



Produced by Chris Curnow, Emmy and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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THE GOOD CROW’S HAPPY SHOP

[Illustration: THE GOOD CROW AND HIS MAIL BOX]




THE GOOD CROW’S HAPPY SHOP

    BY
    PATTEN BEARD
    _Author of “The Jolly Year,” “Marjorie’s Literary
    Dolls,” “The Jolly Book of Boxcraft,”
    “The Bluebird’s Garden,” etc._


    THIRTEEN PICTURES OF HAPPY THINGS
    THAT WERE MADE BY THE CHILDREN IN
    THE SHOP OF THE GOOD CROW CAW CAW,
    DRAWN AND ARRANGED BY THE AUTHOR
    WITH MARGINAL BY MR. ARTHUR HULL

[Illustration]

    THE PILGRIM PRESS
    BOSTON       CHICAGO




    COPYRIGHT 1917
    BY PATTEN BEARD


    THE PILGRIM PRESS
    BOSTON




    THIS BOOK OF THE HAPPY SHOP
    IS DEDICATED TO
    HENRY JARRETT AND CAW CAW,
    HIS GOOD PLAY
    CROW

[Illustration]




LONG time ago, the author of this book played the crow play as a little
girl, and when she grew up, she gave the crow play to Henry Jarrett.
Now, Henry Jarrett and Patten Beard give this play to many other
children. In doing this, they have had help from _The Delineator_,
_The Youth’s Companion_, _The Pictorial Review_, and _The Mother’s
Magazine_. These have used some of the plays in this book.




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                                  PAGE
       I THE GOOD CROW AND AUNT PHOEBE                          1
      II THE HAPPY SHOP AND THE MAGIC BOOK                     13
     III THE PAPER DOLLS JIMSI MADE                            27
      IV THE TOY FURNITURE                                     39
       V THE MOTION PICTURE FUN THAT THE CROW KNEW             51
      VI THE VALENTINES OF THE HAPPY SHOP                      69
     VII THE EMBROIDERY PATTERNS IN THE MAGIC BOOK             79
    VIII THE SCRAPBOOKS CROW TOLD ABOUT                        95
      IX THE PIN-WHEELS, BIRDS, BUTTERFLIES                   107
       X THE MAY BASKETS                                      121
      XI HOW THE MAGIC BOOK HELPED AT SCHOOL                  131
     XII THE GIFTS THAT THEY MADE IN THE HAPPY SHOP           141
    XIII THE CHRISTMAS-TREE THAT THEY MADE IN THE HAPPY SHOP  153




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


    THE GOOD CROW AND HIS MAIL BOX                      _Frontispiece_

                                                                 PAGE
    THE MAGIC BOOK OF THE GOOD CROW’S HAPPY SHOP WAS A BIG
        SAMPLE BOOK OF WALL PAPER                                  22

    THE PAPER DOLLS THAT WERE CUT FROM MAGAZINES AND WHOSE
        CLOTHES WERE MADE FROM WALL PAPER                          32

    PAPER CUTTING DIAGRAM I                                        43

    THE PAPER DOLL FURNITURE THAT WAS CUT FROM CARDBOARD AND
        UPHOLSTERED WITH WALL PAPER                                45

    THE MOTION PICTURES THAT WERE CUT FROM WALL PAPER              57

    THE VALENTINES AND CARDS THAT WERE MADE OUT OF WALL PAPER      71

    EMBROIDERY PATTERNS AND STENCIL DESIGNS THAT WERE FOUND
        IN WALL PAPER                                              84

    THE SCRAPBOOKS THAT THE CHILDREN MADE WITH WALL PAPER
        COVERS                                                    103

    PAPER CUTTING DIAGRAM II                                      113

    THE BIRD, THE BUTTERFLIES AND THE PIN-WHEELS THAT WERE
        MADE OUT OF WALL PAPER                                    117

    THE MAY BASKETS AND THE FLOWER-POT COVER THAT WERE MADE
        OF WALL PAPER                                             127

    HERE ARE SCHOOL BOOKS WITH PRETTY COVERS MADE TO KEEP
        THEM CLEAN                                                133

    SOME DESK FITTINGS THAT WERE MADE WITH WALL PAPER             147

    THE CHRISTMAS-TREE DECORATIONS THAT WERE MADE OF WALL
        PAPER                                                     161




THE GOOD CROW’S HAPPY SHOP




CHAPTER I

_The Good Crow and Aunt Phoebe_


ONCE a year, Aunt Phoebe came to visit in the city at Jimsi’s house.
Aunt Phoebe was Mother’s best friend. Jimsi and Henry and baby
Katherine had known her ever so long. They could not remember the time
when they did not know Aunt Phoebe. Probably the time dated back to the
age of rattles and squeaky rubber dolls when the children were so small
that they knew nothing at all about Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow, Caw Caw.

You see, Aunt Phoebe was a “play aunt.” She did not really belong to
the family as everyday aunts and uncles do. She began by _playing_ she
was an aunt and almost everything that she did was either make-believe
or play or something equally jolly. And Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow Caw
Caw was a play too. It was a happy make-believe that had grown up with
Jimsi and Henry and Katherine.

Just how the play about the Good Crow started, nobody was ever able to
tell. Even Aunt Phoebe herself could not say. But the make-believe was
that Aunt Phoebe knew of a wonderfully delightful bird who was big and
black and who liked nothing better than to do nice things for boys and
girls.

Jimsi and Henry and Katherine knew well that all this was a lovely
pretend. One might believe in it as one believed in fairies or fairy
tales that one knows are not at all true—and yet fun to imagine. The
Good Crow was a lovely pretend.

Everybody who knew Jimsi and Henry and Katherine, knew about Caw Caw.
He appeared most frequently when the great visit of the year fell due
and when the expressman had brought in Aunt Phoebe’s trunk and taken
the strap off. Then Aunt Phoebe would say, “Oh, Jimsi, Caw Caw sent you
a present. He sent one to Henry and Katherine too. I must get it out of
my trunk! Come! Let’s see what it is!”

Then Jimsi and Henry and Katherine would laugh and begin to play the
play of Caw Caw Crow that would last as long as Aunt Phoebe stayed at
their home—no, longer sometimes for the Good Crow often wrote little
letters to the children, just for fun.

The presents that came from Caw Caw in Aunt Phoebe’s trunk were not
very big presents; they were boxes of crayons or paints or things like
scissors and tools to make things. Sometimes there would be a game or a
ball or a very nice toy or transfer pictures. The things that Caw Caw
Crow sent the children were mostly things to do. One can always find a
use for scissors or paints or crayons and things to do, you know.

Maybe, when the children were little, he had begun with giving them
boxes of blocks. Now that Jimsi was eleven and Henry nine and Katherine
four, Aunt Phoebe’s crow sent them _interesting_ things—not blocks or
rubber dolls. He gave them each a plasticine outfit once. Another time
he sent them all painting-books. He gave them something to do with
their brains and their fingers. That is the best kind of play, don’t
you think so?

Well, all the time Aunt Phoebe was at the house in the city, her crow
did jolly things for the children. He never really appeared. Jimsi
and Henry and Katherine never saw him. He was a lovely pretend like
Santa Claus. Aunt Phoebe, who knew more than anybody else did about
Caw Caw, declared that he spent most of his time in the Santa Claus
Land and that he flew only now and then to the home of Jimsi and Henry
and Katherine when Aunt Phoebe was visiting there. He sometimes came
at night when the children were sound asleep—exactly as Santa Claus
comes. He flew in at the window and very, very often he left wee little
letters under the children’s pillows. Maybe he left only a lollipop
or a stick of peppermint candy. One never knew when one went to bed
promptly and cheerfully _what_ would be under one’s pillow! That was
the fun of the play! There was mystery about it. It made fairyland a
real everyday-come-true fun!

Some days, if Jimsi or Henry or Katherine had been naughty, there would
be a little crow letter that would say:

    “DEAR LITTLE FRIEND:

    I was flying by the window when you were so horrid and
    spunky. I don’t like the children who are horrid and
    spunky. I hope you’ll be different to-morrow.

                                               Good-bye,
                                                   _Crow._”

After this kind of letter one felt more than ever ashamed.

Maybe the Good Crow would put a different sort of letter under the
pillow:

    “DEAR LITTLE FRIEND:

    It made me glad to see what you did to-day. I like
    children who eat what is set before them at the table.
    I send you a lollipop as a reward of merit. Happy
    dreams.

                                               Good-bye,
                                                   _Crow._”

One might come home from school and find that Aunt Phoebe’s crow had
flown in at Aunt Phoebe’s window during school hours to leave tickets
to go to a special children’s performance of _Alice in Wonderland_ to
be on Saturday afternoon. Oh, the crow was always doing things that
were happy. And, you know, Aunt Phoebe kept him fully informed as to
what the children liked best. _She knew._

Mother and Daddy and Aunt Phoebe all liked the crow. Indeed, strange to
relate, sometimes when Aunt Phoebe was visiting and Mother happened to
say that she had admired a certain kind of pretty plant that she had
seen in a window down-town, the crow brought the plant and set it in
the middle of the dining-room table next day! He left a card with it,
of course. The card said, “With love from the children’s Crow.” (Of
course, a real crow couldn’t have carried the things that Caw Caw did.
Being a play crow and just pretend, he could bring almost anything.)

Oh, I tell you it was jolly! Everybody in the house crowed with
laughter over Aunt Phoebe’s Caw Caw. He made jokes; he sent funny
pictures cut from magazines; he wrote rhymes and verses that made
Mother and Daddy and Jimsi and Henry and Katherine—and even Aunt Phoebe
herself—just double up and laugh. One day he left each of the children
a big black feather. The feathers were done up in reams and reams of
tissue paper. You’d have thought there were BIG presents in the parcels
that were waiting on the hall table till Jimsi and Henry came home
from school! And then after unrolling and unrolling and unrolling and
_unrolling_ out dropped the black feathers. They looked as if somebody
had found them in the feather duster but they were labeled, “From Caw
Caw’s wing, with love. Keep to remember me.”

Oh, Aunt Phoebe’s visits were such good fun and Caw Caw Crow was so
jolly! It was always hard to say good-bye after the two weeks or the
month had passed. Henry kept all his crow-treasures—except the eatable
ones and those like _Alice in Wonderland_ entertainment tickets. He put
them in a drawer with his letters. Jimsi kept hers in a box. As for
Katherine, she was still interested in blocks and squeaky dolls made of
rubber. Mother kept Katherine’s crow letters till Katherine should grow
up to enjoy them all over again some day.

Well, when Aunt Phoebe had gone, the Good Crow play usually stopped
unless Mother kept it up or Jimsi or Henry or maybe Daddy tried it. But
the crow was never as entertaining as when Aunt Phoebe was around.

Once upon a time, Jimsi got sick. She was really frightfully sick—sick
for a long, long time. She had the doctor and then she began to get
well slowly. At this time, almost every day in the mail would come a
letter from Aunt Phoebe’s Crow telling Jimsi something nice to play in
bed. Some days a postal card would come. Some days a pretty book. Some
days a bit of doll-sewing. But the very nicest thing of all came when
Jimsi was well enough to go out-doors again and _not_ well enough to
go back to school. It was a crow letter and it came with a postmark of
the town where Aunt Phoebe lived on it. This is what the letter said.
(It was written on very wee blue notepaper and written in the tiny
handwriting that Aunt Phoebe’s Good Crow usually liked.)

    “DEAREST JIMSI:

    Do you think that your precious Mother would let you
    come to spend some time in the country with your Aunt
    Phoebe? She’d be very careful to see that you wore
    rubbers and didn’t take cold. She’ll see you take your
    bad medicine and have a peppermint afterwards to take
    the taste away.

    I hope you can come because Aunt Phoebe wants to see
    you, and I want you to play in my Happy Shop.

                                              Good-bye,
                                                 _Caw Caw Crow._”

Oh, oh, oh! Hooray!

“Mumsey, I may go, mayn’t I?” pleaded Jimsi. “Oh, I never _was_ at Aunt
Phoebe’s! I’ll be good; I’ll go to bed early and I’ll try not to read
too much; I’ll take my horrid medicine and I’ll never, never forget to
wear overshoes!”

“I want to go too,” urged Henry. “I want to go too!”

“Me too!” echoed baby Katherine. “Me too!”

“Hush!” cried Mother. “I’ll have to ask Daddy, Jimsi dear. We’ll see
what the doctor thinks of it. Maybe Aunt Phoebe’s house is the best
place a little girl could grow well and strong in. Maybe you can go—but
I can’t promise; we’ll see.”

All day long Jimsi went about the house wondering whether she was going
to be allowed to go to Aunt Phoebe’s. She and Henry talked about it.
“What do you suppose the crow’s Happy Shop is?” they asked each other.

“It’s something ever so nice if it’s the crow,” declared Jimsi. “Maybe
it’s a store where the crow buys things.”

“It might be the place where he makes things,” Henry suggested. “Shops
are sometimes places where things are made.”

All day long they talked about it. After the doctor had come and gone
and when Daddy reached home after business, when the tea table things
were cleared away and Jimsi and Henry and Mother and Daddy sat about
the lamp in the living-room, they talked about the good crow and the
Happy Shop some more. It was decided that day after to-morrow, Jimsi
should really go to visit Aunt Phoebe and find out what a Happy Shop
was!

Oh, oh, oh! Hooray! Three cheers for Aunt Phoebe and the Good Crow!
Hip-hip-hoorah! Hip-hip-hoorah! _Hip-hip-hoorah!_

That night Jimsi was very happy. She fell asleep to dream of a big
black crow who was sitting in a queer little store inside an odd house
that was like the White Rabbit’s home in _Alice in Wonderland_. Of
course Jimsi had never seen the crow face to face before but the dream
seemed delightfully real and funny. She told Daddy and Mother about
it in the morning, and Henry declared that dreams were never true
and that, of course, Jimsi wouldn’t _see_ the crow at Aunt Phoebe’s
because the crow was all make-believe and there _wasn’t any_. “We
just pretend there is a crow,” he said. “It’s a kind of game. The
Happy Shop is prob-ab-ly—(the word is quite a long one for nine years
old)—prob-ab-ly another nice new play of Aunt Phoebe’s. There won’t be
any real crow there, Jimsi!”

“Oh, I know,” smiled Jimsi. “But it will be a splendid fun of some
kind. I can’t wait to find out what it is. When I find out, I’ll write
home all about it.”

Really everybody was as interested to know what The Happy Shop really
was as Jimsi. Poor Henry had to go off to school. Daddy went to his
office downtown. Only Mother and Jimsi were left to speculate upon the
subject that day. It was a busy day too for Jimsi had to get ready to
go to Aunt Phoebe’s for weeks and weeks while she grew strong in the
country. There had to be warm things in her trunk. Some of them had to
be mended. It took time. But at last the trunk was packed. (Mother and
Henry and Katherine wrote crow letters for Aunt Phoebe and tucked these
away inside. Jimsi volunteered to see that they reached Aunt Phoebe’s
pillow—somehow.)

And then _the_ day came! Daddy took Jimsi’s bag. There was a big
hugging for Mother and Katherine and Henry who couldn’t go to the train
because he _had_ to go to school—and then Jimsi and Daddy walked down
the street to take the car for the railway station. At the corner
Jimsi turned for the forty-eleventh time: “Maybe you can come up for
vacation, Henry,” she called back. “I’ll write you all about The Happy
Shop.” Just at that moment the car came and they hopped aboard. Before
she knew what was happening, Daddy and she were on the train and the
train was leaving the city. Slowly the train came out of the dark
tunnel that marked its departure from town. Out into open spaces of
wide skies and fields it curved along the tracks. And as Jimsi gazed
through the car window happily, watching the landscape bright in the
sunlight, there flew from a thicket a single big black crow! “Caw-caw,”
called the crow. “Caw-caw.” And Jimsi pulled Daddy’s arm—his head was
deep in a newspaper—“Oh, look, look!” she cried. “Daddy, there’s the
Good Crow!” Wasn’t it fun! Oh, wasn’t it fun! That big black crow had
said caw-caw and he was flying in the same direction as Jimsi’s train!
Already Aunt Phoebe’s play crow seemed more real than ever. And every
moment the train was bringing Jimsi nearer and nearer to Aunt Phoebe
and The Happy Shop.




CHAPTER II

_The Happy Shop and the Magic Book_


THE first thing Jimsi said, when the train stopped at a little station
where Aunt Phoebe was waiting to greet them on the platform, was, “Oh,
Aunt Phoebe, I saw the Crow. He followed the train. I’m sure it must
have been your crow because I heard him say caw-caw!”

Aunt Phoebe smiled. “Wasn’t that funny,” she laughed. “Wait, Jimsi,
you’ll really see my crow soon. He’s in The Happy Shop now. But don’t
expect too much, dear. You mustn’t be disappointed!”

They walked through the little country town together. Aunt Phoebe’s
house, so she said, wasn’t far from the station. Everything seemed so
quiet and there were so few people! Jimsi had only been in the country
summers. Now that it was winter-time and the ground was bare and brown,
the country didn’t seem like the same sort of a place. Jimsi began to
wonder what she would find to do all day long. True, Aunt Phoebe could
always invent splendid things—and there was going to be a fine new play
called The Happy Shop! Yes, there was The Happy Shop! “What _is_ The
Happy Shop?” she asked, looking up to Aunt Phoebe as she trotted along
between Daddy and her. “I want to know all about The Happy Shop!”

“Oh, you’ll have to wait for that, Jimsi,” returned Aunt Phoebe. “Here
we are”—and they turned in at a quaint green gate that led to a small
bare garden that was shrouded in boughs of evergreen. The house was
small like the garden. Aunt Phoebe lived here alone, though one never,
never could imagine an aunt like Aunt Phoebe as being the least bit
lonely. Why, she never could be lonely—there was too much for her to
think about and do, don’t you know. It’s only the persons who sit still
and think how miserable they are who are lonely!

Jimsi followed her into the hall. It was old-fashioned and quaint like
the garden. Upstairs there was a wee little room that looked out into
the boughs of the evergreens. It was papered in soft blue-green and
it had a most inviting soft bed with a blue cover. Aunt Phoebe took
Jimsi’s cloak and hat and hung them in the closet. She put back the
covers of the bed and made her lie down and rest. “You came here to
grow well and strong,” she said. “We must do what Mother wants you to
do. By and by I’ll call you and you can come down.” She covered Jimsi
up with something downy. Then she kissed her. “Deary,” she smiled.
“Look under the pillow—” and then she closed the door softly and left
Jimsi lying there feeling under the pillow for—for—why a crow letter,
of course!

Jimsi giggled softly to herself as she felt it under the pillow and
drew it out.

    “DEAREST JIMSI:

    Try to take a good nap like a good little girl. I am
    glad you are here and I hope you will do all you can
    to grow well and strong. To-morrow, maybe, Aunt Phoebe
    will show you The Happy Shop. I think you’ll like it.
    With love from your

                                           _Good Crow._”

It was such a darling little tiny letter! It had a wee stamp in one
corner. The stamp was drawn with red ink. Oh, it was darling of
thoughtful Aunt Phoebe to do that! Wasn’t it exactly like her too!
Jimsi smiled as she folded the tiny sheet and put it back in the
envelope. Then, obediently, she curled down into the downy bed and shut
her eyes tight, resolving to do all she could to help Aunt Phoebe keep
the promise to Mother.

When she woke, it was growing dusk. Aunt Phoebe was at the door of the
little blue room calling, “Up, Jimsi! What a fine nap you’ve had. It’s
almost tea-time!” She lit a candle and helped Jimsi unpack her trunk
a bit and dress. Then, hand in hand they went down to the hall where
Daddy was consulting his watch. “I must be off,” he declared.

Well, for a few moments after he had gone, Jimsi thought she was going
to cry—but she didn’t! Oh, no! Of course she didn’t! She knew that she
was going to miss Daddy fearfully and Mother and Henry and Katherine
too but Jimsi was a plucky girl. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Can’t I help you get tea on the table, Aunt Phoebe?” she asked.
(Mother told Jimsi once that the way to be happy was to forget oneself.
“Think! See if you can’t help somebody, dear, when you feel like that.
Try it and see!”)

So Jimsi tried to help. She set the table with the pretty blue plates.
She found where knives and forks were in the sideboard. She searched
out the tumblers and by and by all was done.

“Shall we ask the crow in to tea?” demanded Aunt Phoebe, coming in from
the kitchen with a dish steaming and good to sniff.

“Can we!” exclaimed Jimsi.

Aunt Phoebe smiled. “We might play it,” she suggested. “Lay another
plate, just for fun. I’ll get the crow!”

Jimsi was mystified. Oh, dear! How jolly! How splendidly jolly! What
was Aunt Phoebe up to now?

And then while she was still wondering and laughing softly, into the
room stepped Aunt Phoebe and she had—she had a big black crow in her
hand! He was a stuffed crow and very black and splendid. He was perched
on a twig that was on a standard. Quite solemnly but with her eyes
merry with a twinkle, Aunt Phoebe set the crow down in the chair that
was to be his and introduced him.

“This is Jimsi, my play-niece,” said she, “Jimsi, this is my play-crow,
Caw Caw.”

“I’m very happy to know you, Caw Caw,” said Jimsi, entering with
spirit into the play. “You’ve always been a friend of mine but I never
expected to see you really and truly. I thought you were just pretend,
you know—something like Cinderella’s lovely fairy godmother. And yet I
always liked to play you were true. I’m glad now that I can play you’re
true!”

The crow said nothing, of course. But Aunt Phoebe explained that he
didn’t talk much, so the two of them ate supper and talked together,
making conversation for the crow the way one plays dolls.

“Will you tell me about The Happy Shop, Mr. Crow?” inquired Jimsi
politely of the funny stuffed crow. She could hardly keep her face
straight but she hid a smile in her table napkin.

“I’ll have to talk for him,” Aunt Phoebe declared. “Yes, I’ll tell you
about The Happy Shop. We’ll go there first thing in the morning. I
think you’ll like it. There are ever so many nice things in it but the
very _nicest_ is the Magic Book, I think.”

“The Magic Book?” echoed Jimsi. “_What’s _the Magic Book?”

“I’ll show it to you after the Crow goes to roost,” answered Aunt
Phoebe. “You mustn’t call him _Mr._ Crow! He doesn’t like it. His name
is Caw Caw.”

Perhaps the Crow would have liked corn to eat. I’m afraid Aunt Phoebe’s
crow, being just a stuffed play-crow, wouldn’t have eaten corn, though,
if he _had_ had it—no, not any more than a doll will eat cake at a
party. You have to pretend that the doll eats. So Aunt Phoebe pretended
most beautifully to pour out cocoa for the crow—a second cup, mind you!
She gave him second helpings of nearly everything and Jimsi followed
suit. Indeed, her appetite seemed really pretty good for a little girl
who is getting well after a long sickness.

When tea was over, Aunt Phoebe said that they would go to see The Happy
Shop, even though it was dark there now. She lit a dainty pink candle
and with the Good Crow Caw Caw, they went into the hall.

Just off the hall at the side of the house was Aunt Phoebe’s study.
She did ever so many wonderful things there. She wrote books. Maybe
that was how Aunt Phoebe came to think up so many jolly things to
play. She was almost always making up a story or writing an article
for a magazine or _something_. She knew all manner of things and when
she didn’t know about them, there were books in the study that could
tell—great big books all full of print, books that Aunt Phoebe did not
write but books like those in the school library at home. Aunt Phoebe
explained all about the books and showed Jimsi her desk and the big
typewriter as they passed through into The Happy Shop that opened with
glass doors into the study. It was—Oh, it was a little glass room. In
the light of the candle, Jimsi could see blooming plants on shelves.
There was also a couch and a big table and a chair. On the table, lay
a big flat book—ever so big. It was a queer book. In the dark, Jimsi
couldn’t see exactly what it was. Aunt Phoebe picked it up and said,
“This is the Magic Book, Jimsi! You can’t see what it is like here but
we’ll look it over in my study where there is a lamp. Now, we’ll leave
Caw Caw here. It’s where he stays at night. In the morning when the
plants are watered, I think he must fly off to the Santa Claus land
but you’ll find his mail-box here and you can always look for letters
in it.” She picked up a small white box that was very like a tiny
mail-box. On it was written MAIL. (It looked as if Aunt Phoebe’s own
fingers—that were very clever fingers indeed—might have made the toy
mail-box for the Good Crow.)

Oh, it was lovely—lovely! Jimsi squealed delightedly. The Happy Shop
was splendid—of course, she didn’t understand all that it meant yet,
but she knew it was going to be splendid, _splendid_!

Jimsi put the little mail-box back on the shelf beside the crow. She
peered about in the candle-light to see more of The Happy Shop, but it
was really too dark to see what else was there and she knew she would
have to wait till morning. She followed Aunt Phoebe into the study to
look at the Magic Book.

“I suppose,” said Aunt Phoebe, sitting down to her big study table and
drawing Jimsi up on her lap quite as if she enjoyed having little girls
muss up her pretty blue dress, “maybe you won’t think that this book
_is_ magic but I assure you that it IS! In it are ever so many, many,
many different kinds of splendid things,—things to make, Jimsi.”

Jimsi looked at the big book spread out on the study table. On its
cover was written the name of a wall paper firm. As she turned the
leaves, there were papers of all kinds in it, blue and pink and yellow
and green and red and brown and violet and white and even purple.
There were sheets of striped papers as well as plain papers. There were
dotted papers, crossed papers, papers with big designs and papers with
small designs. Some had flowers and some had none. Some were thin and
some were heavy. Some had splendid dashing sprays of floral coloring.
Others were inconspicuous and unassuming. There were all sorts of
combinations of color and pattern. Yes, there were even figures in
some of the borders and there was paper meant for nursery walls.
It had dogs and cats and little ducks in it. There was more of the
nursery wall paper, they found. Why, there were fairies in one pattern!
Jimsi was delighted! “They are beautiful! Look at _this_!” she kept
exclaiming.

[Illustration: THE MAGIC BOOK OF THE GOOD CROW’S HAPPY SHOP WAS A BIG
SAMPLE BOOK OF WALL PAPER]

“All hidden in this book, Jimsi, are ever so many things. That’s why
I called it the Magic Book. You can’t see half that is here. I don’t
begin to know how many things are in these papers. We’ll have to ask
Caw Caw to help us. You see, he knows much and he can tell you in his
play letters, maybe. We call your sunny little room there The Happy
Shop because you are going to learn how to make some of the things that
are to be found in the Magic Book every day. In The Happy Shop is a
work-table and some paste and a pair of scissors. To-morrow, the Good
Crow will leave a letter in the mail-box, I think, and tell you what
you can do to make your own fun all by yourself for play. What do you
like best to play at home, Jimsi?”

“Dolls,” promptly sang out Jimsi. “I love to play dolls. But it isn’t
much fun to play dolls all alone and I left mine at home. I was afraid
that my best doll would get hurt in packing and I didn’t want to break
her—beside that, I thought you’d probably have The Happy Shop play to
keep me busy.”

“Yes, you’re right, Jimsi! And it will keep you busy too!” smiled Aunt
Phoebe. “Do you know, it was just luck that made me run across the
Magic Book. You see I had the little room where you are repapered in
blue. I’m so glad I did! And the paper hanger brought this sample book
with him when he came. When I saw it and after I chose the blue paper
in your room, I asked if I could buy it. He shook his head. ‘It’s just
a sample book,’ he said, ‘We have ever so many of them. The dealers
give them to us and we throw them away after we have no more use for
them. The patterns are new every year and the fresh sample books come
in in January. This happens to be a book of last year and if you want
it, you are more than welcome to it, if it is of any use to you.’”

“Why, think of it!” Jimsi beamed, squeezing Aunt Phoebe’s hand. “Did
you tell him?”

“Oh, I told him that I’d like to have the book very much and that
I thought there were ever so many children who would like his old
sample books of wall paper,” returned Aunt Phoebe. “He just gives them
away. Paper-hangers, it seems, always throw them out or sell them to
the junkmen and they never give them to children because, Jimsi dear,
the children don’t know anything at all about them. Nobody but the
Good Crow and I know about Magic that is in old sample books of wall
paper! But, Jimsi, it’s time for bed and you know we both made Mother a
promise. Kiss me good-night, dear. Here’s the candle. I’ll come up for
a hug later as Mother does.”

And then Jimsi went up to the little blue room with her candle. She
turned down the covers and slipped her hand under the pillow but the
crow had not put any other letter there. Not again _that_ day!




CHAPTER III

_The Paper Dolls Jimsi Made_


THE sun woke Jimsi in the morning. It was peeping into the little blue
room from between the evergreen trees outside. For a moment, Jimsi
wondered where she was and then she remembered, of course! She hopped
into her red woolly wrapper and slipped on the slippers that had Peter
Rabbit’s picture on their toes. The door was open into Aunt Phoebe’s
room and in she ran to say good-morning. “I just can’t wait to see The
Happy Shop, Auntie,” she chirped. “Please, might I go and look at it
right away now!

“Well—yes,” Aunt Phoebe deliberated, “only come right back after you’ve
peeked into the mail-box. I dare say the crow has left something there.”

So off sped Jimsi in the little red shoes that had Peter Rabbit’s
picture on them, through the study where pages of white paper on the
big desk showed that Aunt Phoebe had worked writing a story late
last night. Jimsi opened the glass door that led into The Happy Shop.
It opened with a wee brass doorknob and the doors swung open into
the study. Beyond there was a kind of enclosed porch—only it was not
a porch. It was more like a conservatory or a room with glass sides
and top. There were blue curtains that could be drawn to keep out the
sunlight and windows that opened wide to let in the fresh air. Plants
bloomed all about on shelves. Right beside the shelf where Aunt Phoebe
had put the crow last night there was a beautiful green vine that had
blue-petaled buds and star-shaped flowers. Could anybody imagine a more
lovely place in which to play than this Happy Shop!

Jimsi sighed happily. It was all so perfect! How she wished Mother
could see it! Wouldn’t Henry and Katherine like to play there! Then
Jimsi remembered that she had promised not to stay long and she reached
for the Crow Mail-Box. Surely! there was a tiny envelope in the box!
What fun!

Upstairs, seated on the bed in the little blue room with Aunt Phoebe
hovering about to watch her read it, Jimsi chuckled over the Good Crow
Caw Caw’s letter.

    “DEAR JIMSI:

    To-day I’ve gone off to a crow convention, so I leave
    this letter to tell you something you will find
    in the Magic Book to-day. You’ll find paper doll
    dresses! You’ll have to hunt for them, but you’ll find
    them—whole wardrobes of them: blue, pink, green, red,
    yellow, flowered, striped. Look for them.

    In the drawer of the big table there are pencils and
    some sheets of cardboard.

    My friend Jim Crow is calling, so I must close this
    letter now.

    I send you a crow kiss—a peck of love.

                                          _Caw Caw._

    P.S.

    You’ll find paper dolls enough for days and days of
    play, if you look in the big fashion papers that are in
    the magazine rack beside the couch in The Happy Shop.
    Cut the stylish ladies out. Mount them on the cardboard
    with your paste. I must fly!

                                                  _Crow._”

Jimsi could hardly wait to finish breakfast and then, afterwards, she
and Aunt Phoebe took a brisk walk to market and back. All of it delayed
the crow play but all the time Jimsi was talking about it. “Oh, I
never knew there were such splendid papers to make paper doll clothes
anywhere, Aunt Phoebe! I didn’t think of it at all last night when you
showed me the Magic Book! It will be the most jolly kind of fun! Think
of the dresses that the flowered papers will make!”

“Yes,” smiled Aunt Phoebe, “and jackets and cloaks and hats and muffs
and scarfs and kimonos—oh, my! I can’t begin to name all the clothes
you can make.”

“Are there little girl dolls in the fashion magazines? There are,
aren’t there?”

Aunt Phoebe nodded.

“Then I’ll make little girl dresses for them—O-oo! _Party dresses!_”

“Maybe there are babies and little boys and men in the colored picture
pages of the fashion books too!”

“Oh, I’ll make a whole family! I think it will be simply _dandy_! Maybe
I can copy the styles in the magazine. That would be nice! Oh, Aunt
Phoebe, aren’t we about ready to go home?” But though Jimsi wanted
to get to The Happy Shop, she waited patiently while Aunt Phoebe did
errands. It was about half past ten before Jimsi was able to throw off
her coat and rush for The Happy Shop.

“I’m going to be very busy,” Aunt Phoebe warned. “You’ll hear the
typewriter click-click-click. The crow has put all kinds of little
things in the drawer of the table, I think. You won’t have to disturb
me, Jimsi. I’m ever so particular about not being spoken to when I’m
busy, Jimsi. But you’ll be busy yourself. When I finish, I want to see
all the splendid paper dolls you have made and you must show me every
one of their dresses and hats!”

With that, Aunt Phoebe pulled out her desk chair and became suddenly
absorbed in her morning’s work. Jimsi, in the sunny Happy Shop, slowly
turned to close the glass doors after her. The windows were open a bit
and, the softest of fresh breezes fluttered the leaves of the blue vine
that crept past the crow’s mail-box. The little girl could not decide
what to do _first!_ The Magic Book was so wonderfully interesting; the
patterns of paper so wonderfully pretty. Which should she choose for
the first paper doll dress? Jimsi decided on one that had pink sprigs
of daisies in it. Then, suddenly, she saw another that was covered with
yellow flowers. And, beside these, there were numbers and numbers more!
Jimsi turned the leaves of the Magic Book on and on. Each new pattern
seemed the prettiest one yet. And how many leaves there were in that
sample book! Why, the leaves were so very large and long that each
would make hundreds of dresses all alike, if one wished.

[Illustration: THE PAPER DOLLS THAT WERE CUT FROM MAGAZINES AND WHOSE
CLOTHES WERE MADE FROM WALL PAPER]

At last Jimsi decided to leave the Magic Book and make at least _one_
paper doll that could be dressed. She settled herself cosily on the
wicker couch with a pile of the fashion books beside her. Of course,
she found a pretty lady right away. The lady had dark hair done up in a
very modern and stylish way. Jimsi cut her out.

But the paper doll had a dress on! Oh dear! _How_ can you put another
dress on a doll that already has a costume on her? Jimsi thought: she
decided to take the lady’s outline as a guide and make a new body using
the head as it was printed. So she placed the paper doll on the sheet
of cardboard and traced around her to get the outline. Then she pasted
the head on the cardboard and drew stockings and slippers. She colored
the arms on the cardboard flesh-tint and the stockings and slippers
black. Then she cut out the cardboard outline that had the paper head
and there, if you please, was a real paper doll, as splendid as any you
ever saw anywhere!

Of course _one_ paper doll is lonely by herself and Jimsi had to make
the lady doll a sister. This time, she chose a fashion print that had
light hair. But she made the paper doll as she had made the other. It
was terribly exciting now! Jimsi had to make up her mind _what_ kind of
a dress to make for the first paper doll. She named her Mrs. Sweet. The
sister was Miss Pretty.

At last, Jimsi thought Mrs. Sweet ought to have the dress with pink
flowers and Miss Pretty the one with yellow buds. She placed the
doll—Mrs. Sweet—on the sheet of wall paper and outlined all around
her with a pencil, making the skirt of the frock just a stylish ankle
length. At the top where the shoulders were, Jimsi drew tabs to bend
and hold the dress on the doll. Then she cut the dress out, making it
have a _V_ neck. The pink flowers were in a long stripe right down
the front of the dress. They looked like a dainty trimming. But the
dress still needed to be finished, so Jimsi found the box of crayons
that thoughtful crow had left on the table and she made jiggles to
represent lace, straight parallel lines to represent tucks, little dots
to represent smocking. Black dots that were larger were buttons, of
course. One could make almost any sort of trimming in this simple way.
The black crayon could be _very black_ indeed. One could make black
velvet trimming? Oh, it was splendid fun! Jimsi was so occupied that
she never even heard Aunt Phoebe open the glass doors of The Happy
Shop and it was not till Aunt Phoebe stood right beside her that she
was aware. Aunt Phoebe laughed. “Well, Jimsi, you found _some_ of the
magic, didn’t you? It’s exactly ten minutes past twelve. Did you know
it was so late?”

Jimsi held up the beautiful Mrs. Sweet in one hand and the handsome
Miss Pretty in the other. “Oh, I’ve just begun,” she protested. “I
haven’t done anything but start. See!——”

“Well, I’ve finished,” declared Aunt Phoebe. “I’ll help. Suppose I make
some hats!”

So Aunt Phoebe made the hats. She made them by cutting big and little
ovals out of the wall paper. Cutting a strip horizontally across the
center, one could slip the doll’s head up through this and put the hat
right on. Aunt Phoebe trimmed the hats she made with wall paper flowers
or bows cut from paper or by drawing on them with crayon. There were
big and little hats—some plain walking hats and others evidently meant
for dressy occasions.

While Aunt Phoebe was helping with the hats, Jimsi cut a cloak for Miss
Pretty. It must have been an opera cloak for it was loose and flowing
and made of something quite silky. (For the wall paper had a satin
stripe in it, you know.) It was an exceptional success. Jimsi surveyed
it happily. It was splendid. Such a cloak ought to cost at least—but
how much do cloaks cost? It must be nice to be a paper doll and be able
to dress so well in “just paper”!

Oh, yes, Jimsi made Mrs. Sweet a tailor suit all of plain brown wall
paper and both of the dolls had separate skirts for shirt waists,
kimonos, dressing-jackets and muffs. (The muffs were made of dark wall
paper and were fat ovals with slits cut at either end so the doll’s
hand could be slipped in.)

Aunt Phoebe and Jimsi were so very, very busy that they were both ever
so surprised when suddenly the little white-aproned maid who worked by
the day for Aunt Phoebe appeared at the door of The Happy Shop. “Lunch
is served,” said she. And there was nothing but to leave the play and
run as fast as possible to wash the paste off hands and give one’s hair
a smart pat with a hurried hair-brush.

At lunch Jimsi announced that she was going to make little girl dolls
next. She thought she would have three little girl dolls in her family:
a baby, a middling-sized girl of ten or eleven, and an older girl of
High School age. “I’m going to have _one_ boy,” she said. “Boys won’t
be so much fun because their clothes are so plain. But I’ll make a
waterproof coat for this one, an overcoat, and one or two plain suits.
The papa doll can have the same kind.”

But Aunt Phoebe decided that Jimsi must run out-doors in the garden
after lunch and then come in and take a nap. After that, of course, she
could do anything she wished in The Happy Shop. Aunt Phoebe thought it
might be pleasant to write Mother a letter. So the afternoon passed
with the out-doors and the nap and the letter. Jimsi found the little
girl dolls in the fashion papers and had them all ready to cut and
paste next day, but by that time had flown by so fast that the evening
had come and with it there were new interests to draw her away from
paper dolls. There was the crow who came back mysteriously and whom
Jimsi discovered sitting up high on one of Aunt Phoebe’s bookshelves;
there was the going for stamps to mail the letter home. It was quite
chilly and the stars in the night sky were bright like diamonds when
the two came back and opened the front door at Aunt Phoebe’s. Jimsi
hadn’t been lonely at all—why the whole day had passed and she had
been almost all the time alone. Only the time before lunch and just
before dinner at night, had Aunt Phoebe been with her; yet Jimsi had
been happy. The secret, Aunt Phoebe said, was that she had been busy
with happy play and work. “That, as everybody knows, is the one way to
keep glad—but there’s another, Jimsi. Maybe the crow’ll tell you what
that is some day.”




IV

_The Toy Furniture_


The next day Jimsi dashed down to the Good Crow’s letter-box hoping for
a letter. But there was none. Aunt Phoebe said that _she_ thought the
crow meant that there was no need for him to write till Jimsi needed a
new kind of magic play. It was a bit disappointing not to find a letter
in the mail-box, but Jimsi consoled herself. Aunt Phoebe was going to
let her water the plants every morning. There was a cunning little
watering-pot painted red. It stood in a corner of The Happy Shop. It
was really fun to water the thirsty plants and watch to see that dead
leaves were kept from them. After having done this little duty to help,
Jimsi went to market again with Aunt Phoebe and then, afterwards, she
was again in The Happy Shop to play at cutting doll dresses. Oh, she
made the little girl dolls this time. They were made in the same way as
the lady dolls. And she also made the gentleman doll and the little
boy. By that time it was lunch again. Oh, dear! There had been not a
second yet to dress the boy doll!

And then came the out-door and the—yes, the _horrid_ old nap! (Don’t
you hate to take naps! I hope you don’t have to—but if you do, I _do_
hope you’re good about it and that you don’t pout and act disagreeable.
I do! The nap has to come, so you might much better be pleasant and
happy about it and have nothing to be ashamed of.)

Jimsi believed in doing what she was told to do and, beside, _that_ nap
had been one of the conditions that governed the visit to Aunt Phoebe’s
and The Happy Shop—and both Aunt Phoebe and Jimsi had _promised_.

When she woke up, Aunt Phoebe told her she could play in the shop till
dinner-time, if she chose. It was rather damp and chilly out-doors. So
Jimsi made the boy doll’s clothes and cut out the daddy of the family.
_That_ was a good afternoon’s work!

At bed-time, Jimsi was about to hop into the cosy white four-poster
when, somehow, her hand began to feel under the pillow and there, my
dear, there—there _was_ a letter! How like the crow to make it a
surprise and not put it in the letter-box downstairs!

By the light of the pink candle, Jimsi tore open the wee envelope and
read:

    “DEAREST LITTLE GIRL:

    When I came to perch on my shelf last night, I saw the
    lovely dolls you made and the wonderfully beautiful
    dresses and hats and cloaks and muffs and evening wraps
    and things. When you have finished the family, I’ll
    tell you something nice: make a doll house for them. I
    can tell you how to make furniture to fit your dolls.
    You’ll find ever so many things for the furnishing of a
    doll house right in your Magic Book.

                                              Lovingly,
                                                    _Crow._

    P. S.

    You were good to take that nap without pouting. I wish
    Mother had seen you start right on the dot. I like
    children who keep their promises. Look for a letter
    to-morrow.”

Jimsi woke quite early the next morning, even before the sun began to
shine through the boughs of the evergreens outside the window. It was
first dusk and then soft pink and then came faint sunbeams that grew
brighter and brighter. But the clock on the bureau was pointing to an
early hour and Jimsi waited for Aunt Phoebe to move. She did not want
to wake her, for she was a thoughtful little girl—but she _did_ want
the crow letter that she knew must be in the mail-box in The Happy Shop!

Aunt Phoebe was so late in waking that Jimsi had to scurry to get
dressed and couldn’t go downstairs at all after that letter. And then
there was breakfast immediately. But afterwards—_afterwards_, she and
Aunt Phoebe dashed to the mail-box that stood on the crow’s shelf in
The Happy Shop. Sure enough, _there was the letter_!

Jimsi tore open the envelope—why, there was nothing written in it.
It was just some diagrams of the promised furniture for the paper
dolls—but wasn’t _that_ worth getting! All the time, Jimsi had been
wondering how to cut furniture. She hadn’t known at all. She had hoped
the crow would send her the directions but here were just diagrams, the
very things to puzzle over and use! Under each diagram was written what
it would make and the diagrams were like this.

Of course, the Good Crow couldn’t draw very well but he did wonderfully
considering that he had to write and draw with a claw instead of a
hand, Jimsi thought. The idea of the crow’s drawing made her laugh.
“Aunt Phoebe,” she giggled, “that crow of yours is ever so funny!
Imagine a crow’s drawing pictures! But I’m going to make the furniture
and start right away!”

[Illustration: Toy Furniture: The Bed, the Chair and Stool were made
from Wall Paper

Toy Furniture: The Couch, the Table, the Bureau

DIAGRAM 1]

So Aunt Phoebe shut the doors of The Happy Shop and went to _her_ work
while Jimsi began to puzzle over the crow’s diagrams. First there was
the bed. That was to be cut from a long piece of paper about as long as
a paper doll—the longest doll, of course. Jimsi decided that the very,
very heavy wall paper might be used to make the toy furniture and she
found some that was wood-color in the Magic Book.

She cut the bed’s legs about an inch and a quarter long and parallel
with the length of the oblong piece of cardboard. Then, she bent the
legs down and the rest of the ends upward to make baseboards. That made
a paper bed.

But, somehow, when the bed was placed on its legs it sank under the
weight of the paper dolls, so Jimsi made another bed out of cardboard
and pasted the wall paper bed over it. That did splendidly!

She made a pillow of white wall paper and added a coverlet. (There
might have been a fancy blanket under the coverlet, of course. This
would have been cut from some other paper with a pattern design upon
it.)

[Illustration: THE PAPER DOLL FURNITURE THAT WAS CUT FROM CARDBOARD AND
UPHOLSTERED WITH WALL PAPER]

Jimsi made a table next. It was cut like the bed, but in finishing it,
the footboard parts were entirely cut off. And then, too, the table
had longer legs than the bed. It was made to fit the size of the dolls
by measuring. It was necessary to cut the legs the length of the paper
dolls from feet up to waist. The table was measured to fit the big
lady doll and the gentleman.

The chairs were a bit different: to make a chair one had to cut a piece
of cardboard the least little bit smaller than a table—and not half so
wide. One cut the front legs to fit below the table and cut off the
bit of cardboard there as the table end was cut. The rear of the chair
oblong was straight then. The next step was to cut legs of the same
length as the front legs. These were bent down like the first and the
part that remained was the back of the chair! Jimsi upholstered the
chairs with fancy designs cut from other colored sheets of wall paper.
It was jolly! Jimsi made enough chairs for all the doll family. Indeed,
the dolls seemed most sociable as they sat in a row on The Happy Shop’s
table!

A sofa could be made on lines like the chair, only making the cutting
of the cardboard oblong wide and giving it the depth of the chair
also. The sofa was likewise upholstered. Oh, the toy furniture was
great! Jimsi longed to start a doll house and looked about The Happy
Shop to see if she could find a place to lay it out. At last she did
discover a place, on the floor at one end of the shop. She fixed it up
beautifully. Bits of wall paper design cut out in ovals and oblongs,
fringed by snipping with the scissors, made rugs for the house. If
Jimsi had only had a box of some kind—if she _could_ have interrupted
Aunt Phoebe to ask for it, she could have made carpets of wall paper
and had wall paper curtains too.

When the house was done, Jimsi made believe that Mr. and Mrs. Sweet
went to walk in the park. The park was all of the greenery of The Happy
Shop. The ferns made a wonderful grove. All the Sweet children wanted
to have a picnic there. So Jimsi made a white table cloth from the
Magic Book’s paper and cut rounds for plates and funny snips of three
cornered wall paper bits for sandwiches. And there was a big round cake
too! Oh, yes-and some pies that were colored with crayons.

After Jimsi had played all this, it was lunch time and again the hours
had flown by fast.

In the afternoon, when Jimsi went upstairs, right on top of her pillow
there was another crow letter!

    “DEAR JIMSI:

    I have told you about two new plays that I think ever
    so many little girls would like to know about. I hope
    you will tell other children about them when you go
    home. I don’t think Henry would care much but Katherine
    will when she grows older.

    There is a little lame girl next door. I know her, just
    as I know you. Don’t you want to tell her about your
    Magic Book and show _her_ the plays you have found out
    about?

    It would be ever so nice to have somebody to play paper
    dolls with and I’m sure she’d like to know you.

    Some day, I’ll write you where she lives more exactly
    and I’ll send you word when you can go to see her.

                                             Your
                                               _Caw Caw._

    P.S.

    If I were you I’d keep my paper dolls nicely and put
    them in envelopes. In the drawer of the table in The
    Happy Shop, there is a package of big Manilla envelopes
    you can use. Write the name of each doll on the
    envelope you use for it and its dresses.

    P.S. P.S.

    If I were you, Jimsi, I’d pick up The Happy Shop this
    afternoon. The bits of paper on the floor look untidy
    and I think when one is cutting, it is a good plan to
    put a newspaper over the floor to catch scraps. I like
    neat children and my Happy Shop should be very well
    kept.

    Thank you for watering the flowers.

                                             _C. C._”

A wave of shame came to Jimsi sitting there on the bed—Oh, dear! She
wanted to run right down and clean up the shop. She remembered that
those bits of paper _did_ look untidy. Oh, dear! But the nap came
first. Soon she was sound asleep.

Nothing of great importance happened the rest of that day, for Jimsi
spent a large part of time in tidying The Happy Shop when she woke.
Then she fixed up the paper dolls in the envelopes. And it was
bed-time. That night, however, the paper dolls slept in beds all
arranged on Jimsi’s dresser at bed-time.

When she went to sleep, she dreamed that she and the Good Crow were
making toy furniture and that the crow was really using scissors with
his claw. She woke up in the middle of the night laughing and Aunt
Phoebe heard her and asked if anything was the matter. “It was just
the crow,” chirped Jimsi. “I was dreaming of The Happy Shop and he was
there cutting toy furniture for paper dolls.”

“I think,” Aunt Phoebe’s voice answered, “that maybe a real little girl
playmate would appreciate paper dolls _more_, wouldn’t she?” Jimsi
said, “Yes,” and then drowsed off to sleep again, hoping that the Good
Crow would tell her soon that she could go and amuse the little lame
girl who lived somewhere nearby.




CHAPTER V

_The Motion Picture Fun that the Crow Knew_


SURE enough, there was a crow letter in the mail-box next morning! It
was written on the same wee note paper with a real crow stamp that was
drawn in pencil in the upper right-hand corner. Jimsi brought it to
breakfast with her and read it aloud—exactly as if Aunt Phoebe didn’t
know what was in it already! You know, _that_ was the crow play always!

This was the letter:

    “DEAR JIMSI:

    To-day, I want you to do something for _me_. You see
    I do quite a bit for _you_. I like to make you happy,
    you know, and tell you of jolly things to play. What I
    want you to do for _me_ is to tell a little lame girl
    about your paper doll play and the toy furniture that
    my Magic Book made.

    The little lame girl cannot go out-doors as you can.
    She has to stay in a wheel-chair and the hours are very
    long for her. I would like to have you help her. You
    can help her much better than I can because _you_ are
    a little girl and I am only a play crow.

                                           Good-bye,
                                               _Caw Caw._

    P. S.

    Her name is Joyce. She lives in the third house from
    the corner.”

“Oh, I’d love to go!” declared Jimsi. “When can I go?”

“As soon as we’ve had our walk,” Aunt Phoebe answered. “Maybe you’d
like to do something else for Joyce and the Good Crow—would you?”

Jimsi nodded. “I’d love to!”

“Well, when we go to town, we’ll buy Joyce some crayons like yours and
a bottle of five-cent library paste. You shall take them to her to work
with and you can tell her the crow sent them.”

“Splendid!”

So they went to market and Jimsi bought the crayons in the ten cent
store. She insisted on paying for them herself because she said that
this time it was going to be _her_ crow. Then, when they reached home,
Jimsi wrote a crow letter to the little lame girl, Joyce, and did
the crayons up with the five cent bottle of paste that Aunt Phoebe
insisted was _her_ crow.

With a box full of paper doll envelopes and toy furniture, and Jimsi’s
own crayons and scissors from The Happy Shop, the Magic Book rolled up
to make a big package to carry under one arm, Jimsi ran over to the
third brown house from the corner and rang the bell. It was rather a
dingy little house. It did not look pretty. It looked poor and sad.

But when the door opened, it opened on the most cheerful room you can
imagine. It was Joyce’s mother who opened it. She wore a big white
apron as if she were busy working and she beamed down at Jimsi standing
on the steps with her arms so full of the Magic Book and the box of
paper dolls that she could hardly hold them.

“I came because the Good Crow wrote me a letter about Joyce,” stated
Jimsi. “The Good Crow said she’d like to know about my paper dolls so
she could play at making dresses too. So I came.”

“Oh, come right in, little girl,” invited Joyce’s mother. “Yes. The
crow sent Joyce a letter yesterday to say that his friend, Jimsi, was
coming over with a magic book. We’re very glad you came, aren’t we,
Joyce?”

Jimsi hadn’t seen Joyce but now she looked toward the window and saw
a wheel-chair with a beautiful dark-haired girl of twelve propped up
in it and holding out a welcoming hand. “I’m ever so glad you came,”
she laughed. “Don’t you love the Good Crow? I do. Miss Phoebe’s ever
so lovely, I think. She’s every day thinking up something nice for me
to do, almost. There’s sure to be a crow letter full of fun whenever I
need it most.”

“Yes,” declared Joyce’s mother. “I don’t know what I’d do, if it
weren’t for the Good Crow who belongs to Miss Phoebe. There’s only one
thing Joyce wants do do when she isn’t reading. It’s checkers! I’ve
played more games of checkers than you can shake a stick at, Jimsi! But
when the crow letters come with new suggestions for things to do—why,
you know, Joyce doesn’t want to read or even play checkers! The Good
Crow’s play is best of all. Tell Jimsi about the motion picture play,
darling!”

Motion picture play! Why the very idea of it! Goodness, how
interesting! Do you know anything that is nicer than motion pictures!
At once Jimsi was wide awake and eager. “Oh, I want to know about the
motion picture play!” she exclaimed. “Oh, _please_ do tell me! Was it
really true moving pictures?”

“Yes,” asserted Joyce, “they were real, weren’t they, Mother? But the
pictures weren’t photographs at all. You wait and I’ll show you my
motion picture screen and my whole outfit! Mother, will you get them
for me, please?—You see, Jimsi, it was in the fall when the crow told
me about these pictures. In summer I can go outdoors and once Daddy
wheeled me into town and they let me see the motion pictures. (I can’t
go often because it is such a long ride for me.) Well, I could think of
nothing else afterwards but how much I wanted to go again! You know how
it is.”

Jimsi wagged her head hard, “yes.” She didn’t want to interrupt the
story.

“One day when Miss Phoebe was over here, I told her about how I wanted
to go to motion pictures again and Miss Phoebe said she’d see what the
crow could do about it— You know how Miss Phoebe makes believe always!”

Again Jimsi nodded. “I love to make believe the way auntie does,” she
beamed. “Please tell me what happened _next_.”

“Well, next, of course, came a crow letter. I found it in a bunch of
flowers Miss Phoebe sent over.” (Joyce was trying to cover up the
things that her mother had laid in her lap. Jimsi’s eyes had been busy
with the details. There looked as if paper dolls were there.)

“You mustn’t peep,” admonished Joyce. “It won’t be a surprise if you
see. It _was_ a surprise for me! _I_ didn’t know that one could really
make motion picture fun right at home—not till Miss Phoebe’s crow wrote
me a play letter about it.”

“Well, I can’t see how you do it!”

“You can do it with the papers in the _Magic Book_,” declared Joyce.

“Oh, have you a magic book too!”

They both laughed. What fun!

“I wonder if yours is like mine?” questioned Jimsi. “I didn’t know you
had a Magic Book too, so I brought mine along with me! I was going
to tell you about how to make paper dolls and toy furniture from the
papers in my Magic Book!”

“Oh, I’d love to know how,” beamed Joyce. “I think paper dolls are
just the nicest play—almost. You must show me about them. I don’t
know how to make them. The crow never told _me_. But he did tell me
about the motion pictures and I made _this_—” she held up for Jimsi’s
examination now a picture frame that was about twelve inches long and
eight inches wide. At the back of the frame where the glass had been,
there was stretched some heavy white cloth-cotton cloth. Back of this,
where one would place the picture, if one were framing one, was the
glass that fitted the picture frame.

[Illustration: THE MOTION PICTURES THAT WERE CUT FROM WALL PAPER]

Joyce turned the frame over. “You see,” she explained, “when I hold it
front-face, it looks exactly as a motion picture screen does, doesn’t
it?—That’s before the picture play begins!”

Yes, it was true. The frame looked like the frame of a motion picture
screen.

“The difference is,” went on Joyce, “that the crow’s motion pictures
aren’t photographs. They’re really shadow pictures. One cuts
silhouettes out of heavy wall paper that is in the Magic Book—oh,
everything—and then one puts the chairs or tables, or cupboards next to
the glass to make the screen. (I always have a little _paper_ curtain
that I put before my frame while I arrange this. It is like the big
curtain in the theatre because it shuts off the picture screen.) When I
have arranged the furniture and am ready to make the actors walk about
in the room, I take the paper away so the audience can see.”

“How splendid!” sighed Jimsi, delightedly. “I think Henry’d be quite
crazy about this sort of thing. He’s my brother, you know. _He’s_ a
boy, so he thinks paper dolls are girls’ things and he won’t play with
them. Do you use paper dolls? I should think that it would be hard to
make them move about behind the furniture. I should think it would show
that somebody was moving them.”

“It doesn’t though— You’ll see!” Here the little lame girl took the
frame. “Don’t look,” she admonished with a raised forefinger. “Pretend
you’re interested in the cat!”

Indeed, Jimsi hadn’t noticed the cat before. But now she ran over to
the big open fireplace where pussy was purring before the wood fire.
Joyce’s mother was sewing on a machine. She seemed very busy indeed.
Jimsi waited for her new friend to give the word. She stroked the
comfortable tabby and thought how wonderful it was that a sick girl
who couldn’t go about except in a wheel-chair could be so cheerful and
so happy. “I hope if I’m ever sick like that that I won’t be a whiney
person,” she thought. “It’s splendid to be happy and glad when things
are like that and you know you aren’t going to be able to run about and
play—ever. Oh, I like the crow’s little lame girl wonderfully!” And it
did seem strange that the little lame girl was telling Jimsi about
_her_ play even before Jimsi had told the little lame girl about hers!

But right here, Joyce sang out, “Ready!” so Jimsi forgot the pussy cat
instantly and sprang to her feet.

“I put the frame on a table when I have a real motion picture
performance,” Joyce explained. “But you can see in the daylight better
if I hold the frame in the sunlight. Look!”

Sure enough! There was the furniture in a small room: table, chair,
cupboard! They were outlined in shadow.

“One ought to have motion pictures in the dark,” Joyce laughed. “I used
to play that way last fall. I lit a candle in the dark and placed the
candle behind my frame on the table. Then I moved the actors about so—”

Jimsi watched. Joyce had a paper doll-like actor cut in outline. To
the back of this was pasted a strip of heavy paper. As she moved the
doll across the back of the motion picture screen, holding it by the
long strip of cardboard, one could only see the figure move across the
little room. One did not see the hand that moved it or the strip of
cardboard by which it was held.

Jolly! I should say so! Why, that was exactly the best fun Jimsi had
ever seen!

“Hurrah for the crow!” she chuckled. “Why, I think _that’s_ better than
paper dolls—_almost_!”

“I’ll show you some more,” the little lame girl volunteered. “You just
wait.”

Again she changed the things that lay beside the white cloth and the
glass. When Jimsi looked, she saw that now there was out-door scenery:
bushes, trees, a fence. Why, it might have been a street in a little
town!

“I’ll show you something else!”

This time, the “something” was an automobile.

As Joyce held the frame in the clear sunlight, its shadow on the screen
was plain. As Jimsi watched, the automobile rushed rapidly across the
screen from one end of the frame to the other! Oh, what fun! And the
shadow people in it seemed evidently out for a joy ride. One wondered
that the automobile didn’t spill them out till Joyce turned the frame
around and showed Jimsi that the automobile was cut out of heavy paper
and that it and the people were all one piece!

“I’d like to see one of your motion picture plays,” declared Jimsi.
“Can’t you start one and make it go right through from beginning to
end?”

“If it were only dark, I could,” said the little lame girl. “But you
see Mother needs the light for her sewing just now. So we can’t draw
the curtains. I’ll show you my scenery instead. Some other time we’ll
make the whole motion picture play— Wouldn’t it be fun for the paper
dolls, when I have made mine! Your paper dolls and mine can go to see
the pictures: we’ll have a big time! Maybe, we can make up a new play
and I can show you how to cut the scenery for it—shall I?”

“What plays have you made?”

“Well,” said the little lame girl, “you know I read a great deal. I
make the plays of the stories that I read. I made _Alice in Wonderland_
for one. I traced the pictures from the illustrations in my book and
cut them out of heavy wall paper. (One can use cardboard for furniture
and scenery and actors, only it’s more expensive, you know.) I traced
most of my actors but not all. Some I had to draw—I’m not very good at
drawing because I never had lessons. Mother says, _she_ thinks I could
draw if I did have lessons but I just do the best I can without.”

“_I_ think,” Jimsi insisted, “I think that you must know how to draw
pretty well to cut out outlines of people from paper.”

“Oh, no,” contradicted Joyce. “Sometimes I can’t think the way things
ought to look. Then I go through some pictures in a book and when
I find an outline that will be good to use, I copy it. Or else,
sometimes, I just double a piece of thin paper and cut out the way
_little_ children do to make paper dolls when they make both sides
exactly alike. Mother used to make dolls in strings that way when I was
small.”

“I saw _Alice in Wonderland_ in moving pictures,” said Jimsi. “It was
the crow who gave us all tickets once when Aunt Phoebe was visiting us.
And I saw _Cinderella_ with Mary Pickford. _Did you?_”

The little lame girl smiled. “Yes, the Good Crow gave me a ticket for
it, and Mrs. Smith who has an automobile carried me up there. Wasn’t it
lovely!”

The two little girls gazed into each other’s eyes, beaming. “After
that, I made a play of Cinderella,” said Joyce. “Mine was just a kind
of paper doll play, but I had ever so much fun doing it. Sometime, I’ll
show it all to you when it is dark and we can use a candle. Here’s the
fairy godmother!”

She held up a silhouette doll cut with a long cloak and a pointed hat.
The godmother had a wand in her hand. One would have known anywhere
that it was Cinderella’s fairy!

“Here’s the pumpkin,” Joyce explained. “See! And here’s the coach! And
here’s Cinderella before the fairy transformed her! (I had to make
a second Cinderella figure for the play _after_ the fairy touched
her with the wand.) The way I do this is to change the figures very
quickly. It takes a good deal of skill to act it out right. I had
long times when I practiced with the figures last autumn. Then, when
I thought I could do it perfectly, I’d give a motion picture play for
Mother and Daddy in the evening. Often Miss Phoebe would come in to see
my plays. She liked them. She used to help me sometimes. _She_ thinks
it’s fun!”

“We could make _Red Riding Hood_ into a motion picture play,” suggested
Jimsi. “We could make the bushes for the woods by cutting the paper out
irregularly like the outline of bushes if one saw them in shadow. You
cut trees, didn’t you?”

The little lame girl assented. “I’ve cut trees and fences and little
hills and the outlines of houses and—oh, ever so many things more than
I can think of. In _Alice in Wonderland_, I really made a rabbit hole
and when Alice was in the field, I made the funny rabbit go walking by
and go down it and I made Alice follow him and—”

“_How_ did you ever do it!” exclaimed Jimsi. “_I_ don’t see how you did
that!”

“You see how I made the field by putting bushes and a fence in the
frame, don’t you?”

Jimsi nodded.

“The rabbit hole was a kind of oval with the middle part cut out,” went
on the little lame girl. “All I had to do to make the rabbit go _down_
was to pass the rabbit figure right into the centre of that and then
draw him quickly away out of sight. It was the same with Alice. And oh,
I did have such a splendid Pool of Tears with the mouse swimming in it!
I made the Walrus and the Carpenter and Humpty Dumpty and _everything_!”

“What play could _we_ give?”

“We might make one up!”

“What would it be about?”

They wondered.

“It would be harder to make one up than to copy a story,” thought Jimsi.

“I tell you what we could do,” suddenly flashed Joyce. “It isn’t
exactly a _play_, but it would be fun even if it wasn’t a real story.
We could make Mother Goose motion pictures!”

“That sounds nice,” agreed Jimsi. She waited for the little lame girl
to explain.

“We’d cut out a scene for Mother Hubbard’s house, you know,” pursued
the little lame girl. “Then when we’d made the cupboard and the chairs
and things, we could cut out Mother Hubbard and the dog and make a
motion picture of it—just a short one.”

“And _Jack and Jill Went Down the Hill_!”

“And _The Lion and the Unicorn_!”

“And _Little Bo-Peep_ and _Little Boy Blue_, too.”

“And—and—”

But right here, just exactly as Cinderella’s clock had struck twelve
strokes, so the clock on the mantel of the little lame girl’s fireplace
struck, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
ding—DING!

Oh, dear! There it was exactly the time when Jimsi had promised Aunt
Phoebe to come home!

She jumped from her chair. “Oh, I was having such a good time,” she
declared. “I didn’t know that it was anywhere near twelve. Oh, dear! I
hate to say good-bye. I’ve had a perfectly splendid time—but I haven’t
shown you my paper dolls at all! And the crow told me to show you _my_
crow play and here I’ve just been listening to yours! But I’ll leave my
paper dolls for you to look at and the toy furniture too. You’ll see
how it is done. Then, some time when I come over, I’ll take them back.
I’ll take my Magic Book home with me. Good-bye and _thank you_!”

“Come back soon,” sang the little lame girl as Jimsi turned to wave
from the street. “Come _soon_!”

Then Jimsi waved a frantic and happy “Yes,” and sped back to Aunt
Phoebe’s. She burst into the study where Aunt Phoebe was putting away
her papers and clearing her desk. “Oh, oh,” she laughed, “do you know
what I think, Aunt Phoebe?”

She waited.

“_I_ think,” she beamed, “that your crow is about the nicest crow
_ever_! The little lame girl told me all about the motion picture play
he gave her and I didn’t even have a chance to tell her about the paper
dolls! We hadn’t half begun to play when the clock struck twelve! Oh,
dear! I didn’t want to come right away—but I tell you what I’m going to
do: I’m going to write to Henry and tell him about the crow’s motion
pictures. He’d love to make them. He could act out _Robinson Crusoe_
and _Treasure Island_.”




CHAPTER VI

_The Valentines of the Happy Shop_


OF course after the first visit to the little lame girl’s home, Jimsi
made ever and ever so many others. They not only made paper dolls and
paper dolls’ furniture and paper dolls’ dresses and furnished paper
dolls’ houses and had paper doll motion pictures but they did other
things with their Magic Books, too.

Once, they tried kindergarten weaving with strips that they cut out
of colored papers. Another time, they twisted long strips of the wall
paper to make old-fashioned “lamp-lighters” for Joyce’s mother to use
in lighting the fire in the fireplace. It was when they were doing this
one day that, suddenly, Jimsi gave a big bounce out of her chair. She
jumped up and down and _up_ and down in the funniest excited manner,
and she kept squealing delightedly, “Oh, I’ve got an idea! I’ve got an
_i-dea_!”

“What!” exclaimed Joyce. “WHAT IS IT?”

“Um-m! Um-m!” came from the happy Jimsi. “Oh, you guess!”

“I can’t guess!”

“Oh—no, you can’t guess! You wouldn’t think of it! Oh, it’s
lovely—splendid—scrum-ti-fer-ous!”

“Well, what is it?” The little lame girl was almost impatient but she
was as glad as Jimsi to prolong the suspense. She knew that Jimsi was
making the most of her discovery.

“It couldn’t be better if the crow had written about it,” she asserted,
stopping to sit down beside the little lame girl’s table. “I’ll tell
you what it is: It’s VALENTINES! It’s _VALENTINES_! All the beautiful
fancy papers are just the thing to make valentines! Think how beautiful
valentines will be when they’re made out of the flowered papers! Let’s
try it! We can save the valentines till we need them—put them away
in a box or, I’ll tell you what!—Why couldn’t we send them up to The
Children’s Home for a valentine party? Once I went with Daddy to an
entertainment at The Children’s Home. I felt as if I’d love to do
something for the children there. It’s so—so very unhomelike!”

[Illustration: THE VALENTINES AND CARDS THAT WERE MADE OUT OF WALL
PAPER]

“It would be splendid to do that,” agreed Joyce. “Let’s begin right
away. You take your Magic Book and I’ll take mine. You can spread
newspapers on the floor so we won’t make a clutter and let’s see who
can make the prettiest. We’ll have a valentine exhibition afterwards
and invite Miss Phoebe and the crow.”

“All right!”

The leaves of the magic wall paper sample books turned and turned.
There were squeals of delight from Joyce and chuckles from Jimsi. “Oh,
I’ve found something that will be lovely!” one would cry. “Oh, look at
this!” the other exclaimed. And the little lame girl’s mother who was
called to admire couldn’t tell which was the prettiest paper—you see
_both_ were lovely!

First the little lame girl found some paper that had sprays of yellow
roses on it. She cut out a big heart that was figured all over with
them. It really was a beautiful, _beautiful_ valentine.

Jimsi suggested that if one were to color the edge all around with
green crayon, _that_ would give the valentine a good finish. One could
use the crayon to print on the valentine too.

Then, Jimsi improved on Joyce. She folded her paper double and cut
her heart out double, making the top of her valentine heart touch the
crease of the paper. Her heart opened with two sides. Inside, she wrote
a verse. At the top she tied ribbon bows, using some very narrow baby
ribbon that she had in the paper doll box.

Joyce made valentines like it only _she_ put pictures as well as verses
inside the double heart. Some of the verses she made up. Others, she
copied from old valentines that were in her scrapbook.

After they had tried all manner of heart valentines, made of plain
papers, flowered papers, papers with designs, papers with figures,
striped papers, cross-barred papers, they decided to try something
different. Jimsi cut out a diamond-shaped figure from her paper. It was
really lovely. It was a basket of daisies. The diamond was bordered
with blue and Jimsi cut diamond-shaped pieces of white paper and put
them at the back of the picture with a verse—the old, old verse that
everybody changes. It begins:

    “The rose is red, the violet blue,
     Sugar is sweet and so are you.”

Jimsi changed it to:

    “The basket’s blue—the daisies white,
     I love you, dear, with all my might.”

It wasn’t a _very_ wonderful verse but it was a real valentine verse
and it fitted the picture of the valentine perfectly.

After Jimsi made her diamond-shaped valentine, Joyce tried to make
one. She found a cross-pattern of little rosebuds in her Magic Book.
She cut the valentine out like a diamond-shaped book and put leaves in
it. The leaves were tied in with ribbon. From the centre of the front
of her valentine, she cut out a wee diamond in the paper and it made a
most fascinating opening into which one could peep and see a picture
that was pasted _inside_. Of course, she used the crayons to finish the
edge in color. Jimsi and she discovered that the crayoning of all rims
gave finish to the cards.

And so the play went on and on. They made valentines that opened square
like books. They cut bunches of flowers from the wall papers that had
large floral patterns and then, too, they cut out bits of wall paper
shaped like baskets. These they filled with wall paper flowers and
tied at the top of the basket sometimes bits of narrow baby ribbon
that they had treasured for doll-play. Oh, they made a fine lot of
valentines—almost fifty! It didn’t take long to make a valentine, once
one had chosen a paper to use for it.

“Oh, we can make Easter cards too,” suggested Joyce, when the valentine
pile was grown quite large. She started out to see what _she_ could
do. Oh, yes! One could easily cut out pretty colored Easter eggs and
paste them on heavy white paper to make clusters of dyed eggs. One
could cut Easter eggs that had flowers on them as one had made hearts
with flowers in pattern. One could cut colored bunnies out of the paper
too. To do this, Joyce used the brown and yellow and the white wall
papers in her Magic Book. It was fun!

“We could make birthday cards too,” said Jimsi. “Only I won’t try it
because they’d be the same as the Easter cards that just have flower
patterns and open like a book.”

“We could make Hallowe’en favor cards,” Joyce cried, suddenly. And
then, they began to cut out witches and cats and jack-o’lanterns. Why,
one never knew what would come next! The two little girls worked away.
“Just for fun, let’s see what we can do,” they agreed. So they cut
hatchets for Washington’s Birthday greetings; they cut New Year’s cards
and flowered Christmas cards. They cut holly leaves from green wall
paper and made red berries for wreathes from the red wall paper; they
cut Thanksgiving favors too!

It really isn’t possible to tell all that the two _very_ busy little
girls did do that morning. At noon when the clock struck twelve, the
jolliest thing happened. The door-bell rang and when Joyce’s mother
went to answer it, there on the door-step was a big market basket with
a cover on it! When Joyce saw it she declared, “Well, I know _that’s_
from Miss Phoebe’s crow!” Anybody would have known it for on top of the
basket was a wee letter. The letter was addressed to Jimsi and Joyce.
It read:

    “DEAR FRIENDS OF THE MAGIC BOOK AND THE HAPPY SHOP:

    Picnics don’t come in winter usually but I am sending
    you an in-door picnic to-day. If you open the big
    basket you’ll find that there are some nice picnic-y
    things inside. This is so that Jimsi can stay with
    Joyce a little longer, and also so Joyce can have Jimsi
    a little longer.

                                         Good-bye,
                                              _Crow._

    P. S.

    In the little bottle is Jimsi’s bad medicine. She
    doesn’t like to take it but Joyce will please see her
    swallow it after the picnic is over. Please ask Jimsi
    to bring the picnic basket home to The Happy Shop with
    her when it is nap-time.

                                               _C. C._”

The two little girls cleared the table of the valentines and cards.
Jimsi ran about picking up stray bits of paper that had flown to remote
places beyond the newspapers. Joyce arranged the things on the table.
It was moved close to her chair.

My, my! Such tempting sandwiches! And such dainty paper table-cloth and
napkins, and paper plates! “There’s only one thing lacking,” declared
Joyce, as she laid an extra plate at one end of the table for her
mother. “Miss Phoebe ought to be here too!”

“Yes, she ought,” assented Jimsi. “Aunt Phoebe _and_ the Good Crow!”




CHAPTER VII

_The Embroidery Patterns in the Magic Book_


IN the days that passed after Joyce and Jimsi made the valentines and
cards, ever so many things happened. They played other things beside
crow plays—checkers and dominoes and Messenger Boy games. But, after
all, the Magic Book with the fun in it was best of all. Crow had
written them both letters and in his last letter he had said:

    “DEAR JIMSI:

    Find your own something to do in the Magic Book I gave
    you. If you _think_, you’ll find something more that is
    as jolly as valentine-making.”

Jimsi went over and over the Magic Book in The Happy Shop wondering
what she could find to do with the papers. It seemed as if almost
everything must have been done when paper doll dresses, paper doll
furniture, cards, and motion picture play had been done!

Aunt Phoebe wouldn’t even give her a hint. “Do as the crow says,
dear,” she urged. “Put on your thinking-cap!”

“But I can’t think!” declared Jimsi. “I did make up the valentines!”

“Try to find something else. The crow and I might help but we want you
to have the fun of discovering all for yourself!”

But Jimsi couldn’t find anything more to do. She spent the morning
looking over the papers and then she wrote a letter to the crow and put
it in the mail-box.

    “DEAR CROW:

    Your Magic Book is like a puzzle and I am not a bit
    good at puzzles. Please tell me something nice to do
    with the colored papers of the magic wall paper sample
    book.

                                           Lovingly,
                                                _Jimsi._

    P. S.

    I enclose a pretty flower that I cut out for you from
    the Magic Book. I think if I had my scrapbook from home
    I could use these flowers for scrap-pictures to paste
    in it. I can’t think of anything else.”

To this letter the crow replied the next day in a little letter that
Jimsi found in the mail-box. The crow’s letter said:

    “DEAR JIMSI:

    Your suggestion about using the flower-patterns for
    scrapbook decorations is good. But you must puzzle
    longer and find still other jolly plays in your Magic
    Book.

                                          Playfully,
                                                _Crow._

    P. S.

    I’m going to give you a perfectly splendid surprise. On
    Friday at four o’clock—after your nap—come to The Happy
    Shop and see what it is. It’s the _nicest_ that could
    happen, I think.

                                   Your play friend,
                                              _Caw Caw._

    P. S.

    No fair asking Aunt Phoebe to tell what the surprise
    is. She won’t say!”

To this Jimsi replied in another letter to the crow:

    “DEAR CAW CAW:

    I will try to be good and I won’t tease to know what
    the surprise is. I hope it is candy or ice cream or
    something new to play with The Magic Book. If I thought
    you could do it, I’d wish that you’d put Mother and
    Henry and Katherine on a magic carpet like the one in
    _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_. But it’s no use
    to ask that for Henry has to go to school and Mother
    couldn’t come away and leave Katherine.

                             Lovingly your little girl,
                                                 _Jimsi._

    P. S.

    Aunt Phoebe mustn’t think I’m homesick but I’d love to
    see Mother and Henry and Katherine ever so much!”

Then, having mailed this letter in the crow mail-box, Jimsi put on her
cloak and cap and rubbers and went over to see Joyce. Joyce had her
workbasket out and she had some bits of linen in her lap.

“Hello, Jimsi,” she greeted. “I was just wishing for you frightfully
hard. The crow told me to hunt for a new amusement in the Magic Book
and I _found_ something I’m just wild to try. I think it’s going to go
splendidly!”

“What is it?” Jimsi inquired. “Scrap-pictures?”

“No, not scrap-pictures! It’s nicer than scrap-pictures! Scrap-pictures
aren’t _anything_!”

“Well, I can’t guess it,” declared Jimsi. “The crow wanted _me_ to find
something in _my_ Magic Book, but I looked and looked and couldn’t find
anything but scrap-pictures. Maybe your book is better than mine. The
papers that are in your book and my book are quite different.”

“Don’t you like to do fancy-work?” inquired Joyce, suddenly changing
the conversation and indicating her workbasket.

“Why, yes,” returned Jimsi. “But _that_ can’t be done with wall paper!”

“Yes it can!” shouted the little lame girl. “I found patterns _and_
patterns for fancy-work in my Magic Book, I did!”

“Well, well, well!” ejaculated Jimsi. “I never! Who would have thought
of it! How do you find patterns for fancy-work?”

“I just look for them,” Joyce said. “You see, I was puzzle-hunting for
something new to do with the Magic Book. The crow told me to use my
own eyes and try to discover my own fun. I was turning the leaves of
the book and all of a sudden I came to _this_.” The little lame girl
turned the leaves of her magic wall paper book that lay on the big
table beside her. “See,” she pointed, “there’s an embroidery thing to
do: it’s one of those little bows with hanging ends that ladies wear
at their necks to finish their collars. I could trace that all off and
transfer it with carbon paper to a piece of linen and then do outline
stitch of the pattern and finish the linen edge with button-hole
stitch. That’s _number one_!”

“I could make one for Mother, couldn’t I?” said Jimsi. “Let’s both try
it. You can give yours to your mother or to Aunt Phoebe. Aunt Phoebe
wears those bow-things. She has ever so many in her bureau drawer. She
wears them with shirtwaists.”

[Illustration: EMBROIDERY PATTERNS AND STENCIL DESIGNS THAT WERE FOUND
IN WALL PAPER]

“Well, I haven’t finished yet about the patterns—look here,” declared
Joyce, and again she turned the pages of the Magic Book and stopped at
a page of colored design. “Here’s _number two_!”

“What is it—I don’t know. I can see that it could be a pattern for
embroidery, but—Oh, yes, I _do_ know what it is! It is a doily pattern!
_Isn’t it?_”

“Hurrah!” sang Joyce. “You guessed! It _is_! All one has to do is to
cut out the pattern and then take a sheet of carbon paper and transfer
it to a piece of square linen. If you cut the design out larger, it
can be used for a linen sofa-pillow with the four little clover things
worked in each corner like the pattern in the wall paper. It would be
easy embroidery—I could do it! I can’t do difficult needle-work. And,
of course, if one didn’t have carbon paper or know how to use it, one
could copy the design with tissue paper and trace it that way—sometimes
carbon paper that one uses makes a blue spot on the cloth, if one leans
on it with any pressure.”

Jimsi was looking hard at the doily pattern. “Do you know about
stencils?” she asked.

“No,” replied the little lame girl. “What are they?”

“They’re designs that are cut out of stiff paper or tin or wood.
You take a paint brush and paint over the openings and it makes a
reproduction of the design. _I_ think we could cut that pattern out and
make a stencil pattern of it. Maybe the paper’s thick enough. Let’s
try!”

“All right,” returned Joyce. “But, first, let’s see the embroidery. We
can try stencils afterwards.”

Jimsi agreed. “Let’s see the rest.”

“Well, here’s _number three_,” indicated Joyce. “_That_ is a
cross-stitch pattern. Do you do cross-stitch? It’s easy to do. That’s
the stitch they use to make pictures on samplers. You’ve seen samplers?”

“Aunt Phoebe has one in her study. It’s framed. The little girls used
to work them long ago. That was the way they learned to sew—by making
samplers.”

“I can show you cross-stitch,” Joyce volunteered. “You won’t even have
to transfer this cross-stitch pattern. It’s quite plain even though
it isn’t all little crosses in the wall paper. It would be pretty
embroidered on the end of a guest-room towel. Miss Phoebe showed me one
she was doing once. It had flowers on it something like these.”

“And the cluster of flowers in the wall paper might be used on
something else.”

“Or one could take one’s choice.” The little lame girl reached for her
tissue paper. “I’m going to try to transfer the doily pattern first.
I’ll make the doily, I think. I’m going to do it and you can watch, if
you like. I’ve often transferred patterns.”

The little lame girl placed her tissue paper upon the design in the
wall paper and followed her pencil very carefully along the outline
beneath. “One ought to use a soft pencil,” she explained. “The hard
pencils don’t transfer so well.” And then she lifted the tissue paper
up and showed Jimsi the design that she had taken off the wall paper
in pencil. “To trace it,” she said, “all one has to do is to turn the
tissue paper over and go over the outline again, placing the first
pencil marks next the cloth. Then when one goes over the tissue paper’s
pencil outline, the pencil marks under the point of the pencil are
pressed on the cloth—and there’s your pattern!”

“Let’s try it,” Jimsi urged. “You start the doily and I’ll make the
bow-thing in a pattern for Caw Caw to send Aunt Phoebe. Then I want to
try stencils.”

They were both silently busy for a long time. Joyce transferred her
design to a piece of white linen that her mother had given her. Jimsi
labored over the neck-bow pattern that she wanted to send Aunt Phoebe
in a crow letter. She copied her design on a sheet of white pad paper.

“What color shall I use to outline my design?” suddenly inquired Joyce.
“It could be almost any color.”

“Why most any color,” thought Jimsi. “How about white or blue?”

“We have blue china,” mused Joyce. “I’ll do it in blue. Do you know, if
I wanted to, I’d turn it into a top to put on a square pin-cushion—_I
could_!”

The two little girls laughed. Oh, the Magic Book was proving very magic
indeed! _Very magic!_

“Now, while you sew, I’m going to try stencils and see if I can make
them out of wall paper designs. _I_ think I can! Stencils are ever so
easy to use. They’re splendid fun, if you like to paint.”

“Well, go ahead. I’ll watch.”

So Jimsi took a piece of the paper that she found in the little lame
girl’s Magic Book. “It’s queer paper,” she mused, “all glossy. I think
it must be the kind they use in papering kitchens and bath-rooms.
It’s stiff and exactly right for stencil-cutting. You know there’s
a special knife that comes to use for cutting stencils but I’m using
scissors. I think this doesn’t need a knife. It’s easy to cut with
scissors if you leave the edges clean-cut. I’m leaving the paper and
_only_ cutting out the form of the design.”

All the eight squares in the wall paper pattern, Jimsi cut carefully
out. Next, she cut around the edge of the tulip-flower that was in the
center of the pattern design. And she cut out the tulip leaves, too.
“This is _number four_,” she laughed. “Hooray! It’s done! Now tell me
where your paints are and I’ll show _you_ something!”

The paints were in the big table drawer and Jimsi went to fetch water.
She asked for a bit of blotter and the little lame girl told her where
to find it.

“You have to dry your paint brush on the blotter before painting
stencil designs,” explained Jimsi, “otherwise the paint runs all over.
Always use a dry brush—I mean as dry as will paint!” She shook her
brush at Joyce as if she were a teacher at school with a pencil trying
to drum a lesson into a lazy pupil. They smiled at the fun.

“I’ll remember,” sang out the little lame girl, repeating the
lesson, “‘Always use as dry a brush as possible when you’re painting
water-color stencils.’ Oh, I know my lesson, teacher!”

“Pay attention!” Jimsi made believe she was frightfully severe. “Now,
watch me!” She took the stencil, placed it on top of some white pad
paper, passed her brush with the water-color over the stencil openings
and drew the stencil off. “There!” she exclaimed, “Isn’t _that_ fun!”

The little lame girl beamed. “Yes,” she agreed. “I’d like to try
that—but why can’t you cut out your own patterns—I mean patterns that
you make up out of your own head when you want to draw?”

“Well, if you can draw, you _can_. You see the wall paper can be used
to make stencils. When I was little Mother showed me how to cut fancy
cut-out designs with scissors by folding a square piece of paper over
and over and then snipping bits off the edge here and there. That would
make a stencil and one could cut one in wall paper like that. All one
would need to do would be to paint over the openings after the paper
was smoothed out flat.”

“And can you use the painted stencil patterns _for_ anything?”
inquired the little lame girl.

“Why—just like embroidery patterns,” said Jimsi. “My teacher at school
taught us how to use them. We decorated lots of things like linen
hand-bags, pillows and little fancy Christmas gift things. But we used
oil paints. With water-color, one can stencil packages of blotters and
tie them together for a gift. One can stencil paper picture-frames or
letter-paper, I should think—oh, most everything.”

“The design you have there’s too big for letter paper,” Joyce objected.
“Where can one find a small enough stencil for _that_?”

“Why, take the tulip right in the center!” laughed Jimsi.

Of course! Oh, what fun!

They tried it with some sheets of the little lame girl’s letter-paper
and it was ever so pretty! And it really took no time to paint it.
Hooray!

“Let’s write the crow a letter with a stencil at the top,” suggested
Jimsi.

“And put your pattern in,” went on Joyce. “The one you were going to
give your Aunt Phoebe.”

“Let’s write a round-robin letter: you write one sentence and then I’ll
write the next!”

So they began:

    “DEAR GOOD CROW:

    We both found something new in our Magic Books to-day.
    It was Joyce who thought of it. But Jimsi carried it
    further than just the embroidery patterns.

    Joyce found embroidery designs that could be traced on
    linen or cloth. Jimsi decorated this letter-paper with
    the stencil she cut with wall paper.

    The embroidery pattern we are sending you is from us
    both and came from Joyce’s Magic Book.

    We send you lots of love,

                                Your friends,
                                    _Joyce and Jimsi._”

Joyce addressed the envelope. Jimsi drew a crow stamp up in the corner.
There never could be a real crow letter without a stamp in the corner—a
stamp of a black bird with a letter in his bill.

“I’ve only a few minutes before lunch,” announced Jimsi, glancing at
the clock. “I won’t wait for Cinderella’s number to strike. I’ll run
along and then I’ll have a chance to put this under Aunt Phoebe’s plate
before she comes to the table. Good-bye, dearest! I’m so glad you
discovered the stencils and the patterns.”

“No, _you_ discovered the stencils and I discovered the patterns.”

“Well, crow will be pleased, won’t he?”

“Won’t he!”

“I wonder if crow knew there were patterns for embroidery in wall
paper?”

“I wonder!”

And then Jimsi tore herself away from her friend and flung on her cloak
and cap. The clock in the little lame girl’s room was just striking the
hour of twelve—the hour when Cinderella had to give up her ball and run
home at night, the hour when Jimsi had to give up her play and run home
in the morning. She lifted her rubber in one hand and waved it before
she put it on. “Cinderella’s slipper,” she smiled. “But it’s not made
of glass and it isn’t going to fall off and be left for anybody to pick
up!” Then she was gone.




CHAPTER VIII

_The Scrapbooks Crow Told About_


JIMSI had been so busy that morning that I do believe she had quite
forgotten the all-important surprise that the good crow promised her
in the afternoon. When she came home to Aunt Phoebe’s and put the
round-robin letter under Aunt Phoebe’s luncheon plate, she thought of
it. “I wonder what it can be,” she mused. “Oh, I do wonder.” Then she
flew upstairs to wash the paint off her hands before the bell tinkled
in the hall. She had just time to brush her hair and wash up. Then she
heard Aunt Phoebe’s little maid going out to ring, ding-a-ling-a-ling!

Jimsi trotted softly downstairs and peeped into the dining-room.
No! Aunt Phoebe had not found the crow letter yet! She was innocent
about her plate—No! _she_ didn’t know what was under it! Jimsi almost
giggled, but she covered the giggle with her napkin and made it over
into a cough.

“I’m afraid you’ve taken cold,” suggested Aunt Phoebe. “Have you had
that cough long—I’m sure I should have noticed it”—

“No. I haven’t any cold,” protested Jimsi, “really I haven’t, Aunt
Phoebe.” Here she felt again like giggling over the letter concealed
under Aunt Phoebe’s plate and had to cough again.

“Well,” declared the play aunt, “I’ll have to stop that cough! Did you
wear your rubbers?”

“Honest injun!”

“It isn’t anything—just—er—er—Oh, nothing!”

“I hope so.”

The talk drifted to the morning. “What did you and Joyce find to do?”
asked Aunt Phoebe.

“We embroidered and painted.”

“You always have a nice time there, don’t you, dear?”

“Yes, Aunt Phoebe.”

Jimsi wanted to tell all about it, but—how could she till after Aunt
Phoebe found the crow letter. She waited. After what seemed a long
time, the little maid changed the plates and lo—why _there was a
letter right under Aunt Phoebe’s plate_!

“Oh, the mischief,” laughed Aunt Phoebe, “I do believe the crow has
been here! Jimsi, was _that_ why you were coughing, you sinner! I
think you must have seen the crow leave it. Well, you wait! There’s a
surprise coming to _you_, young lady!” And she tore open the letter.
“I’ll read it to you, aloud, Jimsi,” she said. “Shall I?”

It was part of crow play to pretend one hadn’t any knowledge at all of
having been _the_ one to write crow letters that one saw afterwards.
So Jimsi listened to the round-robin as Aunt Phoebe soberly read it
and exclaimed how very lovely the note-paper was. When she came to
the pattern, she was really delighted. “How clever of the crow,”
she laughed. “I was wanting a new embroidery pattern and here the
thoughtful crow has brought it. How kind of him!” She said she was
going to transfer it to some linen right away. She was so interested
that they went to look over Jimsi’s Magic Book to see if there were
embroidery patterns and stencil designs in that as well as in the
little lame girl’s book.

Yes, there were. The two of them became so interested that nap-time
almost passed. A whole fifteen minutes went by without either Aunt
Phoebe or Jimsi’s knowing it. When the little desk clock gave a faint
chime of two Aunt Phoebe jumped. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “I must be
off. Oh, Jimsi, how could you let me stay! Oh, you didn’t know—well,
run right upstairs and take that nap and don’t come down till half-past
three, _remember_!” With that Aunt Phoebe dashed into her cloak and
hat. “I had a _most_ important engagement to meet somebody! Oh, dear!”
And she was gone.

Jimsi walked upstairs and took off her dress and put on her kimono. As
her hand snuggled under her pillow, it met something long and hard.
Jimsi grasped it and drew forth—a crow present! It was a stick of
peppermint candy. She couldn’t go to sleep at first. She lay there with
the peppermint stick wondering _what_ the crow’s splendid surprise was
going to be. She couldn’t guess at all. Finally, she remembered that
she was honor-bound to go to sleep. Of course, one can’t always go
to sleep when one wants to, but Jimsi began to try hard. She covered
her head with the comforter and cuddled into a more cosy position.
She shut her eyes and then, the first thing she knew, Aunt Phoebe was
bending over her saying, “Wake up, Jimsi! Wake up! You’ve had an extra
long nap and crow has been to The Happy Shop and left you a surprise!”

So Jimsi jumped into her dress and tore down the front stairs
two steps at a time. Oh, she knew it was going to be a splendid
surprise—perfectly splendid! But she really wasn’t expecting the kind
of a surprise that awaited her, for as she opened the doors of The
Happy Shop who should pop up from behind a screen but Mother and Henry
and little sister Katherine! Oh, _Oh!_

What a hugging there was! Why, they had to hug twice around and even
Henry, who didn’t like to be kissed, seemed so happy to see Jimsi that
he had to kiss her, too! How lovely and how lovely and how _lovely_!
Oh, what fun! Now, Mother and Henry and Jimsi’s little sister could all
see The Happy Shop and help find play in the Magic Book. Hadn’t Jimsi
just been longing to have them all right there! Hadn’t she written them
long letters about it! Oh, this was almost too good to be true!

“But how did you happen to come?” inquired Jimsi. “Doesn’t Henry have
to go to school?”

“Well, we all wanted to see our Jimsi,” Mother explained. “I couldn’t
come without Katherine, and Henry wanted to see you so badly that I
decided one day out of school wouldn’t hurt if he made up the work. So
you can show us the crow plays and the Magic Book, Jimsi!”

“I want to see Crow!” urged little sister Katherine. So Jimsi took them
to the shelf in Aunt Phoebe’s study where her big crow perched on the
twig. The shelf was so high that baby Katherine thought the crow was
really alive. He didn’t look stuffed. Even Henry was almost deceived.
“Isn’t he really true?” he kept asking.

“Of course he’s true,” returned Jimsi. “Haven’t we always played crow
ever since we can remember?”

But she didn’t refer to Aunt Phoebe’s crow as just a stuffed crow. He
was a play crow, you know. There _is_ a great distinction, even though
you may not know it.

Henry wasn’t interested in paper dolls or paper doll furniture. But
Katherine was. Henry sniffed. “Oh, _I_ don’t care for Magic Books that
make paper dolls,” but Katherine wanted to look at them all. So did
Mother. Finally, Mother decided to take Katherine over to the couch and
let Jimsi and Henry play the shadow motion pictures—at least examine
them. Katherine sat on a stool beside Mother, and Mother watched to see
that no paper dolls were torn by clumsy little fingers that didn’t know
how easily paper tears.

Aunt Phoebe had brought her fancy work pattern down to show Mother. She
had a work-basket and was prepared to start her fancy work.

Oh, but wasn’t this splendid!

They had afternoon tea out in The Happy Shop, too. Jimsi and Henry and
Katherine had cocoa—but Mother and Aunt Phoebe had _tea_, and the Good
Crow had to be brought in and put close to the tea-table. Aunt Phoebe
talked for him as she had on the night of Jimsi’s arrival. And the crow
always said, “Caw-caw,” when he was addressed by any member of the
circle. He was a beautiful play crow. Katherine would have liked to
kiss him, but kissing him as hard as Katherine kissed would hurt, Aunt
Phoebe explained. She let the baby stroke the glossy plumage and say,
“Pretty, pretty!” (You know an ordinary crow isn’t exactly pretty, but
his plumage is a beautiful satiny black—all glossy. And Jimsi insisted
that Caw Caw _was_ beautiful.)

Henry said he didn’t think Caw Caw was pretty, but _he_ thought the
crow was good, all right. Henry, you see, was ever so interested in the
motion pictures crow had invented, and he had to fix all the different
plays that Jimsi had cut out and arrange the scenery on the motion
picture screen. He thought this the greatest amusement. He wanted to
try the play with a candle. Jimsi and he went off to a dark corner to
work the motion pictures and they played _Alice in Wonderland_ and made
the White Rabbit run about in a most realistic way. Then, before they
knew it was so late, they were called to dinner. How time does fly!

Just when they had finished dinner and desert was being served, Henry
happened to look up at the crow perched on the shelf where Aunt Phoebe
had put him—and if the crow didn’t have a letter in his bill!

“Why, look-look!” exclaimed Henry. “Look!” There was nothing to do,
once having seen it, but to jump up from the table right then and there
to go get that letter.

It proved to be a letter to Henry. He read it aloud.

[Illustration: THE SCRAPBOOKS THAT THE CHILDREN MADE WITH WALL PAPER
COVERS]

    “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.




CHAPTER IX

_The Pin-Wheels, Birds, Butterflies_


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.”

[Illustration: The Butterfly Cut from Folded Paper, the Basket Cut from
Folded Paper]

[Illustration: The Bird Cut from Folded Paper with Wings Cut from a
Second Piece of Folded Paper

DIAGRAM 2]

“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!”

[Illustration: THE BIRD, THE BUTTERFLIES AND THE PIN-WHEELS THAT WERE
MADE OUT OF WALL PAPER]

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.




CHAPTER X

_The May Baskets_


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.

[Illustration: THE MAY BASKETS AND THE FLOWER-POT COVER THAT WERE MADE
OF WALL PAPER]

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.




CHAPTER XI

_How the Magic Book Helped at School_


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.

[Illustration: HERE ARE SCHOOL BOOKS WITH PRETTY COVERS MADE TO
KEEP THEM CLEAN. THESE ARE THE BOOKS THE CHILDREN COVERED, AND THE
BOOK-MARKER, PICTURE FRAME AND NOTEBOOK ARE HERE TOO]

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.”




CHAPTER XII

_The Gifts That Were Made in The Happy Shop_


THE next day was Sunday. In the afternoon Jimsi ran over to see the
little lame girl. They did not play with the Magic Book. The little
lame girl did not feel very well. She was reading in her chair that
stood in the bow-window. She was very glad to see Jimsi for, somehow,
she had been feeling very lonely and wishing that she were like other
children who could run about and do the many active things that were
denied her.

“I’m cross today, Jimsi,” she greeted. “I’m discontented. Once in a
while it just comes over me that I can’t do what other girls can. I
have to stay here all day—and, Oh! I do want to run about so! I wish I
weren’t lame!”

Jimsi stood beside the chair. She wished that she could think of
something comforting to say. It surely was very hard to keep cheerful
all the time, if one couldn’t run about and play like other children.
Jimsi knew well what it felt like to be sick. “But—but—you’ll get well
some time,” she said.

The little lame girl sighed. “I don’t know. Not unless there’s money
for me to go to the hospital and have the doctor do what ought to be
done. He said I could walk, maybe, if it was done. He wasn’t sure—”

“But why can’t you go and have it done, then?” demanded Jimsi, bringing
an arm over the little lame girl’s shoulder. “Surely, it’s very
important that you get well. Would it cost very much money?”

“I don’t know how much,” said Joyce. “It’s more than Mother can pay.
She’s trying hard to put the sewing money aside for it, but that
doesn’t pay very well and it’s slow. I oughtn’t to complain and I
oughtn’t to talk about it at all—I hardly ever do, but when I saw you
and Henry and Katherine yesterday having such a lark, I just longed to,
too.”

“Oh, there ought to be some way to make the money,” declared Jimsi.
“There really ought! You ought to be well right away. I wish I could
help! But girls can’t earn money doing the things that boys can. Henry
can shovel snow and do carpentry and _he_ earns money. Somehow, I never
can find any way to earn money. If I could, I’d put it all in a bank
and give it to you to help. It mightn’t be much, but I wish I could do
it.”

The little lame girl’s mouth quivered. “Maybe some time I will be
well,” she said bravely. “I’m going to forget all about it and try to
think of something else. That’s why I like to keep busy doing things.
It keeps me from thinking about being lame. I never say anything to
Mother about it. I don’t believe Miss Phoebe or anybody knows—”

“But I’m glad you told me,” Jimsi sighed sympathetically. “It helps to
talk things over with a friend, I think. It always helps _me_ to talk
worries over with Aunt Phoebe. If you’d let me tell Aunt Phoebe about
this, Joyce, I think she’d know exactly what to do.”

“I don’t know,” brooded the little lame girl.

“Please,” urged Jimsi. “I’m sure that Aunt Phoebe would know how to get
the money. Maybe she’d just sit right down and write a story and sell
it and send you right off to be all fixed up new by the doctor. Think!
Why, you could come to visit me in the city then and I’d show you all
my play-things. We’d ride my bicycle and take walks in the park. Oh,
we’d have ever so much fun!”

The little lame girl smiled. “Wouldn’t it be splendid?”

“You’ll let me tell Aunt Phoebe?”

“Why, I wouldn’t let _her_ send me to the hospital! Mother wouldn’t let
her. Mother is going to send me some day when she has the money. She’s
putting it aside now, but I think it’ll be at least two years more
before there’s enough—”

“Aunt Phoebe could write a story just as easy as not. She’d help in a
jiffy, if you let me tell her. Then you could go right away _now_!”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that way,” protested Joyce. “I’d—oh, I’d never
take any money like that! I’d want to earn it myself—I wish I could. I
help with the sewing sometimes, but mostly, Mother uses the machine.”

“I wish I were rich—you’d have to take the money if I gave it to you!
I’d _make_ you! I wish I could make things to sell. Don’t you suppose—”
Jimsi broke off suddenly. “Why couldn’t we sell some of the things
we’ve found in Aunt Phoebe’s wall-paper sample book?”

“_What?_” inquired Joyce. “The paper dolls and the toy furniture
wouldn’t sell, would they? And the valentines aren’t sellable. The
embroidery patterns and stencils wouldn’t—it’s the splendid fun of
making something out of nothing and finding the _nothing_ is SOMETHING
that is jolly to play with. That’s why the Magic Book is so nice. It
doesn’t cost a single cent and yet it is full of play that is nicer
than shop-made games and toys.”

“I know,” Jimsi agreed. “And one can buy scrapbooks in shops, too. I
don’t believe that the butterflies and the birds and May baskets would
sell except for very little,—maybe a penny or so.”

“What else is there that we’ve made from the Magic Book?”

“Um-m-m,” mused Jimsi. “Let’s see—there’s the picture-framing, and
Katherine’s book-markers, and the covers for books—oh, yes! And there
are the pin-wheels, but they aren’t sellable any of them—”

“Maybe we could invent something new,” Joyce suggested. “People do, you
know. Ever so many times, they make money out of very little things
that seem at first too small to count for much. I’ve been thinking of
some new things to make. I was going to make one for Daddy’s Christmas.
Poor Daddy! He never says anything about me, but I know he thinks
about it ever so much. He wants me to go to the hospital, too. But he
won’t let me go till we can pay for it, he says.”

“What were you going to make for Christmas?” asked Jimsi. “I thought of
Christmas presents I could make with the paper from my Magic Book, too.
Mine is stencil work. I was going to stencil a box of letter-paper for
Aunt Phoebe and some correspondence cards for Mother. I could use the
stencils—the small ones—that way.”

“That’s good,” agreed Joyce. “I thought of making blotter-pads by
covering the bottom of a cardboard box with wall paper, after its rims
were cut off. Then I’d take wall paper and make little corner pieces
and fit them at each corner of my blotter. I’d glue the corner pieces
to the cardboard that was covered with the wall paper and that would
make a blotter-pad for Daddy’s desk in the other room where he works
nights.”

“You’d have to line the corner pieces unless you used very heavy
paper,” Jimsi added. “You’d have to make the blotter-pads stick with
glue. Paste isn’t strong enough.”

“Oh, I know how I’d do it,” Joyce protested. “It’s perfectly simple.
The blotter could be taken out and a new one put in, you know. The
corner pieces would be turned in underneath and glued to the cardboard
covered with the fancy wall paper. It would be pretty. Let’s try it
tomorrow.”

[Illustration: SOME DESK FITTINGS THAT WERE MADE WITH WALL PAPER]

“Yes, let’s!”

“And I thought of another thing. I was going to make it for Miss
Phoebe. It is a case for blotters. I’d make it by cutting a strip of
flowered paper or a border pattern of wall paper to fit and fold
around the small blotters you buy twelve for five cents. I’d glue the
ends underneath and cut the pattern out. It would make a pretty way
to give a present. And, I suppose, I might stencil my blotters in
water-color paint.”

“Um-hum,” nodded Jimsi reflectively. “I could make that kind of a
present for my teacher at school, maybe. You wouldn’t mind, if I used
your idea?”

“Of course! Why, use it,” urged Joyce. “And there’s still another thing
I thought of doing. I was going to cut the outline of a leaf from green
paper and tie pen-wiper things to the back. I have some cloth I could
use—linen. If one had chamois, that would be better. It would be tied
at the back of the leaf and cut the same shape. Three pen-wiper layers
of cloth or chamois would be enough. I’d use a little red ribbon to tie
all together at the stem of the leaf.”

“That’s good, too,” declared Jimsi. “I’m going to ask Aunt Phoebe
tonight if she thinks we could sell some of these, if we made ever so
many and took them to a shop. Maybe the shopkeepers would buy them.”

“I wish they would!”

“Dear me! Don’t I wish so!”

Both little girls smiled into each other’s eyes. “I’ll miss you
dreadfully when I go home,” sighed Jimsi.

“And I’ll miss _you_!”

“Let’s think of something else we can sell.”

“Let’s see.”

They thought and thought. It seemed very hard to think of something
that would sell.

“There’s a little clock made of cardboard on Father’s desk,” finally
Jimsi announced. “I think you and I could copy it. Father turns the
hands around. They are on a pivot and they point to numbers that are
on the dial of a white clock-face. Father fixes the hour with the
clock-hands. He uses it when he leaves his office. The clock tells when
he will be back. Mother said she would like one once. I thought I could
copy Father’s. I thought of using fancy paper pasted over a square of
cardboard at the back. There would need to be an easel back so the card
would stand. A strip of cardboard covered with the same sort of wall
paper could be glued at the back and left loose lower down to rest the
card upright. The clock face would be cut out of pad paper and numbers
could be cut from a calendar to paste on the dial—all around the edge.
A round-sided paper-fastener would answer for a pivot to hold the clock
hands in place. The hands one could cut from cardboard. They might be
colored to make them stand out clearly.”

“I see,” the little lame girl answered. “I’ll make one, too. Perhaps my
daddy would use one.”

“I’ll ask Aunt Phoebe if she thinks any of them will sell. I’ll ask
her tonight. Perhaps we could make the two years shorter a _little_,”
sighed Jimsi.

“Maybe we will make a fortune,” laughed Joyce. “Anyhow, Jimsi dear, I’m
not going to be discontented any more. I’m not going to have any more
blue days. I’m going to be plucky, I am. Don’t you ever dare to mention
it again.”

“All right,” Jimsi agreed, “not unless we do make the fortune,” she
laughed.

“Which we won’t,” smiled Joyce.

The twilight deepened into dusk and the firelight lit the room. “Oh, I
must run,” declared Jimsi. “Aunt Phoebe told me to come home before
dark. Good-bye, dear. I’m going to make a fortune somehow—see if I
don’t, and then you’ll go to the hospital and get well right off fast.
Let’s pretend we’re going to make a fortune anyhow.”




CHAPTER XIII

_The Christmas-Tree That They Made in the Happy Shop_


THAT night after tea, Aunt Phoebe curled up on the lounge. “Jimsi,” she
said, “I don’t feel like reading and I don’t know what to do. Come talk
to me. What’s the matter, dear? You hardly said a thing all through
supper. Don’t you feel well?”

“Oh, I’m all right, Aunt Phoebe,” Jimsi declared. “But I was thinking—I
want to make some money _dreadfully_!”

“What for?” Aunt Phoebe drew Jimsi onto the couch beside her. “Is it
for Christmas, Honey?” she asked.

Jimsi shook her head from side to side slowly. “Of course, I do want
money for Christmas presents, but what I want it _most_ for is to give
it to somebody. I want to know if you think, Aunt Phoebe, that I could
earn some money some way. Do you think that I could make things to sell
if I made blotter-pads and little presents and took them to a shop?
Would the shopkeeper buy them to sell at Christmas, do you think?”

“I don’t believe so, Honey. You’d not make much money that way,
I’m afraid.” Aunt Phoebe smiled. “It wouldn’t be a fortune, dear.
Shopkeepers would not pay little girls much. The things you make are
lovely, I know, but—you see, shopkeepers don’t buy that way.”

There was silence.

“What is it you want the money for?” asked Aunt Phoebe suddenly. “Maybe
I could help.”

“I think you could, Aunt Phoebe. I want it to help somebody who is
sick.”

“It’s the little lame girl, Joyce, isn’t it?—I didn’t know they needed
money. Of course, dear, I knew they were not rich, but riches do not
always mean money. I know very many poor persons who are rich because
they have the things many rich persons do not have. I mean love and
hope and happiness and work. Riches are not always money, Jimsi. I
think you’re a rich little girl because you are so resourceful. You
have such happy clever ways of making things. The crow’s magic book
has been very magic indeed with the things you and Joyce have made.
I’ve been thinking about it all as I watched you. There’s one thing
you’ve made that is _splendid_. It’s the motion picture play screen.”

“Crow told Joyce about it,” said Jimsi. “Yes, it’s ever so much fun. Do
you think maybe we could sell _that_? I could make them, ever so many
of them. I want the little lame girl to go to the hospital and be made
well, Aunt Phoebe. She can’t go till the money is in the bank, and it
may be two whole years—”

Aunt Phoebe sat upright with a jump. “You don’t mean that Joyce could
get well if there was money to send her where she could have treatment,
do you?”

A hot, little tear crept from Jimsi’s eye and fell on Aunt Phoebe’s
hand that clasped hers in her lap.

“Why, I’ll send Joyce,” she cried. “They never told me!”

“No, no, you can’t,” declared Jimsi. “Joyce wouldn’t let you. She
wouldn’t go that way, she says. _She_ wants to help her mother earn
the money. Her father can’t put much aside. They need it. That’s why I
wanted to help.”

“Nonsense,” declared Aunt Phoebe. “They’ll have to take it from me.”

Again there was silence. Of course, Aunt Phoebe knew Jimsi was right.
They would rather wait than borrow. It was too much for a gift.

Aunt Phoebe got up and walked restlessly about the room. She did that
sometimes when she was writing stories, when the story stopped and
wanted to go another way than the way Aunt Phoebe planned. Jimsi often
laughed about this habit in fun. It did seem so odd that the story
people wouldn’t do as Aunt Phoebe wanted them. Aunt Phoebe said it
helped her think to walk about like that. Jimsi sat on the couch and
watched her silently.

“There must be a way,” Aunt Phoebe kept saying. Then she would walk
some more. Once she went right out of the room and Jimsi heard her
telephoning. Then she came back and sat down in the rocking chair. “Run
and bring me the shadow play that you made from the Magic Book, Jimsi,”
she asked. “I want to look at it again. I know somebody who wants to
see it. Jimsi, don’t get your hopes up too high—maybe the man will buy
the idea and put it on the market as a children’s toy. What do you say
to that? If you’ll give me the toy you made, I’ll wrap it up and we’ll
send it on for him to look it over. Don’t tell Joyce. I think Joyce can
patent it.”

Well, if Jimsi didn’t fly! Into The Happy Shop she rushed and came back
panting. The crow’s motion picture play was all there. Aunt Phoebe had
paper. She did it up neatly, addressed and sealed it. Then she went to
her desk and began to write a letter to send with it. She wrote for
quite a while. When the letter was done, it was bed-time. Jimsi kissed
her and went upstairs.

The next morning there was a storm—oh, how it did snow and blow! Aunt
Phoebe declared that Jimsi couldn’t go out—no, not even as far as the
little lame girl’s house. She sent her to play in The Happy Shop and
promised to bring her something nice from crow, if she was good. Aunt
Phoebe herself put on her cloak and hat and furs. She said she might
not be home till four o’clock as there was business to do in the city
even when it _was_ stormy. She told the kitchen maid what to get for
Jimsi’s lunch and Jimsi went as far as the front door to wave her off.
Aunt Phoebe had—why she had that package of the motion picture play
of crow’s under her cloak. Jimsi saw it as Aunt Phoebe turned to wave.
There was enough showing under Aunt Phoebe’s arm for Jimsi to recognize
the parcel. Her heart gave a big jump; that must be the business Aunt
Phoebe intended to do in the city on a stormy day.

Jimsi watched Aunt Phoebe plod through the snow and up the street out
of sight. Then she turned and went toward The Happy Shop. It was going
to be a very lonely day all alone. But hardly had she opened the glass
door when she saw that Aunt Phoebe had put the Good Crow on the shelf
today, and in his bill he held a letter.

Jimsi took the crow down and removed the letter. She tore the wee
envelope open and read:

    “DEAREST JIMSI:

    I am right here for company to-day while Aunt Phoebe is
    away. I’m giving you a letter myself because, you know,
    a play crow _has_ to write letters.

    Look in the corner of The Happy Shop and see the nice
    thing I brought. It’s a little Christmas-tree and you
    can cut decorations for it from your Magic Book. I
    think you must have learned how to make chains for
    Christmas-trees: just cut strips of colored wall paper
    and make links by pasting the ends of one strip at a
    time together. Slip the next strip through the first
    link and paste. You go on and on making a chain that
    will circle the tree.

    Cornucopias may be made by rolling a triangular
    piece of wall paper together like a cone, closed at
    the bottom. You can line each with a plain paper of
    contrasting shade.

    Christmas-tree pendants may be made by cutting round
    and diamond pointed designs out and sewing tinsel about
    their edge.

    A star may be made for the top of the Christmas-tree.
    Cut it from yellow paper. Flowers cut from wall paper
    may be pinned on the tree to decorate it too. And you
    can make small lanterns to hang by raffia exactly as
    kindergarten children make them: just double a square
    of paper end to end. Cut snips through the centre with
    scissors and unfold. Paste the cut paper together to
    make a hollow roll and the cut places will make it look
    like a lantern.

    Try to make Christmas cards too. A tree is easily cut
    out by cutting a green triangle. At its base, make a
    small brown trunk and cut a red pot for the tree. Mount
    the tree on a square of cardboard and letter the card
    with crayon.

    A card with a Christmas candle may be made by cutting
    out a colored candle-stick from bright wall paper and
    adding a paper candle at the top.

    Here’s enough to fill all your whole long day alone.
    See what you can do by the time Aunt Phoebe gets back!

                                              _Crow._

    P. S.

    How about taking this tree to Joyce for her Christmas
    present?”

Jimsi gathered all the precious sheets of crow’s letter together and
looked for the tree. It was almost hidden from sight back of some
palms. It was a dear little tree. She put it upon the table of The
Happy Shop and began to snip industriously with her scissors. The Magic
Book was indeed thin, but there was more than enough to make all the
Christmas tree decorations and the Christmas cards. Jimsi began with
the chain. She made it very long and pretty, pink, blue, green, red,
yellow—and again she repeated the order of colors pink, blue, green,
red, yellow. The chain was very lovely when done and she hung it about
the tree in long festoons.

After this she made two cornucopias that were big enough to hold candy,
and some little ones beside. And she cut the flowers out and pinned
them to branches, too. And she made lanterns, and a big, big star, and
some pendants. Crow had thoughtfully put a long roll of tinsel in the
drawer of The Happy Shop table and Jimsi made loops of the tinsel to
hang them on the tree. She had to sew these on with a needle threaded
with fine cotton that was from Aunt Phoebe’s workbasket.

[Illustration: THE CHRISTMAS-TREE DECORATIONS THAT WERE MADE OF WALL
PAPER]

The tree was half trimmed at luncheon time and the little maid who
worked for Aunt Phoebe didn’t put the lunch on the big, lonely
dining-room table. She brought it to The Happy Shop.

Just as Jimsi was swallowing the last mouthful of apple sauce and was
going to take a bite of cake, the telephone bell rang in the study.
Jimsi hopped up to answer it.

“Hello!” came the voice over the telephone. “Is that you, Jimsi?”

Why, it was Aunt Phoebe’s voice! And Aunt Phoebe’s voice sounded very
far away at first. It grew more clear. “Jimsi,” it said, “I can’t wait
to tell you, so I called you up by long distance. The firm that makes
toys wants to buy the idea of the motion picture shadow play. They will
pay Joyce a whole hundred dollars for the model that she made, and give
her royalty after it is published. _Royalty_ means that Joyce will get
money on every toy sold. They are a big firm, and there will be more
than enough money for the hospital. I’ll tell you more when I get home.
Are you all right? It can be patented.”

“Oh! Oh,” gasped Jimsi. “Oh, I’m so _happy_! Yes, Aunt Phoebe, I am all
right. Everything’s all right!”

Then the wire buzzed. Aunt Phoebe had gone.

That time, Jimsi couldn’t go back to work. _She_ walked around just as
excitedly as Aunt Phoebe did when the story wouldn’t go the way she
wanted it to go. She could think of nothing but how glad Joyce would
be. How she longed to put on hat and cloak and run over there. But she
didn’t. She had promised Aunt Phoebe to stay indoors.

It seemed to Jimsi that the afternoon hours would never pass. She
was as restless as a caged lion. She couldn’t work on Christmas-tree
decorations—and then she remembered that the tree was to be finished
by the time Aunt Phoebe came home. She started feverishly to make more
things. She worked very hard. Indeed, she worked so hard that the tree
grew to be wonderfully pretty. It needed only candles to make it
quite complete. Then Jimsi had an idea. “I’ll tie a crow letter on the
tree,” she thought, “and the crow letter shall tell Joyce all about
everything. But Aunt Phoebe must write that crow letter herself.”

She decided to try making Christmas cards and blotter-cases. She was
engrossed in these when there came a stamping of feet on the doorstep
outside and the front door-bell rang. It was Aunt Phoebe all covered
with snow and beaming from under a snow-covered hat. Hooray!

Oh, wasn’t it good to have her back, and wasn’t it jolly to be able
to find out all about the real fortune that was going to come to the
little lame girl!

“It’s too good to be true,” she laughed. “Oh, tell me all about it
right away, Aunt Phoebe, _please_!”

So Aunt Phoebe, as soon as she could fling off her very wet things,
sat down by the fire and told Jimsi the whole long story of how she
had taken the model and found the toy merchant who published games
and toys, and how he had looked it all over and tried it and said it
was good—yes, very good, and so good that it _did_ interest him. She
told how he had carried the toy away to show to other members of the
firm, and how she had had to wait what seemed hours and hours before he
came back to say that they thought it an excellent thing and wanted to
publish it.

At first, so she said, he had not wanted to pay any advance for it—that
meant the hundred dollars, Aunt Phoebe said. But she had insisted, and
he had agreed.

There was something Aunt Phoebe called a contract. This was going to be
sent and signed by Joyce’s father. It was a written agreement of terms
of sale.

“That’s all,” smiled Aunt Phoebe, finishing by giving Jimsi’s hand a
hard and happy squeeze. “Now, let’s see the tree crow gave you.”

Jimsi took Aunt Phoebe to The Happy Shop where the little tree stood.
Oh, it really did look very, very charming. Aunt Phoebe said so, and
the little maid who came to announce dinner said so, and even Jimsi who
had done it all herself said so. I think crow would have said so, too,
if crow could have talked really and truly.

After dinner, Aunt Phoebe wrote the crow letter that told about the
hundred dollars and the contract and all the other things. She wrote
it on her typewriter because she wanted it very clear and easy to
understand. She told how Jimsi had wanted to have Joyce get well so
that she would not be a little lame girl any longer, and she told how
she herself had suddenly thought of the value of the original toy made
with shadow pictures. She said she had taken it to the city and that
everything was all right. It only remained to hurry Joyce right off as
fast as she could go. Aunt Phoebe didn’t see why Joyce couldn’t go day
after tomorrow. That was the time she and Jimsi were going to the city
and they could take Joyce to the hospital in a motor car.

They tied the note to the top of the tree with a bright, red ribbon.
It had to be folded and folded to fit into a crow envelope. Oh, the
envelope was quite bulky and fat, I assure you.

Then they both went upstairs to bed to dream of the Good Crow who had
first suggested the play of the motion picture screen. Ah, yes! It was
the Good Crow who belonged to Aunt Phoebe—he had done it all.

As for the little lame girl, why, of course, she went with Jimsi
and Aunt Phoebe. _Of course_ she got well! And Jimsi always declared
afterward that the Good Crow was the very best crow there was, and that
there never was a better real aunt than Aunt Phoebe who was a play
aunt—and that if it hadn’t been for The Happy Shop and Aunt Phoebe’s
Good Crow hundreds of happy children who played the shadow motion
picture fun would have missed half the joy of their lives!

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Varied hyphenation was retained.

Asterisks in the notes below indicate missing or smudged letters.

Page 15, “musn’t” changed to “mustn’t” (mustn’t be disappointed)

Page 30, “muf**” changed to “muffs” (hats and muffs)

Page 56, “Pheobe’s” changed to “Phoebe’s” (till Miss Phoebe’s crow)

Page 59, “your” changed to “you’re” (Pretend you’re interested)

Page 98, “suprise” changed to “surprise” (crow’s splendid surprise)

Page 112, closing quotation mark moved to land outside of closing
parenthesis (pin-wheels—)”)

Page 134, opening quotation mark removed from middle of dialogue.
Original read (trouble. “Today there)

Page 151, opening quotation mark removed from middle of dialogue.
Original read (before dark. “Good-bye, dear)





End of Project Gutenberg's The Good Crow's Happy Shop, by Patten Beard



