"I move, Madam President," said Tom, "that we don't talk about it any more this afternoon. We don't know and probably we never shall know, and so we might as well get to work again. Did you people realize that time is growing short? The Santa Claus Ship is booked to sail the first week in November."

"We did and do realize it," said Helen. "I'd like to know next about these raffia sofa pillows that Ethel Blue and Della have been making."

"The ones we made are sofa pillows for the orphans' dolls," explained Ethel Blue, "or they can be used for pincushions."

"They make thothe at kindergarten," announced Dicky. "I can make thothe. Mine are paper."

"They're made in just about the same way," said Della. "We made a small cushion with double raffia and wove it under and over on a pasteboard loom."

"How do you make that?"

"Just a piece of heavy pasteboard or a light board or you can take the frame of a smashed slate. You fasten the ends of the threads with pins or tacks or tie them around the bars. First you lay all the threads you want in one direction. That's the warp."

"Warp—I remember. I always have to look it up in the dictionary to see which is warp and which is woof."

"Warp is the thread that goes on first. In a rug or a piece of tapestry it's the plain, ugly thread that holds the beautifully colored threads in place. It's the up and down threads. In raffia you have to be careful to alternate the big ends and small ends so that the weaving will be even."

"What do you do when the warp is ready?"

"Before you begin to weave you must make a solid line across the end so that when you run your first bit of woof across it won't just push right up to the bar of the loom and then ravel out when you cut your product off the loom."

"I get the reason for its existence. I should think you'd make it by tying a string right across the loom knotting it into each strand of warp as you pass by."

"That's exactly what you do; and the ends you can leave flying to join in with the fringe."

"Can we weave now?"

"Go ahead. When you've made the cushion square, if you want it square, go around the three remaining sides and tie a break-water, so to speak, so that the weaving won't ravel out. Trim your fringe even and there's one side of your pillow."

"One side would be enough for a pincushion."

"If you want to make a big sofa cushion—a grown up one—you'll have to make a wide plait of raffia—a four strand or six strand braid—or else you'd never get it done."

"The unbraided would be too delicate. I hate to make things that wear out before you can get used to them about the house."

"You'd have to have a bigger loom for something that size."

"It's no trouble to make. Roger nailed mine together," said Ethel Blue.

"Any one want the dimensions?" asked Roger. "Take two pieces of narrow wood twenty-three inches long, and nail two other pieces of lighter stuff each twenty-five inches long on to their tops at the ends. These bits are raised from the table by the thickness of the first piece of lumber. See?"

Tom and James, who were examining Ethel Blue's loom, nodded.

"Then nail slender uprights, ten inches tall, at each of the four corners and connect them by two other thin sticks twenty-five inches long, running just above your first pair of twenty-fives. Do you get it?"

Again the boys nodded.

"That's all there is to it, and you really don't need to make that for a plain, smooth plank will do at a pinch."

"How do you carry your woof across?" asked Margaret. "Your hand would be in its own way, I should think."

"You thread the raffia into a wooden bodkin about twenty-six inches long."

"I can see that you must draw the cross threads down tight the way we did in weaving the baskets," said James.

"Indeed you must or you'll turn out a sleazy piece of weaving," answered Della.

"There must be oceans of articles you can make out of woven raffia."

"Just about everything that you can make out of a piece of cloth of the same size."

"Of cotton cloth? Ha!"

"Or silk."

"Handkerchief cases and collar cases."

"Coverings for boxes of all kinds. Another material for James to glue on to pasteboard."

"I see lots of chances for it," he answered seriously.

"I believe old James is really taking kindly to pasting," laughed Tom.

"Certainly I am. It's a bully occupation," defended James.

"There are a thousand things that can be made of raffia—you can make lace of it like twine lace, and make articles out of the lace; and you can make baskets of a combination of rattan and raffia, using the raffia for wrapping and for sewing. But we have such a short time left that I think those of us who are going to do any raffia work had better learn how to weave evenly and make pretty little duds out of the woven stuff."

"Wise kid," pronounced Roger. "Now what's little Margaret going to teach us this afternoon?"

"Little Margaret" made a puckered face at this appellation, but she came promptly to the front.

"Ethel Brown and Dorothy have been teaching me to stencil. They could teach the rest of you a great deal better than I can, but they've done their share this afternoon so I'll try."

"Go on," urged Ethel Brown. "We'll help you if you forget."

"If you'll excuse me I'll go to the attic and get my clay," said Dorothy. "I found a new idea for a candlestick in a book this morning and I want to make one before I forget it."

Margaret was in the full swing of explanation when Dorothy returned.

"Why this frown, fair Coz?" demanded Roger in a Shakesperean tone.

"It's the queerest thing—I thought I had enough clay for two pairs of candlesticks and it seems to have shrunk or something so there'll only be one and that mighty small."

"'Mighty small,'" mimicked Roger. "How large is 'mighty small'?"

"Don't bother me, Roger. I'll start this while Margaret talks."

"When a drawing fit seizes Ethel Blue again we'll get her to make us some original stencils," said Helen. "These that we bought at the Chautauqua art store will do well enough for us to learn with."

"They are very pretty," defended Dorothy.

"Mine won't be any better, only they will be original," said Ethel Blue.

"I hate to mention it," said Tom in a whisper, "but I'm not perfectly sure that I know what a stencil is."

There was a shout from around the table.

"Never mind, Thomas," soothed Roger, patting his friend on the shoulder. "Confession is good for the soul. A stencil, my son, is a thin sheet of something—pasteboard, the girls use—with a pattern cut out of it. You lay the stencil down on a piece of cloth or canvas or board or whatever you want to decorate, and you scrub color on all the part of the material that shows through."

"Methinks I see a great light," replied Tom, slapping his forehead. "When you lift the stencil there is your pattern done in color."

Roger and James leaned forward together and patted Tom's brow.

"Such it is to have real intellect!" they murmured in admiring accents.

Tom bowed meekly.

"Enlighten me further—also these smarties. What kind of paint do you use?"

"Tapestry dyes or oil paints. It depends somewhat on your material. If you want to launder it, use the dye."

"Fast color, eh?"

"When you wash it, set the color by soaking your article in cold water salted. Then wash it gently in the suds of white soap. Suds, mind you; don't touch the cake of soap to it."

"I promise you solemnly I'll never touch a cake of soap to any stenciling I do."

"You're ridiculous, Roger. No, I believe you won't!"

"Here's a piece of cloth Ethel Brown is going to make into a doll's skirt. See, she's hemmed it already and I'll put this simple star stencil on the hem. Where's a board, Dorothy?"

Dorothy brought a sewing board and the others watched Margaret pin her material down hard upon it and fasten the stencil over that.

"Good girl! You've got them so tight they won't dare to shiver," declared Tom.

"Do you notice that this stencil has been shellacked so the edges won't roughen when I scrub? Stiff bristle brushes are what I'm using." Margaret called their attention to her utensils. "And I have a different brush for each color. Also I have an old rag to dabble the extra color off on to."

"Are you ready? Go!" commanded Roger.

Margaret scrubbed hard and succeeded in getting a variety of shading through the amount of paint that she allowed to soak entirely through or partway through the material. When she had done as many stars as there were openings on the pattern she took out the pins and moved the stencil along so that the holes came over a fresh piece of material, making sure that the space between the first new star and the last old one was the same as that between the stars on the stencil.

"How can we boys apply that?" asked James.

"You can stencil on anything that you would decorate with painting," said Ethel Brown.

"Your jig-saw disks, Tom. Stencil a small conventional pattern on each one—a star or a triangle."

"Here's a stencil of a vine that would be a beauty on one of your large plain pasteboard boxes, James."

"Dorothy has been turning white cheesecloth doll clothes into organdie muslins by stenciling on them these tiny sprays of roses and cornflowers and jasmine."

"I'm going to do roosters and cats and dogs on a lot of bibs for the babies."

"You'd better save a few in case Mademoiselle really sends us that Belgian baby."

"I'll make some more if it does turn up."

"Aunt Marion gave me some cotton flannel—"

"Cot—ton!"

"Cotton flannel, yes, sir; and I've made it into some little blankets for tiny babies. I bound the raw edges, and on some of them I did a cross stitch pattern and on others I stenciled a pattern."

"It saves time, I should say."

"Lots. When you have ever so many articles gathered, just have a stenciling bee and you can turn out the decoration much faster than by doing even a wee bit of embroidery."

"If the Belgian baby really comes, let's make it a play-house. The boys can do the carpentry and we can all make the furniture and I'm wild to stencil some cunning curtains for the windows."

"I'll draw you a fascinating pattern for it."

"There's my candlestick half done," said Dorothy mournfully, "and I can't finish it. I don't understand about that clay."

"Perhaps it dried up and blew away."

"It did dry, but I moistened it and kneaded it and cut it in halves with a wire and put the inside edges outside and generally patticaked it but I'm sure it's not more than a quarter the size it was when I left it in the attic yesterday afternoon."

"You seem to have made a great mess on the floor over there by the window; didn't you slice off some and put it in that cup?"

"That's my 'slip.' It only took a scrap to make that. It's about as thick as cream and you use it to smooth rough places and fill up cracks with. No, that wouldn't account for much of any of the clay."

"How did you make this thing, anyway?" asked James turning it about.

"Careful. I took a saucer and put a wet rag in it and then I made a clay snake and coiled it about the way you make those coiled baskets, only I smoothed the clay so you can't see the coils. I hollowed it on the inside like a saucer. Then I put another wet rag inside my clay saucer and a china saucer inside that and turned them all upside down on my work board, and took off the original china saucer and smoothed down the coils on the underside of the clay saucer."

Tom drew a long breath.

"Take one yourself," he suggested. "You'll need it, you talk so fast."

"It stiffened while Margaret was doing her stenciling. When it was firm enough to handle I turned it over again and took out the small china saucer and smoothed off any marks it had left."

"It's about time to build up the candle holder, isn't it?"

"Did you see me bring in a short candle? I wrapped it in a wet rag and stood it exactly in the middle of the clay saucer. Then I roughened the clay around it and wet the rough part with slip and pressed a fresh little snake round the foot of the candle. The slip makes it stick to the roughening, so you have to roughen the top of every coil and moisten it with slip."

"You finished off the top of that part very smoothly," complimented Helen.

"When it's stiff enough you take out the candle and smooth the inside. Here's where I'm stumped. I haven't got enough clay for a handle."

"How do you make the handle?"

"Pat out another snake and make a hoop attached to the holder and another one rolling up on to the lip of the saucer."

"As if the serpent were trying to put his tail into his mouth."

"I shall have to just smooth this over with a soft brush and wrap it up in a wet cloth until I get some more clay. If I let it get hard I can't finish it."

"What's that drip, Dorothy?" asked Helen, as a drop of water fell on the table before her.

They all looked at the ceiling where drops of water were assembling and beginning to fall with a soft splash. There was a scramble to get their work out of the way. Dorothy brought a salad bowl and placed it where it would catch the water and then ran to investigate the cause of the trouble.

At a cry from upstairs Helen and the Ethels ran to her help. Roger went to the foot of the stairs and called up to inquire if they wanted his assistance. Evidently they did, for he, too, disappeared. In a few minutes he re-appeared bearing Dicky in his arms—a Dicky sopping wet and much subdued.

"What in the world?" everybody questioned.

"Dorothy's found her clay," said Roger. "Come on, old man. Wrap Aunt Louise's tweed coat around you—so—and run so you won't catch cold," and the two boys disappeared out of the front door, Dicky stumbling and struggling with the voluminous folds of his aunt's garment.

Dorothy and the other girls came down stairs in a few minutes.

"Do telephone to Aunt Marion's and see if Mother is there and ask her to come home," Dorothy begged Helen, while she gathered cloths and pans and went upstairs again, taking the maid with her.

"What did Dicky do?" asked the others again.

Both Ethels burst into laughter.

"He must have gone up in the attic and found Dorothy's clay, for he had filled up the waste pipe of the bath tub—"

"—and turned on the water, I'll bet!" exclaimed Tom.

"That's just what he did. It looks as if he'd been trying to float about everything he could find in any of the bedrooms."

"Probably he had a glorious time until the tub ran over and he didn't know how to stop it."

"Dicky's a great old man! I judge he didn't float himself!"

"Now Dorothy can finish her candlestick handle!"