Part 6

You can arrange your fort upon a sheet of crape paper and make streams and woods all about it. The streams will be strips of silver paper pasted onto the green crape paper. The woods will be bits of twigs pressed into the holes of spools so that the trees stand upright. Bushes are just bits of twigs that may be laid down flat. Rocks and mountains may be made from stones.

I had a leaden soldier, His name was Tommie Tin! Oh, he was brave in battle, And always fought to win!

I made him into general, And he is in command Of all my Boxville Army At Box Fort in Boxland.

HOW TO BUILD A TOY CASTLE AND A FAIRYLAND HOUSE

=Material Required to Make a Castle=: any box, either round or square—one at least six or seven inches deep is best.

=Material Required to Make a Fairyland House=: an oblong box deep enough for door and windows to be cut in its sides, a few little crackers or “goodies”—possibly some gilt or silver paper in place of these.

Have you ever played in fairyland? Well, if you have not been there, you can very well make a fairyland upon the play-room floor, and in it you may gather together all the people of your Red, and Blue, and Green, and Yellow Fairy Books. These people will be Knights, and Princesses, Witches, Goblins, Fairies. All are toys, and it is an easy matter to get them together—quite as easy as it is to make a fairyland castle.

I will tell you how. First, you may like to build the castle, for that is all-important. There never yet was a fairyland without _that_!

Find some deep box with its cover. It really matters little whether the box is round or square-sided. A round box will make a high tower-like castle similar to the one in the picture. A square one will make one more like a fortress. It scarcely matters which you choose. Take the cover from your box. This is to form the castle ramparts later. High up in the box rim cut one or two long tower windows. Cut a door at the base of the rim. Next cut the ramparts in the box cover. (For cutting ramparts, see Diagram Three, _F_, page 172.) Glue these to the top of your castle box—and the castle is made!

The Princess who lives in the Castle is a penny doll dressed in a silver robe (made of tinfoil). My Princess has golden hair. It is long and beautiful. You can see it in the picture.

The Knight is a leaden soldier. His spear is a bit of wire. His shield is a brass button, polished and shining.

You can easily find the proper kind of dragon at a little Japanese shop. Mine was made of crockery and cost ten cents, but you will surely find among the cotton animals that are sold three for five cents something far better than my crockery dragon. There are the most dragon-like of cotton animals at the Japanese stores where I buy penny toys. Sometimes they are spidery and sometimes they are like crocodiles—only they aren’t crocodiles but DRAGONS. When you go to a Japanese shop and look for penny animals you will know exactly what I mean. They are all queer, and will work into any fanciful fairy tale that you wish to play with your castle.

Don’t forget to make the dragon a lair, when you have bought him. It may be just a box with a hole in it for the mouth of a den, but if you have some pretty stones and pebbles, you can build a _real_ lair on the play-room floor with these.

Almost any fairy tale may be acted out with the Knight and the Princess. Little toys which you have among your playthings may help out. I know you will have a good time playing at fairyland. I did.

I built me a Hansel and Gretel house, too. This was to help with my fairyland play.

Hansel and Gretel were two tumble toys—a boy and a girl. Their home was in a Boxville Cottage. When they went to the woods and found the Witch’s House, I made that. It was in a forest of clothes-pins like the trees made for Camp Box.

I made the fairyland house of the Witch from a deep oblong box. I cut two windows in one rim and a door between them, as you see it in the picture of the fairyland house.

To the sides of the house, I pasted some little crackers and goodies. The roof of the house was of crackers. It was very fairy.

I used some pretzels for a fence around it.

There were some small celluloid dolls among my playthings, and I made fairies of them. You can see one that is a Daisy. Her dress is an artificial flower off my old hat. I took the center out of the daisy and made a skirt of the petals. The fairy’s wings were cut from white tissue-paper. They were glued to the back of her body.

All kinds of Halloween figures that are little favors will answer splendidly for this fairy boxcraft play. You can easily find dwarfs, gnomes, goblins, witches, elves. Oh, it will be fun, I know!

In summer you can go out into the garden and gather hollyhocks. The flowers make real little flower ladies—just _like_ fairies dressed up in red, and pink, and white dresses to go to a party. The buds of the hollyhocks make the heads for the ladies, and you just stick a pin through these and press it down at the base of the full blown flower to make the fairy lady. Acorns make fairy dishes too—did you ever happen to know _that_!

Once there lived a dolly princess, with soft, flaxen, curly hair, By a cruel spell imprisoned near a Chinese dragon’s lair. Day and night her pasteboard tower, dragon-guarded, you’ll agree, Offered ill to those in Toyland who would set the Princess free. Many little dolls essayed it—in a truly frightful way They were gobbled by the dragon one and all, I hate to say! But there came a leaden soldier, all in tinfoil armor dressed; Bravely on his steed he bore him, valiant, in his chosen quest. At his blow, the green tin dragon toppled over, vanquished quite, And the rescued dolly princess was set free, then, by her Knight. King and Queen, they reign in Playtown even to this very day, And they live forever happy, as the fairy stories say!

BOXES USED AS BLOCKS

=Material Required for Block Building=: an assortment of boxes varied in size and shape.

Building with blocks is always fun, as you know. You have tried it with cubes, and with dominoes, and with cards—but did you ever try to build with boxes in the same way?

The boxes do not need to be glued. Their covers may or may not be used. Small boxes make walls, and box covers form roofs. You will see a tall block building in the picture. It was made from small drug-store boxes. There is really no end to the ways in which you may build with these.

From boxes of uneven size, men and animals may be made. Round boxes or small oblong boxes form heads. Larger boxes make bodies. Legs and arms are boxes of equal size.

The faces are drawn with pencil upon the back of boxes where there is no print. A wire hair-pin will keep the arms in place. It will need to be pressed through the box sides and bent so that the arm boxes may be slipped upon it. Men of all sorts may be made. There is great variety, as forms vary with the shape and size of boxes that you use.

If you are playing with some other child, you will find that it is amusing to divide your store of boxes, each choosing one at a time till the supply is exhausted. Then, you may each see how many different things you can build. It will be a game, and the winner will be the one who can make the most with his store.

It is entertaining to play with box animals and box men when you have to spend a day in bed. They may be placed upon a table near the bedside. They are light to handle, and they require no cutting or pasting to muss you up. If you decide to have measles or mumps, the little boxes may be disposed of easily after you have played with them. You can always find new ones to take their place when you are well again.

You may make a puzzle for yourself out of a large box and a number of smaller boxes of varied size. Try to pack as many boxes as you can into the large box. Make them come as evenly as you can in packing. There will be _some_ space at sides, but with care and thought you will be surprised to see how small a space they may be packed into. Try them in various forms, till you are sure you have reached the best way to arrange them. Then, give the box puzzle to some friend to see if he can do with one or two attempts what you have accomplished. When you give some person this puzzle, mix your boxes well so there is no clue to their proper arrangement inside the larger box.

Toys like trains may be built with little more than a long cracker box for a coach and some oblong box for engine. The engine’s smoke-stack is a round box. Its coal-car is a cover taken from a candy box. Its wheels are buttons or button molds placed on the ends of wire hair-pins that have been pressed through the sides of the cardboard boxes. A bit of wax or plasticine will keep the wheels in place.

Paste boxes to the back of your cut-outs when you buy these sheets at the penny store. The Indians, cowboys, soldiers, and animals will then stand erect by themselves.

You will have an interesting time, I am sure, in finding new ways to use your boxes in this kind of play. It is always new, for you may always find different kinds of boxes to adapt to the building. And the nice thing about it is that you can make almost anything you choose.

I never knew before—did you?— How much a cardboard box could do! I can make buildings, now and then I make some animals and men! Indeed, it’s wonderful to play With little boxes in this way!

MAKING A NOAH’S ARK FOR CRACKER ANIMALS

=Material Required for Making a Noah’s Ark=: a child’s shoe-box without a cover, the cover of a large shoe-box, and some shallow box with cover about ten inches by four.

Next time that you have cracker animals to play with, build them an ark! It is splendid fun. I will tell you how to do it.

Find the materials needed to build with—a shoe-box cover, the lower half of a child’s shoe-box, and the whole of some very shallow box about ten inches long and at least four inches wide.

To make the base of the Noah’s ark, use the large shoe-box cover. Cut its rims off. Cut each end pointed. The ark building is placed on this.

The ark building is made from the small shoe-box. Place it upon its rims so that its bottom becomes top.

Cut a door in one end of the box on the edge of the box rim. To make this, cut up from the edge of the rim two inches near the center of the box end. Then cut horizontally across the box two inches more. (To cut door, see Diagram Two, _A_, page 167.) After cutting, bend the door as if it were on a hinge. A round-headed paper-fastener will make a door-knob and latch. Press the points of the fastener through the cardboard door and bend the prongs, or points, to one side together. In this way, animals may be securely locked into the ark.

Cut two triangular supports for the roof of the ark. They should be cut in heavy cardboard and made equal-sided. The width of one end of your box will give you the dimensions to make these. (See Diagram Three, _BB_, page 169.) Paste one of these cardboard pieces to each end of the ark building near the top part of the box. Let both dry well before attempting to put a roof upon them.

The roof is made of the two parts of the shallow box. Lap the long rim of one part over the long rim of the other. Glue the two rims together, one over the other. (For making a gable roof from two box covers or from the halves of a shallow box, see Diagram Three, page 169.) When the glue is dry, slip the roof over the gabled points of the ark building.

Now, when the rains descend and floods come and there is a RAINY DAY ahead of you, just summon the cracker animals from the pantry. Arrange them in pairs. Find a doll for Mr. Noah and a piece of paper to make the dove. A footstool will be Mount Ararat, and the ark may voyage all the whole day upon the play-room floor. When the sun comes out, you will have been so busy all day that you will have quite forgotten about the rain.

Two by two! Two by two! Elephant and kangaroo! Box and box covers to-day Make a Noah’s Ark for play. Maybe, later, you may feast On an unpaired cracker beast! Two by two! Two by two! Elephant and kangaroo!

A BOX SAVINGS-BANK FOR PENNIES

=Material Required to Make a Savings-bank=: a box in which correspondence cards have been packed, a small box with a sliding cover, and another similar to it.

When I began to make boxcraft toys, I used to save my pennies to buy pinwheel paper, cotton animals, and little figures to use in Boxville. Then, when I found that I should need crape paper or silver paper, or a mirror for a pool, I had money to buy it.

Perhaps you would like to know how to make a Savings-bank for pennies too?

You will need some small box like that in which correspondence cards come packed at stationery stores. It has a double cover.

Turn the box over so that the printing on its top is hidden. Make the top of your box the bottom by turning it over.

Draw two windows and a door on one side of the box. Paint them, if you like.

Paste over the door a porch roof made from half of one small box. The floor Of the porch is pasted under it.

Remove the drawer from the little box with sliding cover. The outside of the box, as you may have noticed, is like a tall chimney.

Take this and stand it on end at the top of your box. Draw its outline with pencil on the cardboard. Then remove the box and cut out the outline just inside the lines you made.

When this is done, you must glue the chimney over the open hole. Glue it tight and let it dry well. The pennies, dimes, and nickels may be dropped down this chimney into the bank.

There is one rule which governs this savings account in my bank—five cents must _always_ stay in the bank to be “a nest egg.” I made this rule myself.

I made a little penny bank, I’m saving pennies now! It takes a lot of patience, But I’m doing it, somehow!

My bank has a tall chimney, The pennies drop down through: It’s really fun to drop them And hear them jingle, too!

HOW TO MAKE A TOY WAGON AND SLED OR SLEIGH

=Material Required to Make a Toy Wagon=: the half of any oblong cardboard box. A few square inches of cardboard will be required, from which to cut cardboard disks for the wheels of the cart.

=Material Required to Make a Sleigh=: one oblong cardboard box with its cover. A sled may be made from the cover or lower half of any long box.

If you wish to make a toy wagon, find the half of some cardboard box. Turn this upward if it is the cover. Keep the lower half, if you use that, as it is, upright, open at the top. This is the body of the wagon.

Take your compass and with it draw on some cardboard four circles of the same size. These are the four wagon wheels. Cut each out.

Find two small sticks in the garden. They must each be a trifle longer than the width of your box. Press each through the end of the box where wheels should come—press clear through both opposite rims of your box. Then press a wheel upon each end of a stick, and put a bit of wax or some glue where the linchpin should come. Let the glue dry thoroughly before you attempt to play with your toy.

A strip of cardboard cut to fit the width of the cart and glued across its upper forward rims will make the driver’s seat.

The shafts are two strips of cardboard pasted to the forward sides of the cart. Cut each about half the length of your box.

Whoa there! Back up—back! There is your toy horse in the shafts. He is waiting for you to tie his string harness. He will be ready then to go on a trot round the floor.

If you wish to make a sled, take the lower half of a box and turn it over. Its long side rims will become the runners of the sled. Cut the end rims off the box. Then, cut off each corner of the side rims of the box, slanting your corner cuttings in the same direction. There you have the runners of your sled! (See Diagram Ten, _A_, page 184.)

To make the sleigh, you will need to use the cover of your box. Turn it so that it opens at top. Cut the side rims the shape of the upper portion of a sleigh, and glue the cover to the runners. A small box will make two seats for the sleigh. Fit the cover into the back of the sleigh and the lower half into the forward part. (See Diagram Ten, page 184, for making sleigh. _A_, runners; _B_, top.)

When it is winter in Boxville, cotton-batting makes snow, and my horse, harnessed to the sleigh, with a sleigh-bell on his neck, goes jingling through Main Street. The boy dolls catch their sleds to the back of the sleigh.

My Teddy Bear, he likes to play With little toys I make this way: The cover of a box may be A wagon like the one you see. Or, maybe, I may make a sled For little Teddy Bear, instead!

THE CHINA DOLL’S CRIB, GO-CART, AND MAY BASKET

=Material Required to Make a China Doll’s Crib=: the lower half of some oblong box, and four small oblong pill-boxes of equal size to make the legs of the bed.

=Material Required to Make a Doll’s Go-cart=: the lower half of an oblong box about seven inches in length, and some cardboard to make wheels. Wheels may also be made from top and base of a small round box three inches in diameter.

=Material Required to Make a Doll’s May Basket=: the cover or top of any small box you may have; also a small strip of cardboard and two round-headed paper-fasteners.

See, here is a china doll’s crib in the picture. You can see how easy it is to make it. I hardly need to tell you. Just take the cover or the lower half of the box you wish to use, and cut off a part of each long rim—there is the top of the crib with its head and foot.

To each corner below its base glue the end of a small oblong pill-box. There! Isn’t that an easy and quick way to make a toy crib for a doll?

If you wish to make a cradle, cut the box in the same way, and cut a circle once again as wide as the width of your box. Cut this circle into half, and each half will be a rocker for the cradle. Glue one to each end of the box. That is all!

To make a doll’s go-cart like the one in the picture, take the cover or the lower half of any oblong box similar to a candy box, one-pound size. Cut the rim from it half-way around, beginning in the center of one long side. Next, cut from the part that is without rim the handle of the cart, as you see the box cut in the picture.

Next, cut two circles from cardboard to make the wheels of the go-cart. Each circle must be of equal size. Make each about three inches in diameter, unless your box is more than eight inches long. In this case out your cardboard circles to correspond, larger.

Run a stick or a long pencil through one circle, and press the point of the stick through a lower corner of the box through to the other side, where you put on the other cardboard circle for the other wheel. Your stick or pencil must be one inch longer than the width of your box. Place a blob of glue over each end of the axle and let it dry well, to keep the wheels on. When you have fitted the end of a little box into the lower half of the go-cart to make a seat, all is done. You may use a piece of folded cardboard to make the seat, if you prefer. I painted the handle of my go-cart, but it is not at all necessary to do this. The go-cart is great fun to use when you play house and go out marketing. Then you can take your doll baby with you in the go-cart. You can tie the doll baby into the cart with a piece of string.

The basket that you see in the picture is very easy to construct. You can use it for many different things, and as long as you have small boxes—or even large ones—you may make baskets out of them. You will need some round-headed paper-fasteners or glue to help make them. (The paper-fasteners are stronger and better than the glue.)

Take the lower half of a box, or the upper half, as you like, and cut a strip of cardboard twice again as long as the width of your box. This is the basket’s handle. Glue it inside the inner rim on either side of the box, or, better still, run the prongs of a paper-fastener through the side of your box and through the end of the cardboard strip on both sides of the box. There is the handle—just see what a cunning basket you have made!

In spring, May baskets can be made this way. Filled with wild flowers, they are very cunning—just the thing for a May Day gift.

If you have some pretty shells that you have picked up at the shore, they may go into a little box basket and be given to some little sick child, who will love to handle them and keep them in their basket by his bedside.

At Easter, fill box baskets with moss or green raffia cut to represent grass. Glue the raffia to the box. Then ask cook if she will give you some white beans like those that are baked with pork in a pot. Place three or four of these in the moss or raffia cuttings, and you will have made a cute little basket of eggs to give as an Easter gift. When your water-color paint-brush is moistened with blue or brown paint, make tiny specks on the beans and they will look like wee little birds’ eggs.

The box baskets make good Christmas-tree decorations, too. They may be suspended from branches by colored paper chains, or be tied on with raffia or tinsel. Each basket may be filled with candies or with pretty berries you have found out-of-doors, holly or bright wintergreen.

They may be used as place favors for a Valentine party when filled with red paper hearts.

Little cardboard boxes Are useful every day. They make ’most any kind of toy That you can use in play.

I made a little go-cart, A basket, and a bed, And there are many other toys I might have made, instead!