Chapter 16

Photographic printing papers are of two classes—those which are used in direct sunlight and upon which the image gradually appears, and those which are similar to plates and which are given a very short time exposure in artificial light and the picture developed just as we should a plate. The beginner will probably have more uniform success with sunlight paper after the simple process of toning and fixing is learned, although the developing papers are extremely simple to handle and give better results.

The final step of trimming and mounting the print is too simple to require explanation.

There are a great many things that might be said about photography, but in a book of this kind only the most simple facts are stated. If you become a photographer you will soon learn many of the fine points.

Our negatives should all be kept carefully in labelled envelopes and a record kept in a book of some kind.

When we really become expert as a photographer, there are many opportunities to make our hobby pay. The publishers of nearly all the magazines experience the greatest difficulty in securing the kind of pictures they wish to reproduce. This is remarkable when so many people are taking pictures. If one wishes to sell pictures, it is important to study the class of materials that the magazines use. Then, if we can secure good results, we can be almost sure of disposing of some of our work and, in addition to the money, have the satisfaction of seeing our pictures published.

XIX

OUTDOOR SPORTS FOR GIRLS

What to wear—Confidence—Horseback riding—Tennis—Golf—Camping

A generation ago the girl who joined her brother in his sports would have been considered a “tom boy,” but in recent years girls have discovered that with comparatively few exceptions they can join in the sports and recreations of their brothers and in some cases attain a remarkable degree of skill.

Girls’ schools have done much to spread this idea. A rational outdoor costume and a desire to be physically well also has helped “the outdoor girl” to be regarded as the highest type of womanhood. Only her grandmother sighs over tanned cheeks and muscular arms.

The girl who is not a good sport is the exception rather than the rule. Besides, our grandmothers worked at their gardening, which is out-of-door exercise, and a preventive, as Kipling tells, of the “hump” we get from having too little to do. He says:

_“The cure for this ill is not to sit still, Or frowst with a book by the fire, But to take a large hoe and a shovel also, And dig till you gently perspire.”_

From a feminine standpoint the first question must be, “What shall I wear?” There is no need to be handicapped by skirts, at least when one’s exercise is taken in company with a crowd of girls. The bicycle introduced the bloomer girl and this costume is now generally regarded as proper for outdoor girls. In camp one should in addition wear a sailor blouse, and a pair of sneakers, which though rather heating for the feet are very comfortable and very satisfactory for long tramps through the woods. The rubber soles give a firm footing on slippery moss and dead leaves, while high heels might cause a wrenched ankle or a bad fall. It is perfectly allowable for a girl to wear a broad-brimmed hat to avoid sunburn, which might be so serious as to spoil a vacation. A gradually acquired coat of tan is much more desirable. The hat prevents headaches or sunstroke, neither of which may be dared with impunity by a delicate girl, unless she wears her hair on top of her head.

In regard to hair, which is of great importance to its owner, though very much of a nuisance after the age when it may be worn boyishly short, the one word is that it must be fixed to stay without re-pinning or tucking back at frequent intervals. For bathing, a girl must either be willing to have her hair well soaked or else to put a cap on so tightly that it cannot be loosened. To hesitate to try a dive for fear of getting wet hair spoils much of the sport of swimming. Each moment of hesitation makes her more convinced that perhaps, after all, she had better not try that dive, because she probably would not be able to do it anyway. The lack of confidence is disastrous. I have known girls who could swim perfectly well in the shallows but could not keep up at all in water out of their depth. And yet they have not been touching the bottom in the shallow water, but they _could_ if they wished. Learning to swim in water that is over your head is really better, though it is more “scary” at first. If you do learn in that way you can thereafter look upon the deepest water with confident scorn.

Confidence is a necessary possession for the beginner in almost any sport. It is so much easier to do anything if we are quite positive that we can. Probably, because you are a girl and are modest, you will have to assume this attitude, but in horseback riding, for example, an instant of fear while on the horse’s back will “give you away” to the beast. Since he is as keen as a dog to know when you fear and dislike him, he will undoubtedly take advantage of it. If you are quite positive that you can learn to ride and that the horse under you is harmless, you will keep a firm hold on the reins instead of clinging to the saddle horn in a panic.

The trying part of learning to ride is that the first day’s experience is painfully stiffening. This applies to almost any unusual exercise. But to withdraw on account of that you may as well resign yourself to taking exercise no more severe than that afforded by a rocking chair. It does not pay to stop when you are stiff. Sticking to it is the only way that will train those hitherto unused muscles to perform their duties with no creaking of the hinges. A good night’s rest is the utmost limit of time that should intervene between each trial.

A girl has the physical disadvantage of less endurance than a boy, and she does have to care for herself in that respect, and leave untried some forms of exercise that would be overexertion for her. A girl may “paddle her own canoe,” of course, without risk of overstraining herself, but when it comes to moving it from place to place out of the water, the feather-light canoe of poetry becomes heavy reality. Two girls can carry a canoe between them for a short distance without much difficulty, but if one is alone it is far better to drag the canoe over the ground, which is not particularly hard on it, unless the ground is rough. The boy’s way of carrying it balanced upside down on his shoulders requires considerable strength.

Devotees of tennis will claim first place for that among girls’ sports. The amount of practice and quickness of thought and motion that maybe acquired in a game of tennis is remarkable; the fascination of the game itself rather than the benefits to be derived from it will hold the attention. The main trouble is in the learning, which requires unflagging energy and constant practice. An overmodest beginner will make the mistake of playing only against her likewise beginning friends; the result is that she takes a discouragingly long time finding out how to use her racket properly and never gets a chance to return a really good serve.

It is really just as well at some point in your practising to see some well-trained athlete do the thing you are trying to learn.

A girl can accomplish a great deal with her brain as well as with her muscles in athletics. Some one once remarked that he learned to swim in winter and to skate in summer. He meant that after he had in its proper season practised skill in the winter sport, his brain, during the warm months, kept repeating to the muscles those directions until by the next winter they had a very fair idea of what they had to do, and responded more quickly and easily. It is rather consoling to think you do not lose time, but rather progress, between seasons.

The girl who goes camping with a crowd of boys and girls realizes how much depends on the mere strength of the boys; at the same time she herself has an opportunity of showing not only her athletic proficiency and nerve, but also her superior common sense. She will really have to leave the heavy work of pitching the tents and chopping the wood to the boys, but she cannot sit down and fold her hands meanwhile. She can be collecting materials for the beds of balsam on which they hope to sleep in comfort, or she may gather chips for the fire, or she may be helping to unload the wagon or canoes in which they have come. When the tents are pitched she has a woman’s prerogative of “putting the house in order,” and during the time of camping keeping it so.

If there is actually a case of nothing for her to do, far better for her to sit down and keep quiet than to get in the way of the boys and bother them. A young man who in his first season as a guide in the Canadian woods took out a party of girls from a summer school on a camping trip told me that he would never do it again, because they gave him no relief from a continual rain of questions. A case where zeal for knowledge outruns discretion.

After the tents are pitched and the fire made by the boys, it is plainly up to the girls to get supper. Let us hope they have practised cooking for some time before they went camping. Every one gets so desperately hungry in the outdoor life that meals are of first importance, as tempers are apt to develop unexpectedly if many failures are turned out. If the girls are good cooks, however, and wash the dishes after each meal the division of labour will be fair to all concerned.

A girl is more or less dependent on her boy friends for instruction in sports and considerably anxious for their approval. Even if she has a woman instructor, in nine cases out of ten she requires some kind of praise from some man before she is satisfied with her performance. Sister may tell her that she steers her canoe with beautiful precision, but unless brother remarks carelessly that “the kid paddles pretty well” she will hesitate to take her canoe in places where expert paddling is required. When you know that you can do some things as well as any boy you still have to rest content with the grudging assurance that “you do pretty well for a girl.”

XX

ONE HUNDRED OUTDOOR GAMES

The following games are described in this chapter:

All-around Athletic Championship Archery Association Football Or Soccer Badminton Bandy Baseball Basket Ball Bean Bags Best College Athletic Records Blind Man’s Buff Boulder Up Bull in the Ring Call Ball Cane Rush Canoe Tilting Cat Counting-out Rhymes Court Tennis Cricket Croquet Curling Dixie’s Land Duck on a Rock Equestrian Polo Fat Feather Race Foot-and-a-half Football Garden Hockey Golf Golf-Croquet Hab-Enihan Haley Over Hand Ball Hand Polo Hand Tennis Hat Ball Hide and Seek High Kick Hockey Hop Over Hop Scotch Hunt the Sheep Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America I Spy Jack Fagots Jai-A-Li Japanese Fan Ball Kick the Stick King of the Castle Knuckle There Lacrosse Lawn Bowls Lawn Bowling Lawn Hockey Lawn Skittles Lawn Tennis Last Tag Luge-ing Marathon Race Marbles Mumblety Peg Names of Marbles Nigger Baby Olympic Games One Old Cat Pass It Pelota Plug in the Ring Polo Or Equestrian Polo Potato Race Prisoner’s Base Push Ball Quoits Racquets or Rackets Red Line Red Lion Roley Boley Roque Rowing Record Rubicon Sack Racing Scotland’s Burning Skiing Soccer Spanish Fly Squash Stump Master Suckers Tether Ball Tether Tennis Three-Legged Racing Tub Racing Volley Ball Warning Washington Water Polo Water Race Wicket Wolf and Sheep Wood Tag Yank

While all the games and sports described in this chapter are not absolutely confined to outdoors, almost any game in which violent physical exercise results is better if played in the open air rather than in a house or gymnasium. In fact, we should only play indoors when the weather makes it impossible for us to be outside.

There are very few indoor games that cannot be played in the open air with proper apparatus or rules. It is also equally true that many of our outside sports may be played indoors with certain modifications.

ALL-AROUND ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIP

This contest was instituted in America in 1884 to give athletes an opportunity to demonstrate their ability in all-around work. The contest is rapidly becoming the blue ribbon championship event in America for track athletes. The following ten events are contested for:

100-yard dash High jump Long jump Vault Throwing 16-pound hammer Putting a 16-pound shot Throwing 56-pound weight 120-yard hurdle race Half-mile walk One-mile run

The system of scoring in the All-around Championship is complicated. Each contestant has his score made up independently. The world’s best amateur record is taken as a basis and 1,000 points are allowed for it. For example, the best record (amateur) for the 100-yard dash is 9⅘ seconds and for each ⅕ of a second more than this that the runner in the All-around Championship contest makes in his trial 42 points are deducted from this score. The same method is used in all the events. In the ten events the maximum score where the contestant equalled every world’s record would be 10,000 points. The contest was won in 1909 by the remarkable score of 7,385 points.

ARCHERY

Archery is the art of shooting with a bow and arrow. It is especially adapted as a lawn game for ladies and gentlemen, but boys and girls can practise archery and become proficient with bows and arrows just as the Indians were or the boys in England in the days of Robin Hood. Of course the invention of gunpowder has practically done away with the bow and arrow either as a means of warfare or as a weapon to be used in the chase, but it is still used by savages.

The modern bow used in archery is made of lancewood or yew and for men’s use is usually 6 feet long and for women and children 6 inches shorter. The strength or pull necessary to bend the bow, given in pounds, determines its classification. The arrows for men’s use should be 28 inches long and for women 24 to 25 inches. The target is a straw-filled canvas disk painted in bright colours. There are usually five circles and the object in archery, as in shooting with firearms, is to hit either the centre ring or “bull’s-eye” or as near to it as possible. In scoring, a shot in the inner gold centre counts nine; red ring, seven; inner white ring, five; black ring, three, and outer white ring, one. Targets are of various sizes from 18 inches in diameter to 4 feet, depending on the distance of the range. A common distance will be from 50 to 100 yards.

Each archer should have some distinguishing mark or colour on his arrows. Standard lancewood bows will cost two or three dollars, arrows from one to two dollars a dozen, and targets from two to five dollars each, with three dollars extra for the target stand.

In championship matches in archery the customary range for men is 60 yards with 96 arrows, and the same number of arrows at 50 yards for women. A recent match championship was decided for men with 90 hits and a total score of 458, and for women with 85 hits and a total score of 441.

ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL OR SOCCER

A game similar to Rugby football except that it more closely resembles what its name implies and kicking predominates. A round, leather-covered ball is used and the game is considered to be much safer than our college football. Efforts consequently have been made to introduce the game into American colleges because of its less dangerous character. As there is practically no tackling or falling, the “soccer” uniform does not require the same amount of padding as a Rugby player’s uniform. The game is ordinarily played in running trousers with a full sleeved shirt and special shoes with leather pegs or cleats. The stockings are rolled down just below the knee. The association football goal net into which the ball is kicked is fastened to the ground and is made of tarred rope. Thus far, the game has not been very popular in America, although a number of exhibition match games have recently been played by visiting English teams which attracted considerable attention. As a game, soccer is fast and exciting, and splendid opportunities are given for team work; but for some reason it has not succeeded in displacing our American game of Rugby, although possibly it is more interesting for the spectator.

BADMINTON

An English outdoor game similar to lawn tennis but played with shuttlecocks. The net is five feet above the ground. The shuttlecock is a cork in which feathers have been inserted. The shuttlecock is served and returned as in tennis and either two or four may play. A badminton court is 30 feet wide and 44 feet long.

BANDY

A game very similar to hockey, except that it is played out of doors instead of in a covered rink and a ball is used in place of a puck or rubber disk.

The name “bandy” is sometimes applied also to shinney or shinty and in England it is also applied to our American game of ice hockey.

BASEBALL

The national game of America. (See chapter on baseball.) The game is played by eighteen persons, nine on a side, called “nines.” The positions are pitcher, catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, right-field, left-field, centre-field. The first six positions are called the in-field, and the last three, the out-field. The diamond or field where the game is played is a square plot of ground with sides ninety feet long. At each corner of the square are bases called first, second, third and home plate. A game consists of nine innings, in each of which both teams have an opportunity to bat the ball and to score runs. The players bat in turn and attempt to reach the various bases without being put out by their opponents. Each year the rules are changed in some slight particulars, consequently a beginner in baseball must be thoroughly familiar with the rules of the game before attempting to play. The pitcher attempts to pitch the ball over the home plate to the catcher and the batsman endeavours to hit it. If the ball after being hit is caught by one of the opposing players, or if it is thrown to the base to which the batsman is running before he reaches the base, he is “out.” Otherwise he is “safe” and will try to make the next base. If he completes the circuit of the four bases without being put out, he scores a run for his team or nine. When a player makes the entire circuit without being forced to stop for safety he makes a “home run.” A hit which gains him a single base only is called a “base hit.” Similarly if he reaches second base it is a “two-bagger,” and third base, a “three-bagger.”

After three players are put out, the other side has its “innings,” and at the completion of nine full innings the side having scored the greatest number of runs is the winner. The game of baseball has become very scientific and the salaries of professional players are almost as high as those of the highest salaried men in business life.

The ball used in the game is made of the best all wool yarn with a horsehide cover and a rubber centre. Baseball bats are usually made of ash.

BASKET BALL

A game of ball which may be played either indoors or out, but which is especially adapted to indoor play when weather conditions make outdoor sports impossible. Two baskets suspended on wire rings are placed at the two opposite ends of a room or gymnasium and the players strive to knock or pass the ball from one to another on their own side and to throw it so that it will fall into the basket. It is not permissible to run with the ball as in Rugby football. The ball used is round, but in other respects resembles the ball used in football. It is made in four sections of grained English leather and is inflated by means of a rubber bladder. The players use rubber-soled shoes with peculiar knobs, ridges, or depressions to prevent slipping. The conventional uniform is simply a gymnasium shirt, running trousers, and stockings which are rolled down just below the knees.

The game of basket ball is especially adapted to women and girls and consequently it is played very largely in girls’ schools and colleges.

Any level space may be used for basket ball. A convenient size is 40 by 60 feet. The baskets used for goals are 18 inches in diameter and are fixed 10 feet above the ground or floor. The official ball weighs about 18 ounces and is 31 inches in circumference. Five players constitute a team. The halves are usually twenty minutes, with a ten-minute intermission for rest.

It is not permissible to kick, carry or hold the ball. Violation of a rule constitutes a foul and gives the opponents a free throw for the basket from a point fifteen feet away. A goal made in play counts two points and a goal from a foul one point.

BEAN BAGS

This game is known to every one by name and yet its simple rules are often forgotten. A couple of dozen bean bags are made in two colours of muslin. The players stand in two lines opposite each other and evenly divided. At the end of the line is a clothes basket. The bags are placed on two chairs at the opposite end of the line and next to the two captains. At a signal the captains select a bag and pass it to the next player, who passes it along until finally it is dropped into the basket. When all the bags are passed they are then taken out and passed rapidly back to the starting point. The side whose bags have gone up and down the line first scores a point. If a bag is dropped in transit it must be passed back to the captain, who starts it again. Five points usually constitute a game.

BEST COLLEGE ATHLETIC RECORDS

These records have been made in the Intercollegiate contests which are held annually under the Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America.

100-yard dash 9⅘ seconds made in 1896 220-yard dash 21⅕ seconds made in 1896 440-yard dash 48⅘ seconds made in 1907 Half-mile run 1 min. 56 seconds made in 1905 One-mile run 4 min. 17⅘ seconds made in 1909 Two-mile run 9 min. 27⅗ seconds made in 1909 Running broad jump 24 feet 4½ in. made in 1899 Running high jump 6 feet 3¼ in. made in 1907 Putting 16-pound shot 46 feet 5½ in. made in 1907 Throwing the hammer 164 feet 10 in. made in 1902 Pole vault 12 feet 3¼ in. made in 1909 120-yard high hurdle 15⅕ seconds made in 1908 220-yard hurdle 23⅗ seconds made in 1898 One-mile walk 6 min. 45⅖ seconds made in 1898

BLIND MAN’S BUFF

This game is played in two ways. In each case one player is blindfolded and attempts to catch one of the others and to identify him by feeling. In regular blind man’s buff, the players are allowed to run about at will and sometimes the game is dangerous to the one blindfolded, but in the game of “Still Pon” the one who is “it” is turned several times and then announces, “Still Pon no more moving,” and awards a certain number of steps, which may be taken when in danger of capture. After this number is exhausted the player must stand perfectly still even though he is caught.

BULL IN THE RING