[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The game of fire-fly is very graceful and amusing for dull days or
winter evenings in the house. Out of a piece of Bristol-board (an old
playing-card will do) cut a figure in the shape of the annexed diagram.
If you have water-colors, and can paint it brightly in red and green or
red and yellow stripes, all the better. Lay it flat on the cover of a
book so that part of one of the wings projects over the edge; hold the
book at a slight angle, pointing toward the ceiling, and then with a
pencil or pen-holder give the projecting wing a smart blow, so as to
send it flying upward; it will go twirling through the air toward the
ceiling, and then return twirling back to the neighborhood of your feet.
The game consists in trying to catch it on the cover of the book when it
comes back. If you succeed, it counts you ten points; if you fail, you
allow the fly to lie where it has fallen. Your adversary now takes his
turn, and if he fails to catch his fly, then you see which fly has
fallen nearest to a certain line on the floor on which you have
previously agreed, and the owner of the nearest fly scores five. Whoever
first scores one hundred wins the game.
* * * * *
=A School in Morocco.=--If one, happening to be in the south of Spain
some day, should run across the Straits of Gibraltar in a southwesterly
direction, he would come to the ancient city of Tangier, in Morocco.
Here he would see many curious sights, but none more picturesque than
the schools for children, of which there are several. A row of tiny
slippers at the door and a hum of childish voices inside prompt the
passer-by to look in. He sees a room, empty of furniture, and lit only
by the open door. The school-master, a veritable Moses in appearance, is
squatted on his haunches in the centre, and around him squat his pupils.
Each has his slate before him, and repeats his lesson with monotonous
chant, keeping his body moving backward and forward as if he were rowing
hard the whole time against stream. The school-master's whip is of
sufficient length to reach every boy around him, and now and then,
without rising from his seat, he touches one or other up in the same
manner as the driver of a mail-coach takes a fly off his leader's ear.
The imperturbable gravity of the master, and the comical looks and
quaint attire of the boys, form a picture which could not be transferred
to canvas.
[Illustration]