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'SHOES AND SHIPS AND SEALING WAX' 



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SAYS Toto, "am going 

 to be a averator." 



I "It ain't aver-ator," 



^ responds his older 

 ^ brother, "it's avee-a- 

 • M tor." 



"Well, anyhow, 

 whatever it is, I'm 

 going to be it." 



"I'm not," returns 

 Everett, "I'm going to 

 be a soldier and shoot with a gun." 



Toto maintains that he is going to fly and 

 is going to shoot also, because, as he points 

 out, the aviators that he knows are soldiers. 

 He knows a good many, because there is an 

 army aviation school near us, and ever 

 since last June there had been class after 

 class of young men, each f^roup getting a 

 start in the work, to finish in real flying at 

 some other place in this country or abroad. 

 Toto is a erreat favorite with all of them. 



Soon Everett comes in and asks for ten 

 cents to buy a wooden gun he has seen. I 

 try to tell him that he can make a better 

 one for himself, at which he turns the 

 tables by saying "I can make one if you vnl\ 

 let me use your saw." 



He knows that the saw and plane and 

 chisels and other tools, that father keeps 

 locked-up, are not to be used by small, un- 

 skilled and careless hands; but he is sharp 

 enough to see that I must yield the use of 

 the saw to carry my point about his making 

 the gun. So, on promise of care and quick, 

 safe return of the saw to its right place he 

 sets out to make the gun. He is good at 

 this sort of task and does a neat job. The 

 gun he makes is far bigger and better than 

 the one he can buy. 



Then Toto wants to make an airplane of 



some sticks I have been saving to use in 

 holding up plants. He sees that I can not 

 favor his brother and refuse him at the same 

 time, so he gets the sticks, and both boys 

 work together and make the toy plane. 



WOOD furnishes them with the stuff 

 they need. Small as they are, and as 

 little used to workmanship, they can 

 make wood serve their purpose. Was 

 there ever such a useful stuff for making 

 aU sorts of things? Even the airplanes 

 and the guns of the great war must depend 

 on wood. Here is the whole range of uses, 

 from serving child's play to man's fury. 

 Of course, if the trees had anything to say 

 about it they would be used only for build- 

 ing up, and not for tearing down, and would 

 be man's play things rather than his de- 

 stroyers. Yet ground wood, finer than 

 sawdust, is a part of much of the gun pow- 

 der. 



Toto has, in common with other boys oi 

 today, a whole new field of make-believe. 

 In my day we never took much stock in 

 flying, except as we dreamed of it- Most 

 boys and men, even old men who never had 

 seen a man in the air, have had dreams of 

 flying. It is common in children's sleep, I 

 think, to dream of launching forth from a 

 high place and floating in space, much as a 

 bird sails, and without effort. Very few, I 

 find, have not had this dream, — a dream 

 that comes again and again, of being wafted 

 through the air. And now Toto actually 

 sees it, along with the rest of us, and when 

 he is a grown man it will be common. War 

 has made it come sooner than it would have 

 come otherwise. One cannot help thinking 

 what a boon flying will be in making forest 



