Child Life in Colonial Days

Mulberry trees were planted everywhere and kept low like a hedge, so children could pick the leaves. All the books of instruction of the day reiterate that a child ten years of age could easily gather seventy-five pounds of mulberry leaves a day, and make great wages. But an old lady, now eighty years old, who made much sewing silk in Connecticut in her youth, writes thus to me: "Girls picked most of the leaves. It was very hard work and very small pay. They had ten cents a bushel for picking. Some could pick three bushels a day."

The first thought of spring brought to the men of the New England household a hard work—maple-sugar making—which meant vast labor in preparation and in execution—all of which was cheerfully hailed, for it gave men and boys a chance to be as Charles Kingsley said, "a savage for a while." It meant several nights spent in the sugar-camp in the woods, a-gypsying. Think of the delight of that scene: the air clear but mild enough to make the sap run; patches of snow still shining pure in the moonlight and starlight; all the mystery of the voices of the night, when a startled rabbit or squirrel made a crackling sound in its stealthy retreat; the distant hoot of a wakeful owl; the snapping of pendent icicles and crackling of blazing brush, yet over all a great stillness, "all silence and all glisten." An exaltation of the spirit and senses came to the country boy which was transformed at midnight into keen thrills of imaginative fright at recollection of the stories told by his elders with rude acting and vivid wording during the early evening round the fire; of hunting and trapping, of Indians and bears, and those delights of country story-tellers in New England, catamounts, wolverines, and cats—this latter ever meaning in hunter's phrasing wild-cats. Think of "a wolverine with eyes like blazing coals, and every hair whistling like a bell," as he sprung with outspread claws from a high tree on the passing hunter—do you think the boy sat by the fire throughout the night without looking a score of times for the blazing eyeballs, and listening for the whistling fur, and hearing steps like that of the lion in Pilgrim s Progress, "a great soft padding paw."

What forest lore the boys learned, too: that more and sweeter sap came from a maple which stood alone than from any in a grove; that the shallow gouge flowed more freely, but the deep gouge was richest in sweet; and that many other forest trees besides the maple ran a sweet sap.

I believe that in earliest colonial days boys also took part in a joyful outing, a public custom known as perambulating or beating the bounds. The memory of boundaries and division lines, of commons, public highways, etc., was kept fresh in the minds of the inhabitants by an old-time Aryan custom,—the walking around them once a year, noting lines of boundary, and impressing these on the notice and memory of young people. To induce English boys to accompany these perambulations, it was customary to distribute some little gratuity; this was usually a willow wand, tied at the end with a bunch of points, which were bits of string about eight inches long, consisting of strands of cotton or woollen yarn braided or twisted together, ended by a tag of a bit of metal or wood. These points were used to tie the hose to the knees of the breeches; the waistband of the breeches to the jacket, etc. Long after points were abandoned as a portion of dress the wands with their little knot of points were given. Pepys wrote in 1661 that he heard that at certain boundaries the boys were smartly whipped to impress the bounds upon their memories.

"Beating the bounds" was a specially important duty in the colonies where land surveys were imperfect, land grants irregular, and the boundaries of each man's farm or plantation at first very uncertain. In Virginia this beating the bounds was called "processioning." Landmarks were renewed that were becoming obliterated; blazes on a tree would be somewhat grown over—they were deeply recut; piles of great stones containing a certain number for designation were sometimes scattered—the original number would be restored. Special trees would be found fallen or cut down; new marking trees would be planted, usually pear trees, as they were long-lived. Disputed boundaries were decided upon and announced to all the persons present, some of whom at the next "processioning" would be living and be able to testify as to the correct line. This processioning took place between Easter and Whitsuntide, that lovely season of the year in Virginia; and must have proved a pleasant reunion of neighbors, a May-party. In New England this was called "perambulating the bounds," and the surveyors who took charge were called "perambulators" or "boundsgoers."

To either man or boy of to-day or any day it would seem an absurdity to name hunting and fishing in a chapter dealing with boys' diligence; for in the sports of the woods and waters colonial boys doubtless found one of their greatest amusements. But these sports were also hard work and were engaged in for profit as well as for pleasure. The scattered sheepfolds and grazing pastures at first had to be zealously guarded from wild animals; wolves were everywhere the most hated and most destructive beasts. They were caught in many ways; in wolf-pits, in log-pens, in log-traps. Heavy mackerel hooks were tied together, dipped in melted tallow which hardened in a bunch and concealed the hooks, and tied to a strong chain. If the wolf swallowed the hooks without any chain attached, it would kill him; but he might die in the depths of the forest and his head could not be brought in to secure the bounty. In old town lists are the names of many boys with "wolf-money set to their credit." A wolf-rout or wolf-drive, which was like the old English "drift of the forest," was a ring of men and boys armed with guns surrounding a large tract of forest. The wary wolves scented their enemies afar and retreated before them to the centre of a circle, and many were killed. Squirrels and hares were hunted in the same way. Once a year in many places they had shooting matches in which every living wild creature was prey, and a prize was given to the one bringing in the most birds' heads and animals' tails. This cruel wholesale destruction of singing birds as well as game birds was carried on almost till our own day.

Foxes were destructive in the hen yards. On a bright moonlight night the hunters placed a load of codfish heads on the bright side of a stone wall. The fish could be smelt afar, and when the keen foxes approached they were shot by the hunters, hiding in the shadow. Bears lingered long even in the vicinity of cities and were hunted with dogs. The History of Roxbury states that in the year 1725, in one week in September, twenty bears were killed within two miles of Boston.

In Virginia deer-hunting was a constant sport. They were "burnt out," and in imitation of the Indian way of hunting under the blind of a "stalking head," the English taught their horses to walk slowly by the huntsman's side, hiding him as he approached the deer, who were not afraid of horses. A diverting sport was what was called "vermin-hunting." It was done on foot with small dogs, by moon or starlight. Raccoons, foxes, and opossums were the chief animals sought. Bounties were paid for the destruction of squirrels and rattlesnakes. It is appalling to see the bounty lists of some New England towns for snake rattles. Yet the loss of life was small from snake bites. The boys profited by all these bounties, and worked eagerly to secure them.

Boys learned "to prate" for pigeons, that is, to imitate their call. This was useful in luring them within gun-shot. A successful method of pigeon-shooting was learned from the Indians. A covert was made of green branches with an opening in the back by which the hunter could enter. In front of this covert, at firing distance, a long pole was raised up on two crotched sticks eight or ten feet from the ground, set so that a shot from the booth would rake the entire length of the pole; hence the crotch nearest the booth was a trifle lower than the other, at the same angle that the gun barrel would take. To lure pigeons from a flock to settle on this pole live pigeons were used as decoys. They were temporarily blinded in a cruel manner. A hole was pierced in the lower eyelid, a thread inserted, and the eyelid drawn up and tied over the eye. A soft kid boot or loop was put over one leg and a fine cord tied to it. The pigeon called the long flyer had a long cord, and by his fluttering attracted pigeons from a flock. The short flyer with shorter cord lured pigeons flying low. The hoverer was tied close to the end of a small pole set on an upright post. This pole was worked by a string, and by moving the pigeon up and down it appeared to be hovering as if to alight. The hunter, loudly prating, sat hidden behind his three blind, fluttering, terrified decoys. Then came a beautiful flash and gleam of color and life and graceful motion, as with a swish of reversed wings a row of gentle creatures lighted on the fatal pole. In a second came the report of the gun, and the ground was covered with the fluttering, maimed, and dead bodies. Fifty-two at one shot, a Lexington man named William Locke killed. Other methods of pigeon-killing were by snaring them in "twitch-ups"; also in a pigeon-bed, baited, over which a net was thrown on the feeding birds.

By the seashore whole communities turned to the teeming ocean for the means of life. Every fishing vessel that left the towns of Cape Ann and Cape Cod carried, with its crew of grown men, a boy of ten or twelve to learn "the art and mystery" of fishing. He had a name—a "cut-tail." He cut a wedge-shaped bit from the tail of every fish he caught, and in the sorting-out and counting-up at the close of the trip his share of the profits was thus plainly indicated. Long before these fishing industries were thoroughly organized the early chroniclers told of the share of boys in fishing. Even John Smith stirred up English stay-at-homes, saying:—

"Young boyes, girles, salvages or any others, bee they never such idlers, may turne, carry, and returne fish without shame, or either greate paine: hee is very idle that is past twelve years of age and cannot doe so much; and shee is very old that cannot spin a thread to catch them."

It was natural that boys born in seashore towns should turn to the sea. They found in the incoming ships their sole connecting link with the outside world. Romance, sentiment, mystery, deviltry, haloed the sailor. He was ever welcome to the public, and ever a source of interest whether in tarry working garb, or gay shore togs of flapping trousers, crimson sash, eelskin and cutlasses, or perhaps garbed like Captain Creedon, who appeared in Boston in the year 1662 dressed, so says the letter of a Boston minister, "in a strange habitt with a 4 Cornered Capp instead of a hatt and his Breeches hung with Ribbons from the Wast downward a great depth one over the other like the Shingles of a house." Naturally enough "the boys made an outcry and wondered."

Can it be wondered that two centuries of New England boys, stirred in their quiet round of life by similar gay comets and tales of adventure, have had a passionate ichor in their veins of longing for "the magic and the mystery of the sea," that they have eagerly gone before the mast, and rounded the Horn, and come home master seamen when in their teens. I know a New England family of dignity and wealth in which six successive generations of sons have gone to sea in their boyhood, some of later years running away from home to do so. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1787,—so tells a newspaper of that date,—were living a man and wife who had been married about twenty years, and had eighteen sons, of whom ten were then at sea.

CHAPTER XVI

NEEDLECRAFT AND DECORATIVE ARTS

Human nature was the same in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as to-day; waves of devotion to some special form of ornamentation either for the household or the wardrobe swept over families, neighborhoods, communities; when we reach the days of newspapers we find in their columns some evidence of the names and character of these decorations. In 1716 Mr. Brownell, the Boston schoolmaster, advertised that at his school young women and children could be taught "all sorts of fine works as Feather-works, Filigree, and Painting on Glass, Embroidering a new way, Turkeywork for Handkerchiefs two new Ways, fine new fashion Purses, flourishing ishing and Plain work," The perishable nature of the material would prevent the preservation of many specimens of feather-work; but very pretty flowers for head-dresses and bonnets were made of minute feathers or portions of feathers pasted on a firm foundation in many collected shapes. This work may have been suggested by the beautiful feather flowers made in many of the South Sea Islands; perhaps an old sea captain brought some home to his wife or sweetheart as a gift. The sober colors of many of our home birds would not make so brilliant a bouquet as the songless birds of the tropics, especially the millions of the various parrot tribes; still an everyday New England rooster has a wealth of splendid glistening color, while blue jays, red-headed woodpeckers, yellow birds, and an occasional oriole or scarlet tanager could furnish beautiful feathers enough to waken the ire of an Audubon Society.

Painting on glass was an amusement of more scope. In England it was all the mode, and some very quaint specimens survive; simpering beauties, flowers, and fruit were the favorite subjects. Coats of arms, too, were painted on glass, and handsome they were. It is not possible to state exactly the position which the study of armorial bearings and significations had for two or three centuries. It seemed to bear relatively the same place that a profound study of literature has to-day—the pastime and delight of cultured people. We have been amused for a few years past at the domination of color in literature; every book title had a color word, as The Red Robe, Under the Red Lamp, A Study in Scarlet, The Red Badge of Courage, etc. This idiasm—as Mr. Ingleby would call it—has extended to music, and even into scientific suggestion and medicine; but this attributing unusual qualities to colors is nothing new. In the Cotton Manuscripts, a series of essays on music six hundred years old, the relation between music and color, especially in coat armor, is given; for instance, "fire-red" was the most malignant color in arms, and only third in benignity in music. All gentlefolk were profoundly wise as to the meaning of colors in coats of arms, etc., and their influence on the character and life of the persons bearing the arms.

This interest in the study of heraldry wavered in intensity but did not die till the days of a new nation; and we find from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century that young girls in the families of gentlefolk paid much attention to the making of coats of arms. Those painted on glass were the richest in color and the most satisfactory, but embroidered ones were more common. The choicest materials were used, the drawing was carefully executed, and the stitches minute. It is interesting to note that the laws of the herald were strictly regarded in the setting of the stitches. In azure the stitches were laid parallel across the escutcheon; in gules, perpendicular; in purpure, diagonally from right to left, and so on.

Here is shown an unfinished coat of arms of the Pitkin family which belonged to Jerusha Pitkin, who was born in 1736. The frame upon which the work is stretched, the manner in which it is mounted, the hand-made nails that fasten it, the way the work is outlined, are all of interest. The needle still is thrust in the black satin background where it was left by girlish hands a century and a half ago. Colored silks, gold bullion and thread to complete this work have been preserved with it. The embroidery is on black satin, and is lozenge-shaped, as was the proper shape of a hatchment or mourning emblem; and it is possible that this work was begun as a funeral piece, commemorative of some Pitkin ancestor.

Such funeral pieces were deemed a very dignified observance of respect and mark of affection. They had as successors what were definitely termed "mourning pieces," bearing stiff presentments of funeral urns, monuments, drooping willows, and sometimes a bowed and weeping figure.

After the death of Washington, mourning designs deploring our national loss and significant of our affection and respect for that honored name appeared in vast numbers. Framed prints of these designs hung on every wall, table china in large numbers and variety bore these funereal emblems, and laudatory and sad mottoes. As other Revolutionary heroes passed away, similar designs appeared in more limited numbers, and the reign of embroidered "mourning pieces" may be said to begin at this time. Washington—so to speak—set the fashion. Familiarized with the hideous Apotheosis pitcher, or the gloomy Washington's Tomb teacups as set on a festal board, special mourning embroideries did not seem oversad for decorative purposes, and soon no properly ambitious household was without one. They were even embroidered when the family circle was unbroken, and an empty space was left yawning like an open grave for some one to die. Religious designs were also eagerly sought for. The Tree of Life was a favorite. A conventional tree was hung at wide intervals with apples, bearing the names of various virtues and estimable traits of humanity, such as Honor, Modesty, Silence, Patience, etc. The sparse harvest of these emblematic fruits seemed to indicate a cynical belief in scant nobility of nature; but there was hope of improvement, for a white-winged angel assiduously watered the roots of the tree with a realistic watering-pot. The devil, never absent in that day from art, science, or literature, also loomed in blackness beneath the branches, but sadly handicapped from activity by being forced to carry a colossal pitchfork and an absolutely unsurmountable tail of gigantic proportions.

These mourning pieces were but decadent successors of the significant heraldic embroideries of earlier days. We passed through trying days in art, architecture, and costume in the first half of this century; and it was not until we revived the older forms of embroidery, and the ancient stitches, that we rallied from the blight of commonplaceness and sentimentality which seemed to spread over everything.

The sampler "contrived a double debt to pay" of teaching letters and stitches; it was, in fact, a needlework hornbook, containing the alphabet, a verse indicative of good morals or industry, or a sentence from the Bible, the name and date, and some crude representations of impossible birds, beasts, flowers, trees, or human beings. Though the sampler's reign in every American household was in the eighteenth century and the earlier years of the nineteenth, it was the direct successor of the glories of needlework of English women of earlier years, which was known and admired on the Continent as Opus Anglicanum. The chief excellency of English needlework has even been closely associated with a high state of social morals. In Elizabeth's day Englishwomen still loved needlecraft. Shakespeare, Sidney, Milton, Herrick, all refer to women's samplers. In a collection of old ballads printed in 1725 is "A Short and Sweet Sonnet made by one of the Maids of Honour upon the death of Q. Elizabeth, which she sewed upon a Sampler of Red Silk":—

In the licentious days of King James and King Charles there is little record of women's needlework in court or country, but the Puritan women, the virtuous home makers, revived and encouraged all household arts.

There is no doubt that as a rule the long and narrow samplers are older than those more nearly square. These ancient samplers, especially the few bearing dates of the seventeenth century, are much finer in design, more closely worked, and better in execution than those of later date. The linen background is much more closely covered. They have more curious and varied stitches. Occasionally they are of minute size, but four or five inches long, with exquisitely fine stitches.

Two ancient samplers are here depicted. One shown on page 327 was made by Lora Standish, the daughter of a Pilgrim Father, and it is now at Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. The interesting and beautiful sampler known as the Fleetwood-Quincy Sampler has such perfect stitches that both sides are alike. It bears the names Miles and Abigail Fleetwood, and the date 1654. It has been in the possession of Mrs. Henry Quincy and her descendants since 1750. There is little doubt that the Miles Fleetwood of the sampler was the brother or nephew of Charles Fleetwood who married Anne Ireton, eldest daughter of great Cromwell. A splendid piece of Anne Fleetwood's embroidery was recently exhibited in the Kensington Museum. It was scarcely a sampler for it bore a curious design in applique work of a lozenge formed by four right-angled triangles, each of a different bit of rich brocade of gold and silver figures on amber or pink ground; all worked together with curious vines and stitches. Miles Fleetwood clung to the royal cause, and thus fell into the obscurity hinted at in the sampler verses:—

In the older samplers little attention is paid to the representation of things in their real colors; a green horse may balance a blue tree. And as flat tints were used there were few effects of light and shade, and no perspective. Distance is indicated by a different color of worsted; thus the green horse will have his off legs worked in red. This is precisely the method used in the Bayeux Tapestry and other antique embroideries.

Sampler verses had their times and seasons, and ran through families. They were eagerly copied for young friends, and, in a few cases, were "natural composures"—or, as we should say to-day, "original compositions." Ruth Gray of Salem embroidered on her sampler a century ago:—

To show the extent to which those lines could be transmitted let me state that they are found on a sampler in Dorchester, Massachusetts, worked in 1802, one in Waltham, Massachusetts, one worked in 1813 in a seminary in Boston, one in Medford, one worked in 1790 in Salem by a young girl of ten, another in Lynn, on an English sampler in the Kensington Museum, and in the diary of that Boston schoolgirl, Anna Green Winslow, dated 1771.

There were certain variants of a popular sampler verse that ran thus:—

Another rhyme was:—

The doxology, "From all that dwell below the skies," etc., appears on samplers; and these lines:—

Another rhyme is found with varying words in some of the lines:—

Some of the verses are as short as the scant but sweet English words on the sampler of Katherine, the wife of Charles II.:—

A sampler in the Old South Church in Boston has this inscription:—

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was high fashion to have mottoes and texts carved or painted on many articles where they would frequently catch the eye. Printed books were then rare possessions, and these mottoes, whether of vanity or piety, took their place. Perhaps inscriptions on various pieces of tableware and drinking utensils were the most common. Specially beautiful and interesting early examples are the sets of "beechen roundels" known to collectors; that is, sets of wooden plates or trenchers carved with mottoes. Women dexterous of the needle embroidered mottoes and words on articles of clothing. Whole texts of the Bible are said to have been inscribed on the edges of gowns and petticoats.

Elaborate vines of flowers and other scroll designs were worked on petticoats, often in colored crewels. There still exists the linen petticoat of Rebecca Taylor Orne, a Salem dame who lived to be one hundred and twenty years old. It is deeply embroidered with trees, vines, flowers, and fruits, on homespun linen. Silk petticoats were also embroidered and painted by young girls, and are beautiful pieces of work.

In New York newspapers we find proof that New York girls were taught decorative accomplishments similar to those which were so fashionable in Boston:—

"Martha Gazley, late from Great Britain, now in the city of New York Makes and Teacheth the following curious Works, viz: Artificial Fruit and Flowers and other Wax-Works, Nuns-work, Philligree and Pencil Work upon Muslin, all sorts of Needle-Work, and Raising of Paste, as also to Paint upon Glass, and Transparant for Sconces, with other Works. If any young Gentlewomen, or others are inclined to learn any or all of the above-mentioned curious Works, they may be carefully instructed in the same by said Martha Gazley."

They were doubtless "everywhere in practice," in America as well, but nearly all are now but empty names.

While Dutch women must be awarded the palm of comfortable and attractive housekeeping, they did not excel Englishwomen in needlework; though the first gold thimble was made for Madam Van Rensselaer, the foremother of our American patroons; and many beautiful specimens of Dutch embroidery exist. A sample is here shown which was worked by Mary Richards, a granddaughter of the famous Anneke Jans. Mrs. Van Cortlandt wrote in her delightful account of home life in old New York:—

"Crewel-work and silk-embroidery were fashionable, and surprisingly pretty effects were produced. Every little maiden had her sampler which she begun with the alphabet and numerals, following them with a Scriptural text or verse of a psalm. Then fancy was let loose on birds, beasts and trees. Most of the old families possessed framed pieces of embroidery, the handiwork of female ancestors."

Pride in needlework, and a longing for household decoration, found expression in quilt-piecing. Bits of calico "chiney" or chintz were carefully shaped by older hands, and sewed by diligent little fingers into many fanciful designs. A Job's Trouble, made of hexagon pieces, could be neatly done by little children, but more complicated designs required more "judgement," and the age of a little daughter might be accurately guessed by her patchwork. The quilt-making was the work of older folk. It required long arms, larger hands, greater strength.

Knitting was taught to little girls as soon as they could hold the needles. Girls four years of age could knit stockings and mittens. In country households young damsels knit mittens to sell and coarse socks. Many fine and beautiful stitches were taught, and a beautiful pair of long silk stockings of open-work design has initials knit on the instep. They were the wedding hose of a bride of the year 1760; and the silk for them was raised, wound, and spun by the bride's sister, a girl of fourteen, who also did the exquisite knitting.

Lace-making was never an industry in the colonies; it was an elegant accomplishment. Pillow lace was made, and the stitches were taught in families of wealth; a guinea a stitch was charged by some teachers. Old lace pillows have been preserved to this day, with strips of unfinished lace and hanging bobbins, to show the kind of lace which was the mode—a thread lace much like the fine Swiss hand-made laces.

Tambour work on muslin or lace, and a lace made of certain designs darned on net, took the place of pillow lace. Nothing could be more beautiful in execution and design than the rich veils, collars, and caps of this worked net, which remained the mode during the early years of this century. Girls spent years working on a single collar or tucker. Sometimes medallions of this net lace were embroidered down upon fine linen lawn. I have infants' caps of this beautiful work, finer than any needlework of to-day.

CHAPTER XVII

GAMES AND PASTIMES

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:—