New England boys in those early days went skating on thin ice and broke through and were drowned, just as New England boys and girls are to-day, alas! Judge Sewall wrote in his diary on the last day in November, in 1696, that many scholars went to "scate" on Fresh Pond, and that two boys, named Maxwell and Eyre, fell in and were drowned. [Illustration: Doll's Wicker Coach] Advertisements of men's and boys' skates and of "Best Holland Scates of Different Sizes," show a constant demand and use. In an invoice of "sundry merchandise" to Weathersfield, Connecticut, in the year 1763, are twelve pair "small brass scates, @ 3/--£3, 16/." I do not know the age of the skates shown opposite page 346. No date less than a hundred years ago is ever willingly assigned to such relics. They are similar in shape to the ones shown on page 349, in the illustration taken from a book for children entitled _Children's Sports_, published a century ago, which ends its dissertation on skating with this sensible advice:-- "'Tis true it looks exceeding nice To see boys gliding on the ice, And to behold so many feats Perform'd upon the sliding skates, But before you venture there Wait until the ice will bear, For want of this both young and old Have tumbled in,--got wet and cold." It was not until October, 1771, that a pleasure-filled item appeared, "Boys' Marbles." In _The Pretty Little Pocket Book_ are these lines:-- "MARBLES "Knuckle down to your Taw. Aim well, shoot away. Keep out of the Ring, You'll soon learn to Play. MORAL "Time rolls like a Marble, And drives every State. Then improve each Moment, Before its too late." Boys played with them precisely as boys do now. The poet Cowper in his _Tirocinium_ says of the games of his school life:-- "The little ones unbutton'd, glowing hot Playing our games and on the very spot As happy as we once, to kneel and draw The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw." The terms used were the same as those heard to-day in school yards: taws, vent, back-licks, rounces, dubs, alleys, and alley-taws, agates, bull's-eyes, and commoneys. Jackstones was an old English game known in Locke's day as dibstones. Other names for the game were chuckstones, chuckie-stones, and clinches. The game is precisely the same as was played two centuries ago; it was a girl's game then--it is a girl's game now. Battledores and Shuttles were advertised for sale in Boston in 1761; but they are far older than that. Many portraits of children show battledores, as that of Thomas Aston Coffin. All books of children's games speak of them. It was, in fact, a popular game, and deemed a properly elegant exercise for decorous young misses to indulge in. CHAPTER XIX FLOWER LORE OF CHILDREN