ELSIE Moss had been spending the day in London, not from choice, for she seldom left her brother. But a letter from a friend in the country had given her an errand to a large toy warehouse in the city, and though at first Archie had felt a little disappointed at not being able to accompany his sister, he was comforted by her promise of telling him all she had seen.
“The ground floor of the warehouse is a shop, with plate-glass windows and folding doors. Glass cases were ranged round the walls. The windows and cases were filled with curious and expensive toys. Rocking horses almost as large as Shetland ponies, with manes and tails of real hair took up one side. Mechanical toys were there too in great number. Windmills that turned their sails by means of clockwork. Fish that would follow a magnet round a basin of water. Lively dolls of French manufacture, with eyes that would open and shut, and some could even walk on being wound up. Models of steam engines and railway cars were among the things I saw.
“As I knew from the letter of my friend just what to ask for, my purchases were quickly made. But when I asked to be shown some dolls' tea-sets, I was taken up some more stairs into another large room, where shelves and show cases displayed dolls' tea and dinner services, varying in size and at prices ranging from a few pence to many shillings.
“If we want to see the little toy-makers busy at their work, we must take a peep at the old German town of Nuremberg.”
“O Elsie, I think that must be the place where those curious old watches called Nuremberg eggs were made. Am I right?”
“Quite right, Archie. If our time would permit, we might learn some interesting facts about watches by lingering near the town and paying a visit to one of its many watch factories. The very old ones you were speaking of just now were often enclosed in an egg-shell.
“But Nuremberg is noted for other things besides its watches. Perhaps few toys have found greater favor with children than those called Noah's arks. A wooden box shaped something like a ship, and varying in size according to its price, and filled with carved figures of animals, birds, &c., while eight small wooden dolls are supposed to represent Noah and his family.
“I knew a little girl who received one of these toys as a birthday present. At first she was much pleased with it. But after playing with it for a time she sat quite still, and seemed by her quiet, thoughtful manner to be occupied with something of greater interest even than her play.
“Then she looked up into her mother's face and said, ‘Mamma, I don't think my Noah's ark is made quite right.'
“'Why not, Amy?' her mother asked in some surprise.
“‘Look, mamma,' the child replied, ‘my ark has windows painted all round it, but Noah had only one window, and that was in the roof of the ark (Gen. 6:16) because God wanted Him to look up, not out.'
“Amy was right. It was not on the dark waste of waters around, telling as they did of judgment, but on the bright blue sky above, that the eyes of Noah were to rest; and surely his heart would remember the grace of the One who had not only provided that wondrous place of safety, but shut him and his family in. (See Gen. 7:16.)
“But we must return to the toy arks. Nuremberg is said to have been the town where more than a hundred years ago they were first made, and the story connected with them is so interesting that I must try to tell it to you, though I am not sure that I can remember all its details.
“A little girl who lived in one of the quaint gable-roofed old houses of Nuremberg, and whom, as I forget her real name, we will call Greta, had been ill for a very long time. Unable to join in the games of stronger children, much of her time was spent alone, and all the neighbors spoke of Greta as a child grave and thoughtful beyond her years.
“Her brother Hans, who was older than herself, had left school, and was apprenticed to a neighboring wood carver. They were orphans, and though Hans loved his little sister dearly, and was seldom better pleased than when he could take a new toy, or even a few flowers home to brighten the long days for Greta; yet all his small earnings were needed to buy food, and though he often wished he could afford to buy a large doll or box of toys for her, he had never been able to do so.
“Hans and Greta loved their Bible, and often as they sat together in the deepening twilight, the little girl would ask her brother to tell her the story of Martin Luther, by whom that precious book had been translated into the language of the German people. And very attentively she listened to the account of how the great reformer, whose name thousands, not only in Germany, but all over the world, still hold in loving remembrance, had when a youth been so poor as to be obliged to earn money by singing in the streets to support himself while studying at one of the public schools for which Germany is so famous.
“One day, as Hans watched her at her play, a bright thought entered his mind. He would ask his master to give him some of the odds and ends of wood that were always lying in plenty about the shop, and from them he would carve birds, animals, &c., enough to fill a wooden box shaped something like the ark, about which he had so often read in the Bible.
“Patiently and well for many weeks, Hans gave up almost the whole of his spare time to toy-carving. When the ark was finished, it was shown to an old friend of his father, who was much pleased with it, and told Hans that if he wished to sell it, he would take it to one of the large yearly fairs, so common in Germany, where he thought it would fetch a good price.
‘Hans thanked him warmly, but said as he had made the ark on purpose for his sister he would rather give it to her. He would, he said, begin another, for which he should be thankful if a customer could be found.
“By the year following, Hans and Greta, who now took a great interest in her brother's work, and helped him by painting the animals, &c., had two or three arks ready. These found a quick sale, and Hans received so many orders, that in a short time he and Greta were able to rent a shop in the market place, where quite a prosperous trade in arks and other toys was carried on. Let us take a peep into the home of a German toy-maker. It is quite a busy scene. Father, mother, and even children of five and six years old are all busy at work. Perhaps an order for dolls from the warehouse has just been received, the wooden bodies being cut out, and shaped by the father, are carried by the youngest child to the mother, who gives some part of the work of finishing the dolls to each of her little band of helpers. One paints the faces, another the hair, a third the hands and feet, while a fourth packs, and ties up the finished work. Each child seems happy and glad to be of some use to its parents, while the mother moves about, taking great care that all the work is well and neatly done, or stopping for a moment to bend over her baby as it sleeps in its wooden cradle.
“A German baby is rather a strange-looking object. Its head is always covered with a small round cap made of some dark stuff As soon as it is able to stand most of its waking hours are spent in a kind of frame something like the go-carts once used in England, and which are still to be seen in old pictures. The infant is so fixed that it cannot fall, and soon learns to amuse itself, and is very happy and contented.
“Before we say good-bye to the children of Germany, I may tell you that as every German boy knows that most likely he will one day be called upon to leave his work and serve in the army, a great deal of time is spent in teaching him the drills of a soldier.
“The present Emperor of Germany, William II, has five little sons, who are all being educated for the army. An old soldier, who served under their great grandfather, William I, spends several hours each day with the young princes in teaching them how to attack and defend a small fort built in the grounds of their pleasant summer palace, and even the youngest, though hardly able to run alone, always gives his father a military salute when the Emperor pays a visit to the royal nurseries.”