THE TOYS TO HAVE

The jolliest indoor games for boys and girls demand a floor, and the
home that has no floor upon which games may be played falls so far short
of happiness. It must be a floor covered with linoleum or cork carpet,
so that toy soldiers and such-like will stand up upon it, and of a color
and surface that will take and show chalk marks; the common green-
colored cork carpet without a pattern is the best of all. It must be no
highway to other rooms, and well lit and airy. Occasionally, alas! it
must be scrubbed--and then a truce to Floor Games. Upon such a floor may
be made an infinitude of imaginative games, not only keeping boys and
girls happy for days together, but building up a framework of spacious
and inspiring ideas in them for after life. The men of tomorrow will
gain new strength from nursery floors. I am going to tell of some of
these games and what is most needed to play them; I have tried them all
and a score of others like them with my sons, and all of the games here
illustrated have been set out by us. I am going to tell of them here
because I think what we have done will interest other fathers and
mothers, and perhaps be of use to them (and to uncles and such-like
tributary sub-species of humanity) in buying presents for their own and
other people's children.

Now, the toys we play with time after time, and in a thousand
permutations and combinations, belong to four main groups. We have (1)
SOLDIERS, and with these I class sailors, railway porters, civilians,
and the lower animals generally, such as I will presently describe in
greater detail; (2) BRICKS; (3) BOARDS and PLANKS; and (4) a lot of
CLOCKWORK RAILWAY ROLLING-STOCK AND RAILS. Also there are certain minor
objects--tin ships, Easter eggs, and the like--of which I shall make
incidental mention, that like the kiwi and the duck-billed platypus