“You mean,” said Polly, “that the neck of the catch must be half an inch from the corner when the sides and ends are bent down.”

“That’s it, and make the neck half an inch wide and the catch about one inch long from end to end. Don’t forget the hole in the middle of the roof for the trolley pole,” Donald added. “Make it not quite half an inch in diameter. (Figure 3.) Then Donald drew slots for the catches in the oblong on top of his car, placing them to correspond with the catches on the top roof and making them a little more than half an inch long. He placed each side slot just half an inch from the ends of the oblong, and all inside the boundary line.

“Now I will draw in the windows, eight on each side,” he announced, spacing them off carefully with a rule. He made each window three-quarters of an inch wide and seven-eighths of an inch high, allowing one-quarter of an inch space between. Then on the front of each platform he drew an opening two inches wide and one and one-quarter inches high. On a line with the lower edge of the front of the bottom, in the middle of the projection, he drew a slot a little over one inch long (Figure 2), and on the roof extension at each end of the car he made a slot a little over two inches long, C and D, page 41. These slots are one and one-quarter inches from the end lines of the middle oblong on the roof.

“My car is ready to cut out now,” said Donald.

“So is my top roof,” said Polly. “Is the trolley pole all right?”

Polly had made the pole seven and one-half inches long and one-quarter of an inch wide, with a ring at one end five-eighths of an inch in diameter, and a ball as the other end one-half an inch in diameter. (Figure 4.)

Donald pronounced the pole “first rate.” “Put the ball through the hole, Polly,” he said. So when Polly had cut out the roof according to the heavy lines and bent down the sides and ends according to the dotted lines (Figure 3), she turned in one edge of the ball and pushed it through the round hole in the roof. When she flattened the ball out again it could not slip through the hole, but the pole could be moved in any direction.

Donald cut out his car according to the heavy lines and bent it according to the dotted lines. Both he and Polly remembered to score the dotted lines lightly with the edge of a pocket knife before bending them. The sides of the car Donald bent down; the doors he bent inward to meet under the projecting roof; the platform he turned out and the front of the platform up. Before fastening the catches and projections in their slots he fitted the top roof on the car, putting the catches marked X through the slots marked X. First he bent both ends of each catch inward, which made them narrow enough to slide through the slots, then he pushed the catches through the slots, settled the top roof firmly on the main roof and opened the catches on the inside of the car. When this was done he fastened the doors by putting the catch B through the slot B in the opposite half of one door, and the catch A through the slot A on the opposite half of the other door. The projections at the top of the fronts of the two platforms he pushed through their corresponding slots in the roof.

“Hello! we’ve forgotten the bolts for these projections,” Donald suddenly exclaimed.

“I’ll make them while you put on the wheels,” said Polly. Then she cut two bolts like Figure 5, making them one and one-half inches wide at the bottom and one inch wide at the top. When the bolts were slipped through the slots in the projections C and D they held the fronts of the platforms securely in place. The two spools that Polly had selected for wheels were like Figure 6, each about two inches high, and the slender, round sticks, pointed at each end, were four inches long. Donald slipped a spool on one of the sticks, then pushed one end of the stick through the middle of one of the axle guards from the inside, and the other end of the stick through the middle of the opposite axle guard.

“Here are the hubs,” said Polly, producing four small corks. Then Donald pushed a cork on each end of the stick. The corks kept the axle from slipping out of place. He adjusted the other spool in the same way, then threaded a large needle with a piece of linen thread several yards long and pushed the needle through the front of the platform below the opening at the place marked with a dot in Figure 2. A large knot on the inside of the front of the platform held the string in place and the needle was again threaded with a long thread to fasten on the other end of the car. (Figure 7.)

“Now for the trolley wire,” exclaimed Polly. “How shall we put that up?”

“This way,” said Donald, and he placed two chairs at opposite ends of the room, then he cut a piece of thread a little longer than the space between the chairs and tied one end to the top rung of one chair. The other end of the thread he passed through the ring in the top of the trolley pole and then tied it to the top rung of the other chair.

“There we are. Now, Polly, you sit down by the chair and take hold of one thread, and I will sit by this chair and hold the other thread. When you pull your thread the car will run all the way to your chair; when I pull my thread back it will come to me.”

The children kept the little car running back and forth for some time and were vastly entertained. When they wished, they had it make several stops to allow imaginary passengers to get off and on, and again it was an express car and went from one end of the line to the other without stopping. Finally Donald was called away to go an errand and Polly discovered that she could work the car entirely alone by running the loose ends of the threads over the lower rungs of the chairs, tying the two ends together and pulling the thread first one way, then the other. Figure 8 shows the trolley in working order with the threads tied together in the way Polly devised.

Making Toy Furniture Without Glue

By Adelia Belle Beard

“I am going to have a Kraft Shop, a Kraft Shop!” sang Polly, noisily pulling out the old and much-battered table in the children’s play room and then skipping excitedly around to hunt up scissors, knife, ruler and pencils, the tools she thought would be necessary. Donald watched proceedings over the top of his book. Things were beginning to look interesting. “What do you know about Kraft Shops?”

“Everything. Mother told me and, besides, I went through a real Kraft Shop last summer and saw all the people at work.”

“What were they making?”

“Why—er—I am not sure that I quite remember just what they were making, but I know they do make beau-ti-ful things, and all with their hands, too. They don’t use machinery at all. That’s what I’m going to do, and you, too, Donald. I don’t want to be a Krafter all by myself. Mother said it would be nice if you and I started a home Kraft Shop and made toys and all sorts of things.”

Donald’s book closed with a snap. “All right, I’m ready. What shall we try first?”

“Suppose we make toy furniture and call it—oh, I know, we will call it KraftShop furniture, and pretend that it’s real.”

“First rate; but I’ll have to get some wood.”

“No you won’t; we can make it of this cardboard; it will be easier to cut, anyway.”

“That is bristolboard, but it is better than cardboard, stronger and tougher, you know, and we can put the furniture together with pegs, just as if it were of wood.”

“Yes, yes!” said Polly, jumping up and down in her enthusiasm. “That’s it. I was sure you would know how. What will you make?”

“A table, I think—a library table.”

“Then I’ll make an armchair, and, Donald, it is going to have rockers, too.”

“How about bookshelves, Polly? They would make the library set complete.”

“Dear me! Of course we must have the shelves. Now let’s begin this very minute.”

“Well, get the furniture advertisements you saved—the pictures, you know. They will give us ideas, but we won’t have to copy them exactly.”

After many experiments and alterations, and with much fitting together of the various parts, Donald finished his table, Polly her chair, and together they worked out the bookshelves, using bolts for the shelves, instead of pegs, to hold them together. Here they are, Figures 1, 2, and 16.

“They are good and strong,” Donald said.

“And so pretty,” Polly added.

“And we didn’t use a bit of glue,” continued Donald, proudly.

“And I can put cushions in my chair if I like—real huffy, puffy cushions.”

“And little books on the shelves,” suggested Donald.

“Oh!” breathed Polly, estatically; “and, Donald, we can take them all apart and pack them in a flat box. Isn’t that fine?”

“It just is.”

Donald made the top of his table first. With careful measurements he drew on the smooth bristolboard an oblong eight and one-quarter inches long and six inches wide (Fig. 3), which he cut out with the large shears. Within that oblong he drew another five and three-quarter inches long and three and one-half inches wide. This left a border one and one-quarter inches wide all around the center oblong. At the sides and ends of the inner oblong he drew lines for slits, as shown in Figure 3. The inside edge of each slit is on the outline of the oblong, and the outside edge outside of the oblong. The end slits (AA) are two and one-eighth inches long and the side slits (BB BB) are seven-eighths of an inch long, and extend a little beyond the end lines of the inner oblong. He cut these slits with a sharp knife and made them about one-sixteenth of an inch wide, which is a little more than the thickness of the bristolboard. The two end supports of the table Donald made like Figure 4, which is cut from an oblong five inches wide and four inches high. The real end of the table, from dotted line to dotted line, is three and one-half inches wide, just the width of the inner oblong on the top of the table, under which it must fit. The parts to the right and left of these dotted lines are the table legs. The projection in the middle, at the top, is two inches long and three-eighths of an inch high. The projections at the ends just over the table legs are the same height. Slits are cut in these projections one-half an inch long, with the lower edge of each slit on a line with the top edge of the end pieces, as shown in Figure 4.