SQUARE RING
A "Square Ring" sounds odd, but such things go in playing marbles. The square may be of any size, but four feet is the best. The taw line must be from twenty to thirty feet away. Before a player can win the game he must first kill all the others. Perhaps that is why it is sometimes called "Injun."
The first player is at a great disadvantage, for if he knocks out a duck he must replace it, and if his taw stops inside the ring he has killed himself, and is out of the game. The best way is not to knuckle down but to toss for a good position near the ring. The second player, for obvious reasons, must keep away as far as possible from the first, so he shoots through the ring with force, hoping to get a duck on the way, for he does not have to replace it. He can take the duck back to taw and holding it in his left hand shoot at it so as to send his own taw close to number one, which he can then kill.
If number two misses, number three pitches his marble off to one side, and so the game goes on, each player guarding his own taw and trying to kill his rivals. Knocking out ducks gives the privilege just described, after which the duck is replaced.
CHAPTER II
WHIP TOPS, PEG TOPS, HUMMING TOPS AND SOME TOP GAMES
Why it happens, no one knows, not even the boys themselves, but that it does happen we all know. Tops come in when the marble game is in full blast, and gradually it drives out, till another spring, its beloved rival. Tops are of great antiquity, and the Chinese and their neighbors, the Japanese, are famous for the variety of their tops. I have seen adults in those countries enjoying the game with all the zest of American boys in springtime.
It is a good idea for boys, where they have any facilities for so doing, to make their own play tools. In the old days, they whittled out tops, but it hardly pays to do so to-day when well-shaped spinners can be had in every toy shop at a very low price. However, good little tops can be made from the wooden spools on which sewing thread comes. Two tops, that will amuse the younger children, can be made from each spool, by whittling down from the rims to the middle of the spool till the parts break at the opening. A peg driven through answers for a spindle. These can be made in a few minutes, and may afford some fun for a winter evening.
WHIP TOPS
If not the very oldest, these tops are certainly the most widely distributed. If a good whip top cannot be bought, a first-rate article can be made from a section of a rounded timber, either natural or turned. It may be of any size, but from two to three inches in diameter, and about a half inch or more in length is the best. Whittle this, with care, to a blunt point, into which drive a smooth-headed tack, and there you are. With colored crayons, or paint, the top may be decorated, so as to add to its effect when spinning.