In Georgia the succession was, kites, tops, and hoops. In that region the season for popguns is when the _China-berries_[107] ripen. It is a provision of Providence, a clear case of design, thinks a friend, that just at that season the elder pith is ripe enough to be pushed out, and so leave the stalks empty to form the barrel of the weapon. Ball is especially a holiday game. In Boston, _Fast-day_ (the first Thursday of April) was particularly devoted to this sport. In England, the playing of ball at Easter-tide seems to have been a custom of the festival, inherited probably from pre-Christian ages. Foot-ball was a regular amusement on the afternoon of a New England Thanksgiving. The invariable succession of children's sports has been also remarked in other countries. A Swiss writer says, "The principal games of boys belong to the first third of the year, return always in a like order, and replace each other after an equal interval, as if it were in the natural course of events, and without the individual child being able to say who had given the sign and made the beginning." We may remark that another American usage has been remarked in other countries. In the last generation the boys of different towns, or of different quarters of the same town, waged regular and constant war. In Boston, for example, there was a well-defined line, beyond which no "North-ender" dared be seen. Any luckless lad obliged to go into the hostile district took good care to keep his eyes open, to dodge cautiously about the corners, and to be ready for instant flight in case of detection. So in France and Switzerland, where this warfare is a sort of game, a relic, no doubt, of the ancient separatism, which made every community in a measure an independent state. The chief weapons are stones, as they were formerly in the United States. In the old town of Marblehead boys were accustomed to "rock" any stranger, and no unknown driver dared to enter its limits with a vehicle. No. 129. _Camping the Ball._ In the vocabulary of a Massachusetts schoolboy, to "camp" a foot-ball is to kick it, while held between the hands, from one side of the field to the other. In England, country-folk speak of the "camp-game" of ball, of the "camping-ground." In this amusement there are lines which mark the rear limit of the respective sides, while the ball is placed in the middle, and the object of either party is to drive it, with foot or hand, over the enemy's line. Similar, in the United States, is the old-fashioned game of foot-ball, in which, to use the expression of the play-ground, two captains "choose up" sides, selecting alternately from those present, and first play is determined by lot.