And the king disappeared down the street, begging like a spaniel, and vowing that he “wouldn’t do it no more.” But he got a severe whipping, I fear;—it is doubtful if such beatings ever do any good. The next morning Jack appeared at school with a black eye, and Pewee had some scratches, so the master whipped them both for fighting.
CHAPTER VII
HAT-BALL AND BULL-PEN
Pewee did not renew the quarrel with Jack—perhaps from fear of the rawhide that hung in the blacksmith’s shop, or of the master’s ox-goad, or of Bob Holliday’s fists, or perhaps from a hope of conciliating Jack and getting occasional help in his lessons. Jack was still excluded from the favorite game of “bull-pen.” I am not sure that he would have been rejected had he asked for admission, but he did not want to risk another refusal. He planned a less direct way of getting into the game. Asking his mother for a worn-out stocking, and procuring an old boot-top, he ravelled the stocking, winding the yarn into a ball of medium hardness. Then he cut from the boot-top a square of leather large enough for his purpose. This he laid on the kitchen-table, and proceeded to mark off and cut it into the shape of an orange-peel that has been quartered off the orange, leaving the four quarters joined together at the middle. This leather he put to soak over night. The next morning, bright and early, with a big needle and some strong thread he sewed it around his yarn-ball, stretching the wet leather to its utmost, so that when it should contract the ball should be firm and hard, and the leather well moulded to it. Such a ball is far better for all play in which the player is to be hit than those sold in the stores nowadays. I have described the manufacture of the old-fashioned home-made ball, because there are some boys, especially in the towns, who have lost the art of making yarn balls.
When Jack had finished his ball, he let it dry, while he ate his breakfast and did his chores. Then he sallied out and found Bob Holliday, and showed him the result of his work. Bob squeezed it, felt its weight, bounced it against a wall, tossed it high in the air, caught it, and then bounced it on the ground. Having thus “put it through its paces,” he pronounced it an excellent ball,—“a good deal better than Ben Berry’s ball. But what are you going to do with it?” he asked. “Play Anthony-over? The little boys can play that.”
I suppose there are boys in these days who do not know what “Anthony-over” is. How, indeed, can anybody play Anthony-over in a crowded city?
The old one-story village school-houses stood generally in an open green. The boys divided into two parties, the one going on one side, and the other on the opposite side of the school-house. The party that had the ball would shout “Anthony!” The others responded, “Over!” To this, answer was made from the first party, “Over she comes!” and the ball was immediately thrown over the school-house. If any of the second party caught it, they rushed, pell-mell, around both ends of the school-house to the other side, and that one of them who held the ball essayed to hit some one of the opposite party before they could exchange sides. If a boy was hit by the ball thus thrown he was counted as captured to the opposite party, and he gave all his efforts to beat his old allies. So the game went on, until all the players of one side were captured by the others. I don’t know what Anthony means in this game, but no doubt the game is hundreds of years old, and was played in English villages before the first colony came to Jamestown.
“I’m not going to play Anthony-over,” said Jack. “I’m going to show King Pewee a new trick.”