Girls’ games? Bless you, dozens of them.
They play sports together with the boys: ball-games like ROUNDERS (“FOUR CORNERS”) and HEAD GAME and DAGGLES and BROKEN BOTTLE (yes; BROKEN BOTTLE is a ball-game, and is also called PASSING ROUND) and THREE CATCHES OUT and ROTTEN EGG (or CRACKED EGG) and A AND B, where they have to stand in four rings marked in chalk on the pavement; and some without balls such as FOOL, FOOL, COME TO SCHOOL (rather like DUNCE, DUNCE, DOUBLE D.) and WRINKLE-SHELLS and HARK THE ROBBERS COMING THROUGH—an old catch game—and STEPS, and SLY FOX, and LET GO MUST GO (a wall game) and HONEY-POTS.
Honey-pots is very respectable, but a little old-fashioned. Aunt Eliza says she used to play it, and I can quite believe that. I can just see her playing HONEY-POTS.
Please we’ve come to learn a trade (also called GUESSING WORDS or DUMB MOTIONS)—another game for boys and girls. There are two parties, one on each side of the street. One of them has to think of a trade, such as picking hops, for instance; then they take the first letters, P and H, and go over to the others and say “We have come to work a trade.” When the others ask, “What’s your trade?” they must answer “P. H.”, and pretend to be picking hops with their hands. If the others guess what trade they mean, they must shout it out and chase them across the street; and if they catch one of them—why, then they, the hop-pickers, must do the guessing instead. Catch-in-the-rope is also for boys and girls, and so is PUSSY CAT, and so is STATUES. There are UGLY STATUES and PRETTY STATUES. When you play this game you have to line yourselves up against a wall or a house; then the judge comes along and pulls one of you forwards and in that moment you have to make a posture and a face, sometimes pretty but mostly ugly, and pretend to be a statue. It spoils everything if you laugh over this game, as you may understand from this description:—
“A lot of players stand on a form. One person in front tells the person to form a statue if she move or laugh she is hee—”
Another of them is HERE WE GO UP THE MULBERRY TREE, where they form two parties who challenge each other and try to pull each other across the street. And they have handkerchief games together such as I sent a letter to my love (“and on the way I dropped it”, a decent game for boys and girls, also called LOST LETTER; and if you haven’t got a handkerchief, which you generally haven’t, you can take any old rag); and NICK NACK TOLLY WHACK, which is rather rough and goes like this:—
“Pick up for sides and one side says nick nack tolly wack. Then if the other side does not move they rush and each one has to have a wack with the tolly wack (a handkerchief with a knot in it).”
There are several more of these games for boys and girls—such as LOOKING GLASS and GOOSE-GANDER and SNOW-WHITE (where they go on hands and knees and get very dirty) and PET POST—but not as many as there might be, because they don’t play together as much as they might....
Then the girls have games to themselves: ball-games like MACKINTOSH, and BASKET-BALL, and CROSS-BALL, and EMPEROR BALL, and CENTRE BALL, and CORNER CATCH BALL, and CIRCLE STRIDE BALL, and HAND BALL, and ONE IN THE MIDDLE, and QUEEN MAB (a ball-hiding game, also called QUEEN ANNE); and hand-clapping games such as ONE-TWO-THREE and ORANGES, ORANGES, FOUR A PENNY, and TWISTERS AND CLAPS; and ring games like UP TO THE RING, and RUNNING IN AND OUT THE BLUEBELLS, and FIRE, and WALKING ROUND THE VILLAGE, and THIEF, PRINCE, KING, QUEEN, BEGGAR, and THROWING THE BEAN-BAGS, and PRETTY AND UGLY—where one girl stands in the centre of the ring and picks out another one who has to make a face, and if she’s satisfied with the face, she allows her to stand in the centre instead.
Other girls’ games are MOTHER I’M OVER THE WATER and BOX NUTS and VICTORIA and TURNING MOTHER’S WRINGER and WE THREE KINGS and JOHN BROWN’S KNAPSACK and FILLING (or PUSHING THROUGH) THE GAP and when I was a schoolgirl and BREAD AND BUTTER (shuttlecock game) and COME TO SEE POOR MARY and WE ARE ROMANS (two parties of girls) and WHAT IS IT and WHO KNOWS and HOW, WHEN AND WHERE and HEAD AND SHOULDERS and BEAST, BIRD, FISH, FLOWER and POLLY GOES TO BED and POOR POLLY CAN’T SEE and TAG and RAILWAY RACE and ON THE MOUNTAIN and HOOK AND EYE and EGG IN THE SPOON and HAWK AND DOVE and BORROW A LIGHT and PEASE CODS and GOLDEN GOOSE and TREACLE PUDDING and WHO’S AFRAID OF BLACK PETER and JENNY PLUCK PEARS and WALKING-STICKS and LOOKING FOR MOTHER’S THIMBLE and TIME and LADYSMITH and PUSHY BACK and PASS OVER and WE ARE BRITISH SOLDIERS and L. S. D. and the WHITE SHIRT. The white shirt is an old ghost game, played like this: