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33 chapters
PREFACE
PREFACE
This new century, bringing with it the strong, healthy, independent, athletic American girl, makes a demand for new opportunities for the exercise of both mind and body. Resourcefulness and a wish to do things for one’s self are American traits strongly developed in the girls as well as in the boys; and, keeping step with their brothers, our girls are walking steadily onward, with new hopes and new ambitions in work and play, and are reaping new rewards. This book is the result of the authors’ e
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WHAT A GIRL CAN MAKE
WHAT A GIRL CAN MAKE
Fig. 9.—The Girl at the Bench....
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CHAPTER I WHAT A GIRL CAN MAKE WITH HAMMER AND SAW
CHAPTER I WHAT A GIRL CAN MAKE WITH HAMMER AND SAW
This is an age when girls go to college and engage in athletic sports; when they have their manual training, as boys do and are learning to use their hands, as never before, in all sorts of skilful work. The deftness of their fingers is utilized not alone in embroidery, or what was once considered girl’s work, but in the manufacture of many useful, artistic, and beautiful objects once thought beyond their reach. Our girls no longer resort to the scissors to sharpen a lead-pencil or to their brot
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CHAPTER II POSSIBILITIES OF AN EASTER EGG
CHAPTER II POSSIBILITIES OF AN EASTER EGG
Throughout the entire United States Easter eggs are very popular, and the practice of coloring them is increasing rather than diminishing. The stores are full of all sorts of novelties in real or simulated eggs; some valued at very large sums have been manufactured in London, but Uncle Sam does not raise such costly varieties. The real fun is in coloring one’s own eggs, and if the eggs can be transformed into something else, the sport will be doubled. To turn an egg into in the water is a new id
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CHAPTER III A PAPER EASTER
CHAPTER III A PAPER EASTER
Even play eggs manufactured of paper have many possibilities. Of course, all girls would rather make these for themselves than to buy them, be the trifles ever so beautiful; for, after all, the purchased eggs can only be looked at and then put away. You cannot have any real sport with them; cannot take them apart and put them together again any more than “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” could restore “Humpty Dumpty” after his fall; nor can you change these designs from one thing to
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CHAPTER IV VACATION WORK WITH NATURE’S MATERIAL
CHAPTER IV VACATION WORK WITH NATURE’S MATERIAL
Here is a piece of advice for you, girls; possibly it may not be appreciated, but it is good advice, nevertheless: While you are away for your summer holidays, keep out of sight the fancy work you do at home. When we drop the work or study that has employed us during the long winter and spring months and go off in the summer to be refreshed and invigorated, do we not say we go for recreation? If you will stop to think about it you will see that recreation means literally re-creating, being creat
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CHAPTER V COLLECTIONS
CHAPTER V COLLECTIONS
Every girl can have her own gallery of famous artists’ pictures, and the searching for and finding of treasures to form a home art collection are a constant source of interest. When once the supply is started it grows rapidly, for the fascination increases as the work progresses, and the nucleus of a fine assortment is soon gathered. Daily papers furnish valuable material in this line through their reproductions of paintings, and the market is flooded with beautifully illustrated magazines givin
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CHAPTER VI ORIGINAL VALENTINES
CHAPTER VI ORIGINAL VALENTINES
Always alert, chubby little Cupid works hard on St. Valentine’s Day; his duties are many, and his pretty bow sends the arrows flying in all directions. He is a merry little fellow, full of queer pranks and a great favorite. The venerable St. Valentine seems to have merely loaned his name to the fourteenth of February, leaving all the duties to Cupid, who appears to be well pleased with the arrangement. For hundreds of years past the young people have been as anxious to send and receive valentine
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CHAPTER VII VEGETABLE ANIMALS AND FRUIT LANTERNS
CHAPTER VII VEGETABLE ANIMALS AND FRUIT LANTERNS
Do you know that with the aid of a little enchantment equal to magic employed by the fairy folks of old, you can make a tiny fowl, one small enough to stand on the palm of your hand? A certain process which you shall learn will cause a common raw potato to change into a wee turkey of which anyone might well be proud. The wands you will use for the work differ in nature and appearance and are far superior to the fairy wands; the latter are merely stiff sticks said to be endowed with magical power
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CHAPTER VIII PASTEBOARD MODELS FOR A HOME DRAWING CLASS
CHAPTER VIII PASTEBOARD MODELS FOR A HOME DRAWING CLASS
Study drawing at home and make your own models; form a class of several girls and work together; criticise one another’s drawings, and get a criticism from an artist whenever you can. Much may be accomplished in this way if you have the enthusiasm, perseverance, and will to carry it through. Starting with one object, complete in itself, a variety of forms may be evolved, and combinations can be made until an entirely new model is produced. Such, for instance, is the church shown in the illustrat
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CHAPTER IX QUICK INK PICTURES
CHAPTER IX QUICK INK PICTURES
When you happen to drop ink on paper you may be using, do not look disconsolate and feel uncomfortable. Make a joke of the accident by turning the blot into something funny. Fold the paper over the ink-spot, press the two sides together; then open the fold, and you will find the dull, round blot transformed into a queer, comical-looking object the like of which was never seen on land or sea. The strange thing about these oddities is that try as you may you cannot coax any two ink-drops to change
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CHAPTER X MOVING TOYS
CHAPTER X MOVING TOYS
How would you like a merry-go-round with all the animals prancing one after another, each with a girl or a boy on its back, riding along regardless of the speed of the steed, like the real ones you have tried in the parks and at the seashore? Fig. 257, is easily made, the work consisting mostly of stringing different things on a hat-pin and sticking the pin through a box. Procure a long hat-pin (Fig. 258), a large, empty spool (Fig. 259), three small corks (Fig. 260) and, for a foundation, a rou
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CHAPTER XI HOME-MADE PYROTECHNICS
CHAPTER XI HOME-MADE PYROTECHNICS
If you would like some bright, lively fireworks, the kind you can manufacture at home, make them the day before the celebration, and there will be no necessity of waiting all the long hours until dark before seeing the sparks fly. Begin the fun early the next morning, and fire off these queer fireworks the entire day. The Fig. 269. Fig. 270. Fig. 271. is very satisfactory, affording three times the enjoyment of a simple one-story affair. Fold a three-inch square of stiff red paper diagonally acr
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CHAPTER XII MONOTYPES
CHAPTER XII MONOTYPES
They are charming, these monotypes; charming in effect when finished, delightful in their accidental results, and wholly fascinating in the method, or lack of method, used in their production. Painted with a bristle brush, a camel’s-hair brush, a sponge, a rag or your thumb, as the case may require; painted on glass and then printed on paper, with a clothes-wringer for a printing-press; can anything be more enchantingly unconventional? Yet the finished monotypes are truly artistic and beautiful.
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CHAPTER XIII PRISCILLA RUGS
CHAPTER XIII PRISCILLA RUGS
As there is no limit to the beautiful effects which may be produced by the well-chosen color combination in the Priscilla rag rugs, and anyone who has an eye for color (which, by the way, may be cultivated) is sure of success. There are many new inventions in hand-looms, yet the old cumbersome loom of our grandmother’s day is still to be found in the outlying districts of most towns and cities, and the weaving done on this is fully as satisfactory as that on the new looms. Almost every village h
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CHAPTER XIV A PEANUT NOAH'S ARK
CHAPTER XIV A PEANUT NOAH'S ARK
Changing one thing into another is always interesting, and the most charming part of a Peanut Noah’s Ark is that you can transform these ground-nuts into any and every kind of wild creature. At your command they will come trooping from all parts of the tangled jungle, the elephants leading and tigers, lions, bears, wolves, kangaroos, giraffes, and others following. Ever so many insects, too-the curious peanut spider, actually as large as one of those mammoth Southern tarantulas which often trave
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CHAPTER XV A FLOWER FEAST
CHAPTER XV A FLOWER FEAST
This dinner party will be great fun, especially as there need be no worry about cooking, for the sun, with the assistance of the rain and air, has attended to that part of the preparation. We shall have to provide some sort of a dining-table. An ordinary letter-paper box about eight inches long and five inches wide will answer the purpose. Spread over the table a fresh, white table-cloth of paper, and for a centre-piece choose made of a cone one and one-half Fig. 349. Fig. 349. or two inches hig
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CHAPTER XVI BASKET-WEAVING
CHAPTER XVI BASKET-WEAVING
In and out, in and out; under and over, under and over; around and around, again and yet again; widening and narrowing, and, lo! a basket is woven. A child of eight can learn it, a woman will find the work a charming pastime; so this is written for girls of all ages. Dye your reeds, put all the bright colors you like into your baskets, and see if they are not much prettier and more substantial than the so-called “Indian work.” Red, blue, green, yellow, black, purple—a butterfly’s wing need not b
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CHAPTER XVII AN “ABE” LINCOLN LOG-CABIN
CHAPTER XVII AN “ABE” LINCOLN LOG-CABIN
A bright, gray-eyed little Kentucky boy, of whom all have heard and whose memory is honored by the entire nation, lived years ago in a quaint log-cabin so small that it would now seem to be about the right size for a large play-house. There was but one room, and that contained only a few pieces of rough home-made furniture. The boy, with his musical laugh, was busy and healthy, making the best of everything and sleeping soundly on the dried leaves piled in one corner of the loft over the room. T
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CHAPTER XVIII QUEER THINGS ON PAPER AND BLACKBOARD AND HOW TO PUT THEM THERE
CHAPTER XVIII QUEER THINGS ON PAPER AND BLACKBOARD AND HOW TO PUT THEM THERE
Look at a piece of blank paper or, better still, stand before an unmarked blackboard and try to imagine pictured on its surface whatever you would like to see there. It might be a comical little turtle, a rose, or perhaps a graceful swan. If you knew exactly the true shape and proportion of the objects you could draw them, but as soon as you attempt the sketch you realize that you cannot remember just how these creatures are formed, and consequently you are unable to depict them. Do not be disco
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CHAPTER XIX HOME-MADE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
CHAPTER XIX HOME-MADE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Girls, do you know that music lies hidden all around you, needing only the right touch to bring it forth? That everything is said to have its keynote, from a big bridge to a little wooden bench, and that when the keynote is struck the object will vibrate perceptibly? A does not suggest music in any form, and yet Fig. 482. Fig. 482. you can draw many and various notes from it. Cut a strip of writing-paper like Fig. 482 and whittle two pieces of wood according to Fig. 483. Fig. 483. Fig. 484. Fig.
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CHAPTER XX WHAT TO MAKE OF EMPTY SPOOLS
CHAPTER XX WHAT TO MAKE OF EMPTY SPOOLS
Gather up all the spools you can find, big, little, thick and thin; no matter how many, you can use them all. There is no end of fun to be had with these always-on-hand, easily found toys; they may be made into almost everything. Tell your mother that you can build if she will give you enough spools, and see her smile at the very idea. But say you are in earnest and ask her not to look until you call “Ready.” Then go to work and surprise her with a miniature representation of one of the most bea
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CHAPTER XXI CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
CHAPTER XXI CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
When the air is cold and frosty, and people move quickly through the streets, stopping to loiter only in front of the shop windows; when groups of merry girls hurry along on their way to school, their cheeks, glowing rosy under the brisk greetings of a northwest wind; when the evergreens displayed for sale upon the sidewalks send forth a spicy odor which ascends like incense and the very atmosphere seems pulsating with pleasurable excitement, there is no need of a calendar to tell us that the ho
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CHAPTER XXII CHRISTMAS DEVICES
CHAPTER XXII CHRISTMAS DEVICES
“Christmas gift! Christmas gift! Ah, I've caught you! Hand over my present!” With a gay laugh the children exchange this salutation, without a thought of the request ever being granted, but simply for the fun of being the first to call out the Christmas greeting. Sometimes the forfeit is paid, usually with a handful of nuts or candy, a pretty trifle or anything the captive happens to have convenient at the moment. The giver enjoys the fun fully as much as the recipient, and with a hop, skip, and
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CHAPTER XXIII PICTURE WRITING AND SIGN LANGUAGE
CHAPTER XXIII PICTURE WRITING AND SIGN LANGUAGE
The next best thing to seeing one’s friends is hearing from them, and the more interesting the letter the greater the enjoyment, particularly when the communication is intended to be passed around the entire home circle. There is a delightful way in which to express yourself differently from ordinary writing, a method used by the early Egyptians, called picture writing. The Egyptian pictures were not at all like those made by modern artists; their representations were crude and unfinished, yet t
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CHAPTER XXIV STATUARY TABLEAUX
CHAPTER XXIV STATUARY TABLEAUX
In the first place the statues must be white—not nearly white, but very white—flesh, hair, and costume; then the background must be black, a dead, lustreless black. Given these two requisites any figure, or group of figures, will look like statuary; and when care and pains are taken in the posing and draping and the proper light is thrown on them, the living, breathing, warm flesh and blood so closely resembles the cold, lifeless marble, it is difficult to realize one is not looking at statues c
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CHAPTER XXV WITCHERY
CHAPTER XXV WITCHERY
Assured of their welcome, laughter, jollity, and mystery all attend the Halloween frolics which are given up to sports with kale, apples, nuts, mirror, etc. These ordinarily commonplace articles are claimed, on this eventful eve, to be touched with magic, endowed with the power of prophecy and enabled to tell of wonderful adventure or fortune which will befall any one who puts their virtues to the test. And it is Halloween, of all the nights in the year, that is best loved by the sprightly littl
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CHAPTER XXVI LIVING ALPHABET
CHAPTER XXVI LIVING ALPHABET
Characters : All the letters of the alphabet, half girls, half boys; teacher. Costumes : Girls dressed entirely in red, boys in white. Teacher wears a pretty Dolly Varden costume, and carries a white switch tied with red ribbon. The back of the stage is decorated with palms and other greens. The overture is played, which glides into a march as the curtain rises. Enter the teacher and letters from the right. The letters march in single file in the order of the alphabet (alternately a girl and boy
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CHAPTER XXVII ODD GARDENS
CHAPTER XXVII ODD GARDENS
Summer is coming! Don’t you see it? Don’t you feel it? Even while the trees are still leafless and the grass-plots still brown we know spring is here, almost as the plants themselves know it, by the surging up of new life in our veins. We open wide our windows to let the sweet sunshine in and make ready to welcome the blessed summer so near at hand. What if you cannot leave the city, as some do, to enjoy the delights of a summer in the country; what if you have not even a foot of ground, you may
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CHAPTER XXVIII ACTIVE GAMES
CHAPTER XXVIII ACTIVE GAMES
In this game there are two sides, so that only an equal number can take part. Each player is provided with a new, shallow tin pan, the parties then separate, and stand in two lines, facing each other, about eight or ten feet apart. The starter at the head of one of the lines fastens one end of a ball of yarn to a door-knob or chair just behind her and, putting the ball on her pan, tosses it to the player directly opposite, who endeavors to catch it on his pan, and toss it to the person on the ot
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CHAPTER XXIX EXPENSIVE GAMES WITH LITTLE OR NO EXPENSE
CHAPTER XXIX EXPENSIVE GAMES WITH LITTLE OR NO EXPENSE
Everybody plays Young and old alike enjoy the game whose object is merely to strike a small ball backward and forward over a net stretched across a table. If you have never played the game it will seem very simple, but upon first trial you will probably realize that keeping the ball in motion is not as easy as it appears, for, instead of returning over the net in an orderly manner, the ball shows an uncontrollable inclination to jump down on the floor and hide in some obscure corner, thereby cau
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CHAPTER XXX BASKET BALL
CHAPTER XXX BASKET BALL
With the opening of the basket-ball season the girls are all wide-awake, interested, and eager to enter the teams; there is an exciting dash and life about the game which renders it very fascinating. If you can organize a set of ten players and divide the among the girls, each contributing an equal portion, the individual expense need not be exorbitant. The price of a good basket ball is four dollars, and a pair of goal baskets the same amount, making in all eight dollars, just eighty cents each
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CHAPTER XXXI SOME OF OUR OUT-DOOR NEIGHBORS ANDWHERE TO LOOK FOR THEM
CHAPTER XXXI SOME OF OUR OUT-DOOR NEIGHBORS ANDWHERE TO LOOK FOR THEM
The word grows broader and is more and more filled with meaning as we begin to understand that “neighbor” may embrace in its kindliness not alone the whole human race, but all the animal creation with which we come in contact. These denizens of the woods and fields are indeed our neighbors, and so also are the queer folk whose lives are partly or wholly spent in the water. When we learn to look for them we will find life full of the beauty, the music, and the good-will of our little friends and
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