Part 2

A chair is made from the lower half of any small box. Beginning at the center of one long rim of the box, cut the rim off half-way around. The part with rim removed will be the back of the chair. The other will be the seat and legs. Legs are cut to right and left of each forward corner. Cardboard is evenly removed from between them. Rear legs are cut in each rim at the side of the box in the same way, except that these rear legs have but one cut needed. They are not cornered as the front legs are. (For cutting a chair, see Diagram Six, _C_, page 177.)

A table for the cottage is made from a spool by standing the spool on end. Over its top is placed the half of a small round box. (A square box cover may answer quite as well.) The table may be made from an ordinary spool, or two twist spools glued end to end. (For table, see Diagram Six, _DD_, page 178.)

A mantel with fireplace for the cottage may be cut from a small box three inches high. Stand the box on end and cut from its rear, near the base, an opening like that of a fireplace. (For cutting a mantel with fireplace, see Diagram Six, _G_, page 180.) Use the back of the box, as it has no printing upon it. If your box is painted, it will not matter whether or not you make your cutting in the front, as the print will not show when cleverly painted over.

In my cottage there lived a tumble toy lady. Her name was Polly Ann. You can see her in the picture with her china dog. You may use roly-poly tumble toys or penny dolls to play with in the cottage. Figures cut from magazine pictures are fun to use, too. Color them with your paints or crayons.

Besides tumble toys, Noah’s Ark figures, and picture people cut from magazines, villagers for Boxville cottages may be found at any penny store where children trade. These are small dressed dolls, one cent apiece!

In candy shops where party favors are sold, all manner of small figures may be bought. These are odd little men or women—just the very ones to use in playing Boxville plays. At every holiday season, new ones appear! You can always find them.

I built a tiny cottage with two windows and a door, I called it _Boxville Cottage_ and I placed it on the floor: All ’round about my cottage, a cardboard village grew— I’ll tell you how to make it, so that you can make one too!

THE BOXVILLE STORE

=Material Required for Making a Boxville Store=: one shoe-box with two shoe-box covers, two long pencils, two spools, waxed paper, and small boxes.

The village store of Boxville is made from a shoe-box. One shoe-box cover makes the porch it rests upon. Another forms the roof of the store.

If you wish to make a village store, also, place a shoe-box upon its side, and then the bottom of the box will become the front of your store.

You will need to have a large shop window in front. Make this first. Two inches from the right-hand end of the box, mark with your pencil a wide oblong space five inches by three. Cut out this window space on all four sides. (For cutting a window space, see Diagram One, _A_, page 166.)

Cut a piece of waxed paper a little larger than the size of your window. Paste this inside the box building over the window space to make glass. Cut strips of pinwheel paper and paste them around the window on the outside of the box to make window-casings.

Now you are ready to make a door for your store. Draw a door space on your box with your pencil. Make it two inches from the left-hand end of the box. Make it four inches high and two inches wide. (To cut single door, see Diagram Two, _A_, page 167.) Cut across the top line, down the side line that is next the window, and across the base. When you bend the cardboard you have cut, you will have a door that will open and close. Color the door, if you like. It may be painted brown.

After this, you are ready to place the roof on your store; but first, lay one of the box covers upon its rims on your work-table and put the little store upon it, well back, so there will be a porch in front. Then, take your other shoe-box cover and fit it over the top of the box building so that it projects over the porch in front. Two long pencils, with ends run into the openings of two spools, make pillars to place at either corner of the porch.

The step up to the porch is any small box you may have.

Inside the store, a long hat-pin box makes a counter. Flowers, leaves, pretty pebbles, shells, and little toys such as you may find among your own playthings may be displayed upon the counter.

A roly-poly tumble toy will make a clerk for the store, or, if you like, you may find both clerk and customers in magazine pictures, and you can mount them on thin cardboard and cut them out. There is no end to the plays you can invent when your store is finished. Polly Ann of shoe-box cottage, Boxville, has just come to the store to buy a loaf of bread. There it is—that pretty brown pebble! Those green leaves are vegetables! The beads in that box are apples! The shells are little cakes!

To Boxville! To Boxville! To have a lot of fun! I’m going to the general store to buy a penny bun! The bun is just a pebble on the counter of the store, And the penny’s made of paper, so, perhaps, I’ll make some more!

THE DISTRICT SCHOOL OF BOXVILLE

=Material Required for Building a Toy School=: one shoe-box with its cover, a half-sheet of cardboard, three small boxes about three inches long, the cover of some narrow little box which has an inner drawer, a pencil, a spool, and a box two inches long.

Did you ever before see a toy school-house? I don’t believe you have ever seen anything like Boxville School, so I am going to tell you how you may build one like it.

First, you will need a shoe-box to form the house itself. Its cover is the roof. To this, at either end of the box, are glued two side walls which hold the roof in place, slanting. The cover of some tiny narrow box which is made with an inner drawer is the chimney. Inside, the desks are made from the lower parts of three boxes about three inches long. Their three covers make the benches. A teacher’s desk may be made from any small box you have. Its cover is teacher’s chair. A spool forms the stove, and a pencil is the stovepipe.

Begin by taking the cover from your shoe-box. Place the box upon the table before you so that it stands upon one long side, with its bottom part facing you, open at the back. The base of your box, which now faces you, will be the part of the school which will need to have windows made in it.

These two windows must have blinds. The window spaces must be located on the face of the box, which fronts you. From these the blinds are cut. Two inches from either end of your box, mark upon the part which faces you two oblongs, each three inches high and two inches wide. Mark a vertical line down the center of each window space. This forms the blinds, which you will need to cut. (For cutting blinds, see Diagram One, _B_, page 166.) Cut the top line, down the center line, and across the base line. Press the two sections of cardboard outward against the sides of the box building, and you will have made the window with blinds. Color these blinds, if you choose. Use crayons or water-color paints.

Next, you will need to make the cardboard side walls which support the box-cover roof. Take your sheet of cardboard and measure with pencil outline upon it the shape of one end of your box. Add to this four inches at the top, and cut this piece from the cardboard with its added height.

Make a second piece of cardboard identical with the first. Glue each to one end of the box upright. Cut from each the front upper corner point. (See Diagram Three, _A_, page 168, which shows the shape of the side walls when cut.)

Cut a door in one of these side walls, near its central part, where you see the door in the picture of Boxville School. To make this, first take pencil and ruler and make an oblong four inches high and two inches wide. (To cut door, see Diagram Two, _A_, page 167.) Cut top line, down one side line, and across the base line. Fold the door outward. The cardboard under the door in the side wall may be cut out the shape of the door space. If you do this, your door will bend open more easily.

If you happen to have a round-headed paper-fastener, press its pointed prongs through the little door where a door-knob should go. The round head of the paper-fastener will form a door-knob. Its prongs, bent to one side, form the latch. It will catch the door securely when the “door-knob” is turned.

Now that the lower part of the school building is finished, you may begin upon the roof. This is the box cover. Place it upon the points of the side walls so that it fits down upon them. You will readily see how this is. (For placing a roof on a shoe-box building, see Diagram Three, _AA_, page 168.)

When the roof is placed, you will be able to judge where the chimney-hole should be cut in the box-cover roof. It should go near the top at the end of the box that is opposite the door. The cover of some narrow box which has a sliding inner drawer will make the chimney. It will be just the right shape, square and hollow.

Mark off upon the sides of this box the bricks of the chimney. Color them red, if you like. If you use a ruler, the work is easily and quickly done. You do not need to mark the bricks unless you like. Your box may be painted merely.

To place it on the roof, you will need to cut out of the school-house roof a piece of cardboard the size of the end of your box. Decide where the chimney should go. Mark the end of it with pencil upon the roof at this point. Cut the cardboard out. (For cutting hole for chimney in a box-cover roof, see Diagram Three, _AA_, page 168.) Press the end of the chimney down through this hole. Press the chimney backward to make it stand straight, and glue it. Some tiny bit of cotton stuffed into the upper hole of the chimney box will form smoke.

Of course, you will be anxious to furnish your school-house inside. You may make it like a real district school such as you see in the country. It will have desks, benches, a stove, and a blackboard—to say nothing of a teacher’s desk and chair!

The lower halves of the three small boxes form desks. It is really a simple matter to make these. They are the kind that have a shelf beneath the top. They are open.

Take the lower half of one of these boxes. Place it upon one of its long rims. The upper rim will be the top of the desk. The ends of the box will need to be cut the shape of the sides of a desk. (For cutting a desk out of a small oblong cardboard box, see Diagram Six, _E_, page 179.)

Fit a bit of box rim beneath the top of the desk where the shelf should go, and glue its ends to the box desk. The desk may be painted black, if you choose. Make the two other desks like this one.

The benches are next cut from the box covers. To make a bench, make a cut with scissors in each box rim at the center of each end of the box. Cut each as far as the upper part of the cover. Half the box will be the back of the bench. Half will be the seat and legs.

First, cut the legs. Then bend the other half of the box upward, cut off the side piece at either end of the box, bend the long rim upward. This will make a bench with high back. (For cutting the legs of bench and its high back, see Diagram Six, _B_, page 176.) In following diagrams, always cut where you see the heavy black line. Bend where you see a dotted line. The bench may be painted to match the desks. Make other benches like the first one.

The teacher’s desk is made from the lower half of another box—one about two inches long. It is made like a table, except that no legs are cut in its end rims. (For cutting a bench form for the teacher’s desk, see Diagram Six, _A_, page 175.) The desk may be painted, if you like.

The chair for this desk is cut from the cover of the same box that made the desk. Cut the cover’s rim half off the box, beginning at the center on one long side. The part of the cover left without rim will be the back of the chair. Cut legs at the corners of the other half of the cover and at each side on the rim. Remove the surplus cardboard from between them. (To cut chair, see Diagram Six, _C_, page 177.) Color the chair to match desks and benches.

Your school is _almost_ done. The stove will need to be put up—I’m quite sure that you never heard of a district school-house _without_ a stove! It is as much a part of a district school as the dipper and the waterpail used to be. The stove of this toy school is just a spool painted black. Place it under the chimney, with the point of a long pencil run into its upper hole to represent a stovepipe. There! That is easy to do, I am sure!

The blackboard is a piece of black pinwheel paper cut oblong and pasted between the windows. If you have some old time-table in your home, perhaps you will find in it a small map that may be cut out and pasted to the walls of the school.

You can make text-books by folding pieces of paper together. These can be placed inside the desks.

Penny dolls make excellent scholars. A tumble toy figure may make a schoolmistress or a schoolmaster.

In the picture of Boxville School, you can see three penny dolls and my tumble toy schoolmistress. The dolls are at recess. Violet is trying to do a sum at the board. Pansy is pretending to be “teacher.” Lily has just finished her luncheon.

When does your school open? Now! The scholars will have to hurry or they’ll be late!

I made a little Boxville School, and now in it each day I’m educating penny dolls, and it is splendid play! I teach them all my lessons every day when I am through— They have finished with my reader, and can divide by two.

THE LITTLE CHURCH OF BOXVILLE

=Material Required for Making a Boxville Church=: one shoe-box with its cover, one narrow box about six or seven inches long, one oblong box cover three or four inches long, three small box covers of about the same size (three inches), a twelve-inch square of cardboard, and some colored tissue-paper, with a spool.

Ding! Ding! Can you hear the bell in the steeple of the Boxville Church ringing? It does not ring very loud, because it is such a small bell, but it _does_ ring beautifully! You can try it yourself. Suppose that you make a little church like this for your village!

Take a shoe-box. Remove its cover. Lay the shoe-box upon one long side rim. The bottom of the box will become the side of the church. It will need to have three long windows cut in it.

Draw these window spaces long and narrow, about one inch wide and three inches high. Cut the two end windows equally distant from the ends of the box, and draw the outline of the center window mid-way between these two. Cut the cardboard at the top of the window spaces to a point. (For cutting windows, see Diagram One, _A_, page 166.)

If you have some colored tissue-paper, you may cut three pieces the same shape as the window spaces you have cut out. Let them be a little wider and longer, however. Paste each inside the box right over the open window spaces. This will make stained-glass windows. You can paint the window-casings with black ink, or paint on the outside of the box around the windows.

If you prefer, you can make the window-casings by pasting narrow strips of pinwheel paper around the windows, instead of using the paint.

The Boxville Church, as you can see, has a sloping roof. This roof is the cover of the shoe-box supported on two side walls, which are made of cardboard and glued to each end of the box. You will need to cut these side walls. (See Diagram Three, _A_, page 168.)

Measure the exact width and height of your box on the twelve-inch square of cardboard. Measure one end only, and place the end of the box so that it comes at the edge of your cardboard. At the top, add four inches to the height, and cut out this oblong piece you have drawn. Make another like it. Next, cut off the two front upper corners diagonally down to the mark you first made, showing the height of your box building at the front of your box.

Cut a church door in one of these sides. Make it rather high—about the height of the church windows. Let the base of the door come at the lower edge of the side wall. Cut up through the cardboard vertically for about three inches. Then cut the arch of the door and bend as if it were on a hinge. (See Diagram Two, _A_, page 167, for cutting door.)

Paste each side wall in place on the box building so that the points of each come at the rear of the box. When the side walls are firmly dry, cut out the cardboard that is under the door space of the side wall. The roof is not quite ready to go on yet, however. You will first need to arrange for the steeple or bell-tower.

Take the cover of your shoe-box and also the oblong box you intend to use for a steeple. This may be either a long candy box, such as chocolate peppermints are often sold in drug stores, or it may be a box such as jewelers use for hat-pins. The tower of the church should come over the door. Near the top corner of the shoe-box cover which is to be the roof of the church, mark off the shape of one end of the oblong box which is to be the tower. Cut out this square from the shoe-box roof, and cut out about a quarter of an inch more at the bottom, otherwise your steeple will not stand exactly straight.

Now, slip the roof over the points of the side walls. See! that is it! And, next, slip the tower in place down through the opening which comes in the roof over the door. (See Diagram Three, _AA_, page 168.)

If your tower is to have a bell, you can buy a bell at almost any toy store. It will probably cost you a penny. You will need to cut openings in the upper part of the bell-tower box. Cut one on each side, as you see it in the picture of my Boxville Church. The belfry windows will be cut like ordinary square windows, except for a point at the top. (For cutting plain windows, see Diagram One, _A_, page 166.)

The bell is next tied like a locket to a double cord or bit of string. One end of this string is used to fasten the bell to the top of the tower. It is sewed, with the help of a large darning-needle, to the cardboard top of the belfry. The other end of the cord will be the bell-rope, and this goes down through the cardboard at the base of your tower box and through the cardboard at the top of the shoe-box building. It can be threaded to the darning-needle and pressed through the holes made by the needle till its end hangs down into the church vestibule, as you see it in the picture. When you let the sexton pull this bell-rope, ding, ding goes the bell, and the noise that it makes is just the right size for a Boxville Church!

Now you are ready to furnish the inside of your church. Begin with the platform for the pulpit. This is the box cover you have—the one about three or four inches long. Place it where the platform should go, opposite the door. The spool will be the pulpit. Paste a little round cardboard disk over the opening at one end of the spool, and this will be the top of the pulpit. Paint the spool black.

Use a long, narrow box cover for the pulpit chair. (See Diagram Six, _C_, page 177.) Cut the rim from box cover, beginning near the center on one long side. Cut till you have reached the point opposite. The part of the cover from which the rim has been removed will be the back of the chair. Bend it forward.

The other half of the cover will be the seat of the chair. Legs are cut in the front rim and in the side rims that remain. To make front legs, keep the corners of the box, and cut up to the part which is the seat, the upper part of the cover. Remove the cardboard from between these two cuttings. Then, make the back legs of the chair in the box rims at side. Place the little chair back of the pulpit, and color it, if you wish, to match.

At least three pews will be needed for the church. They are to be made from the three small box covers. (See Diagram Six, _B_, page 176, for making high-backed benches.)

With a pencil or pin-point, mark the center of each short rim on these box covers. Then, taking one cover, cut through the rim at the two points till you have reached the top of the cover. Half of the division made will be for the back of the bench and half for the seat and the legs. Cut the legs in one half as you cut the legs for the pulpit chair. Remove from the other half of the cover the remaining end rim. Bend the rim that is left at the top upward, to make the high back of the bench, and color the bench to match the pulpit and chair.

Place the benches one behind the other inside the church. Let the sexton ring the bell for Sunday-school to begin. What was the lesson you had last Sunday? Do you remember about it? Perhaps you might not so easily forget _next_ Sunday’s lesson, if you taught it yourself to a class of penny dolls in a Boxville Church like this. Anyway, you can _try_!

Boxville dolls on Sunday go To this Boxville Church, just so! Two by two, as couples should, Boxville dolls are _always_ good!

Little Boxville, as you see, Is as good as it can be: Little girls and little boys, Learn this text from Boxville toys!

THE BOXVILLE RAILWAY STATION

=Material Required for Making a Boxville Railway Station=: one shoe-box and four shoe-box covers, one small box about four inches square and without a cover, the shallow covers of two small boxes three inches long, two long pencils, and a small square of waxed paper.

Boxville’s Railway Station is a real railway station. It is not a tin thing such as you buy ready-made in a toy shop. Boxville Station has a waiting-room with a real ticket booth and benches. You can make just the same kind of little station as you see in this picture. It is easy to make.

The building itself, you see, is the lower half of a shoe-box placed upon its side. The platform is made of two shoe-box covers placed end to end upon the floor, and the roof of the station is one shoe-box cover. The other shoe-box cover is the roof of the platform, and this is supported by two long lead-pencils.

Do you want to make a Boxville Station? To begin, you must make two doors and a window on the part of your box that is the front of the station.