Then the girls have games to themselves: ball-games like MACKINTOSH,
and BASKET-BALL, and CROSS-BALL, and EMPEROR BALL, and CENTRE BALL, and
CORNER CATCH BALL, and CIRCLE STRIDE BALL, and HAND BALL, and ONE IN
THE MIDDLE, and QUEEN MAB (a ball-hiding game, also called QUEEN ANNE);
and hand-clapping games such as ONE-TWO-THREE and ORANGES, ORANGES,
FOUR A PENNY, and TWISTERS AND CLAPS; and ring games like UP TO THE
RING, and RUNNING IN AND OUT THE BLUEBELLS, and FIRE, and WALKING ROUND
THE VILLAGE, and THIEF, PRINCE, KING, QUEEN, BEGGAR, and THROWING THE
BEAN-BAGS, and PRETTY AND UGLY--where one girl stands in the centre
of the ring and picks out another one who has to make a face, and if
she’s satisfied with the face, she allows her to stand in the centre
instead.
Other girls’ games are MOTHER I’M OVER THE WATER and BOX NUTS and
VICTORIA and TURNING MOTHER’S WRINGER and WE THREE KINGS and JOHN
BROWN’S KNAPSACK and FILLING (or PUSHING THROUGH) THE GAP and WHEN I
WAS A SCHOOLGIRL and BREAD AND BUTTER (shuttlecock game) and COME TO
SEE POOR MARY and WE ARE ROMANS (two parties of girls) and WHAT IS IT
and WHO KNOWS and HOW, WHEN AND WHERE and HEAD AND SHOULDERS and BEAST,
BIRD, FISH, FLOWER and POLLY GOES TO BED and POOR POLLY CAN’T SEE and
TAG and RAILWAY RACE and ON THE MOUNTAIN and HOOK AND EYE and EGG IN
THE SPOON and HAWK AND DOVE and BORROW A LIGHT and PEASE CODS and
GOLDEN GOOSE and TREACLE PUDDING and WHO’S AFRAID OF BLACK PETER and
JENNY PLUCK PEARS and WALKING-STICKS and LOOKING FOR MOTHER’S THIMBLE
and TIME and LADYSMITH and PUSHY BACK and PASS OVER and WE ARE BRITISH
SOLDIERS and L. S. D. and the WHITE SHIRT. THE WHITE SHIRT is an old
ghost game, played like this:
“You have a lot of girls standing against a wall, one of them being
the mother of the others. She tells them to go and see if father’s
shirt’s dry (the shirt being a girl in white, standing at a distance).
They go in turn to see if it is dry & each time the “ghost” in
father’s shirt catches one. At last the mother alone is left, she goes
and is caught; then another “shirt” is picked, and so the game goes
on.”
I don’t think Aunt Eliza ever played THE WHITE SHIRT; she wouldn’t care
about the name--
and MERRY MONTH OF MAY and CON-STANT-I-NO-PLE and BLACK AND BLUE and
FOLLOW YOUR MOTHER TO MARKET and PUSS and MY SISTER JANE and TWO LITTLE
PEOPLE WENT OUT ONE DAY (“As they went out they were heard to say”) and
OLD DEVIL IN FIRE (or LIGHT MOTHER’S COPPER FIRE), which is played so:
“About one dozen girls can play. They select one who has to be the
devil, she’s to stand against a wall, with a girl hid behind her. All
the children have to try and light the fire, and each time the girl
behind pinches them and they say “Oh, mother, the devil’s in fire.”
Then the mother tries to light the fire and the devil chases them, and
the one who is caught has to become devil, next time.”
It’s perfectly certain Aunt Eliza never played OLD DEVIL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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