Part 13

"Where shall your father sleep?" "Sleep in the servant's bed." "Where shall the servant sleep?" "Sleep in the stable." "Where shall the pigs sleep?" "In the wash-tub." "Where shall we wash the clothes?" "Wash them in the river." "What if they should swim away?" "You can jump in and go after them."

On this the indignant mother chases her daughters, and whoever is first caught must take the mother's place.

This game does not appear to be established in America, though we have heard of it as played in West Virginia. Our present version is from children lately arrived from England, where it seems to be a favorite.

No. 115.

_Stealing Grapes._

A circle of children with arms raised. Enter keeper of garden:

"What are you doing in my vineyard?" "Stealing grapes." "What will you do if the black man comes?" "Rush through if I can."

_New York._

This game is probably a recent translation from the German. It is also played in Italy in a more humorous form. The thief exclaims, as he picks each, "A delicious grape!" The guardian demands,

"What did you pick that grape for?" "Because it's first-rate." "What would you do if I took a stick and chased you?" "Pick a bunch and run."

Which he accordingly does.

No. 116.

_Stealing Sticks._

A company of players divide, each having the same number of sticks, which they deposit on each side of a line; whoever crosses the line may seize a stick, but if caught is confined in a prison, marked out for the purpose.

This is the game of "Scots and English," and may be classed among sports originating in border warfare.

No. 117.

_Hunt the Squirrel._

A ring of players is formed, about the outside of which circles a child who carries a knotted handkerchief, with which he finally taps another on the shoulder, and starts to run round the ring. The child touched must pick up the handkerchief, and run in the opposite direction from the first. The two players, when they meet, must courtesy three times. The toucher endeavors to secure the other's place in the ring, failing which, he must begin again. As he goes about the circle, he recites the words:

Hunt the squirrel through the wood, I lost him, I found him; I have a little dog at home, He won't bite you, He won't bite you, And he _will_ bite you.

_Cambridge, Mass._

In Philadelphia, a corresponding rhyme begins:

I carried water in my glove, I sent a letter to my love.

A variation from New York:

I tis-ket, I tas-ket, A green and yel-low bas-ket. I sent a let-ter to my love, And on the way I dropp'd it.

The name of the game in England is "Drop-glove."

Another and apparently older way of playing "Hunt the Squirrel" is a game in which the child touched follows the toucher until he has caught him, pursuing him both in and out of the ring, being obliged to enter and leave the circle at the same point as the latter.

A kissing-game, in which the player who makes the circuit taps another on the shoulder, and then takes flight, while the person touched is entitled to a kiss if he can capture the fugitive before the latter has made the tour of the circle and gained the vacant place, is a favorite among the "Pennsylvania Dutch," under the name of "Hen-slauch" (Hand-slag), that is, striking with the hand. The game is there called "Ring," and has inspired certain verses of Harbach, the nearest approach to a poet which that unimaginative race has produced.[106]

In a similar game, formerly played in Massachusetts, the leader of the game touches one of the party on the shoulder, and asks, "Have you seen my sheep?" The first replies, "How was it dressed?" The toucher now describes the costume of some player, who, as soon as he recognizes the description of himself, must take flight, and endeavor to regain his place in safety.

FOOTNOTES:

[97] The first lines, "Chickany," etc., are from one old version, the rest from another. In the first the bird of prey was called the "Blind Buzzard," and the game ended as Blind-man's Buff.

[98] That is: "Hawk, hawk, what are you digging for?" "My mother has lost a silver needle." "Is it this?" "No." "Is it this?" "No." "Is it this?" "Yes."

[99] "So-and-so had a nail driven into his shoe, and insisted that he could not be touched while standing on iron."--_A Bostonian informant._

[100] The French name in Berry is _Tu l'as_; elsewhere _La caye_; in Limousin, _Cabé_, which may have been derived from _hoc habe_.

[101] Pronounced _Hie_ Spy.

[102] He who is "it."

[103] The identical words in Switzerland--"eis, zwei, drü für mich;" or, "eis, zwei, drü für den oder den."

[104] The formula of German children in New York, translated, runs: "Blind cow, we lead thee." "Where?" "To the stable." "What to do there?" "To eat soup." "I have no spoon." "Go get one." The "blind cow" then seeks her "spoon."

[105] Professor F. J. Child has shown that _Billie Blin_, which occurs in English ballads, is originally a name of Odin, expressing the _gracious_ side (German _billig_) of the blind deity. But it seems to have passed into a bad use, as a murderous dwarf or fairy.

[106] See his "Schulhaus an dem Krik."

XII.

_CERTAIN GAMES OF VERY LITTLE GIRLS._

Dans mon coeur il n'y a pas d'amour, Mais il y en aura quelque jour.

_French Round._

No. 118.

_Sail the Ship._

Two little girls, clinching fingers, and bracing their feet against each other, whirl rapidly round, a movement which they call "Sailing the ship."

No. 119.

_Three Around._

Three little girls join hands and swing about, being the simplest form of motion without song, to which they give the name of "Three Around."

No. 120.

_Iron Gates._

Two little girls clasp hands tightly, singing,

Iron gates, Never break,

While a third throws herself against them, and endeavors to break through.

No. 121.

_Charley Over the Water._

Children sing, as they dance with clasped hands about one who stands in the centre of the ring:

Charley over the water, Charley over the sea, Charley catch a black-bird, Can't catch _me_!

At the last word all stoop, and if the child in the centre can catch any other before assuming that position, the latter must replace him.

Almost any summer evening, in certain streets of New York, children may be seen playing this round, which they sing on one note, with a shriek to conclude.

No. 122.

+_Frog in the Sea._+

Frog in the sea, Can't catch me?

Played like the preceding.

_Philadelphia._

No. 123.

+_Defiance._+

A mother and children:

"Mother, can I pick a rose?" "Yes, my dearest daughter, if you don't tear your clothes, But remember, to-morrow is your sister's wedding-day."

The children now retire to a safe distance, and sing:

"I picked a rose. I tore my clothes!" "Come home!" "I don't hear you." "I'll send your father after you." "I don't hear you." "I'll send your brother after you." "I don't hear you." "I'll send the dog after you." "I don't hear you." "I'll send myself after you." "Sen' 'em along!"

A chase follows, and the child caught must replace the mother.

The dialogue (which belongs to Georgia) is also extended by the mother's threatening to send the _cow_, or the _trees_, after the children.

This game is differently played by little girls in Philadelphia, thus:

"Oh, mother, mother, may I go out to play?" "No, no, no, it's a very cold day." "Yes, yes, yes, it's a very warm day, So take three steps, and away, away, away." "Where's your manners?" "I haven't any."

The indignant mother now pursues the disobedient children.

No. 124.

_My Lady's Wardrobe._

The children sit in a ring, and are named according to the articles of a lady's wardrobe. The child in the centre of the circle of players names some article, as, "My lady wants her brush, brush, brush." She who has received that name must answer before the third utterance or pay forfeit. The speaker naturally pronounces the word as fast as possible.

No. 125.

_Housekeeping._

(A ROUND.)

Kittie put the kettle on, Kettle on, kettle on, Kittie put the kettle on, We'll all have tea.

To this familiar little round, girls five or six years of age, in New York, sometimes prefix a fragment of some ballad--

Here stands a red rose in the ring-- Promised to marry a long time ago.

No. 126.

+_A March._+

March, march, two by two, Dressed in yellow, pink, and blue.

_Philadelphia._

No. 127.

_Rhymes for Tickling._

1. Tickle'e, tickle'e on the knee; if you laugh, you don't love me.

_Philadelphia._

2. If you're a little lady, as I take you for to be, You will neither laugh nor smile when I tickle your knee.

_Georgia._

3. Old maid, old maid, you'll surely be, If you laugh or you smile while I tickle your knee.

_Massachusetts._

XIII.

_BALL, AND SIMILAR SPORTS._

I call, I call; who doe ye call? The maids to catch this cowslip ball; But since these cowslips fading be, Troth, leave the flowers, and maids take me. Yet, if but neither you will doe, Speak but the word, and I'll take you.

_Herrick._

No. 128.

_The "Times" of Sports._

In an account of boys' sports, it would not be proper to omit some allusion to the custom of having a certain "time" of the year devoted to each amusement. These "times" succeeded each other almost as regularly as the flowers of summer, the children dropping one and taking up another every year at the same season. This succession, which the children themselves could hardly explain beforehand, but remembered when the occasion came, has impressed itself on observers as almost a matter of instinct. There was, however, a considerable degree of variation in the succession of sports in different parts of the country, and as the practice, though by no means obsolete, is now less strictly observed than formerly, we cannot give any very exact details on this head. It seems, however, that this succession was only partly dependent on the climate, and in part inherited from the mother country.

Thus, in all the states from Maine to Georgia, the first "time" was _marble-time_. In New England, the snow had hardly disappeared, when boys began to make the necessary holes in the ground, kneeling for that purpose on the night-frozen soil, from which the moisture was just oozing out, to the great detriment of their pantaloons. A friend, indeed, asserts that this was the _object_ of the choice of seasons. But at the same time boys in Georgia (and, indeed, in England and Germany) were playing the same game.

The subsequent succession of sports in New York is indicated by the adage, "Top-time's gone, kite-time's come, and April Fool's day will soon be here."

In Georgia the succession was, kites, tops, and hoops. In that region the season for popguns is when the _China-berries_[107] ripen. It is a provision of Providence, a clear case of design, thinks a friend, that just at that season the elder pith is ripe enough to be pushed out, and so leave the stalks empty to form the barrel of the weapon.

Ball is especially a holiday game. In Boston, _Fast-day_ (the first Thursday of April) was particularly devoted to this sport. In England, the playing of ball at Easter-tide seems to have been a custom of the festival, inherited probably from pre-Christian ages. Foot-ball was a regular amusement on the afternoon of a New England Thanksgiving.

The invariable succession of children's sports has been also remarked in other countries. A Swiss writer says, "The principal games of boys belong to the first third of the year, return always in a like order, and replace each other after an equal interval, as if it were in the natural course of events, and without the individual child being able to say who had given the sign and made the beginning."

We may remark that another American usage has been remarked in other countries. In the last generation the boys of different towns, or of different quarters of the same town, waged regular and constant war. In Boston, for example, there was a well-defined line, beyond which no "North-ender" dared be seen. Any luckless lad obliged to go into the hostile district took good care to keep his eyes open, to dodge cautiously about the corners, and to be ready for instant flight in case of detection. So in France and Switzerland, where this warfare is a sort of game, a relic, no doubt, of the ancient separatism, which made every community in a measure an independent state. The chief weapons are stones, as they were formerly in the United States. In the old town of Marblehead boys were accustomed to "rock" any stranger, and no unknown driver dared to enter its limits with a vehicle.

No. 129.

_Camping the Ball._

In the vocabulary of a Massachusetts schoolboy, to "camp" a foot-ball is to kick it, while held between the hands, from one side of the field to the other. In England, country-folk speak of the "camp-game" of ball, of the "camping-ground." In this amusement there are lines which mark the rear limit of the respective sides, while the ball is placed in the middle, and the object of either party is to drive it, with foot or hand, over the enemy's line. Similar, in the United States, is the old-fashioned game of foot-ball, in which, to use the expression of the play-ground, two captains "choose up" sides, selecting alternately from those present, and first play is determined by lot.

This description of foot-ball, or the English "camp-game," will answer very well for a translation of the account which Pollux, writing in Greek in the second century, gave of the "common ball," or "ball battle,"[108] of his day. Almost exactly the same was the ancient Norse game, except that the resemblance to warfare was closer; the players were matched by age, and played against each other in the order of choice. The balls were heavy, sometimes made of horn, so that we read of men killed and wounded in the encounter. In like manner, up to a very recent time, in Lower Germany, villages contended against each other, hurling wooden balls loaded with lead, man against man. Thus the game was really "kemping" (_Kemp_, a warrior, champion), and the field a kemping-ground.

It was natural that, while the men contended, the boys also should have their mimic sports, in all respects similar; and we read in a Saga how the seven-year-old Egil slew with an axe his antagonist Grim, who had very properly knocked him down for breaking a bat over Grim's head. In those days such feats were held to presage an honorable career.

The Persians and Turks still practise a different sort of game, which is played on horseback, the riders using a racket to strike with. Five or six horsemen circle about, and strike the ball at each other; if it drops on the ground, a slave picks it up. The ball is heavy, covered with hard leather, and capable of doing serious harm. This game is, in fact, an imitation of warfare, a modification of casting the "jered," or javelin. The "Arabian Nights" recite how, while the Caliph Haroun Al-Raschid was playing, a spy aimed a ball at him from behind, with the intent of assassination.

The Byzantine court adopted from the East the playing on horseback and the racket, but introduced these into a game resembling the ancient "ball-battle." The historian Cinnamus describes the Emperor Manuel, in the twelfth century, as fond of this species of polo.

From Eastern custom we get our tennis, while most of our games with bat and ball seem to have come down to us from the ancient North.

The history of the change from actual to imitative warfare, from the latter to a harmless and courtly amusement or to a rustic pastime, from this last again in our own days to a scientific sport, may supply material for serious reflection.

No. 130.

_Hand-ball._

No doubt our Saxon ancestors had, besides the half-military exercise referred to, other sports with the ball, better adapted to girls and children, though no description of such has come down to us. We know, however, that the Roman games with the ball were essentially the same as our own. Girls still strike, as then, balls with the palm of the hand to keep up their bouncing, or fling them against the wall to drive them back on the return, or pass the ball from hand to hand in the ring or row. Boys in those days, standing on the corners of a triangle, sent back the ball on the fly or the bounce, giving with one hand and taking with the other, much as they do to-day. The ball itself was very much the same in the time of the early empire as now, soft or hard, plain or covered with painted or embroidered cloth, a large hollow balloon, or a small light sphere. Children's balls were made with a rattle inside, and divided into gaudy divisions like the lobes of an orange, then as at present.

The oldest mention of a girls' game of ball is in the "Odyssey." It is a grand washing-day in the palace of Alcinous, and Nausicaa, daughter of the house, is to preside over the operation. So the "shining" but soiled raiment is brought out of a storeroom, loaded on a mule-wagon, with food, wine, and dainties, not forgetting a flask of oil for use after the bath. When the clothes have been scoured in pits along the river-side, and spread out to dry on the rocks by the shore, the maidens bathe, anoint themselves, and lunch. Afterwards the ball is brought out; the game is accompanied with song, in which the princess leads, and far excels the rest. The party is on the point of returning, the mules have been harnessed, and the clothes folded, when Nausicaa has a fancy for a romp; she throws the ball at one of her damsels, but misses her aim, and the ball falls into the eddying river, while the maidens shriek out loudly.

Misson (about 1700) mentions "the throwing at one another of tennis-balls by girls" in England, as a practice of a particular season of the year.

The German poets of the Middle Ages abound in allusions to the game, which is described with the same fresh poetical feeling that inspires the whole period. It was the first sport of summer. "When I saw the girls on the street throwing the ball, then came to our ears the song of the birds," says Walter von der Vogelweide. A common way of playing was for youths and maids to contend for the ball, which the possessor then threw to the one he or she "loved the best." A minnesinger pleasantly depicts the eager girls calling to some skilful and favorite lad, as he is about to throw, holding out their hands,

"Thou art mine, cousin--throw it here, this way!"

No. 131.

_Stool-Ball._

William Bradford, the second Governor of Massachusetts, records, under date of the second Christmas-day of the colony: "The day called Christmas-Day, ye Gov.r caled them out to worke (as was used), but ye most of this new company excused themselves, and said it wente against their consciences to work on ye day. So ye Gov.r tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest, and left them; but when they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye streete at play openly, some pitching ye bar, and some at stoole-ball and such like sports. So he went to them, and took away their implements, and tould them that it was against his conscience, that they should play and others work. If they would make ye keeping of it mater of devotion, let them keep their houses, but there should be no gameing or revelling in ye streets. Since which time nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly."

Stool-ball was so named from the setting-up of a stool to be bowled at. The ball was struck with the hand by the player at the stool. If the ball struck the stool, the players changed places. In another form of the game, which seems to be that referred to here, there were several stools, men at each, and a bowler outside. When the ball was hit (with the hand) the players must change places, and the bowler was at liberty to hit with the ball any player while between the stools, and so put him out.

Bradford, as a Puritan, had perhaps some reason for his aversion to hand-ball on holidays, seeing that it appears to be connected with ancient religious usage. "Stool-ball" was especially an Easter-game, played by ladies for small stakes, particularly a _tansy_ or Easter-cake;[109] thus we have the name in a pretty rhyme of the seventeenth century--

At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play, For sugar, cakes, or wine; Or for a tansey let us pay, The loss be mine or thine. If thou, my dear, a winner be, At trundling of the ball, The wager thou shalt have, and me, And my misfortunes all.

According to a curious extract from a manuscript given by Ducange, of the diocese of Auxerre, it was an ancient custom to play in the church, on Easter Monday, a solemn game of ball, while singing anthems proper to the season.

"The ball having been received from a proselyte, the dean, or another in his stead, he and the rest wearing the _almutia_, sang the antiphonal which begins, "_Victimæ Paschali laudes_;" then seizing the ball with his left hand, he led the dance, the others, taking hold of hands, variously inflecting the chorus, while the ball was delivered or thrown by the dean to one or more of the choristers alternately, so as to weave a garland, as it were. The game and motions were conducted according to the numbers of the prose. The dancing having been finished, the chorus after the dance hastened to the banquet."

This dance was not merely a local custom, but practised in other towns. At Vienne it was conducted by the archbishop in his palace.

No doubt we have here a survival of the ancient games of the spring festival, in a day when mirth and the exhibition of physical prowess were considered acceptable to deity, and elevated into religious exercises.

No. 132.

_Call-Ball._

This game (commonly called Callie-ball, or Ballie-callie), was formerly a common sport of schoolboys in New England. The ball was thrown against a house, and at the same time a name called. The lad named must strike back the ball on its rebound.

We are not well informed as to the sequence, but the game in Austria, where it is well known, goes on as follows: If the player, whose name is called, drops the ball, he must pick it up as quickly as possible, while the rest scatter. He then calls "Stand!" upon which the players halt, and he flings it at whom he pleases. If he misses his aim, he must place himself in a bent position with his hands against a wall, until every player has taken a shot at him.

The delightful lines of Herrick, cited as the motto of the present chapter, show us youths and maids playing at "call-ball;" but the game here appears to consist simply in calling out the name of the person of the opposite sex who is to catch the ball, as in the mediæval sport referred to in No. 130.

No. 133.

_Haley-Over._