And so it came about, what with Mr. Atherton Bell's sense of humor and the intense dislike which Harvey Cummings conceived for the ancient stove, that a new stove was put in—a large flat-topped satisfactory stove on which could be baked nearly a quart of chestnuts.
I remember distinctly how Chub Leroy, Moses Durfey, and I argued it over, and concluded that Willy Flint was to be a nihilist. After that we collected horse-chestnuts, and did things with them for which Moses Durfey was spanked. And Angelica, whose language was vigorous, like her stride, remarked that Mr. Pollock was "game." He was, in fact, a very honest and kindly gentleman, who always maintained his presence of mind, and that was about what Angelica meant.
[FRENCH BOYS' GAMES.]
The games of the children of France are the games of the children of the world—for games are the same all the world over.
This discovery is a great blow to your patriotic feeling of proprietorship in them. "Hide-and-Seek" and "Blind-Man's-Buff" are as much American to us as "The Star-spangled Banner" and "Yankee Doodle." English children might perhaps know them, because the English are our cousins and speak our language; but they had certainly never got so far from home as across the Channel. And now, when you begin to look into the subject, you find that "Hide-and-Seek" is represented in one of the old paintings found in the ruins of Herculaneum, and that not only children, but grown people as well, played this fascinating game in India long before we Americans were born or thought of. Rousselet, a French traveller who wrote about India, says that an Indian Emperor in the sixteenth century built a palace expressly for playing it. The palace contained a wonderful labyrinth in marble, and little cabinets for people to hide in, with a marble pillow in the centre for a goal.
And "Blind-Man's-Buff" is equally of very ancient lineage, and is really a French game, though it is not called by that name in France. This is the way it came to be invented: In the year 999 Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, had attached to his service a warrior named Colin, surnamed Maillard, or Mallet, because a mallet was his favorite weapon. In a campaign against the Count of Louvain, Colin Maillard had his eyes put out; but he kept on fighting, guided by his squires. So, in memory of his bravery, King Robert established a military game, a sort of tournament named after him, which was nothing more nor less than "Blind-Man's-Buff." One of the titles to distinction of the celebrated crusader Godfrey de Bouillon was his having kept successfully the rôle of Colin Maillard five times.
Bowling is another very old French game, and the French word boulevard comes from it. It is made up of boule, or bowls, and vert, or green; so that the word means "the green bowling-place." The celebrated French boulevards, overhung by their green trees, were once upon a time the places where people congregated to bowl, and you can see how easily vert became vart, and how that was changed again into vard. Even nowadays one sometimes sees it written in old signs boulevart.
So in nearly all of the French games we find some of our old favorites, only changed more or less, according to the imagination of the people who have played them. The French are very imaginative, and the children always personify something or somebody in their games. For instance, "Tag," which is as popular here as at home, becomes "Chat," or "Cat." The person who is "it" is always a cat, and the others playing are generally supposed to be mice. There are several varieties of "Chat," such as "Chat perché" and "Chat coupé." In "Chat perché" the mouse is allowed to perch on anything it pleases, and is safe so long as it can hang on. Or the cat perches, and the mice watch the moment when the cat can no longer hold on and must fall. Generally the players agree that nobody is to be kept perched too long at a time. In "Chat coupé," the person who is cat chooses one person to run after. Any one else playing may cut in between the two running, when the cat changes her course to run after him.
Girls play "La Mère Gigogne," a running game in which one of the players is chosen to be the old Mother Gigogne. A line is traced, or some sort of boundary is decided on, behind which la Mère Gigogne is supposed to live. She calls out "La Mère Gigogne va sortir" (Mother Gigogne is going out), and then makes a dive for the children, who run as hard as they can with the mother Gigogne after them. The children, as they are caught one after the other, are put inside the boundary, and must take hold of hands in a line until all are taken. This line can bar the passage of the others, so the Mother Gigogne can catch them more easily. This is a favorite game in the girls' pensions or schools, and in the lycées and common schools both girls and boys alike play the "Jen de Barres," or "Prisoner's Base."