Our pennies safely invested, the whole troop rushes headlong uphill, to Louisburg Square, the nerve-center of the great game of “I spy.” The first to arrive takes possession of the granite doorsteps of Number One (the Russell house); the others stand on the pavement in a circle, to be “counted.” As soon as “It” is chosen, she takes her place on the doorsteps, and, with closed eyes, recites in a loud singsong:
“Eeny meeny mony my, Barcelony bony stry, kay, bell, broken well, harryky, warryky, we woe, wack!”
While these words are slowly chanted, the other children scatter and hide. The moment “It” pronounces the final “wack”, the chase begins. Never were such wonderful houses for hiding as those in Louisburg Square and Mount Vernon Street. The Thayer, Sears, Hemenway, Warren, Paine, and Gray houses have fine vestibules, with outer doors hospitably ajar, or at least unlocked. Their owners are ranked as public benefactors. It is a matter of honor that their hospitality must never be abused, and no crumb of bread or scrap of orange peel be allowed to drop on their immaculate steps. One child in one hiding place is the rule of the game, and the competition is keen for certain favorite “hidey holes.”
Up and down the steep streets, we tore and ramped, in all weathers, gathering Miss Julia’s roses. On zero days, when the sidewalks were sheets of glare ice, sliding in a row, with hands on each other’s shoulders, took the place of all other games. When spring came, and the melancholy black trees in Louisburg Square broke out of bounds and waved their slender branches in the world-ecstasy of the new birth, skipping ropes appeared, as if by magic, governed by the same occult law that on a certain day produces marbles among men children. With April, when the streets were finally clear of ice and snow, mysterious hieroglyphics in white chalk were sketched upon the sidewalks, and hop-scotch became the only sport worthy of the name.
I am often asked in these days to subscribe money for a playground, attendant guardians and new-fangled apparatus for play. At such times I am glad that I was young when I was! No playground could ever make up for the splendid freedom of those old Boston streets, where the children of my time were turned loose to amuse themselves. When the old games, played by the girls of Athens and Rome, grew stale, we invented new games of our own.
Certain bolder spirits formed a secret society, called “the Rovers of Boston.” Dinner, at this time, was commonly eaten at two or half-past two o’clock, though some “fashionable” families dined at three. After dinner the Rovers met at the Joy Street entrance of the Common, to plan the afternoon adventures. At the time I am now speaking of, we were living in Boston in one of the various houses my father either rented or owned. The elder children were growing up and, for their sakes, he reluctantly closed the Green Peace home and moved into the city, which my mother greatly preferred. We enjoyed for several seasons the Sargent house, Number 13 Chestnut Street, for many years the home of the Radical Club.
As founder and leader of the Rovers, I had a sense of responsibility for the afternoon’s fun. Life has brought me few sensations more thrilling than the peculiar musical sound that, on certain cold winter mornings, roused me from sleep. Metallic, muffled, rhythmic, all-pervading, a solo under my window, and a distant chorus thundering from every street and alley on Beacon Hill.
“The Snow Shovels!”
Out of bed in a flash and to the window, to see if it has stopped snowing yet; or whether the snow is coming down in sharp small crystals, which mean intense cold, or in great kindly flakes that settle gently upon the earth and transform it into a wonderful white paradise. The little spiteful flakes make the best sleighing and coasting, for they pack harder and firmer; but for fortifications, snowballing, snow statues, and snow ice cream, give me the big gentle flakes, that oftenest bring a peculiar bracing ecstatic thrill to the air, without the sting of extreme cold. On such a day as this, the Rovers’ best sport was to see how many “rides behind” they could coax from the good-natured hackmen, as the great booby-hucks swung slowly up and down the hill of Chestnut Street, a secluded thoroughfare between Mount Vernon and Beacon streets, which the children were allowed to make their very own. The people who lived there seemed all to be parents, or grandparents, and mothered and fathered each other’s children.
The Reverend Cyrus Bartol, of whom Phillips Brooks once spoke as “that little old moth-eaten angel”, lived just below us, and Mr. Patrick Grant a few doors above. On the opposite side of the street was the fine old double house, with wide brownstone steps, divided by the families of Mr. Patrick Jackson and Doctor Luther Parks. Doctor Lothrop lived a few doors off, and the Jere Abbotts next door but one. The Grant boys, Pat, Harry, and Bob, probably had no idea with what longing eyes the little girl at Number 13 watched them, wishing above all else to be invited to join their play. They took no more notice of me than if I had not existed, looking through me as if I had been glass. They were merry lads and famous snow architects. The moment the snow stopped, they were out with their shovels, clearing the steps and the sidewalk. That duty over, they were free for snowballing, building snow bastions, coasting on great “double-runners”, or hiking off to Jamaica Pond with their skates under their arms. Like many other little girls, I wanted to be a boy and play with boys. I did not like dolls, doll houses, or any of the pleasures which at that time little girls were supposed to content themselves with. Later in life, I grew to have a pleasant acquaintance with Judge Robert Grant, distinguished as a jurist and author.