[Illustration: Fig.108 - Daffodil stalk for you to turn into a whirligig.]
Queer little animals that come only from Daffy land can be made of the single daffodil-blossoms. Take one of the flowers and carefully cut away the outstanding petals, leaving the perfect, long cup. Hold the cup in your left hand with the short, green stem hanging down; the stem is the animal's head; then break off about half an inch from the blunt ends of four wooden toothpicks and use the longest parts for legs. Push the pointed ends of the tooth pick legs up into the under-side of the long, slender cup as it is held in your left hand. Keep the legs of an even length and the animal will stand firmly. This little fellow, with his green head and long green nose, is very comical (Fig. 107). He can dance on the tin tray too, and run about when you tip it.
The daffodil toys will keep their color a long while even after the blossoms are dry. Do not take off the brown calyx which is lightly wrapped around the bottom of each flower. It represents the hair of the dancers and the ears of the animal.
You can have some fun with the daffodil stalk, too, after taking off the flowers.
Fig. 108 is a daffodil stalk; look at it closely, then look at Fig. 109. They are really the very same though they appear to be so different. One seems to have a blossom at the top, and you know that the other has not.
If you want to do the trick and make a stalk blossom, select a stalk like Fig. 108, hold the stem closely between your open hands and roll it rapidly by first sliding your right hand forward while the left slides backward, then the left forward and the right hand back. This makes a whirligig of your stalk, and the flower will appear at the top as you see it in Fig. 109.
Try making whirligigs of other kinds of stems; of grasses, twigs, and leaves.
WHEN the flowers have gone then come the seed-vessels, equally as good for playthings but very different.
Of course, you know the rose-haws, the little red and yellow and green apples that you find on the rose-bushes in the fall. They are the seed-vessels of the rose, and every rose which is allowed to remain on the bush until it fades and falls apart leaves a seed-vessel to take its place.