In the large toy-stores, tin stores, fitted up with counter, scales, and boxes, are sold; but quite as good ones can be made at home. An older brother who can use tools, or a carpenter, must be called upon in the beginning, who, from a smooth and well-finished box such as canned fruits come in, can make a back for the store. Half of the top and sides should be taken off, so that the shelves can be easily reached, leaving the bottom for floor. Supposing the box to be ten or twelve inches high and wide, and eighteen inches long: after half of the top and sides are taken away, three shelves are to be made at the back; the lower one five inches from the floor, and about five inches wide, the other two not over three inches wide, and some two inches apart. It is best to plan for a country store, where all sorts of things are kept; and then, with a division in the middle of each shelf, dry-goods and fancy articles can be on one side, and groceries on the other. The pieces which come off the box will make shelves, and a counter ten inches long, five inches high, and four inches broad, which must be fastened to the side of the box, and closed in front. Some bits of cigar-box or thin shingle can be used to make a little drawer for change. When all is finished, the nail-holes can be filled with putty, and the store either painted or stained a dark brown. It is easy to fit up the dry-goods side with miniature pieces of calico, flannel, and silk, little rolls of ribbon, ruffles, and all sorts of penny toys, and bits of china. For the grocery side, more trouble is needed. Little tea-chests can be covered with paper saved from larger ones, and small spice-tins do duty for coffee-cans and canned goods, or pill-boxes answer almost as well. Tiny tin or earthen pans can hold samples of peas, beans, etc.; and miniature coffee-sacks, etc., can be made of coarse bagging. There is no limit to what can be done toward making it seem a real store.

A supply of paper money must be made, and this may be the work of an older brother or sister. Thin pasteboard must be cut in circles, or visiting-cards or old postal-cards can be used, cut in the sizes of a five, ten, and twenty-five cent piece, and silver paper pasted on neatly. When dry, they may be merely marked plainly, 5 cents, 10 cents, etc., or may be lettered as nearly in imitation of the real pieces as possible. Bills may be cut from tinted linen paper, and colored to imitate real ones. Where the thin gold or silver paper is used, it soon tears, unless pasted on a stiff back; but a little box of well-made money will last a generation of children if always put away after using. Toy scales can be made where the expense of buying druggist's scales seems too great.

There is no more delightful way of taking in some of the mysteries of arithmetic than in making change; and I have known one case where French and German and English money was also used, and the exercise stimulated by real candy, nuts, etc., in the small jars. There must be a little flour-barrel, sugar-boxes, etc.; and, if a pair of druggist's or any very small scales can be had, this will prove one of the surest of amusements for both pleasant and rainy days.