Part 15

The following evening he brought a large collection of toy drums, some of which were in the shape of a barrel, both in their length and in being bulged out at the middle. On the ends were painted gay pictures of men and women clad in battle-array or festive garments, making the drum a work of art as well as an instrument of torture to those who are disturbed by noises about the house.

He had large knives covered with bright paint which could easily be washed off, and tridents, with loose plates or cymbals, which make a noise to frighten the enemy.

The tops Mr. Hsin had collected were by far the most interesting. Chinese tops are second to none made. They are simple, being made of bamboo, are spun with a string, and when properly operated emit a shrill whistle.

The ice top, without a stem, and simply a block of wood in shape of a top, is spun with a string, but is kept going by whipping.

Another toy which foreigners call a top is entirely different from anything we see in the West. The Chinese call it a K'ung chung, while the top is called t'o lo. It is constructed of two pieces of bamboo, each of which is made like a top, and then joined by a carefully turned axle, each end being of equal weight, and looking not unlike the wheels of a cart. It is then spun by a string, which is wound once around the axle and attached to two sticks. A good performer is able to spin it in a great variety of ways, tossing it under and over his foot, spinning it with the sticks behind him, and at times throwing it up into the air twenty or thirty feet and catching it as it comes down. The principle upon which it is operated is the quick jerking of one of the sticks while the other is allowed to be loose.

"To-morrow," said Mr. Hsin, as he ceased spinning the top, "I will get you some toy carts."

The Chinese cart has been described as a Saratoga trunk on two wheels. This is, however, only one form--that of the passenger cart. There are many others, and all of them are used as patterns of toy carts. They all have a kind of music-box attachment, operated by the turning of the axle to which the wheels of the toys, as well as those of some of the real carts, are fixed.

The toy carts are made of tin, wood and clay. Some of them are very simple, having paper covers, while others possess the whole paraphernalia of the street carts. When the mule of the toy cart is unhitched and unharnessed, he looks like a very respectable mule. Nevertheless, instead of devouring food, he becomes the prey of insects. Usually he appears the second season, if he lasts that long, bereft of mane and tail, as well as a large portion of his skin.

The flat carts have a revolving peg sticking up through the centre, on which a small clay image is placed which turns with the stick. Others are placed on wires on the two sides, to represent the driver and the passengers.

These in Peking are the omnibus carts. Running from the east gate of the Imperial city to the front gate, and in other parts of the city as well, there are street carts corresponding to the omnibus or street cars of the West. These start at intervals of ten minutes, more or less, with eight or ten persons on a cart, the fare being only a few cash. Toy carts of this kind have six or eight clay images to represent the passengers.

Mr. Hsin brought out from the bottom of his basket a number of neatly made little pug dogs, and pressing upon a bellows in their body caused them to bark, just as the hen cackled a few days before.

What we have described formed only a small portion of the toys Mr. Hsin brought. Cheap clay toys of all kinds are hawked about the street by a man who sells them at a fifth or a tenth of a cent apiece. With him is often found a candy-blower, who with a reed and a bowl of taffy-candy is ready to blow a man, a chicken, a horse and cart, a corn ear, or anything else the child wants, as a glass-blower would blow a bottle or a lamp chimney. The child plays with his prize until he tires of it and then he eats it.

BLOCK GAMES--KINDERGARTEN

It was on a bright spring afternoon that a Chinese official and his little boy called at our home on Filial Piety Lane, in Peking.

The dresses of father and child were exactly alike--as though they had been twins, boots of black velvet or satin, blue silk trousers, a long blue silk garment, a waistcoat of blue brocade, and a black satin skullcap--the child was in every respect, even to the dignity of his bearing, a vest-pocket edition of his father.

He had a T'ao of books which I recognized as the Fifteen Magic Blocks, one of the most ingenious, if not the most remarkable, books I have ever seen.

A T'ao is two or any number of volumes of a book wrapped in a single cover. In this case it was two volumes. In the inside of the cover there was a depression three inches square in which was kept a piece of lead, wood or pasteboard, divided into fifteen pieces as in the following illustration.

These blocks are all in pairs except one, which is a rhomboid. They are all exactly proportional, having their sides either half-inch, inch, inch and a half, or two inches in length.

They are not used as are the blocks in our kindergarten simply to make geometrical figures, but rather to illustrate such facts of history as will have a moral influence, or be an intellectual stimulus to the child.

He may build houses with them, or make such ancient or modern ornaments, or household utensils, as may suit his fancy; but the primary object of the blocks and the books, is to impress upon the child's mind, in the most forcible way possible, the leading facts of history, poetry, mythology or morals; while the houses, boats and other things are simply side issues.

The first illustration the child constructed for me, for I desired him to teach me how it was done, was a dragon horse, and when I asked him to explain it, he said that it represented the animal seen by Fu Hsi, the original ancestor of the Chinese people, emerging from the Meng river, bearing upon its back a map on which were fifty-five spots, representing the male and female principles of nature, and which the sage used to construct what are called the eight diagrams.

The child tossed the blocks off into a pile and then constructed a tortoise which he said was seen by Yu, the Chinese Noah, coming out of the Lo river, while he was draining off the floods. On its back was a design which he used as a pattern for the nine divisions of his empire.

These two incidents are referred to by Confucius, and are among the first learned by every Chinese child.

I looked through the book and noticed that many of the designs were for the amusement of the children, as well as to develop their ingenuity. In the two volumes of the T'ao he had only the outlines of the pictures which he readily constructed with the blocks. But he had with him also a small volume which was a key to the designs having lines indicating how each block was placed. This he had purchased for a few cash. Much of the interest of the book, however, attached to the puzzling character of the pictures.

There was one with a verse attached somewhat like the following:

The old wife drew a chess-board On the cover of a book, While the child transformed a needle Into a fishing-hook.

Chinese literature is full of examples of men and women who applied themselves to their books with untiring diligence. Some tied their hair to the beam of their humble cottage so that when they nodded with sleepiness the jerk would awake them and they might return to their books.

Others slept upon globular pillows that when they became so restless as to move and cause the pillow to roll from under their head they might get up and study.