the glass, and banks around it of the paste. Now cover
these banks with the ground pine; using a little glue on the under side
of each piece, but leave an open space without moss at the back, near
the pool. Take a pointed stick and make holes through the moss into the
clay or putty, and in each hole put one of the Horsetails, cutting it
off with scissors if too tall for the top, till you have a thicket of
these stems on each side; only make more on one side than on the other.
* * * * *
Now for the grand finish. You must make an extinct monster. Get half a
walnut shell; cut a notch at one end where the neck will be; fill the
shell with putty; stick in wooden pegs for legs, tail, and head. The
central stalk of a tulip-tree fruit makes a wonderful sculptured tail;
the unopened buds of dogwood do for legs, also cloves have been used.
Any nobby stick serves for head if you make eyes and teeth on it.
When dry this makes a good extinct monster. Set it on the far bank of
the water, and you have a jungle, the old Pennsylvania jungle of the
days when the coal was packed away.
TALE 77
The Woods in Winter
Go out to the nearest chestnut tree, and get half a small burr; trim it
neatly. Fill it with putty; set four wooden pegs in this for legs, a
large peg for a head and a long thin one for a tail. On the head put two
little black pins for eyes. Now rub glue on the wooden pegs and sprinkle
them with powdered rotten wood, or fine sand, and you have a Burr
Porcupine. Sometimes carpet tacks are used for legs. You will have to
wear strong leather gloves in making this, it is so much like a real
Porcupine.
Now go into your woods and get a handful of common red cedar twigs with
leaves on, or other picturesque branches, some creeping moss of the
kind used by flower dealers to pack plants, various dried grasses, and a
few flat or sharp-cornered pebbles. Take these home. Get a cigar box or
a candy-box, some paper, clay or putty and glass, as already described
for the Monkey-hunt. Make a pond with the glass and a bank with the clay
and pebbles. Paint the top of the clay, and tops of the pebbles with the
thin glue, and also part of the glass; then sprinkle all with powdered
chalk, whitening, plaster of Paris or talcum powder for snow. Put the
Porcupine in the middle, and you have the "Woods in Winter."
TALE 78
The Fish and the Pond
[Illustration: The Fish and the Pond--and the Cone]
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