How shall we answer the ever recurring rainy day question, "What shall I do?" We hear it wherever children are kept indoors—from whatever cause. All of us are concerned with the answer—mothers, fathers, teachers, big brothers and sisters—even maiden aunts. We all know what is coming when Jack turns from the rain-splashed window with a listless face and Dorothy, none too gently, thrusts her favourite doll into the corner with its face to the wall.
One might suppose that, with the hosts of mechanical toys, of costly French dolls, each with a wardrobe as much in keeping with fashion as that of a society woman, the small sons and daughters would be content for a year of rainy days. But that proves how little one knows about it. Such toys are too perfect, too complete,[4] and very soon they are pushed into the background.
The boy's real treasures are the willow whistle that Uncle Tom taught him to make last summer, the boat that he is building and the game he invented—a favourite one with all the children. Bedtime and getting-up time for the French doll may come and go, while she lies forgotten in the corner, for is there not a dress to be made for the clothespin doll?
We need only to look back about twenty years to realise how natural all this is. What do we remember? Not the toys that were brought us when father and mother went on a journey. They are very hazy—these visions of a doll in silk and lace, and a donkey with real hair and a nodding head. What became of them afterward? We forget. But the games we "made up," the paper dolls we cut from fashion papers, the target we laboured to make of coiled straw—these are as fresh in our memories as if we had played with them yesterday.
Shall we not answer the question by giving the children something to do, not by entertaining them but by helping them to entertain themselves.
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