Harper's Round Table, March 24, 1896

by Various

For another game, raise a tent decorated with flags, cheese-cloth streamers, or ribbons. Opposite the tent in which the guests are to be seated, and ten feet distant, is a post or tree on which to put the prize. At the base of the post put a basket of thin glass balls, and also one at the tent door, only fill this basket with excelsior. The game is to find the person that will throw the largest number of eggs from one of the baskets into the other and not break them. Whoever wins is rewarded by the prize.

For little children, form a ring, and pitch to the centre of the ring a hard-boiled egg, and let them scramble for it. For larger children, let them pair off, a boy and girl; thus alternating, they form a ring. Then start thirteen china or glass eggs, one after the other, from hand to hand, taking the egg in the right hand, passing it to the left, and so on around the ring. If an egg drops it must stay where it falls until the other eggs have gone around the ring three times. It may chance by that time that all the eggs have dropped. When the third time around is complete, immediately a grand chain is formed, and the children dance, and go back to position, picking up the eggs as they dance. If the egg is not picked up, keeping time to the music, which is being played throughout the game, that person cannot retain it, but must give it to the one following. Sometimes no eggs fall, then the game is kept up until all the eggs have passed rapidly around three times. But when dropped and picked up, they must then go around once, and after this final circuit the game is concluded.

Boil a dozen or more eggs in logwood of different strengths of dye; they will then be colored violet or purple. Give these eggs, with a large pin or pen-knife, to young people to decorate. Offer a prize for the best decoration within fifteen minutes.

Still another game is to knock eggs. Hold an egg so that the small end is shown between the forefinger and the thumb. Sit or stand opposite to the person with whom you are playing. Then knock each other's eggs. The knock should be swift and hard, and whosesoever egg is the first to crack must now be given to the opponent. When starting, each should have equal number. Whoever has the most eggs after playing ten minutes has won.

The Game of Cluck.—Perhaps this is the jolliest game of all, and it is essentially for boys. Whoever gives the party should ask each of his friends to bring a chicken—a real live chicken—and if he is sure he would not recognize her when with a barnyard of others, he must tie a ribbon around her neck; he must also bring some hard-boiled eggs. The court used should be surrounded with a high netting, and the centre of the court marked with a cross.

At a signal all the players, each with his fowl in his arms, must enter the court, and the host, going to the centre, now becomes auctioneer, and taking each offered fowl in turn, he loudly calls, "How many eggs am I bid for this chicken?"—two eggs, three, or whatever the number may be; no one must bid what he cannot pay, and the chicken is given to the boy offering the largest number, and the eggs are given to the previous owner of the chicken. He may put them wherever he pleases, only they must be somewhere within the netting.

The sale being over, the "cluck" commences, for it is now each one's aim to recover his chicken, which can only be done by finding the requisite number of eggs given for her. This is much easier said than done, for the boys will have hidden them in their pockets and other peculiar places. Meanwhile, the chickens, running in every direction, are very apt to "cluck" loudly.

The Bird's Nest.—Put a bird's nest in a room; hunt for it as you "Hunt the Slipper," only instead of saying "warm, warmer," and so on, you cluck, cluck, cluck soft or loud as the party goes toward or from the nest. Only one person hunts at a time; everybody else clucks.