1871.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
4-63 
THE MNJSmDU). 
{For other Household Items, see “Basket" pages.) 
Some Novel Chairs. 
The straw chair (fig. 1) we do not introduce so 
much as a thing to be copied as a household curi¬ 
osity. Being in Richmond some months ago, we 
came across and purchased the chair here figured. 
It is made entirely of straw, hound together by 
hickory withes. The skill displayed in the arrange¬ 
ment of stays and braces is remarkable. This chair 
is a very easy one to sit in, and is said to be very 
durable. Our purchase excited the admiration 
ot our associates, and orders were sent to Rich¬ 
mond for others. The gentleman who procured 
the chairs writes : “ The chairs are made by an old 
negro who belonged to John Randolph of Roan¬ 
oke (the man who fought the duel wjth Henry 
Clay). He is one hundred years of age, and it 
takes him and two boys, his sons, a week to make 
one chair.” The “ boys ” are one sixty-five and the 
other seventy years of age. 
The other chair is one we saw at the St. Louis 
Fair. It is made entirely of hoop-poles. The ar¬ 
rangement of the frame is sufficiently shown in the 
engraving. It forms an excellent garden chair, 
much more comfortable than the ordinary rustic 
one, and can be easily made by any one who can 
command a supply of smooth hickory saplings. 
The saplings where they cross one another are 
fastened by nails. The seat is made of small sticks 
of the same material, the larger portions of the 
saplings being used for the legs. "Winter is the 
best time for making work of this kind, and a chair 
made in this style costs nothing for materials, and 
will prove an acceptable present for a friend. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
High-Chairs and their Perils. — Our first 
child had a present of a pretty willow high-chair. 
The lady who gave it afterwards expressed a fear 
that it would tip over easily, the legs were so per¬ 
pendicular, or made so small a base. I meant to 
be very watchful, but one day, a few months after¬ 
ward, I set the baby in a very dangerous position 
without realizing it. He was tied into the chair, 
and I placed this before a window, from which he 
could see three girls pulling turnips in a field. I 
was very busy with household labor; in fact, I was 
mopping the kitchen floor. [This fact I take 
pleasure in stating. It would have been such crimi¬ 
nal neglect had I been engaged in literary labor, or 
had I left the little one in another’s care while I 
stepped out to vote! No; the worst 
accidents that have happened to my 
children have taken place while their 
mother has been in the approved 
“womanly sphere” of household 
labor.] Well, there was a crash and a 
scream, and there lay the baby on the 
wet floor, with the high-chair upon 
him, and with a bleeding gash in his 
lower lip. This was cut by his own 
sharp little teeth as his lip struck 
against the window-sill in falling. 
The child was dreadfully frightened, 
but scarcely more so than his mamma. 
He cried very hard for some time, 
while I soothed him in my arms, and 
bathed the wound with cool water, 
using a soft linen cloth. I sent for 
our physician, who came in about an 
hour and found the baby sleeping. All 
that the doctor did was to stick a bit 
of court-plaster over the wound. Even 
that was not necessary, the doctor tajd 
me, but it might serve as a protection 
from dust. So I might have saved 
myself a doctor’s bill had I known as 
much as any mother may who reads 
this page. I thought the baby would 
suffer greatly in taking food for several 
days, for I had not then learned that 
nature generally takes away a child’s 
appetite while carrying on her active 
healing operations. The wound was 
made at about three o’clock in the 
afternoon, and baby went to sleep 
about half an hour afterward, and slept 
until six o’clock. When he awoke he 
cried some, but refused food, and soon 
went to sleep in my arms; slept well all 
night, ate comfortably next morning, and never had 
any further apparent discomfort from the wound, 
which was quite healed within a week from the fall. 
I was washing dishes and planning the day’s 
dinner, one morning a few years later, when an¬ 
other baby gave her occiput a terrible blow, by 
pushing herself away from the table where she sat 
and falling over backwards. These blows upon the 
head always cause me anxiety, lest the brain may 
have received injury. I bathed it well with tepid 
water, and the little one soon went to sleep in my 
arms. Once this would have alarmed me, for I 
used to hear it said that a child must not be allowed 
to go to sleep after a blow upon the head ; if it did, 
some degree of idiocy would be likely to follow. 
Medical men say this is absurd, and it is quite 
reasonable to suppose that rest is the very best 
thing for a brain that has received such a shock. 
So I was glad to have this baby take a long, quiet 
nap, and glad to see her appear as well as ever 
when she awoke. But look out for the high-chairs. 
They are very useful, but should be safely con¬ 
structed. The legs should spread well apart. 
Hints for Santa Claus. —Do you know what a 
capital plaything for a child is a small box of 
water-colors? Very small ones, with six or eight 
cheap colors, may be bought for ten or fifteen 
cents. Small hair-brushes are a penny a piece. 
These will do for the wee ones who are not old and 
steady enough to color pictures. I knew one little 
boy, aged three and a half years, who had the best 
of water-colors to use, but only a few cakes. He 
had a mother who was able to make her child’s 
care and culture her daily business. She taught 
him to mix the few colors he had so as to make all 
the other colors with their shades and tints—green 
from blue and yellow, purple from blue and red, 
VIRGINIA STRAW-CHAIR. 
orange from red and yellow, etc. He was away 
from home with his mother for a few weeks, and 
employed many happy half-hours in coloring the 
pictures of a new Primary Reader to carry home 
as a present to his papa. 
Another child of my acquaintance finds great de¬ 
light in coloring the pictures of her Sunday-school 
papers. The little boy mentioned above had a fine 
toy, which was a source of ever new and fascinating 
interest to him. It was a mosaic of diamond- 
shaped blocks, of several different colors, which 
could be arranged in countless beautiful forms. 
The tablets of the seventh gift of Froebel’s Kin¬ 
dergarten series make a beautiful present for a 
child. So of several other gifts of the series, es¬ 
pecially the one that consists of strips of fancy-col¬ 
ored paper for weaving. The paper for perforating 
and embroidering is another gift that will give 
much delightful employment to little children. 
I know a little boy who wishes to measure things 
so much of late, that I mean to give him a pocket 
foot-rule for his next plaything. 
The poorest Christmas presents, I think, are 
those that are soon eaten up. How cruel it is for 
us to make our children sick with sweetmeats on 
this holiday! A little something in that line, as an 
addition to their other presents, is admissible 
generally. Garments that will soon be worn out 
are q>oor Christmas presents, though if they are 
needed it is well enough to give them, along with 
other jjresents, on this occasion. A genuine Christ¬ 
mas present should seem to come of no necessity 
for supplying deficiencies in our children’s comfort, 
but should show that the parent “so loved” the 
child that it delighted to make it happy with some¬ 
thing over and above its actual necessities. It is 
the time for toys and picture-books and wholesome 
feasts and sleigh-rides and games—a time for 
“ peace on earth and good-will toward men.” 
Children’s Books. —Can not we teach publish¬ 
ers that we do not want for our children those silly 
books with coarse daubs for pictures, which are so 
abundant in the market ? Or, do we want them ? 
I, at least, do not. They pervert the taste of chil¬ 
dren, while they really give them little gratifica¬ 
tion. I confess I do not want many of the fairy 
stories either. The bound volumes of “ The Nur¬ 
sery” contain a pleasing variety of wholesome 
reading, and the pictures are usually very good. 
For children beyond the nursery range, some of 
Abbott’s books are excellent, especially “ Rollo’s 
Tour in Europe;” “The Heroes,” by Charles 
Kingsley; “Tanglewood Tales,” by Hawthorne; 
“Tales of a Grandfather,” by Walter Scott; 
MISSOURI HOOP-POLE CHAIR. 
“Child’s History of England,” by Dickens. But 
this will not do; I did not mean to make out a list. 
Yet there are many books written by the best 
authors for children, which are at the same time 
interesting and instructive. I don’t object to the 
stories that are not historical or scientific, but are 
