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:

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!”

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.)

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!

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.