Here stands a red rose in the ring-- Promised to marry a long time ago. No. 126. +_A March._+ March, march, two by two, Dressed in yellow, pink, and blue. _Philadelphia._ No. 127. _Rhymes for Tickling._ 1. Tickle'e, tickle'e on the knee; if you laugh, you don't love me. _Philadelphia._ 2. If you're a little lady, as I take you for to be, You will neither laugh nor smile when I tickle your knee. _Georgia._ 3. Old maid, old maid, you'll surely be, If you laugh or you smile while I tickle your knee. _Massachusetts._ XIII. _BALL, AND SIMILAR SPORTS._ I call, I call; who doe ye call? The maids to catch this cowslip ball; But since these cowslips fading be, Troth, leave the flowers, and maids take me. Yet, if but neither you will doe, Speak but the word, and I'll take you. _Herrick._ No. 128. _The "Times" of Sports._ In an account of boys' sports, it would not be proper to omit some allusion to the custom of having a certain "time" of the year devoted to each amusement. These "times" succeeded each other almost as regularly as the flowers of summer, the children dropping one and taking up another every year at the same season. This succession, which the children themselves could hardly explain beforehand, but remembered when the occasion came, has impressed itself on observers as almost a matter of instinct. There was, however, a considerable degree of variation in the succession of sports in different parts of the country, and as the practice, though by no means obsolete, is now less strictly observed than formerly, we cannot give any very exact details on this head. It seems, however, that this succession was only partly dependent on the climate, and in part inherited from the mother country. Thus, in all the states from Maine to Georgia, the first "time" was _marble-time_. In New England, the snow had hardly disappeared, when boys began to make the necessary holes in the ground, kneeling for that purpose on the night-frozen soil, from which the moisture was just oozing out, to the great detriment of their pantaloons. A friend, indeed, asserts that this was the _object_ of the choice of seasons. But at the same time boys in Georgia (and, indeed, in England and Germany) were playing the same game. The subsequent succession of sports in New York is indicated by the adage, "Top-time's gone, kite-time's come, and April Fool's day will soon be here."