Real people live in grass houses way off in the Philippine Islands. That is, their houses are made of bamboo, which is a kind of giant grass. It must be a pretty airy, comfortable house in summer, and it is always summer in the Philippines, but we never see that kind of houses here. One reason is because in most of our country a grass house would be very cold in winter, and another reason for not building them is because the bamboo grows only in the extreme south, and even down there people want more substantial homes.

A prettier playhouse, though, could not be devised, and if you could see a Filipino house you would want it immediately, but since you cannot have a real one you can have the fun of making a little doll Filipino house, and of making it exactly as the little brown Filipino men make theirs. Suppose you gather some grass and twigs now, and build the little house for your doll.

Some of the queer little people whose home is in the Philippine Islands perch their houses like birds' nests up in the trees, but often they are built on stilts to lift them high from the ground. Our little house (Fig. 50) shall be on stilts. We will make the floor first. If you do not understand how to measure by inches, ask an older person to help you.

The Floor

Find two straight, round sticks, not quite as large round as a lead-pencil. The sticks must be cut six and a half inches long, then two sticks of the same kind five inches long; after that there must be six more sticks five inches long. Split these last six sticks in half lengthwise.

The Philippine people do not use nails, or screws, or glue, and not even wooden pegs, in building their houses; they bind and tie the parts together with rattan, and as we are going to build just as they do we, too, will tie the parts of our house together, but will use raffia in place of the rattan.

Hold one of the six-and-a-half-inch sticks (letter J, Fig. 51) upright in your hand while you cross it a short distance below the top with a five-inch-round stick (letter K, Fig. 51). The distance from the top of the upright stick to the crossing and the distance from the short end of the other stick to the crossing must be the same.

Begin binding them together as shown in Fig. 51. Then carry the raffia (string will do if you cannot get raffia) over and between the two ends of the sticks (Fig. 52), and wind it opposite ways several times around the sticks, bringing the raffia between as well as over them. This will lash them firmly together. Now turn this beginning of your floor around so that the short stick will be upright and the long one extend from side to side. Do not let the binding loosen; hold it tight and cross the long stick with one of the split five-inch sticks (Fig. 53). Be sure that the flat side of the split stick is next to the long stick, and that you leave a slight opening between it and the first crosspiece. Pull the raffia tight and bind it over this second crosspiece (Fig. 54), then back, crossing it as in Fig. 55.

Bind on the next split crosspiece in the same way, and go on adding crosspieces until they reach almost to the end of the long stick, then let the last crosspiece be the second unsplit five-inch stick. When all the short crosspieces are properly bound onto the long stick, bind the other six-and-a-half-inch long stick under the opposite ends of the crosspieces in the same way, and just as carefully (Fig. 56). This makes the floor and we must lash it to the stilts, which are four upright sticks, each seven and one half inches long. Fit the stilts in the outside corners made by the crossing of the end and side sticks of the floor, and, holding the floor about four and a half inches above the lower ends of the stilts, bind floor and stilts together (Fig. 57). Of course you can put the stilts on only one at a time.

The Walls

Make the framework for the walls by binding and tying onto the stilts near the top two sticks, each six and a half inches long, one stick on each side. Across these sticks, from stilt to stilt, at each end, bind a five-inch-length stick (Fig. 58).

The Roof

To support the roof there must be two upright sticks, each seven inches long, and these sticks must be bound and tied to the middle of the end sticks of the floor and the end sticks of the wall. They are lettered L and L in Fig. 59

Fig. 60 shows the framework of the house without the bindings, so that you may see exactly how the sticks are put together. There is a ridge-pole which forms the top ridge of the roof. This must be a stick about seven inches long, and it is to be tied to the uprights lettered L and L that you have just fastened on the two ends of the house. (See Fig. 59, L and L.) Four other sticks, M and M and N and N, long enough to reach from the ridge-pole, crossing above it, to the side crosspieces of the wall, you must tie to the ridge-pole and the side-wall sticks, placing them slanting, as you see them in Fig. 60, at each end.

The Porch

Like many other people, the Filipino wants a porch to his house. Perhaps he sits there to smoke his curious little pipe, which is not much larger than the one you make of an acorn. I have never seen him on his porch, but I have seen him smoke and afterward tuck his pipe away in his long, fuzzy hair, where it remained in safety even while he leaped and pranced about in the wild dance he loves so much.

But we must not forget the porch. If the Filipino has one to his house, we must have a porch to ours. We won't make it separately and add it to the part already built, but, as the Filipino does, we will use part of the house-floor for the floor of the porch, and let the roof cover that as well as the house. To do this we must separate the house part from the porch part by putting up two more uprights, one on each side, a little way back from the front of the house, and these uprights will form the boundary-line. Letters O and P in Fig. 60 are these last uprights, the sticks which form them being long enough to reach from the wall side-piece to the floor, and extend a little above and below where they cross the upper and lower sticks.

Thatching

Now we come to the real grass part of the house, for we have had to use small sticks for the framework instead of bamboo, and where the Filipino uses palm-leaves we will use grass.

Gather some long, coarse, fresh blades of grass for thatching both the roof and walls, and begin with the walls. Bunch the grass evenly, the stem ends all together, bend the bunch at the centre, then spread it out at its centre, and hang it thickly over one side-wall beam, which is the upper stick (Fig. 61). Have the stem ends inside the house hang down as long as the tip ends on the outside, and let the outside ends hang down below the edge of the floor; then take a flat strip of wood and place it near the top of the grass-covered wall, bend the ends a little and slide them back of the uprights (Fig. 62). Smooth the grass down evenly and put in another flat stick, this time at the bottom (Fig. 62). If you want the inside of the house as perfect as the outside, slide in two other strips on the inside of each wall to hold the grass down. Fig. 62 shows the grass partially trimmed off to make it even at the bottom.

To thatch the roof you will need two more sticks for rafters. Over one stick, near the end, tie a bunch of grass into a tassel, using a piece of raffia to bind it; hang more grass over the stick or rafter, and tie it into another tassel, and with the same piece of raffia tie a third tassel (Fig. 63). Fig. 64 shows exactly how the raffia is tied. Make the tassels rather thick and put them close together so that there will be no space between.

When this rafter (the stick) is covered with thatch lay it across the side of the roof half-way between the ridge-pole (top stick on the roof) and the stick forming the side wall of the house, and tie the ends securely to the slanting sticks of the roof. Thatch another rafter and fasten it on the opposite side of the roof, then cover two shorter sticks with thatch and tie one across the front, the other across the back peak of the roof on a line with the thatched rafters on the sides.

Fasten more thatch at the front and back peak of the roof, tying it to the ridge-pole, also to the two slanting sticks. Allow the grass to hang down far enough to cover the top of the thatch below it (Fig. 50). This thatch must entirely fill up the ends of the roof made by the peak. Now hang grass over the ridge-pole at the top of the roof as you would hang your doll's little sheets on your toy clothes-line (Fig. 65), and bring the ends down over the thatched rafters on each side of the roof. Hold this top thatch in place by laying sticks across the grass just below the ridge-pole on each side of the roof. Bind and tie these sticks at each end to the framework of the house (Fig. 50).

If grass cannot be had for thatching, soak hay in water to make it soften and take the stiffness out, then use that. Raffia dyed green might do, or should all else fail, take fine broom-straws softened in hot water for the thatch, and use loosely twisted string for binding and tying. Of course the string should not be white, but you can dip it in coffee and dry it; the color will then be like the color of rattan.

The Ladder

The spry little Filipinos use ladders instead of stairs to reach their living-room, so we must make a rustic ladder for our house.

Cut two slender sticks about six and one-half inches long for the sides; then cut seven or eight short sticks for the crosspieces or rungs. The rungs should be one and three-quarter inches long. Bind and tie the ends of the rungs to the side sticks (Fig. 66), placing them about three-quarters of an inch apart. The ends of the rungs must cross the side sticks and extend out about one-quarter of an inch. If properly tied, your little ladder will be firm and strong.

Place the ladder one end resting on the ground, the other end on the front edge of the porch, then stand off and admire your work. It is certainly worth admiring, for the house will be a perfect miniature Filipino home, and you may imagine you can see tall cocoanut-palms and many other strange and beautiful trees and plants that grow in the hot Philippine Islands. You might copy some of these with grasses and small flowering wild plants.

If you have a Noah's ark it will be a good idea to select some of the animals that live in the Philippines and put them in the little rattan and bamboo jungles which you have made of grasses. A piece of looking-glass or plain window-glass can represent water not far from the house, and here you should have a crocodile sunning himself on the bank. Let a wild boar be plunging out of the jungle, and deep in the bamboo grove you might hide the tremendously large snake called a boa. I don't think there will be a boa in your Noah's ark, but you can make one of bread dough, or of clay. With all these dangerous creatures prowling round, do you think it strange that the Filipino people put their houses on stilts?

If this were a real house in the real Philippines you might see a number of natives, wearing little or no clothes, coming toward you bringing small snakes which they had caught to sell in the towns for rat-catchers. And near the house there would be most wonderful flowers, some of them orchids, the flowers that live on air; while all around would be strange and rare birds.

At one side of the house, some distance away, there would, perhaps, be a wet rice-field where the queer water-buffalo, called a carabao, would be drawing a strange-looking plough, the driver, a little brown man, wearing an immense umbrella-like hat woven of palm-leaves.

Listen! Do you hear that deep, booming sound? It comes from the peculiar tree which a native is striking with his big club in slow, heavy blows on one of its immense, wall-like roots. The sound goes rolling far over the land, telephoning to other natives that white people are coming.

A Doll Filipino Woman

To make the little house seem more real, dress a doll in genuine Philippine costume and stand her near the ladder with arms extended as if in welcome. The dress must be a white waist with flowing sleeves, a light-colored skirt, a large gay handkerchief, called a paÑuelo, folded around the doll's neck, and an overskirt made of a square of dark cloth drawn tightly around her body from waist to knees. No stockings are needed, but you can give her heelless slippers with only a narrow strip over the toes to keep them on.