Material Required for Making a Boxville Church: one shoe-box with its cover, one narrow box about six or seven inches long, one oblong box cover three or four inches long, three small box covers of about the same size (three inches), a twelve-inch square of cardboard, and some colored tissue-paper, with a spool.

Ding! Ding! Can you hear the bell in the steeple of the Boxville Church ringing? It does not ring very loud, because it is such a small bell, but it does ring beautifully! You can try it yourself. Suppose that you make a little church like this for your village!

Take a shoe-box. Remove its cover. Lay the shoe-box upon one long side rim. The bottom of the box will become the side of the church. It will need to have three long windows cut in it.

Draw these window spaces long and narrow, about one inch wide and three inches high. Cut the two end windows equally distant from the ends of the box, and draw the outline of the center window mid-way between these two. Cut the cardboard at the top of the window spaces to a point. (For cutting windows, see Diagram One, A, page 166.)

If you have some colored tissue-paper, you may cut three pieces the same shape as the window spaces you have cut out. Let them be a little wider and longer, however. Paste each inside the box right over the open window spaces. This will make stained-glass windows. You can paint the window-casings with black ink, or paint on the outside of the box around the windows.

If you prefer, you can make the window-casings by pasting narrow strips of pinwheel paper around the windows, instead of using the paint.

The Boxville Church, as you can see, has a sloping roof. This roof is the cover of the shoe-box supported on two side walls, which are made of cardboard and glued to each end of the box. You will need to cut these side walls. (See Diagram Three, A, page 168.)

Measure the exact width and height of your box on the twelve-inch square of cardboard. Measure one end only, and place the end of the box so that it comes at the edge of your cardboard. At the top, add four inches to the height, and cut out this oblong piece you have drawn. Make another like it. Next, cut off the two front upper corners diagonally down to the mark you first made, showing the height of your box building at the front of your box.

Cut a church door in one of these sides. Make it rather high—about the height of the church windows. Let the base of the door come at the lower edge of the side wall. Cut up through the cardboard vertically for about three inches. Then cut the arch of the door and bend as if it were on a hinge. (See Diagram Two, A, page 167, for cutting door.)

Paste each side wall in place on the box building so that the points of each come at the rear of the box. When the side walls are firmly dry, cut out the cardboard that is under the door space of the side wall. The roof is not quite ready to go on yet, however. You will first need to arrange for the steeple or bell-tower.

Take the cover of your shoe-box and also the oblong box you intend to use for a steeple. This may be either a long candy box, such as chocolate peppermints are often sold in drug stores, or it may be a box such as jewelers use for hat-pins. The tower of the church should come over the door. Near the top corner of the shoe-box cover which is to be the roof of the church, mark off the shape of one end of the oblong box which is to be the tower. Cut out this square from the shoe-box roof, and cut out about a quarter of an inch more at the bottom, otherwise your steeple will not stand exactly straight.

Now, slip the roof over the points of the side walls. See! that is it! And, next, slip the tower in place down through the opening which comes in the roof over the door. (See Diagram Three, AA, page 168.)

If your tower is to have a bell, you can buy a bell at almost any toy store. It will probably cost you a penny. You will need to cut openings in the upper part of the bell-tower box. Cut one on each side, as you see it in the picture of my Boxville Church. The belfry windows will be cut like ordinary square windows, except for a point at the top. (For cutting plain windows, see Diagram One, A, page 166.)

The bell is next tied like a locket to a double cord or bit of string. One end of this string is used to fasten the bell to the top of the tower. It is sewed, with the help of a large darning-needle, to the cardboard top of the belfry. The other end of the cord will be the bell-rope, and this goes down through the cardboard at the base of your tower box and through the cardboard at the top of the shoe-box building. It can be threaded to the darning-needle and pressed through the holes made by the needle till its end hangs down into the church vestibule, as you see it in the picture. When you let the sexton pull this bell-rope, ding, ding goes the bell, and the noise that it makes is just the right size for a Boxville Church!

Now you are ready to furnish the inside of your church. Begin with the platform for the pulpit. This is the box cover you have—the one about three or four inches long. Place it where the platform should go, opposite the door. The spool will be the pulpit. Paste a little round cardboard disk over the opening at one end of the spool, and this will be the top of the pulpit. Paint the spool black.

Use a long, narrow box cover for the pulpit chair. (See Diagram Six, C, page 177.) Cut the rim from box cover, beginning near the center on one long side. Cut till you have reached the point opposite. The part of the cover from which the rim has been removed will be the back of the chair. Bend it forward.

The other half of the cover will be the seat of the chair. Legs are cut in the front rim and in the side rims that remain. To make front legs, keep the corners of the box, and cut up to the part which is the seat, the upper part of the cover. Remove the cardboard from between these two cuttings. Then, make the back legs of the chair in the box rims at side. Place the little chair back of the pulpit, and color it, if you wish, to match.

At least three pews will be needed for the church. They are to be made from the three small box covers. (See Diagram Six, B, page 176, for making high-backed benches.)

With a pencil or pin-point, mark the center of each short rim on these box covers. Then, taking one cover, cut through the rim at the two points till you have reached the top of the cover. Half of the division made will be for the back of the bench and half for the seat and the legs. Cut the legs in one half as you cut the legs for the pulpit chair. Remove from the other half of the cover the remaining end rim. Bend the rim that is left at the top upward, to make the high back of the bench, and color the bench to match the pulpit and chair.

Place the benches one behind the other inside the church. Let the sexton ring the bell for Sunday-school to begin. What was the lesson you had last Sunday? Do you remember about it? Perhaps you might not so easily forget next Sunday’s lesson, if you taught it yourself to a class of penny dolls in a Boxville Church like this. Anyway, you can try!