salute with a low bow and low graceful courtesy and return to places. The four ladies then form a windmill by giving their right hands, while the four gentlemen take their left hands, with their left hands, all facing the same direction, and promenade entirely around, and turn partners to places.

Ladies grand chain is danced in Paris in place of the windmill. The three other couples dance the same.

Fourth Change.

First couple visit the couple on the right hand, salute with bow and courtesy. Visit the couple on the left and salute, then change across and salute same couple again. First couple return to place. Right and left with opposite couples. The other three couples dance the same. In Paris they dance it double, first and second couples at the same time, and so on.

Fifth Change.