Mrs. Tsetseguis was much grieved and repeated over and over, “I told the Oleman not to lend that little canoe to the boys, and he said, ‘O it’s all right, they know how to manage a canoe.’”
Tsetseguis was also much distressed and showed genuine sympathy, following the rescued into the house to see if they were really safe.
The games we played in early days were often the time-honored ones taught us by our parents, and again were inventions of our own. During the Rebellion we drilled as soldiers or played “black man;” by the latter we wrought excitement to the highest pitch, whether we chased the black man, or returning the favor, he chased us.
The teeter-board was available when the neighbor’s children came; the wonder is that no bones were broken by our method.
The longest, strongest, Douglas fir board that could be found, was placed across a large log, a huge stone rested in the middle and the children, boys and girls, little and big, crowded on the board almost filling it; then we carefully “waggled” it up and down, watching the stone in breathless and ecstatic silence until weary of it.
Our bravado consisted in climbing up the steepest banks on the bay, or walking long logs across ravines or on steep inclines.
The surroundings were so peculiar that old games took on new charms when played on Puget Sound. Hide-and-seek in a dense jungle of young Douglas firs was most delightful; the great fir and cedar trees, logs and stumps, afforded ample cover for any number of players, from the sharp eyes of the one who had been counted “out” with one of the old rhymes.
The shadow of danger always lurked about the undetermined boundary of our play-grounds, wild animals and wild men might be not far beyond.
We feared the drunken white man more than the sober Indian, with much greater reason. Even the drunken Indian never molested us, but usually ran “amuck” among the inhabitants of the beach.
Neither superstitious nor timid we seldom experienced a panic.