Fun for the Household: A Book of Games

by Emma J. Gray

And sing, while working all the day long,

I’m jolly and happy and brave and strong?

Let all the players form a ring, with a boy in the centre for farmer. After the song is sung through, the farmer must choose two players to clasp their hands and raise them, thus forming an arch. The ring having broken, now forms a long line, and one by one each individual passes under the arch, singing as they go,

Oh, who would not be a farmer lad,

and with the last word of the verse the arch falls, and thus some one is caught, and he or she is now farmer. A ring is then again formed, and the game proceeds as before.

This being a motion game, the words of the song must be acted. Every child has seen farmers sow, reap and bind, and while singing those words they must copy the farmer (the boy in the ring) as nearly as possible, also remember to clap the hands, turn around, etc., at the proper time, indeed lose no opportunity to act the words as well as to sing them. Tune, “Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows.”

THE PIE-MAN’S SONG.

A Motion Game.

Solo.