Willie.
The leader holds her left hand in front of her, fingers spread out. With her right forefinger she traces her way along the inside of the fingers of her left hand. To illustrate, she starts at the tip of the thumb, comes down, and up to the tip of the forefinger, down it and up the second finger, and so on through all the fingers. She then starts at the thumb and does the same thing again. From the very first she has been saying, “Willie, Willie, Willie, Willie, little Willie, Willie, Willie!” in the most pitiful tone she can muster up, and in rhythm with her finger movements. She then quietly folds her hands and says “Now you do it.”
It looks so simple that it isn’t even funny until two or three people try it and make utter failures of it. Because she scowled when she did it, they scowl, thinking that that is the trick; because she used a pitiful tone, they use one; and they imitate her finger movements exactly, while she criticizes them for not getting the little finger just right. Finally someone arrives. It is the quiet folding of the hands at the end that is all-important.