February 1912

T

Home-made Valentines

EMILY ROSE BURT

HOSE valentines which are made at home are quite as attractive as the store ones. They have an added burden of love, too, for one's friends are glad to receive something upon which you have spent time and thought and work. The fact that you have been willing to give up your time, makes the gift far more valuable. Then, too, you can make a valentine which just exactly fits the person to whom you wish to give it, and, as you work, you are certain to think of odd and original schemes that the valentine-makers have never even imagined.

Children, especially, enjoy making valentines and with a few hints make extremely pretty ones. The expense involved for materials is very slight indeed. Tissue paper is a cent a sheet. The glossy red paper from which you can cut hundreds of hearts is five cents. Drawing paper or water color paper is five cents for a huge sheet, and gilt paint is ten cents a bottle. For the price of one or two store valentines you can have dozens of home-made ones.

Now, some kinds please children most and other kinds please grown-ups. Suppose you begin with a valentine for your eight-year old child neighbor.

First, from white drawing paper cut two hearts, one slightly larger than the other. Then, from tissue paper (red is most suitable for St. Valentine's Day), cut several strips of fringes. By folding a strip of paper one and one half inches wide and the length of the distance around the heart, and slitting the edge of the folded paper with sharp scissors, the fringed effect

is obtained. Paste three such strips neatly around the top edge of the heart, allowing plenty of fullness on the curves and placing the strips so that the edge of each is a quarter of an inch or so from the one beneath it. Now, paste the smaller heart over the first, thus covering up the edge where the fringe is pasted. Paint a border of gilt, and paste on some small red hearts cut from glossy paper. Write a little verse or greeting in the center, or print it in gilt. If your small neighbor does not like this valentine, she must be a very queer little girl. Pink tissue paper with pink cardboard and gilt hearts is another gay combination.

A valentine of just a little different style is made in this fashion. An oblong piece of drawing paper forms the main body of it and around the edge is pasted a frill of tissue paper made in the following way: Fold several times a strip of paper one and one half inches wide and the length of one side of the valentine. From each folded edge cut out half a tiny heart and half a diamond and scallop the cut edges in points. When the strip is opened out it is seen to be full of hearts and diamonds with a jagged border. Paste a frill of this along each side of the valentine, making it full at the corners. Decorate the rest of the valentine as you like, with hearts of gilt or red, and print a greeting in gold letters.

An extremely attractive kind of valentine, especially to send to one of your grown-up friends, is made by cutting out figures folder, edged with gilt. A rhyme to go with the picture is or pictures from magazines, and pasting them in a little usually needed. The figure of a girl in a cap and gown may have beside it some lines like this, which will please senior Ethel in college:

Sister dear, in cap and gown, When you're far away from town, I still love you just the same,

See if you can guess my name!

For Brother Jack who is so deeply interested in flying machines, you might make a valentine on which is the picture of an aeroplane, and a verse like this:

My love is flying, is flying to you,

As fast as an airship flits through the blue.

Pictures which illustrate any adventure or joke or fad which "hits" some one make jolly valentines. Pictures are easy to find in the advertising pages of magazines, and when they are neatly pasted on a square of heavy paper tinged with gilt along the edges, they are very good-looking.

If you can draw, of course, there are any number of clever valentines you can invent. However, if you do not draw, there is a fascinating way of making valentines which look very much like the drawn ones.

Arm yourself with a sheet of drawing paper, a piece of black carbon paper and a steel crochet hook or a lead pencil with a rather dull point. The next thing to do is to hunt through magazines and papers until you find a cute picture that will be easy to outline. Suppose that you choose one of a baby chicken. Lay the carbon paper, carbon side down, on the drawing paper, and put the chicken picture on top of the carbon paper. Hold it firmly, so that it cannot slip, and with your pencil or crochet hook go carefully over the lines of the picture, bearing on just moderately, not too hard and not too lightly. When you remove the carbon paper, you will find beneath it the line drawing of a chicken. Before choosing the chicken, you have probably decided to whom to send it and with what kind of message. For a literary sister or a hard-working father, you might have a little verse like this:

Scratch, scratch, scratch away, You'll be famous some fine day, But I'll love you just the same, If you haven't wealth or fame.

Print it in red ink or gilt paint above the chicken and then fold over a flap of paper from each side so that the picture is covered, and seal with a red paper heart. Perhaps the prettier way is to cut the paper heart-shaped and decorate the edge with gilt.

Any pretty, cute, or comical pictures that are easy to outline can be used for this kind of valentine; you'll find them

fascinating to make as well as very attractive when they are done.

Now we come to a kind of valentine which is really useful. It is a blotter. Cut two, or even three, heart-shaped pieces about six inches long from a colored blotter, red, if you can get it. Tie the hearts together at the top with a bow of white ribbon. Then in the middle of the topmost sheet, paste a little snapshot of yourself or a baby, or some other picture which will interest the person for whom you intend the valentine. If the little picture is cut heart-shaped, the effect is pretty. Such a blotter ought to be very much liked by a mother or a big cousin or an aunty. Men do not always care for fancy blotters, but very likely it would please a father or a grandfather, if you sent your love with it.

But the valentine which will prove most popular of all is a dainty paper candy box filled with home-made fudge or peppermint creams. There are two very pretty models, either of which you may follow.

The first has no cover, but perhaps is a little more unique than the other. On water color paper draw a design following diagram 1. Cut on the black lines, fold on the dotted lines and paste the three flaps. Cut hearts from red paper and fit them into the points of the flaps. Another way is to draw in the hearts and paint them with water colors or gilt. When you are through, you have a cunning triangular box like the one in the picture. Fill it with candy and put in a message like "Sweets to the Sweet" or "For My Sweetheart."

The second box is heart-shaped. From heavy white paper, cut three hearts about four inches long, and a strip of paper an inch wide and a little longer than the distance around the edge of the heart. Make a fold about a quarter of an inch in width, the length of the strip. Paste the strip around the edge of one of the hearts by sticking this fold to the top side of the heart. Be sure to make it full enough around the curves. Now, put in another heart for a lining to cover up the part which has been pasted down. On the third heart, print a pretty message in gilt and sprinkle some tiny red or gilt hearts on it here and there. This is the cover which you now tie on by means of red ribbon pulled through holes punched in both box and cover. Fringe the edges of the box and cover with gilt and fill the box with candy. The words on the cover may very appropriately be, "I send my heart to you," or "Accept a new sweetheart."

With as many ideas as this for making valentines, besides the schemes you have yourself, you will want to begin right away to try every one of them, and remember all your friends with unique home-made valentines.

February 1912

Rosemary VI

ALICE E. ALLEN

The M. S. Celebrates

Summary Rose and Mary Dawson, little twin girls who look exactly alike and who live on a farm away from everybody, are going to school in town for a year, a month each, turn and turn about, as Rosemary Dawson. So far, in spite of some strange happenings, no one at school has found out that there are two Rosemaries. The night before Christmas, Jinny'n' 'John 'n' the Baby arrive at the farmhouse as "three small Christmas gifts" from Aunt Mary Craig. In January, both Rose and Mary, unknown to each other, go to Mr. Brown to sell eggs and to Mr. Ames's store to buy a coat. Meanwhile Father buys the coat. Now it is Mary's turn to be Rosemary Dawson.

Great was the excitement in the primary grade of the Sugar River School when, on the morning of February twentysecond, the room was found to be prettily decorated in honor of the day. And then it came out that almost since sun-up the members of the M. S. had been busy putting up flags, draping red, white, and blue bunting, and hanging pictures of George Washington.

"But how did you happen to?" cried Miss Bonnie, her cheeks as pink as the carnations Laura had brought her. "Rosemary Dawson," cried three proud little voices --Laura's and Norah's and Polly's.

"Oh, no," said Rosemary. "Deed I didn't, Miss Bonnie! Why, I haven't any money to do such lovely things. I just said I thought it would be a good plan for the M. S. to do something real nice just for once, instead of playing any more tricks on people. The others bought the things and Laura's mother helped and her sister Emily, and Polly's mother, and even Mr. Hardy and Mr. Brown."

"It needs somebody, always, to think up the lovely things to do, Rosemary," said Miss Bonnie.

"Pshaw" cried Billy, "this isn't half of what Rosemary can think up. I never saw such a thinker as she has when once she gets it started. Just you wait till this afternoon. She's made up a whole play words and all. And the M. S. is going to give it."

"Emily helped me," said Rosemary.

Everybody hurried home at noon to get into the very best clothes they could find. The M. S. stayed, with locked doors, to make a few last important arrangements.

When the boys and girls trooped back into the room, the stage was all ready. On one end was a tiny round table. Its white cloth was trimmed with bunches of cherries. It was set with dainty old-time cups, silver spoons, and the dearest little teapot. Near the table, under the big flag, was a real little flax wheel which had been Laura's great-grandmother's when she was a girl. At the other side of the stage, were three dry-goods boxes, one large, one small, and one middle-sized, "just like the three bears," little Kitty Ross said delightedly. On each box, in red, white, and blue letters, was printed "T. E. A."

Before the play began, the M. S. made some explanations. "It isn't just the way the history says," said Rosemary. "But Laura's mother says in a play that doesn't matter." "We girls are Daughters of Liberty," said Norah, "aud we're going to spin yarn for homespun clothes." "Then we're going to drink tea," said Polly.

"Only 'tisn't tea, really," said Rosemary, "'cause, you know, the tea was taxed and the patriots wouldn't drink it." "Then along we will come," cried Billy, "and dump the tea out of the chests into the water."

"That green rug is the water," said Tom. "Mother lent it to us."

"There really isn't anything in the boxes," said Paul.

"Now everybody understands about everything," said Rosemary, "and we'll begin. Oh, yes, you must all sing every time we do, whether you know the words or not."

So Rosemary in a flowered gown of long ago, took her place back of the spinning wheel and, humming softly, began to spin just as Laura's mother had shown her. Laura and Norah and Polly, all in quaint pretty dresses, appeared and, singing, went to the party. Everybody knew the tune at once singing, went to the party. and the words were so simple, they couldn't help singing:

"Three cheers for the brave little maids,
Three cheers for the brave little maids,
The daughters -the daughters of Liberty -
Three cheers for the brave little maids!"

Laura and Norah and Polly took chairs near Rosemary, and, with no wheels, followed each motion she made with her real one, all humming lightly to represent the sound of spinning. It was so pretty that everybody clapped hands and, before they were let off, the Daughters of Liberty had to spin a great deal of flax.

After a little they began to talk about spinning and tea. Norah said decidedly that she would drink boiled rasberry leaves. Rosemary sprang up and cried gaily, "Let's show them right off this very minute that we won't swallow that old even in our tea!" So away they went to the tea-table. With jingle of cups and spoons Rosemary served the teawhich was nothing but water. They all raised their cups, clinked them lightly, and sang "Auld Lang Syne" with a touch of red, white, and blue in it to make it fitting.

tax

While they were clinking and drinking and singing, unseen by them, three fierce-looking Indians in feathers, war-paint, and moccasins, waving hatchets for tomahawks, stole stealthily out of a dark corner.

They stooped and dodged, kept out of the light, reached the ship, and clambered aboard. With many a "Hist!" and "Sh-sh!" they advanced to the chests. Each brawny red man laid hand upon a chest. At a signal, they turned them around and tip-tilted them. Then with terrific war-whoops, they tipped them overboard into the raging waters below.

But with the casting of the tea into Boston Harbor, there arose a bumping sound inside the chests. Before anyone could do more than crane forward and say, "Oh-oo-my-ee!" out from the chests tumbled three small red and green bundles, which rolled over and over and over, coming at last, right side up, with three-times-three sleepy, sobby wails, and turning out to be three small children. The next minute one little Daughter of Liberty, flowered-gown, cap, tea-cup, and all, had flung herself into Boston Harbor among the crying babies. "Jinny 'n' John 'n' the Baby, where did you come from?

she cried.

"They'll be drowned," wailed Kitty, from the front seat. Then everybody laughed - that is, everybody except Jinny 'n' John 'n' the Baby and poor Rosemary Dawson.

It took Rosemary's best efforts, together with Miss Bonnie's and Laura's and Mr. Hardy's, who came downstairs to find out what had happened in the primary grade, to quiet things down enough for explanations.

At last one of Rosemary's frantic "Where did you come froms?" was answered by John.

"We cam-ed," he said, "to find Ma-wy!"

This piece of news was followed by more sobs mixed with "Ma-wys," which brought Mr. Hardy back with a box of chocolates. "Try these," he said.

With the aid of the sweets, much petting, and some little scoldings, the wail finally died away. It was then found that Jinny 'n' John 'n' the Baby had walked the whole distance by themselves, had found the schoolhouse by its flag, and had come in just at noon when everybody was out of the primary room. Seeing the three empty boxes, John had put Mary in one, the Baby in another and himself in the third to wait for Mary. Tired out, they had all fallen asleep.

"Yen the Yindians cam-ed," said John, with a glance over his shoulder at Billy.

"But why did they ever do it, do you s'pose, Rosemary?" asked Polly for the dozenth time, as she and Billy and Norah and Mr. Brown hoisted and tied Jinny and John and the Baby behind Rosemary on old Fan's back that night after school.

"Wanted Ma-wy," said John.

"Rothe was cwoss," said Jinny, her mouth full of chocolate. "Rothe is always cwoss," said John.

"Who is Rothe?" asked Polly Question Point.

"Rothe is Rothe and Ma-wy is Ma-wy," said John, one sticky hand grasping Mary's arm.

"But who is Rothe?" went on Polly.

At that moment John slipped and pulled Jinny and the Baby almost off Old Fan's back, so there was no answer. Old Fan and her load were well under way, when Polly Question Point remembered.

"Rosemary," she cried.

David and Goliath

SARAH C. EAGER

David was a little Jewish boy who lived among the beautiful hills and took care of his father's sheep.

Every day he led them to the green pastures, where the tender grass grew, and to the still waters where they could get a cool drink.

David was so kind to the sheep that they loved his voice and would run to him whenever he called them. They would follow him over dark slippery places and were never afraid, because David was with them.

it.

One day a lion caught a sheep in his mouth and ran off with David ran swiftly after the lion and killed him. Then he carried the sheep home in his arms and took care of it, for the lion's teeth had hurt it.

Another day a bear caught a sheep, but David was swifter than the bear and very strong; he killed the bear and took the poor sheep home. David was a brave boy.

Another day a big, big giant, whose name was Goliath, stood up in front of David's friends, and boasted that he was stronger than any of them and that he could kill any of them. He laughed and laughed at David's friends. He was a bad giant and would have killed David if he could have come close to him. The giant had a big sword, but David wasn't afraid of that. not even when the giant shook it at him. David put his hand in his pocket and took out a large, smooth stone. He had found it in a brook.

He put the stone in his sling, and threw it hard at the giant. The stone went into the middle of the giant Goliath's head and killed him.

Years afterward, when David had done many other brave things, the people said he must be their king.

They called him King David, and told all the little children how kind and how brave he was.

This story, told the children with feeling in voice and manner, proves of never failing interest.

It lends itself easily to simple dramatics, and towards the end of the school year, if managed naturally and sincerely, makes a telling comparison for overcoming the usual schoolroom foes, the lions, bears and giants of shiftlessness, lying, bad temper and other torments.