Not long ago I happened to receive in the same mail three books on home
games, written by three different American authors, and issued by three
separate publishing-houses. In most respects the books were dissimilar;
but in one interesting particular they were all alike: the games in them
were so designed that, though children alone could play them well,
children and grown-ups together could play them better. No one of the
several authors suggested that he had any such theory in mind when
preparing his book; each one simply took it for granted that his "home
games" would be played by the entire household. Would not any of us in
America, writing a book of this description, proceed from precisely the
same starting-point?
We all recollect the extreme amazement in the Castle of Dorincourt
occasioned by the sight of the Earl playing a "home game" with Little
Lord Fauntleroy. No American grandfather thus engaged would cause the
least ripple of surprise. Little Lord Fauntleroy, we recall, had been
born in America, and had lived the whole ten years of his life with
Americans. He had acquired the habit, so characteristic of the children
of our Nation, of including his elders in his games. Quite naturally, on
his first day at the Castle, he said to the Earl, "My new game--wouldn't
you like to play it with me, grandfather?" The Earl, we remember, was
astonished. He had never been in America!
American grown-ups experience no astonishment when children invite them
to participate in their play. We are accustomed to such invitations. To
our ready acceptance of them the children are no less used. "Will you
play with us?" they ask with engaging confidence. "Of course we will!"
we find ourselves cordially responding.
I chanced, not a great while ago, to be ill in a hospital on Christmas
Day. Toward the middle of the morning, during the "hours for visitors,"
I heard a faint knock at my door.
Before I could answer it the door opened, and a little girl, her arms
full of toys, softly entered.
"Did you say 'Come in'?" she inquired.
Without waiting for a reply, she carefully deposited her toys on the
nurse's cot near her. Then, closing the door, she came and stood beside
my bed, and gazed at me in friendly silence.
"Merry Christmas!" I said.
"Oh, Merry Christmas!" she returned, formally, dropping a courtesy.
She was a sturdy, rosy-cheeked child, and, though wearing a fluffy white
dress and slippers, she looked as children only look after a walk in a
frosty wind. Clearly, she was not a patient.
"Whose little girl are you?" I asked.
"Papa's and mamma's," she said promptly.
"Where are they?" I next interrogated.
"In papa's room--down the hall, around the corner. Papa is sick; only,
he's better now, and will be all well soon. And mamma and I came to see
him, with what Santa Claus brought us."
"I see," I commented. "And these are the things Santa Claus brought
you?" I added, indicating the toys on the cot. "You have come, now, to
show them to me?"
Her face fell a bit. "I came to play at them with you," she said. "Your
nurse thought maybe you'd like to, for a while. Are you too sick to
play?" she continued, anxiously; "or too tired, or too busy?"
How seldom are any of us too sick to play; or too tired, or too busy! "I
am not," I assured my small caller. "I should enjoy playing. What shall
we begin with?" I supplemented, glancing again toward the toy-bestrewn
cot.
"Oh, there are ever so many things!" the little girl said. "But," she
went on hesitatingly, "_your_ things--perhaps you'd like--might I look
at them first?"
Most evident among these things of mine was a small tree, bedizened,
after the German fashion, with gilded nuts, fantastically shaped
candies, and numerous tiny boxes, gayly tied with tinsel ribbons.
"What's in the boxes--presents or jokes?" the little girl questioned.
"Have you looked?"
"I hadn't got that far, when you came," I told her; "but I rather
_think_--jokes."
"_I'd_ want to _know_" she suggested.
When I bade her examine them for me, she said: "Let's play I am Santa
Claus and you are a little girl. I'll hand you the boxes, and you open
them."
We did this, with much mutual enjoyment. The boxes, to my amusement and
her delight, contained miniature pewter dogs and cats and dolls and
dishes. "Why," my little companion exclaimed, "they aren't _jokes_; they
are _real presents_! They will be _just_ right to have when _little_
children come to see you!"
When the last of the boxes had been opened and my other less juvenile
"things" surveyed, the child turned to her own treasures. "There are the
two puzzles," she said, "and there is the big doll that can say 'Papa'
and 'Mamma,' and there is the paper doll, with lovely patterns and
pieces to make more clothes out of for it, and there is a game papa just
_loved_. Perhaps you'd like to play _that_ best, too, 'cause you are
sick, too?" she said tentatively.
I assented, and the little girl arranged the game on the table beside my
bed, and explained its "rules" to me. We played at it most happily until
my nurse, coming in, told my new-made friend that she must "say 'Good-
bye' now."
My visitor at once collected her toys and prepared to go. At the door
she turned. "Good-bye," she said, again dropping her prim courtesy. "I
have had a very pleasant time."
"So have I!" I exclaimed.
And I had had. "She was so entertaining," I said to my nurse, "and her
game was so interesting!"
"It is not an uncommon game," my nurse remarked, with a smile; "and she
is just an ordinary, nice child!"
America is full of ordinary, nice children who beguile their elders into
playing with them games that are not uncommon. How much "pleasant time"
is thereby spent!
"Where do American children learn to expect grown people to play with
them?" an Englishwoman once asked me. "In the kindergarten?"
Undoubtedly they do. In no country except Germany is the kindergarten so
integral a part of the national life as it is in America. In our cities,
rich and poor alike send their children to kindergartens. Not only in
the public and the private schools, but also in the social settlements,
and even in the Sunday-schools, we have kindergarten departments. In the
rural schools the teachers train the little "beginners" in accordance
with kindergarten principles. Even to places far away from any schools
at all the kindergarten penetrates. Only yesterday I saw a book, written
by a kindergartner, dedicated to "mothers on the rolling prairie, the
far-off rancho, the rocky island, in the lonely light-house, the
frontier settlement, the high-perched mining-camp," who, distant indeed
from school kindergartens and their equipment, might wish help in making
out of what materials they have well-equipped home kindergartens.
"Come, let us play with the children," the apostles of Froebel teach us.
And, "Come, let us ask the grown-ups to play with us," they would seem
unconsciously to instruct the children.
One autumn a friend of mine, the mother of a three-year-old boy and of a
daughter aged sixteen, said to me: "This is my daughter's first term in
the high school; she will need my help. My boy is just at the age when
it takes all the spare time I have to keep him out of mischief; how
shall I manage?"
"Send the boy to kindergarten," I advised. "He is ready to go; and it
will be good for him. He will bring some of the 'occupations' home with
him; and they will keep him out of mischief for you."
She sent the boy to a little kindergarten in the neighborhood.
About two months later, I said to her, "I suppose the kindergarten has
solved the problem of more spare time for your daughter's new demands
upon you?"
"Well--in a way," she replied, dubiously. "It gives me the morning free;
but--"
"Doesn't the boy bring home any 'occupations'?" I interposed.
My friend laughed. "Yes," she said; "he certainly does! But he doesn't
want to 'occupy' himself alone with them; he wants _all_ of us to do it
with him! We have become quite expert at 'weaving,' and 'folding,' and
'sewing'! But, on the other hand," she went on, "he isn't so much
trouble as he was. He wants us to play with him more, but he plays more
intelligently. We take real pleasure in joining in his games, and--
actually--in letting him share ours."
This little boy, now five years old, came to see me the other day.
"What would you like to do?" I asked, when we had partaken of tea.
"Shall we put the jig-saw puzzle together; or should you prefer to have
me tell you a story?"
"Tell me a story," he said at once; "and then I'll tell you one. And
then _you_ tell another--and then _I'll_ tell another--" He broke off,
to draw a long breath. "It's a game," he continued, after a moment. "We
play it in kindergarten."
"Do you enjoy telling stories more than hearing them told?" I inquired,
when we had played this game to the extent of three stories on either
side.
"No," my little boy friend replied. "I like hearing stories told more
than anything. But _that_ isn't a game; that's just being-told-stories.
The _game_ is taking-turns-telling-stories." He enunciated each phrase
as though it were a single word.
His mother had spoken truly when she said that her little boy had
learned to play intelligently. He had learned, also, to include his
elders in his games on equal terms. Small wonder that they took real
pleasure in playing with him.
The children cordially welcome us to their games. They ask us to be
children with them. As heartily, they would have us bespeak their
company in our games; they are willing to try to be grown-up with us.
I was visiting a family recently, in which there is but one small child,
a boy of eight. One evening we were acting charades. Divided into camps,
we chose words in turn, and in turn were chosen to superintend the
"acting-out" of the particular word. It happened that the word
"Psychical-research," and the turn of the eight-year-old boy to be
stage-manager coincided. Every one in his camp laughed, but no one so
much as remotely suggested that the word or the stage-manager be
changed.
"What does it mean, 'Psychical-research'?" the boy made question.
We laughed still more, but we genuinely tried to make the term
comprehensible to the child's mind.
This led to such prolonged and lively argument that the little stage-
manager finally observed: "I don't see how it _can_ mean _all_ that all
of you say. Can't we let the whole-word act of it go, and act out the
rest? We can, you know--'Sigh,' 'kick,' 'all'; and 're' (like in music,
you know), and 'search!'"
"Oh, no," we demurred; "we must do it properly, or not at all!"
"Well, then," said the boy, in a quaintly resigned tone of voice, "talk
to me about it, until I know what it is!"
In spite of hints from the other camp not to overlap the time allotted
us, in the face of messages from them to hurry, regardless of their
protests against our dilatoriness, we did talk to that little eight-
year-old boy about "Psychical-research" until he understood its meaning
sufficiently to plan his final act. "If he is playing with us, then he
_is_ playing with us," his father somewhat cryptically remarked; "and he
must know the details of the game."
This playing with grown-ups does not curtail the play in which children
engage with their contemporaries. There are games that are distinctly
"children's games." We all know of what stuff they are made, for most of
us have played them in our time--running-games, jumping-games, shouting-
games. By stepping to our windows nearly any afternoon, we may see some
of them in process. But we shall not be invited to participate. At best,
the children will pause for a moment to ask, "Did you play it this way?"
Very likely we did not. Each generation plays the old games; every
generation plays them in a slightly new way. The present generation
would seem to play them with a certain self-consciousness; without that
_abandon_ of an earlier time.
A short while ago I happened to call upon a friend of mine on an
afternoon when, her nursemaid being "out," she was alone with her
children--a boy of seven and a girl of five. I found them together in
the nursery; my friend was sewing, and the children were playing
checkers. Apparently, they were entirely engrossed in their game.
Immediately after greeting me they returned to it, and continued it with
seeming obliviousness of the presence of any one excepting themselves.
But when their mother, in the course of a few moments, rose, and said to
me: "Let's go down to the library and have tea," both the children
instantly stopped playing--though one of them was in the very thick of
"taking a king"--and cried, "Oh, don't go; stay with us!"
[ILLUSTRATION: "DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?"]
"My dears," my friend said, "you don't need us; you have your game.
Aren't you happy with it?"
"Why, yes," the little girl admitted; "but we want you to see us being
happy!"
Only to-day, as I came up my street, a crowd of small children burst
upon me from behind a hedge; and, shouting and gesticulating, surrounded
me. Their faces were streaked with red, and blue, and yellow lines,
applied with crayons; feathers of various domestic kinds ornamented
their hats and caps, and they waved in the air broken laths, presumably
gifts from a builder at work in the vicinity.
"We are Indians!" they shrieked; "wild Indians! See our war-paint, and
feathers, and tomahawks! We hunt the pale face!"
While I sought about for an appropriate answer to make, my little
neighbors suddenly became calm.
"Don't we children have fun?" one of them questioned me. "You like to
see us having fun, don't you?"
I agreed, and again their war-whoops began. They followed me to my door
in a body. Inside I still heard them playing, but with lessened din.
Several times during the afternoon, hearing their noise increase, I
looked out; each time I saw that the arrival of another grown-up pale
face was the occasion of the climactic moment in the game. In order to
be wild Indians with perfect happiness the small players demanded an
appreciative audience to see them being happy.
Some of us in America are prone to deprecate in the children of our
Nation this pleased consciousness of their own enjoyment, this desire
for our presence as sympathetic onlookers at those of their games in
which we cannot join. We must not allow ourselves to forget that it is a
state of mind fostered largely by our National habit of treating
children as familiars and equals. Our satisfaction in their pleasures we
mention in their hearing. If they are aware that we like to see them
"being happy," it is because we have told them, and told them
repeatedly. We do not, as in a former time, "spell some of our words" in
their company, in order that they may not know all we say. On the
contrary, we pronounce all our words with especial clearness, and even
define such as are obscure, that the children not only may, but must,
fully understand us when we speak "before them." Unquestionably this
takes from the play of the children self-forgetfulness of one kind, but
sometimes it gives to them self-forgetfulness of another, a rarer kind.
I know a family of children, lovers of games which involve running
races. Several years ago one of the boys of this family died. Since his
death the other children run no more races.
"We like running races just as much," one of the girls explained to me
one evening, as we sat by the fire and talked about her dead brother;
"but, you know, _he_ always liked them best, because he generally won.
He loved to have mother see him winning. He was always getting her to
come and watch him do it. And mother liked it, and used to tell other
people about it. We don't run races now, because it might remind mother
too much."
No matter how joyously American children may play with their elders, or
with their contemporaries, whatever enhancement their satisfaction in
play with one another may gain from the presence of grown-up spectators,
they are not likely to become so dependent upon the one, nor so self-
conscious by reason of the other, that they will relinquish--or, worse
still, never know--the dear delights of "playing alone." Games played in
company may be the finest prose--they are yet prose; games played alone
are pure poetry. The children of our Nation are not without that
imagination which, on one day or another, impels a child to wander,
"lonely as a cloud," along the path of dreamful, solitary play.
How often a child who, to our eyes, appears to be doing nothing
whatever, is "playing alone" a delectable game! Probably, only once in a
hundred times, and then, by the merest accident, do we discover what
that game is.
Among my child friends there is a little boy who takes great pleasure in
seeing dramas acted. One spring day I took him to an open-air
presentation of "As You Like It."
The comedy was charmingly given in a clearing in a beautiful private
park. Orlando had "real" trees and hawthorns and brambles upon which to
hang his verses; and he made lavish use of them.
The fancy of my small friend was quite captivated by what he called
"playing hide-and-go-seek with poems." "What fun he has, watching her
find them and not letting her know he hid them!" he exclaimed.
Later in the season I went to spend a few days at the country home of
his parents. Early one morning, from my window, I espied the little boy,
stealthily moving about under the trees in the adjacent apple orchard.
At breakfast he remarked to me, casually, "It's nice in the orchard--all
apple blossoms."
"Will you go out there with me?" I asked.
"P'aps not to-day," he made reply. "But," he hazarded, "you could go by
yourself. It's nice," he repeated; "all apple blossoms. Get close to the
trees, and smell them."
It was a pleasant plan for a May morning.
I lost no time in putting it into practice. Involuntarily I sought that
corner of the orchard in which I had seen my small friend. Mindful of
his counsel, I got close to the apple blossoms and smelled them. As I
did so I noticed a crumpled sheet of paper in a crotch of one of the
trees. I no sooner saw it than I seized it, and, smoothing it out, read,
written in a primary-school hand:--
"The rose is red,
The violet blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you."
Need I say that I had scarcely read this before I entered upon an
exhaustive search among the other trees? My amused efforts were well
rewarded. Between two flower-laden branches I descried another "poem,"
in identical handwriting:--
"A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window-sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said
'Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!'"