How Girls Can Help Their Country Part 19

Nearby is the Northern Cross, or Cygnus, Whom we call "the Swan,"

With Deneb Adige marking her outspread tail.

The nose of Pegasus, the soaring horse, s.h.i.+nes out in the star Enif, or Epsilon of Pegasus--a triple star-- While Fomalhaut gleams in the South, Guarding the Fish's Mouth.

Now Scheat and Markab, hand in hand, watch for the stragglers-- Bringing up the rear of all the Fifty Stars that have pa.s.sed by.

The Sun Clock

When you have been able to find the North Star it will be very easy to set up a sun-dial. This device is not so valuable now as standard time is universally used. If you know the difference between "sun time" and standard time, the sun-dial can be referred to with a fair amount of accuracy and many people regard it as a curiosity.

Select a place where the sun s.h.i.+nes all day and the ground is level. Set up a post or stake perpendicular and firm. At night go and "sight" a straight stick at the North Star and fasten it securely. This stick will now be parallel to the axis of the earth and its shadow will fall at the same line on any given hour no matter what season of the year it may be.

At noon by the sun the shadows of the slanting stick and the upright one will coincide. This gives you the "sun noon" and the time by a standard watch or clock will tell you what correction to apply to your dial to convert its time into standard. Having once established the noon, or "no hour" mark the I, II, III, IV, V, and VI with stakes. Then calculate the correct sun time of VI A.M. by your standard watch and stake out the morning hours. Halves and even quarters can be marked between if you wish.

A flower dial can be made by having your upright post a pretty tall one, say ten or even twenty feet, and planting rows of flowers like spokes of a wheel along the hour lines. It may be possible even to select such as are likely to open at or near the indicated hour. The entire semicircle of pegs will also make a pretty finish with tall ornamental foliage plants or shrubs.

PRACTICE

_Make a sun-dial on the ground, mark the hours with stones or sticks, and see if it shows the time every day._

AMONG THE STARS

Scouts must be able to find their way by night, but unless they practise it they are very apt to lose themselves. At night distances seem much greater, and land-marks are hard to see.

When patrolling in dark places, keep closer together, and in the dark or in the woods or caves keep in touch with each other by catching hold of the end of the next Scout's staff.

The staff is also useful for feeling the way.

WINTER EVENINGS.--_Cut out a quant.i.ty of little stars from stamp edging.

Take an old umbrella, open, and stick the stars inside it, in the patterns of the chief constellations, then hold it overhead, and turn it once round for twenty-four hours, making the stars rise in the east._

_The sun and the moon appear almost the same size as a rule. When we are a little nearer the sun, in winter, he looks a trifle larger than the moon._

_To study the constellations, go out when the stars are bright, armed with a star map and a bicycle lamp to read it by, and spread a rug on the ground to lie on, or have a deck-chair, or hammock. Watch for meteors in August and November._

_Let each girl try to draw a sketch map of a given constellation, from memory._

GARDENING

Now what about the gardens, for it goes without saying that Girl Scouts must have gardens. Getting right down and smelling the fresh soil is good for any one. It is mother earth's own breath. Watching the growth of our seeds is a veritable joy of joys. But what had we better plant?

Why not let every one plant at least one tree? Never mind what kind of a tree. We will talk about that in a minute but decide at the outset that you will have at least one tree growing this year. Your trees will be a legacy to posterity, a gift from the Girl Scouts to their country. For in this United States of ours we have cut down too many trees and our forests are fast following the buffalo. Nay, the bare face of the land has already begun to prove less attractive to the gentle rains of heaven and offers far too open a path to the raw blasts of winter. In many sections of our country the climate is drier and colder than it was before so much of the forest was destroyed. We are just waking up to this sad fact which it will take many years to rectify. So let us plant trees.

A tree is a tree anyway be it large or small. Some are useful food producers while others are of value for ornament or timber. All are good. There are no bad trees. So if you plant and raise a tree there can be no mistake. Whatever kind you select you will have done well. Fruit and nut trees will of course appeal most strongly to the young, especially to those with good healthy appet.i.tes. Many very young trees can be made to return some fruit in a comparatively short time by being budded or grafted. Scouts should learn how to bud and graft. It is not hard. Pears, plums, figs, and peaches all do well in the South as do also some apples and grapes. Peach trees though are in the main short-lived. But trees of different kinds can be grown all over the country. Apples and pears are at their best in the North and many kinds are very long-lived trees. There are apple trees known to be a hundred years old still bearing. Sugar maple does well where there are long winters, and a wood of them--locally called a "sugar bush"--is a paying piece of property. Most fruit trees are best bought from dealers or obtained from your friends. They do not come "true," as it is called, from the seed. A Baldwin apple-seed will not produce a Baldwin apple.

But as all the varieties are got by selecting from seedlings we can experiment if we wish. We are already saving apple-seeds for next year, and it will certainly be grand if we can get a new kind of apple and name it the Girl Scout.

We shall not make many suggestions about flowers. Any and all kinds of flowers will do in your gardens but do not neglect our own wild ones.

Take the goldenrod for instance. The finest we have ever seen is grown in a city garden. Many other of our wild flowers will bear cultivating and some well repay the care necessary to "tame" them. The atamasco lily seems to be perfectly at home in the garden and so does the bloodroot.

Violets of course would be favorites if our native species were not with one exception scentless. As any gardener's book will tell you all about our "tame" flowers it is not necessary to say much about them.

Part IV

SANITATION

Girl Scouts should do everything in their power to make and keep their homes healthy as well as happy.

Most of you cannot choose your own dwelling, but whether you live in a house, a cottage, a flat, in rooms, or even in one room of a house, you can do a very great deal to keep it healthy and pure.

Fresh air is your great friend; it will help you to fight disease better than anything else. Open all your windows as often as you can, so that the air may get into every nook and corner. Never keep an unused room shut up. You know what a stagnant pool is like--no fresh water runs through it, it is green and slimy, and full of insects and dead things; you would not care to bathe in it. Well, still and stuffy air in a house is very much worse, only, unluckily, its dangers cannot be seen, but they are there lying in ambush for the ignorant person. Disease germs, poisonous gases, mildew, insects, dust, and dirt have it all their own way in stale, used-up air.

You do not like to wash in water other people have used, but it is far worse to breathe air other people have breathed. Air does not flow in and flow out of the same opening at the same time any more than water does, so you want two openings in a room--an open window to let the good air in, and a fireplace and chimney to let the stale air out, or, where there is no fireplace, a window open both at top and bottom. The night air in large towns is purer than the day air, and both in town and country you should sleep with your window open if you want to be healthy. Draughts are not good, as they carry away the heat from your body too fast; so if your bed is too near the window, put up a shelter between it and the open window, and cover yourself more. At least one window on a staircase or landing should always be kept open, and also the larder and the closet windows.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Tidiness

_Motto_: "TIDY AS YOU GO."

Half your time will be saved if little things are kept tidy. Have a place for everything, and have everything in its place. If you are not sure which is the right place for a thing, think "_Where, if I wanted it, should I go to look for it?_" That place is the right one. Get into the habit of always making hanks of any string you get, and keep them.

War must be waged against rats and mice, or they will multiply and loot everything. If you have no mouse-traps, put a newspaper over a pail of water, break a hole slightly in the center in the form of a star, and place a bit of herring or cheese on the center tips of star to entice the mouse. Let the paper reach to the floor, not too upright, for the mouse to climb up. Try putting broken camphor into their holes; they dislike the smell. Fly and wasp traps are made by tying paper over a tumbler half-filled with water and beer or treacle. Break a hole in the paper, and fit in a tube of rolled paper about one inch long and one inch across.

Try to keep yourself neat, and see that the house you live in is clean, sweet, and pleasant.

GOLDEN HEALTH HABITS FOR GIRL SCOUTS

Contributed by Dr. Thomas D. Wood.

1. Remember Fresh Air and Sunlight Are The Best Medicines.

Ventilate, therefore, every room you occupy. Germs cannot live more than a few minutes in sunlight. Breathe deeply, sleep out, if you can. Work and play as much as possible out-of-doors.

2. Be Not the Slave of Unhygienic Fas.h.i.+ons.