The Imaginary Family
E. H. recommends for girls the "Imaginary Family" game. This is her description of it:—"First you have to settle the names, ages, and characters of your family, and then you can carry on their adventures every night. One little girl who was devoted to books of travel, and who loved to pore over maps and charts, used to travel with her family every night in whatever country she happened to be interested in at the time. Thus she and a favorite son, Pharaoh, traveled for a long time in California, crossing every mountain-range by the proper passes, exploring every valley, tracing each river to its source, and so on. In the same way she traveled with her family is Central and South America, the Malay Peninsula, and the South Sea Islands. Another little girl who was very fond of adventure stories carried her family through all sorts of perils by land and sea. At one time they were shipwrecked and lived like the Swiss Family Robinson. At another time they were exploring Central Africa, and traveled about with three years' supplies in a gigantic caravan with fifty elephants. Yet another little girl had for her family any characters out of books that particularly fascinated her. Thus, when she was reading The Heroes, her family was reduced to one daughter, Medea, a rather terrible daughter, who needed a great deal of propitiating, and for whose sake all other children had to be given up. Later on, when the same child was reading Tales of a Grandfather, her family consisted of three sons, Wallace, Bruce, and Douglas. (It is rather a good thing, by the way, to have a very heroic family, especially if you are at all inclined to be afraid in the dark, as they help to keep one's courage up.) Two little girls, who lived in a clergyman's household, had an imaginary poor family they were interested in, and they planned about them every night,—how much the father earned, what their rent was, whether the mother oughtn't to take in washing, whether the eldest girl could be spared to go into service, and so on. When they weren't allowed to talk at night they carried the family history on independently and compared notes in the morning."
Making Plans
Making plans is always interesting, but particularly so just before Christmas, when presents have to be arranged for.
For Getting to Sleep
The favorite way is to imagine that you see a flock of sheep scrambling through a gap in the hedge, and to count them. A variety of this is a desert with a long train of camels very far off, coming slowly near, and then passing and gradually disappearing in the far distance. Counting a million is also a good way.
Games for Convalescents
A good thing to do in bed when getting better from an illness is to cut out pictures for scrapbooks. Any kind of cutting out can be done, as the scissors and paper are very light and do not, therefore, tire the arms. "Patience" (see [page 76]) is also a good bed game, because it needs very little thought.
Bed Soldiers
In A Child's Garden of Verses there is a poem called "The Land of Counterpane," which tells what a little boy did when he was ill, lying among the pillows with his toys: