ake. When the clay has hardened they are held quite firm and you can
make a wattled hut by weaving long straws or grasses in and out to
form your walls. A thatched roof can also be made of long grasses,
tied in little bunches and laid close together all sloping down from
the ridge-pole. Almost every magazine of a few years back has in it
pictures of Filipino villages which will furnish you with models to
copy. According to the size of the table or board on which you make
your settlements you can have more or less extensive tropical country,
surrounding your village. Mountains can be made of the clay, covered
with moss or grasses to represent the jungle and a river with
overhanging trees arranged with bits of broken looking-glass, and
twigs with tiny scraps of green tissue paper glued to them for leaves.
The exercise of your own ingenuity in using all sorts of unlikely
materials which you will find all about you is the best part of this
game.

After you have decided to change the climate and character of your
village, the clay used may be broken up and put back in your jar, wet
again, stirred smooth and is all ready to begin again. Great care
should be taken that it is kept clean, that bits of wood or glass be
not left in it, or you may cut or prick your fingers in handling it.

A Dutch Street

You cannot only wander from one climate and from one nationality to
another, but from one century to another. If you are studying early
American history nothing is more fun than to make a street in an old
Dutch settlement. Your bricks are painted red for this. Almost any
history-book will have pictures of one or two old Dutch houses which
will show you the general look of them. They are harder to construct
than the ruder huts of savages and may need to be held together with a
little use of damp clay. It is interesting to try and reconstruct old
Dutch Manhattan, from the maps and pictures, showing the bay and the
walk on the Battery.

Or if you are interested in Colonial New England, make a settlement of
log-houses with the upper story overhanging the first. On any walk you
can pick up enough small sticks to use as logs after trimming and
measuring.

Other possibilities in this line are suggested below. You will have
more fun in working them out yourself than if you are told just how to
proceed. A Roman arena with gladiators fighting and a curtain which
may be drawn to keep off the sun. A little fishing-village beside the