Alice Morse Earle

The plays of children are nonsense—but very educative nonsense.

—Essay on Experience. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860.

There are no more striking survivals of antiquity than the games and pastimes of children. We have no historians of old-time child life to tell us of these games, but we can get side glimpses of that life which reveal to us, as Ruskin says, more light than a broad stare. Many of these games were originally religious observances; but there are scores that in their present purpose of simple amusement date from mediÆval days.

The chronicler Froissart, in L'Espinette Amoureuse, tells of the sports of his early life, over five centuries ago:—

"The children of our street" has a delightfully familiar ring. He also names many familiar games, such as playing ball, ring, prisoner's base, riddles, and blowing soap-bubbles. Top-spinning was an ancient game, even in Froissart's day, having been played in old Rome and the Orient since time immemorial.

It is interesting to note the persistent survival of games which are seldom learned from printed rules, but are simply told from child to child from year to year. On the sidewalk, in front of my house, is now marked out with chalk the lines for a game of hop-scotch and a group of children are playing it, precisely as I played it in my New England home in my childhood, and as my grandfathers and grandmothers played "Scotch-hoppers" in their day.

In a little century-old picture book, called Youthful Recreations, Scotch-hoppers is named and vaguely explained, and a note says:—

"This exercise was frequently practiced by the Greeks and Spartan women. Might it not be useful in the present day to prevent children having chilblains?"

Now isn't that stupid? Every one knows hop-scotch time is not in the winter when the ground is rough and frozen or wet with snow and when chilblains are rife. It is a game for the hard, solid earth, or a sunny pavement.

The variants of tag have descended to us and are played to-day, just as they were played when Boston and New York streets were lanes and cowpaths. The pretty game, "I catch you without green," mentioned by Rabelais, is well known in the Carolinas, whither it was carried by French Huguenot immigrants, who retained many of their home customs as well as their language for so long a time. Stone-tag and wood-tag took the place in America of the tag on iron of Elizabeth's day. Squat-tag and cross-tag have their times and seasons, and in Philadelphia tell-tag is also played. Pickadill is a winter sport, a tag played in the snow. Another tag game known as poison, or stone-poison, is where the player is tagged if he steps off stones. The little books on etiquette so frequently read in the seventeenth century, and quoted in other pages of this book, have this severe injunction, "Tread not pomposely on pebblestones for it is the art of a fool." A man who was not a fool, one Dr. Samuel Johnson, was swayed in his walk by similar notions.

Honey pots still is played by American children. Halliwell says the "honey pot" was a boy rolled up in a certain stiff position. I have seen it played by two girls carrying a third in a "chair" made by crossing hands. In a popular little book of the last century called Juvenile Pastimes, or Sports for Four Seasons, the illustration shows girls playing it. The explanatory verse reads:—

A truly historic game taught by children to each other, is what is called cats-cradle or cratch-cradle. One player stretches a length of looped cords over the extended fingers of both hands in a symmetrical form. The second player inserts the fingers and removes the cord without dropping the loops in a way to produce another figure. These various figures had childish titles. If Hone's derivation of the game and its meaning is true, cratch-cradle is the correct name. A cratch was a grated crib or manger. The adjustment of threads purported to represent the manger or cradle wherein the infant Saviour was laid by his Virgin Mother. As little girls "take off" the cradle they say, "criss-cross, criss-cross." This like the criss-cross row in the hornbook was originally Christ's cross.

In a quaint little book called The Pretty Little Pocket Book, published in America at Revolutionary times, is a list of boys' games with dingy pictures showing how the games were played; the names given were chuck-farthing; kite-flying; dancing round May-pole; marbles; hoop and hide; thread the needle; fishing; blindman's buff; shuttlecock; king am I; peg-farthing; knock out and span; hop, skip, and jump; boys and girls come out to play; I sent a letter to my love; cricket; stool-ball; base-ball; trap-ball; swimming; tip-cat; train-banding; fives; leap-frog; bird-nesting; hop-hat; shooting; hop-scotch; squares; riding; rosemary tree. The descriptions of the games are given in rhyme, and to each attached a moral lesson in verse. Some of the verses read thus:—

A few of the games are to-day unknown, or little known; for instance, the game called in the book "Pitch and Hussel."

The game called "All the birds of the air," reads:—

Mr. Newell has given a list and description of many of the historic singing games and rounds of American children. These were known to me in my childhood: "Here we go round the mulberry bush;" "Here come three Lords out of Spain;" "On the green carpet here we stand;" "I've come to see Miss 'Ginia Jones;" "Little Sally Waters, sitting in the sun;" "Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green;" "Old Uncle John is very sick, what shall we send him?" "Oats, pease, beans and barley grows;" "When I was a shoemaker;" "Here I brew, Here I bake, Here I make my Wedding Cake;" "The needle's eye that doth supply;" "Soldier Brown will you marry, marry me?" "O dear Doctor don't you cry;" "There's a rose in the garden for you, young man;" "Ring around a rosy;" "Go round and round the valley;" "Quaker, Quaker, How art thee?" "I put my right foot in;" "My master sent me to you, sir;" "London Bridge is falling down."

Some of these rhymes were founded on certain lines of ballads; but without any printed words or music we all knew them well, and the music was the same that our mothers used—though our mothers had not taught us. To-day children all over the country are singing and playing these games to the same music. I heard verse after verse of London Bridge sung in a high key in the shrill voices of the children of a New Hampshire country school this winter. Such a survival in such an environment is not strange; but it is surprising and pathetic, too, to hear in a public primary or a parochial school the children of German, Italian, or Irish parentage chanting "Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green," within the damp and dingy yard walls or in the basement playrooms of our greatest city.

The Dutch settlers had many games. They were very fond of bowling on the grass; a well-known street in New York, Bowling Green, shows the popularity of the game and where it was played. They played "tick-tack," a complicated sort of backgammon; and trock, on a table somewhat like a billiard table; in it an ivory ball was struck under wire-wickets with a cue. Coasting down hill became a most popular sport. Many attempts were made to control and stop the coasters. At one time the Albany constables were ordered to take the "small or great slees" in which "boys and girls ryde down the hills," and break them in pieces. At another time the boy had to forfeit his hat if he were caught coasting on Sunday. The sleds were low, with a rope in front, and were started and guided by a sharp stick.

There is a Massachusetts law of the year 1633 against "common coasters, unprofitable fowlers and tobacco-takers,"—three classes of detrimentals. Mr. Ernst says coasting meant loafing along the shore, then idling in general, then sliding down hill for fun. In Canada they slid down the long hills on toboggans. In New England they used a double runner, a long narrow board platform on two sleds or two sets of runners. Judge Sewall speaks of his little daughter going out on sleds, but there is nothing to indicate precisely what he meant thereby.

"Sports of the Innyards" languished in New England. Innkeepers were ordered not to permit the playing of "Dice, Cards, Tables, Quoits, Log-gats, Bowls, Ninepins, or any other Unlawful Game in house, yard, Garden or backside." Slide-groat was also forbidden. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge says the shovel-board of Shakespeare's day was almost the only game that was tolerated. This game was perhaps the most popular of old-time domestic pastimes, and was akin to slide-groat.

I found nothing to indicate that the cruel sport known as cock-throwing, cock-steling, or cock-squoiling ever prevailed in America. In this sport the cock was tied by a short cord to a stake, and boys at a distance of twenty yards took turns at throwing sticks at him till he was killed. This sport was as old as Chaucer's time, and universal among the English.

Judge Sewall wrote of Shrove Tuesday in Boston in 1685 that there was great disorder in Boston by reason of "cock-skailing." Another year he tells of a young lad going through Boston streets "carrying a cock on his back and a bell in his hand." Several friends followed him, loosely blindfolded and carrying cart whips; and under pretence of striking at him managed to distribute their blows with stinging force on the gaping crowd around. This was an old English custom. At a later date the sport of shying at leaden cocks prevailed. The "dumps" which were thrown, and the crude little images of lead and pewter shaped like a cock, were often made and sold by apprentices as part of their perquisites.

Cock-fighting was popular in the Southern colonies and New York. There are prohibitions against it in the rules of William and Mary College. Certainly it was not encouraged or permitted here as in English schools, where boys had cock-fights in the schoolroom; and where that great teacher, Roger Ascham, impoverished himself with dicing and cock-fighting. Cock-fights were often held on Shrove Tuesday. The picture of Colonel Richard Wynkoop, shown on the opposite page, was painted when he was twelve years old; the dim figures of two fighting cocks can be seen by his side. They are obscured by the sword which the colonel carried during the Revolution, and which is thrust in front of the picture. The cruel Dutch sport of riding for the goose, was riding at full speed to catch a swinging greased goose. Young lads sometimes took part in this, but no small boys.

In The Schole of Vertue, 1557, we read:—

Playing cards were fiercely hated, and their sale prohibited in Puritan communities, but games of cards could not be "beaten down." Grown folk had a love of card-playing and gaming which seemed almost hereditary. But I do not believe young children indulged much in card-playing in any of the colonies.

William Bradford, then governor of the colony at Plymouth, thus grimly records in his now famous Log-book, the first Christmas Day in that settlement:—

"The day called Christmas Day ye Gov^r cal'd them out to worke (as was used) but ye moste of this new company excused themselves, and saide y^t went against their consciences to work on y^t Day. So ye Gov^r tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them; but when they came home at noon from their work he found them in ye street at play openly, some pitching ye bar, and some at stoolball and such like sports. So he went to them and took away their implements and tould them it was against his conscience that they should play and others work."

The exact description of this game I do not know. Dr. Johnson says it is a play where balls are driven from stool to stool, which may be a good definition, but is a very poor explanation.

The Pretty Little Pocket Book says vaguely:—

At the end of the seventeenth century a French traveller, named Misson, wrote a very vivacious account of his travels in England. He sagely noted English customs, fashions, attributes, and manners; and airily discoursed on the English game of football:—

"In winter football is a useful and charming exercise. It is a leather ball about as big as one's head, fill'd with wind. This is kick'd about from one to tother in the streets, by him that can get it, and that is all the art of it."

That is all the art of it! I can imagine the sentiments of the general reader of that day (if any general reader existed in England at that time), when he read and noted the debonair simplicity of this brief account of what was even then a game of so much importance in England. The proof that Misson was truly ignorant of this subject is shown in the fact that he could by any stretch of an author's privileged imagination call the English game of foot-ball of that day "a useful and charming exercise." Nothing could be further from the Englishman's intent than to make it either profitable or pleasing.

In the year 1583 a Puritan, named Phillip Stubbes, horror-stricken and sore afraid at the many crying evils and wickednesses which were rife in England, published a book which he called The Anatomie of Abuses. It was "made dialogue-wise," and is one of the most distinct contributions to our knowledge of Shakespeare's England. Written in racy, spirited English, it is unsparing in denunciations of the public and private evils of the day. His characterization of the game of foot-ball is one of the strongest and most fearless of his accusations:—

"Now who is so grosly blinde that seeth not that these aforesaid exercises not only withdraw us from godliness and virtue, but also haile and allure us to wickednesse and sin? For as concerning football playing I protest unto you that it may rather be called a friendlie kinde of fyghte than a play or recreation—a bloody and murthering practice than a felowly sport or pastime. For dooth not everyone lye in waight for his adversarie, seeking to overthrowe him and picke him on his nose, though it be uppon hard stones, in ditch or dale, in valley or hill, or whatever place soever it be hee careth not, so hee have him downe; and he that can serve the most of this fashion he is counted the only fellow, and who but he?... So that by this means sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, sometimes their armes, sometimes their noses gush out with blood, sometimes their eyes start out, and sometimes hurte in one place, sometimes in another. But whosoever scapeth away the best goeth not scot free, but is either forewounded, craised, or bruised, so as he dyeth of it or else scapeth very hardlie; and no mervaile, for they have the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dash him against the hart with their elbowes, to hit him under the short ribs with their griped fists and with their knees to catch him on the hip and pick him on his neck, with a hundred such murthering devices."

This was written three hundred years ago, and these are not the words of a modern reporter, "They have sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dash him against the heart with their elbows, to hit him under the short ribs with their griped fists, and with their knees to catch him on the hip and pick him on the neck."

Stubbes may be set down by many as a sour-visaged, sour-voiced Puritan; but a very gracious courtier of his day, an intelligent and thoughtful man, Sir Thomas Elyot, was equally severe on the game. He wrote, in 1537, The Boke named the Gouvernour, full of sensible advice and instruction. In it he says:—

"Foot-ball wherein is nothynge but beastlye furie and exstreme violence, whereof proceedeth hurte; and consequently malice and rancour do remayne with them that be wounded; whereof it is to be putt in perpetuall silence."

The "perpetuall silence" which he put on the game has not fallen even by the end of three centuries and a half.

Some indirect testimony as to the character of the English game comes from travellers in the American colonies, where the American Indians were found playing a game of foot-ball like that of their white brothers. John Dunton, travelling in New England when Boston was half a century old, tells of the Indians' game:—

"There was that day a great game of Foot-ball to be played. There was another Town played against 'em as is sometimes common in England; but they played with their bare feet, which I thought very odd; but it was upon a broad sandy Shoar free from Stones which made it the more easie. Neither were they so apt to trip up one another's heels and quarrel as I have seen 'em in England."

At the same time English boys were kicking the foot-ball around Boston streets, and were getting themselves complained of by game-hating Puritan neighbors, and enjoined by pragmatical magistrates, just as they were in English towns.

Fewer games are played now by both boys and girls than in former times, in England as well as America. In a manuscript list of games played at Eton in 1765 are these titles: cricket, fives, shirking walls, scrambling walls, bally cally, battledore, pegtop, peg in the ring, goals, hop-scotch, heading, conquering cobs, hoops, marbles, trap ball, steal baggage, puss in the corner, cat gallows, kites, cloyster and hyer gigs, tops, humming tops, hunt the hare, hunt the dark lanthorn, chuck, sinks, stare-caps, hurtlecap. No games are now recognized at Eton save cricket, foot-ball, and fives. Racquet and hockey flourished for a time. The playing of marbles was abandoned about 1820, and top-spinning about 1840. Top-time had always opened ten days after the return to school after the summer holidays. Hoops were made of stout ash laths with the bark on, and the hoop-rolling season ended with a class fray with hoopsticks for weapons. At one time marble-playing was prohibited in the English universities. It is not probable that those undergraduates habitually played marble any more than do our Princeton University men, who have a day of marble-playing and one of top-spinning each spring.

Doll's Furniture, One Hundred Years Old