“How splendid!” sighed Jimsi, delightedly. “I think Henry’d be quite crazy about this sort of thing. He’s my brother, you know. _He’s_ a boy, so he thinks paper dolls are girls’ things and he won’t play with them. Do you use paper dolls? I should think that it would be hard to make them move about behind the furniture. I should think it would show that somebody was moving them.”
“It doesn’t though— You’ll see!” Here the little lame girl took the frame. “Don’t look,” she admonished with a raised forefinger. “Pretend you’re interested in the cat!”
Indeed, Jimsi hadn’t noticed the cat before. But now she ran over to the big open fireplace where pussy was purring before the wood fire. Joyce’s mother was sewing on a machine. She seemed very busy indeed. Jimsi waited for her new friend to give the word. She stroked the comfortable tabby and thought how wonderful it was that a sick girl who couldn’t go about except in a wheel-chair could be so cheerful and so happy. “I hope if I’m ever sick like that that I won’t be a whiney person,” she thought. “It’s splendid to be happy and glad when things are like that and you know you aren’t going to be able to run about and play—ever. Oh, I like the crow’s little lame girl wonderfully!” And it did seem strange that the little lame girl was telling Jimsi about _her_ play even before Jimsi had told the little lame girl about hers!
But right here, Joyce sang out, “Ready!” so Jimsi forgot the pussy cat instantly and sprang to her feet.
“I put the frame on a table when I have a real motion picture performance,” Joyce explained. “But you can see in the daylight better if I hold the frame in the sunlight. Look!”
Sure enough! There was the furniture in a small room: table, chair, cupboard! They were outlined in shadow.
“One ought to have motion pictures in the dark,” Joyce laughed. “I used to play that way last fall. I lit a candle in the dark and placed the candle behind my frame on the table. Then I moved the actors about so—”
Jimsi watched. Joyce had a paper doll-like actor cut in outline. To the back of this was pasted a strip of heavy paper. As she moved the doll across the back of the motion picture screen, holding it by the long strip of cardboard, one could only see the figure move across the little room. One did not see the hand that moved it or the strip of cardboard by which it was held.