[D] Moggies are cats.
[E] A shonk is a foreigner, generally a Jew.
[F] Four words censored.
Girls’ games? Bless you, dozens of them.
They play sports together with the boys: ball-games like ROUNDERS
(“FOUR CORNERS”) and HEAD GAME and DAGGLES and BROKEN BOTTLE (yes;
BROKEN BOTTLE is a ball-game, and is also called PASSING ROUND) and
THREE CATCHES OUT and ROTTEN EGG (or CRACKED EGG) and A AND B, where
they have to stand in four rings marked in chalk on the pavement; and
some without balls such as FOOL, FOOL, COME TO SCHOOL (rather like
DUNCE, DUNCE, DOUBLE D.) and WRINKLE-SHELLS and HARK THE ROBBERS COMING
THROUGH--an old catch game--and STEPS, and SLY FOX, and LET GO MUST GO
(a wall game) and HONEY-POTS.
HONEY-POTS is very respectable, but a little old-fashioned. Aunt Eliza
says she used to play it, and I can quite believe that. I can just see
her playing HONEY-POTS.
PLEASE WE’VE COME TO LEARN A TRADE (also called GUESSING WORDS or DUMB
MOTIONS)--another game for boys and girls. There are two parties, one
on each side of the street. One of them has to think of a trade, such
as picking hops, for instance; then they take the first letters, P and
H, and go over to the others and say “We have come to work a trade.”
When the others ask, “What’s your trade?” they must answer “P. H.”,
and pretend to be picking hops with their hands. If the others guess
what trade they mean, they must shout it out and chase them across the
street; and if they catch one of them--why, then they, the hop-pickers,
must do the guessing instead. CATCH-IN-THE-ROPE is also for boys and
girls, and so is PUSSY CAT, and so is STATUES. There are UGLY STATUES
and PRETTY STATUES. When you play this game you have to line yourselves
up against a wall or a house; then the judge comes along and pulls one
of you forwards and in that moment you have to make a posture and a
face, sometimes pretty but mostly ugly, and pretend to be a statue. It
spoils everything if you laugh over this game, as you may understand
from this description:--
“A lot of players stand on a form. One person in front tells the
person to form a statue if she move or laugh she is hee--”
Another of them is HERE WE GO UP THE MULBERRY TREE, where they form two
parties who challenge each other and try to pull each other across
the street. And they have handkerchief games together such as I SENT
A LETTER TO MY LOVE (“and on the way I dropped it”, a decent game for
boys and girls, also called LOST LETTER; and if you haven’t got a
handkerchief, which you generally haven’t, you can take any old rag);
and NICK NACK TOLLY WHACK, which is rather rough and goes like this:--
“Pick up for sides and one side says nick nack tolly wack. Then if the
other side does not move they rush and each one has to have a wack
with the tolly wack (a handkerchief with a knot in it).”
There are several more of these games for boys and girls--such as
LOOKING GLASS and GOOSE-GANDER and SNOW-WHITE (where they go on hands
and knees and get very dirty) and PET POST--but not as many as there
might be, because they don’t play together as much as they might....
Then the girls have games to themselves: ball-games like MACKINTOSH,
and BASKET-BALL, and CROSS-BALL, and EMPEROR BALL, and CENTRE BALL, and
CORNER CATCH BALL, and CIRCLE STRIDE BALL, and HAND BALL, and ONE IN
THE MIDDLE, and QUEEN MAB (a ball-hiding game, also called QUEEN ANNE);
and hand-clapping games such as ONE-TWO-THREE and ORANGES, ORANGES,
FOUR A PENNY, and TWISTERS AND CLAPS; and ring games like UP TO THE
RING, and RUNNING IN AND OUT THE BLUEBELLS, and FIRE, and WALKING ROUND
THE VILLAGE, and THIEF, PRINCE, KING, QUEEN, BEGGAR, and THROWING THE
BEAN-BAGS, and PRETTY AND UGLY--where one girl stands in the centre
of the ring and picks out another one who has to make a face, and if
she’s satisfied with the face, she allows her to stand in the centre
instead.
Other girls’ games are MOTHER I’M OVER THE WATER and BOX NUTS and
VICTORIA and TURNING MOTHER’S WRINGER and WE THREE KINGS and JOHN
BROWN’S KNAPSACK and FILLING (or PUSHING THROUGH) THE GAP and WHEN I
WAS A SCHOOLGIRL and BREAD AND BUTTER (shuttlecock game) and COME TO
SEE POOR MARY and WE ARE ROMANS (two parties of girls) and WHAT IS IT
and WHO KNOWS and HOW, WHEN AND WHERE and HEAD AND SHOULDERS and BEAST,
BIRD, FISH, FLOWER and POLLY GOES TO BED and POOR POLLY CAN’T SEE and
TAG and RAILWAY RACE and ON THE MOUNTAIN and HOOK AND EYE and EGG IN
THE SPOON and HAWK AND DOVE and BORROW A LIGHT and PEASE CODS and
GOLDEN GOOSE and TREACLE PUDDING and WHO’S AFRAID OF BLACK PETER and
JENNY PLUCK PEARS and WALKING-STICKS and LOOKING FOR MOTHER’S THIMBLE
and TIME and LADYSMITH and PUSHY BACK and PASS OVER and WE ARE BRITISH
SOLDIERS and L. S. D. and the WHITE SHIRT. THE WHITE SHIRT is an old
ghost game, played like this:
“You have a lot of girls standing against a wall, one of them being
the mother of the others. She tells them to go and see if father’s
shirt’s dry (the shirt being a girl in white, standing at a distance).
They go in turn to see if it is dry & each time the “ghost” in
father’s shirt catches one. At last the mother alone is left, she goes
and is caught; then another “shirt” is picked, and so the game goes
on.”
I don’t think Aunt Eliza ever played THE WHITE SHIRT; she wouldn’t care
about the name--
and MERRY MONTH OF MAY and CON-STANT-I-NO-PLE and BLACK AND BLUE and
FOLLOW YOUR MOTHER TO MARKET and PUSS and MY SISTER JANE and TWO LITTLE
PEOPLE WENT OUT ONE DAY (“As they went out they were heard to say”) and
OLD DEVIL IN FIRE (or LIGHT MOTHER’S COPPER FIRE), which is played so:
“About one dozen girls can play. They select one who has to be the
devil, she’s to stand against a wall, with a girl hid behind her. All
the children have to try and light the fire, and each time the girl
behind pinches them and they say “Oh, mother, the devil’s in fire.”
Then the mother tries to light the fire and the devil chases them, and
the one who is caught has to become devil, next time.”
It’s perfectly certain Aunt Eliza never played OLD DEVIL.
And other girls’ games are JACOB AND RACHEL (where two of them have
to chase each other blindfolded) and BUSHEL BASKET and MRS. BROWN and
WOODEN LEG and ROLLING PIN (two parties of girls who decide which of
them has to chase the other by the red or blue colour marked on a
rolling pin which is rolled between them) and PORK AND GREENS--
“One player asks a question and the next says pork and greens. If she
says anything else she is out--”
and TWO’S AND THREE’S--
“A double ring is formed. Then two children are out, they chase each
other & one runs in front of a child then the back one is hee--”
and BUZZ--
“One player count one then the next says two and so on. Every 5 the
player instead says buzz--”
and PARSON’S CAT--
“Children sit down in a ring and begin saying something about the cat
such as Abomnerble Cat. Then B and so on.”
I SPY WITH ONE EYE and BLACK IN TOPPER and LOOKING THROUGH THE KEY-HOLE
and PEEPING BEHIND THE CURTAIN are hiding games for girls. For SWINGS
you need a lamp-post and a piece of rope; it’s not exactly a game,
but you can spend a nice Sunday afternoon over it, if there are no
coppernobs about. In POLLY TELL ME THE TIME they wind a skipping-rope
round a girl’s waist a certain number of times, and then unwind her.
And that reminds me that some of the best girls’ games are with
skipping ropes.
They have SWING-SWONG, and DOUBLE DUTCH, and AMERICAN JUMP, and HIGHER
AND HIGHER, and RUN AND SKIP, and HOOP AND SKIP, and INNERS AND OUTERS,
and TOUCH TAIL, and NEBUCHADNEZZAR, and HIGH WATER, and NEVER LEAVE
THE ROPE EMPTY, and OVER THE MOON, and ONE-TWO, and TIPPERARY (new),
and ONE AND OUT, and SNAKES, and BIG BEN STRIKES ONE, and WHAT O SHE
BUMPS (a new one), and ALL IN THE ROPE, and FOLLOW THE LEADER (yes; a
skipping game) and FULL-STOP, and COLOURS, and HAREM SKIRT, and NAUGHTY
GIRL, and THROWING UP GIRLS, and CATCH IN THE LONG ROPE, and EIGHTS,
and DIFFICULTY, and THREE BETWEEN, and THREE AND ALL ON and SITTING ON
THE STAR, MARY and I AM A LITTLE SHADOW and ROCK THE CRADLE and GIRLS’
NAMES, and BOYS’ NAMES, and goodness only knows how many more....
Some of the hand-clapping and ring and skipping games--most of them, in
fact, and other ones too, in which the boys used to join--have songs
that go with them; BOYS’ NAMES, for instance, begins like this:
Black-currant--red-currant--raspberry tart:
Tell me the name of your sweetheart,
and then they begin with A. B. C., and all through the alphabet, a
skip with each letter; and when they have found the sweetheart’s name
they have to discover when they are to be married, and how many rings,
and how many brooches, and in what clothes, and in what carriage,
and how many kisses, and in what house they will live, and how many
children--all in the same alphabetical manner; so that, if this game
were ever properly finished, it would take at least a month’s hard
skipping. Others of them end either with the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc.;
or with penny, tuppence, threepence, etc.; or with the things in the
cruet-stand (salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper); or with the days of the
week, or the months of the year.