A Dutch Street

Source: What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games And Pastimes
Category: INDOOR OCCUPATIONS AND THINGS TO MAKE



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

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

Other possibilities in this line are suggested below. You will have
more fun in working them out yourself than if you are told just how to
proceed. A Roman arena with gladiators fighting and a curtain which
may be drawn to keep off the sun. A little fishing-village beside the
sea (a large pan of water) with tiny nets spread out to dry and little
walnut shell boats drawn up on the sandy beach.

A farmhouse, barn, pig-pen, dog-kennel, carriage-house and the like. A
very pretty settlement can be made of this with fields of growing
grain, brooks, water-wheels, etc.

All the animals of a farm can be modeled and painted. When they are
skilfully made they are very pretty and add much to the picture and
when they are done unskilfully it is fun to have people guess what
they were meant for. However, with a little practice very presentable
animals can be modeled. It is easier to make them in clay than to draw
them.

A gypsy camp, with tents and open fires (bits of yellow and red
tissue-paper), under a black kettle (made of clay and painted) swung
on a forked stick, can easily be made.

Of course with tin or lead soldiers the number of games one can invent
with these tiny settlements is innumerable. One favorite with some
children is the attack and capture of the Filipino village by American
troops. Sometimes it is burned, and this is always a stirring
spectacle. Indeed with tin soldiers (which are just now unjustly out
of favor) one's range of subjects is unlimited, and one always has
plenty of inhabitants for any settlement. An army post can be made,
with a fort and barracks and a wide green parade ground with the
regiment drawn up in line for dress-parade. A tiny American flag
flutters from the flag-pole and after the sunset gun booms (a
fire-cracker exploded or only some one striking a blow on a tin pan)
it can be lowered to the ground while the best whistler of the company
executes "The Star-Spangled Banner."

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