“Dear Henry:
There’s something you will like to make in the Magic Book. You can make a scrapbook. Use the heavy wall paper for the cover of the book and cut the scrapbook leaves from heavy Manilla wrapping paper. Aunt Phoebe has wrapping paper. Ask her for it.
To make a scrapbook, take a big full-sized sheet from the Magic Book of wall paper. (I’m sure Jimsi will let you choose the paper you like best.) Fold the sheet together and clip the edges evenly. Glue the double edges fast together and let them dry.
While the cover is drying, fold your Manilla wrapping paper several times to fit the cover. Then cut the sheets and trim them properly to fit.
Next, place the cover flat and all the leaves on top of it.
Make two holes with an awl or a puncher. Let the holes go through leaves and cover. Then string a tape or ribbon through the holes and tie the cover on. Then fold cover and leaves together and the scrapbook is done!
These scrapbooks are very nice to use for stamp collections. You can paste cards in them too—postal-cards, if you like. You can also use them to make botanical scrapbooks in summer. I think, however, that you’ll like to use yours for stamps.
Jimsi will give you enough paper to make a photograph album too, I’m sure. You can put your snap shot Brownie pictures in it.
To make this, use smaller folded Manilla sheets and use a border pattern of wall paper from the Magic Book.
Try it!
Your Crow.
P. S.
Tell Mother she can make a scrapbook too. She will find this kind of scrapbook very useful for keeping magazine clippings, receipts for cooking, and odds and ends.
P. S. P. S.
You might make one for your daddy. He could keep newspaper clippings in his.
P. S. P. S. P. S.
Jimsi can make her own and put anything she likes in it.
Caw Caw.”
At the close of this letter, everybody just laughed. It was so funny! But everybody was very anxious to try the scrapbooks, so they didn’t wait for morning. Henry made himself one that very night after dinner. His was made of beautiful red paper. It was most handsome! He made one for Mother and one to take home to Father from the crow. He made one, too, for baby Katherine to put picture cards into. Oh, I tell you Henry worked hard. He said he’d make one for Jimsi to carry to the little lame girl, but Jimsi said she thought Joyce might enjoy the fun of making her own. So Henry started to make himself another—when bed-time came! He declared he’d finish it in the morning. It was a very splendid scrapbook—or it was going to be—made with three whole sheets of nice fresh wrapping paper cut to be eight by fifteen inches. But he went off to bed to dream of it. Oh, Caw Caw knew what children like to play!
They all said, “Good-night, Crow,” after they had kissed Aunt Phoebe and Mother good-night, and then all went to dream of Caw Caw making magic plays with the sample book of wall paper.
THE next morning bright and early before breakfast, Henry was downstairs in The Happy Shop busy with the finishing of last night’s scrapbook. It had a handsome cover of dark wall paper with a design of large and splendid flowers and leaves colored purple and red and green and dull blue. To tie the cover on, Henry was using strands of raffia of the same shades. Aunt Phoebe did basketry and had quite a big basket full. The children were always welcome to use it. He was so interested that he just said, “Oh, hello, Jimsi!” when Jimsi came down later, just before the breakfast hour. She had come as soon as she was dressed for she wanted to look in the mail-box and see if there was a crow letter there. Henry had quite forgotten to look. He thought of nothing at all but his grand scrapbook.
Jimsi reached for the crow mail-box. Sure enough, there was a letter in it. Hurrah! “Oh, look, Henry!” she exclaimed. “See!”
Henry jumped up and came to examine the mail-box, and he took the little blue envelope out. Oh, it was for baby Katherine this time! Nothing for Jimsi! Nothing for Henry!
They dropped the letter back into the box again. “Won’t it be fun to see her when she finds it?” laughed Jimsi. “I wonder what’s in Katherine’s letter?”
“Katherine can’t use scissors very well,” Henry suggested doubtfully. “She can cut some, but not very well. She’s learned some things in kindergarten. I hope the crow has told her something that you and I can do, too. I have made enough scrapbooks for now and I can’t begin to stick my stamps and things in till I go home, Monday. What are you going to use your scrapbook for, Jimsi?”
Jimsi thought. “Oh, I’m going to have more than one,” she answered. “The scrapbooks don’t cost anything and I can have as many as I like. I like them better than the ones that are sold in shops. They are prettier and they have more leaves. Once I wanted to buy a scrapbook and when I priced it, it cost two dollars! It was a big scrapbook like the one you are making. Of course, I didn’t buy it. I couldn’t, for there wasn’t that amount of money in my bunny-bank on the mantel-shelf at home.”
“I’ve one dollar and seventy-three cents saved in my bank,” Henry volunteered. “I’ve earned twenty-eight cents just lately. Once it was for doing errands for the lady next door and once I swept the snow off the walk for her, too. She said I did it well and asked me to come next time it snowed.”
“Boys can always earn money,” sighed Jimsi. “It’s different with girls. Nobody asks them to shovel snow or do errands, if there is a boy anywhere around. I could sweep snow!”
“I know,” agreed Henry. “But there are things girls can do.”
“What?”
“Oh, girls can amuse little babies and take them riding in a go-cart and see that they are happy while the babies’ mother goes away out-doors for an hour. Mrs. Brown said she wanted a little girl who was a good responsible girl to do that for her. And once when Birdie Smith hurt her eyes studying with the sun shining on her book and the doctor wouldn’t let her use them, Mrs. Smith said she would be glad to pay some boy or girl to come and read aloud to Birdie—because Birdie was always asking to be read to and she had work to do and couldn’t read to her all the time.”
“I could take care of babies,” Jimsi thought. “Having Katherine helps ever so much. I’d love to wheel a baby in a carriage out-doors, if its mother would trust me—I’d like it so well I’d do it without money.”
“That’s the way with girls. They aren’t businesslike,” sniffed Henry. “It’s business to pay for errands and shoveling snow and it’s business to be paid for taking care of babies, I think.” He tied the raffia that bound his scrapbook at the back of the cover and held it up. “I’ve finished,” he smiled. “See!”
“But if one likes to do things, one hates to be paid for doing them,” Jimsi protested. “I love to play with little bits of children, I do.”
“Well, I’m only telling you how girls can earn money,” said Henry. “You don’t need to take it, if you don’t want to. My, but I’m hungry! Isn’t it most time for pancakes? Aunt Phoebe said we were going to have pancakes this morning.”
“And real maple syrup—yum-yum!”
“Who said yum-yum,” called Aunt Phoebe’s voice. “Breakfast’s ready! Henry, will you get the big dictionary in my study and put it in Katherine’s chair for her to sit on. There isn’t any high chair in our house. Crow doesn’t need one.”
Off went Henry and Jimsi to do the errand between them. Mother and Aunt Phoebe and Katherine were waiting when the children brought the dictionary for Katherine to sit on.
“Nobody looked in the mail-box,” suggested Jimsi. “Somebody ought to.”
“Shall I go?” asked Mother.
“Shall I?” inquired Aunt Phoebe innocently.
“Me?” squealed Katherine joyously. “Me!”
“I’ll get the box,” volunteered Henry, the man of the household. “You wait.” And up he darted—off to The Happy Shop. He came panting back and put the box on the table.
“Who’s the letter for?” everybody asked at once.
Henry waved his hand majestically toward the baby. Everybody laughed. Katherine chuckled. She reached for the little cardboard box and extricated the tiny envelope. “Ou!” she squealed delightedly. “Mamma, read it.”
So Mother broke open the wee envelope with its crow stamp on it, just as crow always wrote his letters and she read:
“Dear Katherine,
Jimsi and Henry have found lots of nice things to do in The Happy Shop’s Magic Book of wall paper. I am going to tell you some jolly things to play with the papers too. I wonder if you wouldn’t like to make pin-wheels, first of all. Wall paper makes wonderfully lovely pin-wheels. (Maybe Jimsi and Henry know how to make pin-wheels—)”
“No, we don’t,” interrupted Jimsi and Henry. But Mother went on:
“To make pin-wheels, just cut out a square of wall paper about seven inches square. Cut each corner upward toward the centre of the square till within a half inch of it. Then fold every other corner of the cut paper over toward the centre and run a pin through. Fasten the end of the pin point in a rubber at the end of some pencil or little stick and the pin-wheel is done. If you hold the pin-wheel out straight and run along fast as you can, the pin-wheel will turn like the arms of a wind-mill. It’s fun. Try it.
After you make one pin-wheel and see how it goes, take two differently colored squares of fancy papers—red and blue or green and yellow or plain and flowered and put these together, color outside. Then fold the pin-wheel and see what lovely play-things you can make. It might be nice to make a pin-wheel store.”
“Ou!” chuckled Katherine. “Store!”
“We’ll cut round disks for money—yellow paper for gold, silver striped paper for nickles, dimes, quarters and fifty-cent pieces. We’ll make green paper bills—”
“And write on each how much each is—”
“We can do it with crayon—”
“Hush!” sighed Mother. “I want to read Katherine’s crow letter. Listen!”
“There are other things beside pin-wheels that you can make—how about bright-colored butterflies? The papers that are yellow, blue, green, red, purple make lovely butterflies. You cut them like this. Fold your paper double and cut. And then unfold it and you will have a butterfly! Tie a dark thread to the upper part of the butterfly’s body and run with the end of the thread in your hand. The butterfly will fly behind you, if you trot as fast as feet can go. It is nice to play this outdoors in the garden for you can make your butterfly alight on shrubs and bushes.”
“Oh,” interrupted Jimsi, “we can make some butterflies for Katherine out of the wall papers that have plain patterns on them. Just keep the patterns even and cut. That will make lovely wings! I want to try it—”
“Shoo!” cried Mother. “I want to finish the letter. My coffee is growing cold. Shoo!” Again she read:
“I’ll tell you another toy little girls and big girls and even boys can make. It’s a bird with wings—”
“A crow!” chuckled Henry. “Only one would need black paper—”
“Take dark paper and crayon it black,” cried Jimsi.
“Hush!” Mother began again. “If anybody interrupts again, we’ll wait and finish the letter after breakfast,” said she. So everybody hushed right up and waited, of course.
“The birds are cut from pieces of paper that are cut oblong and folded corner to corner. Draw the bird’s side outline with crayon on the white part of the paper and cut the bird out with scissors. This gives the body without wings.
To make wings for the bird, fold a paper somewhat smaller than the first and cut wings, leaving the folding of the paper forward instead of at top.
Cut a slit in this forward part of the wings and slip them over the bird’s body. Tie a thread to the top of the bird’s body and see how well you can make it fly.
I think you’ll have enough play now to last a long long time, Katherine dear. I must stop. Goody-bye.
With a hug from
Crow.
P. S.
Why don’t you all go over to the little lame girl’s home this morning and have Katherine’s store there. I think she’d like it.
C. C.”
Mother put the crow’s long letter on the table beside Katherine’s plate. She took up her coffee-cup and breakfast started. All the splendid pancakes had been getting cold! Aunt Phoebe had to send them out and get hot ones. And all because of Crow’s letter!
“I’ll make that money. I can do it,” Henry declared. “While I’m making the money, you and Joyce and Katherine can make the birds and pin-wheels and butterflies. I’m going to make splendid paper money—whole bags full! Oh! I can keep some to carry home to play store, too!”
“I don’t want any more breakfast,” sighed Jimsi. “I want to begin right away.” But, nevertheless, she did eat more hot pancakes and more than just two.
“Where’s crow?” asked baby Katherine, pointing to the shelf where Aunt Phoebe’s crow stood last night. “Where’s crow?”
“Oh, he flies away during the day,” volunteered Jimsi. “He pretends fly away. Ask Aunt Phoebe where he is!”
But Aunt Phoebe was making-believe about crow and she wouldn’t tell at all—no, not at all.
They tried to tease her—(It isn’t at all nice to tease, but boys will do it.) “Aunt Phoebe, how could the crow hug Katherine?” giggled Henry. “I’d like to see crow do it!”
“He could pretend to in a crow letter,” answered Aunt Phoebe demurely. “Henry, if you don’t look out, you won’t get any new crow letters. If you don’t want to believe in my nice, old, stuffed black crow, Caw Caw, give me back all your splendid scrapbooks that he told you how to make.”
“Oh, I believe in make-believe,” Henry laughed. “But, Aunt Phoebe, it’s so funny! The idea of crow’s hugging Katherine with his two claws! Oh, oh! How could he stand?”
“He might sit on his tail and do it,” answered Aunt Phoebe. “Crows don’t usually sit on their tail, but Caw Caw might. He’s pretend.”
“Caw Caw’s all right,” declared Jimsi. “I think he can do most anything. He’s the cleverest crow that ever, ever was. There never could be another like him, I know!”
“Think of The Happy Shop and all the fun of the Magic Book!” smiled Mother.
“Dear Aunt Phoebe,” beamed Henry. “Please, I do want another crow letter. Tell crow to write soon!”
But Aunt Phoebe shook her finger at Henry. “Naughty,” said she. “The next crow letter shall go to somebody else, not you!” She smiled.
By that time breakfast was over and the children rushed off to The Happy Shop to find the Magic Book and try the new crow play for little Katherine.
JUST as soon as little Katherine had tried her pin-wheels indoors, Henry and Jimsi decided that outdoors where there is wind, pin-wheels would turn much better and faster, so the children jumped into cloaks and caps and made for the garden. It was still too early to go over to see the little lame girl. They all decided to wait and make the crow’s butterfly and bird toys when Joyce could try them, too. But the pin-wheels were really out-door toys and one had to run about to make them go.
Katherine had two pin-wheels, one in each hand. One was blue and pink and the other was made of flowered paper with green paper inside. Henry had a red and brown pin-wheel that he had made very large indeed. Jimsi’s pin-wheel was an attempt to be “different,” she said. She had tried to cut the edges in scallop. There was also a rosebud cut from wall paper, and it came at the center of her pin-wheel under the pin. They all had great fun running about the garden in the crisp winter morning air, each trying to see which pin-wheel would turn best. Katherine’s flowered pin-wheel, it was agreed, was a huge success. Then, Jimsi’s broke. She had to go indoors to mend it and when she came out, she had her Magic Book rolled up tight under her arm. “We can go over to see Joyce, Mother says,” called Jimsi from the door-step. “Hurry up!”
So off they trotted.
As Jimsi had forgotten all about the crow’s surprise when she and Joyce were busy making stencils and embroidery patterns, it was perfectly unexpected for Henry and Katherine to appear behind Jimsi that morning when the door opened and let the children into the room where the little lame girl’s chair was rolled into the bow-window beside the big table. Why, at first Joyce just stared and then, laughing, she held out a hand to each. “Oh, I know now who you are! You’re Katherine and Henry,” she beamed. “But I didn’t know you were coming. Jimsi never told me there was going to be such a lovely party!”
“Oh,” Jimsi laughed. “Your patterns and things were so interesting, I forgot to tell you crow promised me a big surprise. I forgot all about it till I went back to Aunt Phoebe’s. In the afternoon, I went down to The Happy Shop and I found that crow had brought Mother and Henry and sister Katherine for the surprise.”
“Well, well!” laughed the little lame girl, “and you didn’t suspect at all?”
“Not a weeny bit!”
“And it was a surprise for me, too,” declared Joyce. “Now, what are we going to do to have fun this morning?”
Little Katherine held out her two pin-wheels. “You can make these,” she suggested.
“Let’s try birds and butterflies! Oh, Joyce, the crow sent Katherine a letter this morning and it told how to make those pin-wheels and birds and butterflies, too,” explained Jimsi. “And Henry said he’d make toy money for a store and we could play that, too!”
“I wish it was real money,” Henry joked, as he snipped big pieces from Jimsi’s wall-paper book—big pieces of silver satin stripe for silver money. “I’m going to make five and ten dollar bills next. Oh, you wait!” He sat down on the floor and began to cut regardless of the floor.
“Look out,” sang Jimsi. “Put a paper down, Henry! Joyce and I are careful. It makes ever so much muss to clear up when you cut like that. Here’s a newspaper.” So Henry meekly apologized. “I wasn’t thinking,” he explained.
Joyce and Jimsi began on butterflies. When they had made ever so many, they made birds—whole flocks of birds: bluebirds, crows, robins, catbirds, and most every kind of bird one could think of, as well as a good many pink and yellow birds that nobody could identify as ever having lived anywhere at all.
They pretended that the big table was a store and Henry brought all manner of things from around the room to put on it and sell, he said. Joyce was store-keeper. As for baby Katherine, she preferred to play on the floor with the paper toys, and she played in her own way.
Henry showed the little lame girl about how to make scrapbooks and they were busy choosing a paper for her first scrapbook when suddenly the door-bell rang. Joyce’s mother went to the door. There was nobody there! Then her eyes suddenly fell to the door-step and there, sure enough, was a crow letter! Beside it was—why, it was the cutest of paper baskets! It was filled with cut flowers. The letter was for Joyce. The basket that came with it was, of course, for her, too.
Why, the basket was made out of wall paper! Would you believe it? Yes, it was! But the flowers in it were really, really true—they weren’t wall-paper flowers. Joyce took them from the basket and Jimsi went for a vase. “Why, we can make baskets like that,” she declared. “I think crow’s letter must be about it.” She tore open the envelope. She glanced over the letter. No. All crow said was:
“Dear Joyce:
Maybe you’d like this basket of flowers. I made the basket part with my book of magic paper just to send these flowers to you.
Your loving
Crow Caw Caw.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Joyce suggested. “Let’s each take some paper—the very heavy wall paper—and we’ll see which one of us can make the best basket. We’ll try to make them like this. This one is cut from a piece of folded paper that is double. Its sides are sewed—see! I’ll give you each a needle. This basket is sewed with a strand of raffia, and the sides are buttonholed with it, but we can baste our baskets with big strands of colored darning-cotton or shoe-button thread. Let’s try it!”
All but baby Katherine tried it. She was playing with the butterflies on the rug by the fire. The pussy-cat was purring there. She, too, liked to play with the butterflies. Maybe it was because Katherine dragged them over the rug on a string as no butterflies ever flew! But she had a good time just the same.
“We could make May baskets like this,” Jimsi suggested. “I’m going to make some next spring. I’m going to show my teacher at school how to make these baskets. I think she’d like to know how. And the kindergarten teacher—Sister’s teacher—she’d like to know how, too. She could show the children how to make others like them.”
“We could make them for the Christmas tree this Christmas,” declared Henry. “Of course those for the Christmas tree would need to be much smaller.”
“They would be cute for doll baskets, when we made them small,” beamed Joyce.
At the mention of dolls, Henry sniffed, “I don’t play dolls,” said he. “I like baskets that are useful. I tell you what you can do to earn money, girls! You can make these baskets to hold candy and sell home-made candy in them.” Really, Henry thought he had offered a valuable suggestion! Both little girls laughed.
“They wouldn’t want to eat the kind I make!” chuckled Jimsi. “Beside that I’d probably eat it up first. And Mother doesn’t like to have us make candy. But I’ll tell you what: we could make them for fairs and bazaars if we were asked to give things to sell. The candy booth could use them. We could make ever so many in a short time. Why, it only took a minute to cut this one out and sew it!” She held up a dainty pink basket made of striped paper almost as stiff as bristle-board. “I suppose this paper’s ever so expensive, if it’s used on walls,” she said. “The heavy paper always is, you know. But there is a whole half of my Magic Book full of heavy paper samples.”
Baby Katherine liked the baskets. She put her butterflies inside. Henry carried his paper money in his. Jimsi cut paper flowers and put them in hers.
“I’ll send back the prettiest I can to Aunt Phoebe by you,” said Joyce. “It’ll show her that we used the crow play right away. And I’ll put a crow letter inside.”
After that was done, the clock began to strike the Cinderella hour and the children, after hastily picking up careless scraps of paper for the little lame girl, started back for Aunt Phoebe’s, promising to come back to play again that afternoon, if nothing prevented.
THE Good Crow, Caw Caw, must have been very busy writing letters and making things that Saturday, for hardly had the children sat down to luncheon, and hardly had Henry undone his napkin than—out dropped a crow letter. Oh, oh, my! How funny!
And hardly had Jimsi lifted her napkin to take it out of the ring than lo—there, under it, was another crow letter. Oh, oh, my!
And then, as Mother took Katherine’s napkin to fasten it on there appeared a crow letter addressed to Katherine lying on the luncheon cloth.
“Did you ever!” whistled Henry. “I thought your crow was never going to write to me again, Aunt Phoebe.”
“I didn’t say that,” twinkled Aunt Phoebe’s voice. “I said you’d better look out. Beside that, Henry dear, the crow knows that you and Mother and Katherine have to go back to the city tonight. You’ve got to go back to school on Monday.”
“Oh, dear,” moaned Henry. “I want to stay here.”
“Me, too,” lisped Katherine.
“Isn’t Jimsi coming home with us?” urged Henry. “She looks all right. I don’t think she looks sick any more. She doesn’t act so.”
“I feel all right,” admitted Jimsi. “I don’t need to take naps any more while I stay, Aunt Phoebe. Mother said so. I don’t want Mother and Henry and Katherine to go back because I shall miss them, but I’d just as lieve not go back to school yet. I like to be with you, Aunt Phoebe, and I do love the Good Crow’s Happy Shop and the Magic Book! My book’s really growing quite thin. I’ll soon need another—how’ll I ever do without a Magic Book when this is gone?”
“Soon Christmas will be coming,” said Mother. “You’ll come home just before Christmas, Jimsi dear. And I think Aunt Phoebe’ll come with you. After Christmas, you’ll be going back to school again, and there’ll be an end to bad medicine and the peppermints that come after it.”
“Hooray!” whooped Henry.
Jimsi, however, was doubtful. She didn’t care to lose freedom that she had been having. Yet she liked school. “I’ll be glad the medicine’s gone, but I’ll want Aunt Phoebe and her crow play ever so much,” she declared. “I’m having such a good time here—and there is Joyce.”
“Well,” smiled Mother, “don’t borrow trouble. Today there is a whole long afternoon to play with Henry and Joyce and Katherine. And you have none of you read your crow letters yet.”
“I was keeping mine for the desert,” joked Jimsi. “Henry, you found your letter first, so you read yours first.”
Henry was deep in a slice of bread and butter, but he put it down and took up the sheet he had laid down when they had begun discussing Jimsi’s going-home. He read:
“Dear Bad Boy:
You deserved to be punished for having laughed at me to-day but I know it was just fun so I’ll forgive you and, just because you were so naughty, I will give you something useful to do. I won’t tell you about any new play this time. You don’t deserve it!
I’m going to tell you something you can do for Aunt Phoebe: she has some books that she wants to have covered very neatly in paper. I should advise you to cover some of your school-books the same way when you go back to school. It saves the books and keeps the covers fresh. (I know you like to keep yours and sell them when you go into the next class.)
This is what you do: you take the book you wish to cover and lay it flat with cover open upon a sheet of thin wall paper taken from the Magic Book.
Next, you fold the paper to one side cover, making it all flat and very neatly turning the edges of the paper over one cover. Cut the paper at each corner of the book to help fold more easily. Fold in under the back of your book the extra strip that is not needed at the back of the cover.
If you have fancy labels that may be glued on, paste them on the front cover and write the name of the book as well as your own name on them.
Your funny Crow.
P. S.
You’ll find five books of Aunt Phoebe’s that need new fresh covers. They are in The Happy Shop on the shelf beside the crow mail-box.
C. C.”
“What a good idea,” declared Mother. “I think I’ll have some books to cover when I get home, too, Henry.”
“But what are we going to do, Aunt Phoebe, my Magic Book is getting so thin? There aren’t many more pages in it—only about twenty. I counted. How’m I going to get another—and Henry wants one, too.”
“Oh, everybody who wants a Magic Book can very easily have one,” declared Aunt Phoebe. “Just go to some store where they do paper-hanging and ask if you can have an old sample book of last year’s styles in wall paper. The styles change almost every year. Every year the men have new books of styles. Their shop is full of them. These old ones are useless when the new ones come in and the paperhangers are glad to get rid of the old paper books. Most always, these are thrown away. Even if you lived away off in the country, there would be some town near-by where you could get a sample-book of wall paper, if you were to ask. And if any child wants one, there are more than enough pretty Magic Books in the world to go around—more than one apiece.”
“Well, I’m going to try to get one on my way home from school Monday,” said Henry. “I pass by a paperhanger’s shop. I’ve seen the books in his window, but I never knew they could be used for play before crow told Jimsi of The Happy Shop.”
“I’ll get one there when I come home, too,” Jimsi laughed.
“Me, too!” cooed Katherine, though she only understood dimly what it was they were talking about. She had been begging Mother to read her letter aloud.
“Well, you read Katherine’s letter first, Mother dear,” urged Jimsi. “I’ll wait because Katherine is so little she gets impatient. What does Katherine’s letter say?”
Then, Mother read:
“Dear Baby:
You can do something quite as well as the big boys and girls. You can make book-markers! You can cut strips of pretty paper and fold them together to look like ribbons. Paste pretty pictures on them and snip the ends in two points. I’m sure Mother would like a book-marker and Henry and Jimsi could use some for school-books.
You try to make them. I think Jimsi’ll help you.
Your loving friend,
Crow.
P. S.
There is a book-marker I made. It is with the books to be covered on the shelf of The Happy Shop and it is for you.”
Well, of course, Katherine wanted the book-marker and, of course, Henry, being the man of the family, ran to get it for Mother. It was indeed a pretty book-marker and quite easy enough for a baby like Katherine to cut. It looked like a ribbon. All one needed to do to make a book-marker like it was to cut a strip of paper and fold it and paste it together tight. Then a picture was pasted in the center on one side to ornament it and the ends of the paper were snipped evenly in points. Aunt Phoebe admired crow’s handiwork, and after it had been passed all around the table, and after it had come back to Katherine again, they asked Jimsi to read her crow letter.
“Dear Little Girl:
Hello:
I thought of something nice that you can do with your paper from the Magic Book. You can frame pictures. It is easy to frame pictures, if you use glue and have a sheet of glass to fit your picture. This is the way to do it.
Put the glass with your picture under it right on top of your Magic Book. Have the glass on the white side of the wall paper. Draw all around the edge of the flat glass with a pencil. This will show you the size to cut from your sheet of wall paper. You must add a half-inch or full inch to each side of this measurement before cutting out.
When this is done, fold the sides of the paper over your glass. Begin with the long sides. Glue these to the glass and then fold over the short ends of the paper the same way. Put some weight on top of the picture and let all dry carefully. See that all glue is used so sparingly that it does not muss the pretty paper.
After the paper is dried to the glass, paste on each corner some small flower or rosebud to finish and cover the corner folds. Paste a hanger at the back of the picture and you are through with your work. You can frame pictures for your own room this way and you can make dainty little gifts this way too. Save all the pretty pictures you find to use like this.
I won’t tell you any more today. I’m telling you a great deal because, you see, I want you and Henry and Katherine to enjoy the Magic Book as much as possible before train-time.
Your own
Caw Caw.”
That, too, was voted a good idea. Henry raced to the table in The Happy Shop to see what was there and he found a pretty picture framed just like that. Oh, it really was lovely, it was!
But the crow left no more letters for anybody that lunch time, even though Aunt Phoebe made believe that she thought she ought to have one. She even got up and looked under her chair and made everybody laugh by saying in such a disappointed way, “Oh, Caw Caw must have forgotten me!” But right then and there, Jimsi remembered that she had been trusted with a crow letter to Aunt Phoebe—the one from Joyce in the little basket. She had left it by mistake in her room when she hurried down to lunch after brushing her hair.
“Please, Aunt Phoebe,” she begged. “I know he didn’t forget you. May I go and look—”
Mother must have understood for she let Jimsi go to hunt. And then when she came flying back, how Mother did enjoy the joke. And Aunt Phoebe did like her basket and her letter.
As there was no more horrid nap-time now after lunch, the children ran over to spend the whole long afternoon with the little lame girl. Henry carried his books to be covered; Jimsi carried her picture to show; Katherine took the book-marker. It was a jolly party that filed home about five o’clock after all the fun. Henry had to give crow calls all the way home up the street to Aunt Phoebe’s house.
And then—Oh, dear! All too soon came train time. And Mother, Henry and Katherine were gone.
As Aunt Phoebe bent over Jimsi’s pillow that night, she whispered, “Feel under it, dearie.” And right under the pillow was—what do you think? You couldn’t guess. It was a candy kiss, and it said, “Good night, Crow.”