“The way we play the game of greenman one of us lay down and cover his
self with grass and the others run out and hide then they say greenman
greenman rise up then he gets up and trys to catch them and the last
one thats cort goes it--”
For GREEN MAN RISE-O you have to go to the park, nowadays; but if you
can’t go to the park, and want to play it in the street, this is how
you do:--
“A boy as got to lay down and all the others have to put thier coats
on him and then they have to say green man rise up and if he see a boy
he as got to say one, two, three, and the last one as to go it--”
--in fact, it becomes like DEAD MAN’S RISE, for lack of grass.
In COCK ROBIN IS DEAD all the children who are playing have to arm
themselves with shields (for which they use saucepan-lids) and with
bows and arrows; and some of the bows are worth looking at--made of
string, they are, and half a barrel-hoop or a whalebone out of their
big sister’s stays--if she wears any. Another of these sports is an old
witch-game called TO BECKLES TO BECKLES (?Beccles in Suffolk). It is
played like this:
“The children form a ring, and two in the middle. One is a witch and
the other is a girl. The children dance round once. Then the girl in
the ring says, “To Beckles to Beckles to get some wood.” Old witch
says: “What for.” Girl: “To boil the pot.” Witch: “What for.” Girl:
“To cook the fowl.” Witch: “Where did you get it?” Girl: “From your
yard.” At this a race ensues, until the girl is caught by the witch.”
GROTTOES--May sport--are built heart-shaped or square or round, with
an edge of grass (if you can get it) filled up with picture-cards
and oyster-shells and old scent bottles or anything else that looks
pretty. It’s just a dodge for mumping halfpennies; and not a bad one,
either. They come up to you and say “Remember the grotto”--meaning Pay
up. Speaking for myself, I generally forget the grotto--meaning Go to
blazes. But some people pay up, and I once saw Mr. Perkins give them
sixpence! He was a bit all right, that evening--must have been....
By far the best children’s games are those played with mud. Of mud
you make PIES, and BRIDGES, and STICKING-BRICKS (against a wall),
and MUD-CARTS (played with a tin-can), and WELLS, and TUNNELS, and
FLOWER-POTS, and CASTLES--in fact, anything you please. There’s nothing
like mud, when all is said and done, and it’s a perfect shame there
isn’t more mud about, nowadays; or sand, at least. You should see
them go for it, when the streets are up. Because the park is too far
away for most of them. And then, the fact of the matter is, our boys
don’t much like playing in the park, anyhow; and the few who care
about it aren’t allowed to go, because their mothers say “You’ve got
no clothes.” They prefer the streets; and that’s the truth, though you
wouldn’t believe it. I can’t stop to tell you why. For one thing, the
keeper is always coming up in the park and interfering; next, they
can’t find kerbs and paving-stones there; next, it makes them wild to
see other boys with bats and things, when they have none....
Some of these games used to come in at fixed seasons, as TOPS and
MARBLES and PICTURES and BUTTONS still do; they came regularly, like
the ice-cream jack or the lavender-boy or the rate-collector or the
measles or the hoky-poky man or the carol-singers. But things are
changing. SKIPPING used to begin on Good Friday, and now they skip half
the year round; HOOPS used to come in at Christmas sharp, and here they
are already. Danged if I know the reason why. But there it is. GROTTOES
ought to be played on St. James’ day, and I’ve seen them in mid-winter.
The same with these MUD-PIES. You would think they belonged naturally
to the wet season. Not a bit of it! Not nowadays, at all events. If
their clay is too dry in summer, they manage to make it moist again,
even without waiting for the rain. Unseasonable, I call it....
What I said about paving-stones reminds me of MARBLES. We used to play
them in the winter, on the pavement. But marlies are going down in the
world, that’s certain. It’s a good while since I played, but I still
remember the names of a few kinds--Toms, and Alleys, and Glarnies, and
Miggies; and Forty-eighter and Twenty-fourer and Twelver and Sixer
and Fourer and Three-er. You hardly ever hear of a Forty-eighter
nowadays. The smaller stone marbles were called Tich; those you got
out of lemonade bottles were Glass-eye; they also had names, which
I’ve forgotten, according to the different coloured marks. We used to
play at NOCKS (that is, KNUCKS: because your knuckles had to touch
the ground), and MARBLE-BOARD, and SKITTLES, and GLASGOW, and THREE
HOLES, and NIXY’S IN THE HOLE: I TAKE, and GUTTER MARBLES, and ROW
MARBLES, and UP THE ALLEY, and SPICK AND SPAN, and DOB ’EM, and TIP,
and FOUR HOLES, and NEAREST THE WALL, and PICKING THE PLUMS, and
GOING UP, and BOWLING IN THE HOLE and HIT IT LEAVE IT and HIT IT HAVE
IT and THROWINGS OUT and STAYS and HITS AND SPANS and FIVE TEN and
PICKING NUMBERS and BAGATELLE and IN THE RING and PITCHING and FOLLOW
ON and KILLING and PORKY and THROW THE FARTHEST and SOME OR NONE and
BRIDGE-BOARD. BRIDGE-BOARD was played with a diagram looking like a
row of railway arches; and I might explain the game if I could draw
diagrams, which I can’t. In BOUNCE EYE each player gave a certain
number of marbles which were pooled in a ring. Then one of them held
a marble to his eye and dropped it among them; if any others were
knocked out of the ring, he kept them; if none, his own marble went
into the pool. There used also to be games that you played with marbles
in a flat iron ring--the rings cost 2d. if you bought them, but you
generally got them off the barges for nothing--games like RINGUMS and
CHIPPING OUT OF THE RING.
But, as I was saying, marbles are not played as they used to be. The
police are getting more interfering every day; they tell the boys to
move on and not block up the pavement, and that interrupts them in the
middle of a game and makes them half wild; and if you don’t clear off
at once, they kick your marbles into the gutter where they get lost
down a drain, and that makes you altogether mad. Aunt Eliza explains
things by saying that marble-games wear out boys’ clothes at the knees
and that mothers are growing to be “more careful in such matters.” More
fussy, I call it. And then she says--and I say what she says simply
can’t be believed, though it would prove what _I_ said--she says--and I
say she says these things not because she knows them but just because
she believes them, or believes she believes them, or believes she ought
to believe them, like some people do; or perhaps not even that; because
how is she to _know_ them: that’s what I want to know?--she says that
marbles--and I say it’s the worst of Aunt Eliza that when she says a
thing you never know exactly where you are; and, upon my word, I don’t
believe she knows either; nor does anybody else, for that matter; and,
what’s more, nobody really cares; and it wouldn’t much matter if they
did, which is just as well--she says that marbles--and I say it all
comes from wasting her time running all over the place in a feather hat
and silk garters, ever since she came in for that little bit and left
off trying to be schoolmistress, and messing about the way she has done
with children’s homes and a lot of old cranks, instead of doing some
honest work at home--she says that marbles, and not only marbles but
HOOPS, used to be played by the big boys at the public schools.
Hoops: that’s what she says. And I say: hoops be blowed. With all
respect to Aunt Eliza, I might have swallowed marbles, but I can’t
swallow hoops; not on this side of the year after next. I know this,
at least, that if a big lad were seen playing, or ever had been seen
playing, with a hoop, down our way, except, perhaps, an iron one--why,
his own parents wouldn’t know him again, when he got home, if he
ever did, which I rather doubt; and that’s all there is to it. His
father would ask whether some poor loony had been trying to box with
a traction-engine going at full steam, and his mother would want to
know what on earth made somebody put a lot of something through the
sausage-machine without sifting out all those buttons first. But that’s
neither here nor there, except in so far as it shows what Aunt Eliza’s
explanations are worth. Mr. Perkins, of Framlingham Brothers (a good
old firm--and a nice place he’s got, too)--he’s an understandable kind
of gentleman and he gets talking about things after his second pint of
Burton and he says, speaking of marbles, that he’s noticed the same
thing as I have. And when I asked him _why_ marbles are going out of
fashion, he says:
“Marbles are going out of fashion”, he says, “because they’re getting
unpopular. That’s why. And I happen to know this”, says he, “because
our little Percy he tells me that shopmen don’t stock them the way
they did because they know that boys don’t ask for them the way they
did and boys don’t ask for them the way they did because they know
they couldn’t get them the way they did because shopmen don’t stock
them the way they did. Which proves what I said. Trust me”, says he,
“when things begin to lose their popularity, they are sure to become
unfashionable sooner or later, whether it be games, or clothes, or
drinks, _or_ religions. For instance”, says he, “take Nonconformity”.
But I wasn’t taking Nonconformity just then, and when I tried to keep
him to the point, and asked _why_ marlies, and just marlies, were
getting unpopular, he scratches his chin which hadn’t been shaved for
the inside of a week, and has another go at his tankard, and puts
it down with a bit of a bang, emphatic-like--a sure sign, with Mr.
Perkins--and then he looks at me and says:
“Marbles are getting unpopular”, says he, “because they’re going out
of fashion. That’s what’s the matter with marbles and with a good many
other things as well. Take Nonconformity”, and when I told him I was
only taking bitter that night, he has another pull at his Burton, and
at last he says, casual-fashion:
“Marbles are not stimulating enough for modern life. It’s the same
with religions, _don’t you see_? Now take Nonconformity”--and God’s
truth! I had to take Nonconformity for the better part of an hour,
after all.
But Mr. Perkins hit the nail on the head, all the same. For I feel
sure that boys need more excitement than they did. Or perhaps I ought
to say they want it. That’s it: they just want it. And thinking it
over, I believe the cinematograph is to blame: it makes them want more
excitement, and then it gives it them; and then it makes them want
still more, and then it gives them still more; quite restless, in fact,
it makes them, and I shouldn’t be surprised if sooner or later it
weren’t responsible for a new kind of boy altogether. And that would
mean the end of a number of these old games. Because nowadays the
bigger lads, those who used to do most of the inventing--they prefer
to go to picture-shows whenever they get a chance, instead of larking
about the streets as they used to do. (They get some games out of the
cinematograph, by the way, such as COWBOYS--INDIANS, which has lately
been re-christened GERMANS--ENGLISH). So the playing-age is growing
to be younger and younger, and these small boys are not so good at
discovering fresh sports; it’s quite true they do make up new ones
every day, but I think, on the whole, they forget more than they ought
to remember; and this is the reason, if you really want to know, why
I’m making up this catalogue: to see whether the next lot of children
knows anything about these sports, or even their names.
The “organized games” they make them play in the parks nowadays--they
work in the same direction; so does the regular county council
schooling; so does the scout movement. The fact is, boys are not left
to themselves the way they used to be; everybody goes fussing about
and telling them to do this and that, when they want to be doing
something else--something of their own; that’s why many games are being
forgotten. I don’t know a single boy who really cares for “organized
games” the way a man does; even Aunt Eliza can’t bring herself to
believe in the system over-much, though she likes to think it keeps
the youngsters out of mischief. And it all comes from thinking that
boys think the same as we think--which they don’t; or ought to learn to
think the same as we think--which they oughtn’t. Because the right kind
of boy thinks differently from the right kind of man about games and
everything else. And so he ought.
To prove that they still can invent, you need only watch them at
their picture-games--played with cigarette-cards and all of them, of
course, absolutely new, seeing that these cards were quite unknown up
to a few years ago. These picture games have helped to do away with
marbles, for two reasons: firstly, the boys are keener on them because
they’re more exciting; and secondly, they’re cheaper. You have to pay
for marbles. But you don’t pay for fag-pictures: you mump them, see?
And here the difference between our games and those of richer people
comes in. The more expensive their games are, the more they like to
play them; they don’t seem to care about sports that are played with
nothing at all--the dearness is what makes everybody want to go in for
them; whereas with our boys a game can only be played if it’s cheap,
and if it costs nothing at all--why, then it becomes really popular,
or fashionable--as the case may be. Now fag-cards are cheap, and no
mistake. That’s why you can play so many games with them--EGGS IN THE
BUSH, and SNAP, and BANKER (or BANK), and NEAREST THE WALL TAKES, and
NEAREST THE WALL SPINS UP, and SEVENS (quite a new kind), and SCALING
UP THE RING, and SCALING UP THE LINE, and UNDER THE HAT, and GETTING
IN THE RING (that’s a paving-flag, and the game is also called IN THE
SQUARE), and OVERLAPPINGS, and IN THE RING FARTHEST, and POKE IN THE
HOLE, and DROP THEM (or DROPS), and SKATE THEM, and PICTURE OR BLANK,
and WALLIE (or UP THE WALL), and PITCHING IN THE BLOCK (or PITCHER),
and PITCHING UNDER, and SLAP-DAP, and SCRAPINGS, and TIPPING IN THE
HOLE, and BLOWINGS (also called BLOWS or BLOWUMS: you need an outside
window-sill for this), and TOUCH-CARD, and GETTING ON, and INNERS AND
OUTERS, and THUMBS, and SHOWS-UP, and KNOCK ’EM DOWN, and DICINGS, and
WATERFALLS (or SNOWFALLS) and SPANS (or SPANNERS)--there’s thirty of
them, anyhow.
There’s this to be said for picture-games: they make the boys
uncommonly nimble with their hands and fingers, and this must help
them later on, if they go in for certain trades like watch-making.
In fact, they require real skill; as I found out the other day when
they asked me to play BANKER (just for a lark, they said) and got five
coppers out of me in about half as many minutes. No, I’ve nothing
against picture-games except that their names are not as good as those
of the duty sports and that they don’t give the youngsters any chance
of running about and using their legs. And also this: they’re really
horrible inducements to gambling--especially BANKER. Now I don’t
like even talking about gambling, because it’s forbidden by law, and
everybody knows it. And yet, only yesterday I noticed a lot of them
at it; evidently at it. I could see they were up to mischief, by the
way they cleared. Dam funny it was--how they just melted into nothing,
before I could get a proper sight of them. Not our boys, I’m glad to
say.
They’re so keen on these picture-games that you can see them playing at
half-past six in the morning and after nine at night; and in the rain,
too; and when they have no fag-pictures they try to play the same games
with bus tickets and then, if you’re not very careful, you can hear
some shocking bad swear-words which they pick up I can’t think where,
because the bus tickets bend too easily and won’t fly as they should.
And that reminds me of some other games of the smaller children--those
played with five stones (boys) or gobs and bonsers (girls). Gobs (cobs)
are shaped like dice, or ought to be; and a bonser or bonk or buck
or bonster is a large marble that bounces from the ground (bouncer),
about the size of a forty-eighter. You can buy four gobs and a bonk for
a half-penny; you can also make them yourself--the gobs or stones, I
mean--out of bits of porcellain and pebbles and winkle-shells; but the
bought ones are the best, because, for one reason, you have to pay for
them.
With these things you play BUCK AND FOUR of different kinds, such as
TELLINGS and SISTERS and STAND UP JACK. For BASKETS you need a diagram
on the pavement, which I can’t draw. Other games of this sort are ALLEY
GOBS and CHANGES and PICKSES and STANDSES--
“In standses aim the marble up then as the marble is coming down stand
one of the stones up till you stand all the four up then you drop them
again--”
and SHUFFLES and FULL-STOP AND COMMA and FLY DOBS and BABES IN THE WELL
and ONE STAND UP ONES’ES--
“if one gob stands up when thrown out, the process of ones’es must be
taken. After this you must get two to stand up [on their sides, of
course], then three and so in the right order”--
and OVER THE WALL ONE TWO THREE and SPANS and LONDON BRIDGE--
“the bonk is thrown up and while it is descending the two in the
middle are caught up, but the bonk must be caught with both stones in
the middle then the two stones outside are caught up making a total of
three in the hand” (not very clear, is it?)--
and BABES IN BED and PIGEON-HOLE and CROW’S NEST and LAMP-POST--
“build up four stones, throw up the bonk so that it knocks down one of
them; and so on till only one stone is left. Then throw up the bonk
and catch it in your hand together with the four stones that are on
the ground; if you miss one, you’re out”--
and TWOS AND THREES and FOURS and FIVERS and FIVES SIX TIMES and SAVING
BABY’S LIFE--
“The way to play Saving Babies life is like this. First of all you
pick out a stone which will be the bonk, then lay the remaining four
on the left hand, and then by hitting the hand which holds the stones
one of them flies into the air, then when it comes down the player
must catch it or else he is out. When all the stones have been caught
in this way they are laid on the hand in two’s, then in three’s, and
when that is done all the four are caught, but this time the bonk must
be picked up while the others are coming down.”
It takes some doing, this game; and it isn’t worth doing when you can
do it.
Now proper boys won’t touch a marble that bounces from the ground--I
can’t tell you why, but there it is; so they generally use a fifth
stone instead of a bonk, as in this last game, which is the boys’ way
of “Saving Baby’s Life”. But most of them don’t care about these things
anyhow, and I don’t either; rotten games, I call them, fit for silly
little girls and only interesting because they’re a sort of half-way
(the old FIVE-STONES, for instance, is played both with common stones
and with gobs) between marbles which you can’t manufacture at any price
and real stones which you just pick up anywhere.
Talking of real stones, there’s no doubt whatever that games
played with them are the oldest in the world, together with the
mud-larks--excepting perhaps those that are not played with _things_
at all, like hide-and-seek and some of the old “he” games. And it’s
just wonderful what you can do with stones. But they are dying out, all
the same; because the worst of it is, there are not half enough stones
about, nowadays; not half enough. You can play DUMPING (or DUMPLING)
with stones, and BUNG (also called GO-GULLEY) and NIP (also called TAP
or LEG-ALONG--where you hit each others’ stones, each hit counting ten)
and DUCK; and you can tell from these names how old the games are.
Stones for LEG-ALONG--stones of the right kind, of proper shape and
weight, flat on both sides and fitting nicely into the hand, are hard
to come by and carefully kept. DUCK (or DUCK ON) goes like this:
“About eight or nine can play; you make a hole in the ground and Duck
puts his stone before it, then the Others come up close and have to
knock his one into the hole with theirs; if they miss they must pick
up there stones and run back to the Curb before he can catch his One;
if he catch him, that man is Duck instead.”
Other stone-games are FRENCH PACKET and SHUFFING THE MONEY and
FIVE-TEN and HESLING and TWO AND THREE HOLES and KNOCKING THREE’S and
PENNY-TUPPENCE and COCK-SHIES and STONE CHASE and THROWINGS OUT and
RINGING THE STONE and PUDDING.
Have you ever played DUCKING MUMMY? Probably not. But it’s a good old
stone-game for small boys. Two of them take a stone each, and with
these stones they aim at a third stone. The third stone--that’s Mummy.
If one of them hits Mummy, he keeps on throwing till he misses; then
the other has a turn at it; and so on. In the end they are supposed
to count up who has made most hits--the loser paying a peppermint. Of
course they try to cheat each other, and so it always ends in a free
fight: that’s the best part of the whole game. Nobody ever gets the
peppermint.
But they sometimes gets a black eye....
And that’s about all the games I can think of, just now.
Wait a bit. There are the chalk-games. These are what you see marked
out in white or coloured chalk on the pavement or asphalt--summer
games, of course, and pretty common everywhere. Ordinary HOP-SCOTCH,
for instance, and LONG HOP-SCOTCH, and FRENCH HOP-SCOTCH, and
TIDDLEDEWINK, and PUDDING AND BEEF (or STONE HOP-SCOTCH, where you have
to keep a stone balanced on your head or open hand as you hop through).
Then there’s WRIGGLY-WORM (also called WHIRLY-WHIRLY, or WIGGLY-WOGGLY,
or SNAIL), and SQUARES, and NUMBERS, and DOT-BOXES (or DOTS) and ALL
OVER THE WORLD, and STEPPING-STONES, and ZIG-ZAG. They play NOUGHTS AND
CROSSES out of doors (OXEN-CROSSES, they call it; which shows how they
twist the names about); other chalk-games are MAPS, and LONDON, and
BATTLEMENTS, and SNAKES, and BABY, and BILL BAILY.
They also play BODY-BUILDING of different kinds, and one of the most
complicated of these chalk-games is now called GERMANS-ENGLISH. It
begins with a design shaped rather like a coffin with fields of
squares in the middle and a field of them running along each side,
and a field for “lost” at the top and another field at the bottom
which I don’t remember the use of, and two starting-points at each
end of the bottom. Only two boys can play; they throw their nickers
by turns into the middle fields, and if they land on a line it counts
nothing, but whoever lands in a field can begin building a soldier
in the corresponding side-field; first his head; then (for another
throw into the right field) his body; then (for another) his legs;
then his rifle; then a bullet at the end of his rifle. Once the bullet
is there, that soldier stands for good. But while he is still being
built, the other boy, if he throws well, can set up another soldier in
the corresponding side-field in shorter time, and once that soldier
has his bullet--why, he can shoot the other fellow opposite, if he’s
not complete, and finish him off for good. So there are all the time
soldiers building in the different side-fields on both sides, each
growing up as fast as he can, and all shooting each other whenever
they get the chance; and the winner is the boy who has most soldiers
alive at the end. And you can see from this that it’s a complicated
business and shows what youngsters can think out with a bit of chalk
(if somebody didn’t think it out for them); but to explain it properly
would require at least twenty diagrams to show the game in its
different stages, and I can’t draw diagrams--never could; which is a
pity.
The small children have a chalk-game all to themselves called POLLY
POLLY WHAT’S THE TIME, where they draw a sort of clock on the pavement
and cover up parts of it with their jackets or anything else.
The girls have another, BOOTS, SHOES, TIPS, OR NAILS, in which one
of them draws a square on the pavement containing room for the four
letters b. t. s. or n.; she writes one of them down and then covers it
up; the others must guess which letter it is, and they score up how
many correct guesses each one has had. Boys sometimes play this, but
not often.
And then the well-known CHALK-CHASE. There are different kinds of
CHALK-CHASE, such as CONVICTS AND WARDERS (or TRACKING THE CONVICTS)
and SCOUTS; but the real old CHALK-CHASE, as played by my friends of
the “Char-charcoal-chalk-chase-club”, goes like this:--
“You pick parteis and then they clip for First outing. Each player has
a peice of chalk which he has to draw arroes the hounds follow & they
must cross out the arroes until the Others are caught then its the
Others turn”.
Played it yourself, maybe?
And there! I nearly forgot some of the best of all these sports: the
touch games. There’s OFF-GROUND TOUCH and FRENCH TOUCH and TOUCH
THE ROAD YOU MUST GO OVER and CROSS TOUCH and HE (called EE; all
touch-games are “he” games, and this is the grandfather of the whole
family), and ELBOW TOUCH and HELP TOUCH and B--TOUCH and TOUCHING
BOOTLEATHER and HOP TOUCH and DOUBLE TOUCH and TOUCH LAST (or HAD
YOU LAST) and TOUCHING IRON and TOUCH WOOD AND WHISTLE and NON-STOP
TOUCH and STICK-TOUCH, or STICK-HE (touching with sticks) and WATER-HE
(played in the baths) and STRING-HE (touch and hold hands: like WIDDY)
and TREE-HE (up trees) and SHADOW-HE, which must be played in the
sunshine, like this:
“The one who is he has to try and tread on one of the person’s
shadders, then he is he.”
FRENCH TOUCH is as good as any of those I can remember just now; it is
played like this:
“Fr tutch run after another boy and tutch him any were and the boy you
tutched has to keep his hand on the place were you tutched and go ea
(“he”) and run after another boy and tutch him any were and he has to
keep his hand on the place where he tutched and go ea and run after
another boy and tutch him any were and he has to keep his hand on the
place were he tutched and go ea and run after another boy and tutch
him any were etc.”--
and OFF-GROUND TOUCH like this:
“You are not supposed to let your feet touch the ground, if you do,
the one who is out can have you”--
but somebody really ought to make a full list of games of this kind.
Aunt Eliza might do it (always fussing about with school-children, she
is, and seeing that their clothes are properly patched behind) if she
weren’t so fond of explaining things--so fond that I daresay she’ld mix
up B--TOUCH with HOOPS and HONEY-POTS, for the sake of fitting it in
with some explanation or other. That’s the worst of Aunt Eliza; she’s
sometimes right, but you never know when....
And now, come to think of it, I believe I can tell you just one or two
more of the games they play down our way. There’s WILL YOU ’LIST (a
recruiting game, very popular just now), and HAMMERS ON, and KICKS,
and RED ROVER (“Three steps and I’ll be over”), and CARLOW, and FRIED
EGGS AND A RASHER, and POSTMAN’S KNOCK, and TEN O’CLOCK POLICE, and
SCHOOL-BOYS, and ICKAMY-ICKAMY-CO (“where’s the poor man to go?”), and
SHUNTING ENGINES and FOLLOW THE LEADER--
It’s the only really dangerous game we have, FOLLOW THE LEADER. Because
of course the bravest boy is chosen as leader, one who crosses the road
just in front of some heavy van and then goes and raps at all the doors
of the neighbours who rush out in a rage to see what’s the matter; so
that by the time the third man has done the same there’s sometimes a
smash-up and always a row. A grand old game is DOING EACH OTHERS’ DAGS,
as they call it; but its bound to end in trouble of some kind, for dead
certain; though the “leader” generally comes off without a scratch, as
they do in the army--
and STITCH AWAY TAILOR and BOATS and HOOPLA FOR CHOKLITTS and BUS
HORSES and REIN HORSES and SCOUTS and PICKING THE CROW’S NEST and
KNOCKING DOWN GINGER and KNOCKING GINGER OUT O’BED (rough; played with
door-knockers) and WHIRLIGIG and ROBIN SNATCH (with handkerchiefs)
and FLAG RACE and POTTY and FIVE HUNDRED MONKEYS UP (the last two are
hide-and-seek) and GUARDING THE STAKE and JUPITER. I’m glad I didn’t
forget to remember JUPITER; it’s an old game and goes like this:--
“One has to be Jubiter and every time he hops out he has to say
Jubiter and if he catches one he has to be servant and so on until you
catch all except one and he has to be Jubiter”--
and SUNDAY-MONDAY and HIDING STEPS and OUTINGS and HOME IT and WHAT’S
THE TIME and TAILOR SAID and LAST MAN STANDING (like OFF-GROUND TOUCH)
and RELIEVO (like RELEASE, only chalked dens are used) and POSTMAN
RELAY and EGG AND SPOON RELAY and INDIAN CLUB RELAY and DAY AND NIGHT
and JUMPING THE BROOK and ONE MORE NO MORE and PARVY and STOLEN
NECKLACE and OUT OF BOUNDS and GIVE A JOIN (like WIDDY) and DATE-HOGS--
I must tell you about DATE-HOGS. It’s played by small children with
date-stones and screws--the stones you find, the screws you pinch or
mump; and each boy has a certain number of throws with his date-stones
at one of the other chap’s screws standing up on end. Now it’s quite
clear that, getting the screws the way they do, they sometimes get big
ones, and sometimes little ones, and have to be jolly glad to get any
at all; and it’s also clear that, big screws being easier to hit than
little ones, the game would be unfair if you always threw from the same
distance. Therefore you mustn’t always throw from the same distance.
But how are you to settle it fairly? Well, everybody knows that big
screws have more turns or twists in them than little screws have. So
they measure the throwing-distance by the number of these turns. A
small screw, which is hard to hit, has (say) five turns, so you have to
stand five paces off; a big screw, which is easier to hit, has (say)
ten turns, and so you stand ten paces off; and this makes the chances
always even. Shows how artful these kids are--
and FOX AND HOUNDS (HARE AND HOUNDS) and BATTLE OF WATERLOO and LAMP
AWAY and STICKJAW and PAPER TRUNCHEONS and POTATOE-SHOOTERS and FUEL
FOR THE FIRE and TIME GUESSING and ROUND THE BLOCK and HUMBLE-BUMBLE
and GO YOUR WAY and A PIN TO LOOK AT THE POPPY-SHOW--
A poppy-show--that’s a puppet-show, if the boys hadn’t forgotten what
a puppet-show was. You need rather a fresh boy for this game, and when
you’ve found him, you get hold of a big book--a Bible, if possible,
because it has so many pages and looks respectable anyhow, but chiefly
on account of the pages--and anywhere between its pages you put a few
transfers; just a few. You hold the book in your hand with the back
downwards and press the covers together as tightly as ever you can, and
come up to your lad and say “A pin to look at the poppy-show.” Then he,
with a pin, has to dab down between the closed pages of the book, and
if he strikes a place where a transfer happens to be, of course it’s
his; otherwise, you keep his pin. You can guess his chances, when there
are about three transfers hidden among four hundred pages. If he likes
to be a fool, he can get rid of all his pins that way, while you keep
your poppy-show for the next fresh boy you come across--
and LAST ACROSS and STEPS ACROSS and PEEP (also called JACK) and HOME
FOUR and I SPY EGGS AND BACON (hide-and-seek) and SAVOY (also called
SAVELOY) and WATERMAN and LEADING THE BLIND HORSE TO THE KNACKER and
FAIRY CHASE and HOPPING JINNY and SKITTLES KNOCK ’EM DOWN and GUESSING
WORDS (at shop-windows) and NICKO MIDNIGHT (“Flash your light”) and PIG
IN THE POT--
“One person stands in the middle all the rest stand at one end the
whole lot have to run to the other side. If you start you must keep
on. If one or two are caught you have to join hands and go after the
others.”
and FIGHT FOR THE FLAG (two parties: played from a mound) and LEARN
YOUR A. B. C. and SERVING YOUR COUNTRY A GOOD GAME and LIG-A-LOG and
FRENCH BLIND MAN’S BUFF and ANIMAL BLIND MAN’S BUFF--
“A ring is drawn, in which is a blind man, and the players; the
players move about until the blind man strikes on the ground with
his wand. He then touches any one (all are standing still) and asks
them to imitate an animal’s voice. He then tries to recognise them by
their voice. If he succeeds the other is the blind man, if not, the
game is continued”--
and WILL YOU SURRENDER and TELLING YOUR DREAM and FIVE TEN FIFTEEN
TWENTY (catch-game) and JACK AROUND (catch) and SEE YOU ACROSS and LONG
RUN and RACE TO BERLIN (new) and BOGIE MAN (catch) and NO MAN STANDING
and WALL TO WALL and SAINT GEORGE AND HIS MERRY MEN and DELIVER YOUR
LUGGAGE and FISH AWAY JACK (four lamp-posts and eight boys) and PIN,
BUTTON OR MARBLE--
In this, you go up to a boy smaller than yourself and take him by the
throat and say “Pin, button, or marble”. And that’s all you have to
do. Because then he must turn out his pockets and give you whatever
he can find, and thank God if he doesn’t get a thrashing into the
bargain. It isn’t exactly what you’ld call even chances, but it’s quite
all right, especially if you happen to be the big boy; because the big
boy generally wins at this game. Now you may wonder why they collect
pins. Well, our boys will collect anything, anyhow, anywhere--even if
it’s useless; but precious few things, you know, are really useless (I
can’t think of a single one, just now), and as to pins--I’m not even
going to try to tell you in how many ways you need them. Some boys go
about with a provision of hundreds of pins stuck in their clothes for
different sports; mothers are also very fond of pins, and if you give
them a nice handful on a Saturday morning, they’ll think you’ve been
quietly thinking about them all the week and collecting pins for them;
and maybe that’ll mean an extra something for the picture-show later
on. They collect buttons the same way, for games like BUTTONS IN THE
RING; only the buttons must be of metal, of brass or steel; they must
ring like money when you throw them on the pavement: that’s the test.
All other buttons are simply “toot”--not worth talking about. The best
metal buttons are commissionaires’ buttons; they’re called “raileys”,
and a good railey is worth four or even six ordinary metal ones, while
a bad one (with a loose shank, for instance) will fetch only two. Many
boys are able to stitch themselves full of these buttons, for use in
games; the less clever ones, those who keep on losing them, have to cut
the buttons from their own clothes and go about from one year’s end to
another with their trowsers hitched to their braces by means of their
sisters’ hair-pins, bent double. But that’s neither here nor there--
and SINGLE SAY-GO and DOUBLE SAY-GO and QUEEN, KING OR DIRTY RASCAL and
MOSCOW and RUGBY SCRUM (introduced by the scouts) and I WILL APPRENTICE
MY SON TO A CARPENTER and SAILOR BOY and STORKY and EGGS and THREE
IN THREE OUT (the last four are hide-and-seek games) and CROWNINGS
(also hide-and-seek) and MOUSE IN THE COPPER and SHOW THREE FACES: GO
and MAGIC WRITING and DRAG-LAG (played with sacks) and PICKLE CABBAGE
(name-calling) and PUTTING (_not_ pulling) THE KAISER’S WHISKERS (new)
and BLUE BOY and BACK YOU and KING CAESAR and TING TING THE SPIDER (you
need an outside window for this) and PUSS IN THE CORNER and HOP AND
CHARGE and TAKING THE CASTLE and DARTS (also called NIBS) and PENNY
THREE HALFPENCE TWOPENCE (running) and TWO IN TWO OUT and TUG OF WAR
and CHIVY CHASE and DADDY RED-CAP (or GREEN-CAP)--and that’s enough for
today.
DADDY RED-CAP has a song beginning like this:
“Plaster of Paris has lost his hat--
Some say this, and some say that....”
and that’s interesting, because “Plaster of Paris”, of course, is all
nonsense. And so is “Plaistow Palace”, as they sometimes call it. The
real song goes:--
“Beadle Palace has lost his hat--
Some say this, and some say that....”
but the boys twist the words about, because they disremember who Beadle
Palace was; and I can’t tell you either. Mr. Perkins, of Framlingham
Brothers (Limited), once told me he knew all about it; he said that
“Beadle Palace” stands for the Bishop of London, who _really did_ lose
his hat one evening; and “some say” it was blown off his head by the
wind, and “some say” he gave it to a woman with red hair and a squint,
and never got it back again. But he was a bit on, that night, was Mr.
Perkins. Or else the Bishop must have been....
These are about a thousand of the outdoor games they play down our
way--not a bad number, when you think that our children can only play
after they come home from school or work, and that they hardly ever
play on Sundays on account of their clothes, or in winter because the
evenings are too dark, and that the rain often keeps them indoors
anyhow, and that the lads over 14 don’t play at all. And yet, no doubt,
I must have forgotten to tell you half of them; and I shall never stop
forgetting, if I don’t stop trying to remember....
Now what I think is this. It doesn’t matter how all these sports are
played. What matters is that they _are_ played. To show how wide-awake
our youngsters are, to be able to go on inventing games out of their
heads all the time--that’s the point: my point, at least. The
particular rules of all these different games--they don’t strike me as
very important, or even interesting.
And you’ll agree with me that it’s as clear as daylight, and it all
comes to this: if you want to see what children can do, you must stop
giving them things. Because of course they only invent games when they
have none ready-made for them, like richer folks have--when, in other
words, they’ve nothing in their hands. As Mr. Perkins said: “You can’t
play a ball-game, if you haven’t got a ball”, meaning that if you want
to play, and have nothing to play with, you must play at something
that doesn’t need anything. Give them bats and balls, and they soon
forget their CHINESE ORDERS, and there’s an end of SHOWING NO IVORY,
and nobody thinks of PULLING OUT FATHER’S RHUBARB, and OLD DEVIL may
go to--well, where he came from. That’s what keeps them alive and
“imaginative” (as Aunt Eliza would say)--having nothing to play with.
That’s what makes them use up all they can find--clay and kerbstones
and nuts and winkle-shells and clothes and empty condensed-milk
tins and walls and caps and stones and window-sills and buttons and
doorsteps and lamp-posts and rags and anything else that comes handy.
And that’s how they come to play any number of games and to discover
new ones every day, while better-class lads get into grooves and go on
with their frowsy old cricket and one or two more all the time, always
the same, year after year.
Not that I’m saying anything against CRICKET in particular. You can
do many things with a bat. But there are many more things you can’t
do. And all these other things are bound to be left outside your reach
in the long run, if you get taken up by cricket. Because, you see, you
don’t take up cricket--you think you do, but you don’t; you get taken
up. You think you are going to do what you please with a bat, but the
fact is, the bat does what it pleases with you; you think it’s your
servant, but in reality it’s a master who drives you along the way
he means to go--or rather, the only way he can go (that is, hitting
a ball). It’s perfectly true that you can play well or badly; but,
play as you like, you can’t help your faculty for inventing something
outside bats and balls getting rustier all the time. And it’s true that
cricket saves you the trouble of inventing those other games; that’s
just its drawback, I say. No getting out of the rut! With the bat in
your hand, you can only do what it allows you to do. Which is a good
deal; but not half as much as if your hand were empty.
And what Mr. P. said of ball-games applies to all the others that are
played with _things_. Say you want to have a go at WRIGGLY-WORM. Right!
But you can’t mark out a pattern in chalk if you have no chalk to do it
with. That’s clear. And you haven’t always got a lump of chalk in your
pocket; now, have you? And then you feel about and turn them inside
out and find you have not only no chalk but nothing else--absolutely
nothing at all; not a top or a marble, no, not even a konker or a
nicker or a bus-ticket. And then?
Why, then, if you can’t invent something different, something jolly
well altogether out of your head, where are you? Because, of course,
you’ve got to play something or other--unless you want to be a soppy
fathead. And our youngsters don’t want to be soppy fatheads. What’s
more, they aren’t. They try a good many things, and often they succeed;
but they couldn’t be _that_, even if they tried; which they don’t.
POSTSCRIPT. Aunt Eliza writes to say that she can’t explain what
the boys mean when they say “Obobé”, but she feels sure it must be
“something not quite nice”. Thank God, there’s one thing she can’t
explain. For my part, I think these words like Obobé and A-lairy and
Widdy are the queerest thing of all, about these sports. And what’s
queerer still are the names like Salmon Fishing and Cold Pies and Blue
Boy, that make sense but have nothing whatever to do with the games.
She also tells me that the song of _London Bridge is broken down_ goes
back to “bloodthirsty rites of foundation-sacrifice” (read it in some
book, I daresay, and so thinks it must be true), and that _Fie Sally,
Cry Sally_ “originated in early water-worship”. Early water-worship
be blowed. Late beer-worship is more my style. But Aunt Eliza knows
too much, anyhow; so much, that I shall have to ask her about the
originating of the game of DUCKING MUMMY, and whether it makes her
think of a certain good old custom. Then she says that _Here we come
gathering nuts in May_ is “a relic of Marriage by Capture”, and some
more stuff of that kind. No doubt; no doubt. Aunt Eliza thinks a good
deal about Marriage by Capture--to judge by her talk, at least. Nobody
ever tried to capture _her_, you know. And nobody ever will, I don’t
think.
[Illustration: THE