The days are very soon coming when boys and girls will scorn fireside
amusements, and think no game worth playing that does not take them out
among the green fields and flower-strewn hedges. But in the mean time,
May is sure to bring us many raw, unpleasant days and rainy evenings to
be disposed of somehow. Here is a game called "The Spanish Nobleman,"
that may help pass a leisure hour.
The company arrange themselves in a long straight line at one end of the
room, excepting one person, who is to be the nobleman, and he must take
his place at the other end of the room. Advancing to his friends, the
nobleman must then sing the following lines:
"I am a nobleman from Spain,
Coming to court your daughter Jane."
To which the rest reply:
"Our daughter Jane is yet too young.
She has not learned her mother's tongue."
The nobleman replies:
"Be she young or be she old,
For her beauty she must be sold;
So fare you well, my ladies gay.
I'll call again another day."
The company then advance, singing:
"Turn back, turn back, you noble lord,
And brush your boots and spurs so bright."
Whereupon the Spanish nobleman replies, with something of rebuke in his
tone:
"My boots and spurs gave you no thought,
For in this land they were not bought,
Neither for silver nor for gold.
So fare you well, my ladies gay,
I'll call again another day."
All then advance, saying:
"Turn back, turn back, you noble lord,
And choose the fairest in your sight."
The nobleman, fixing upon--supposing we say Kitty--then says:
"The fairest one that I can see
Is pretty Kitty: come to me."
The couple go back hand in hand rejoicing. The whole performance is then
recommenced; but the second time, instead of only one nobleman, two
noblemen advance, and the rhyme is gone through again, ending at last in
another companion being induced to join the little band of noblemen.
Thus the game is carried on, until in the end all have gradually been
won over to the opposite side.
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SISTER.--A girl of fifteen might make many pretty things for a boy of
seventeen. A band for the inside of his hat, embroidered with his
initials, a pair of worked suspenders, a pincushion for his pocket, a
little case for his letters, or a watch case shaped like a horseshoe, to
hang over his bureau, would each or all please him, we are sure.
* * * * *
We would call the attention of the C. Y. P. R. U. this week to "The
Pyramids of Egypt" and to "The Canoe Fight." Then, for the benefit of
the boys, there is an article on "Trout-Fishing," in which they will
find full directions as to the best methods of capturing the speckled
beauties that inhabit our babbling brooks and shady forest streams.
* * * * *